Starry, starry night, Mister Van Gogh... filled with unadulterated sadness

  There’s a kind of darkness that creeps into the hole in your heart left by a friend who has been called away too soon. With time you think that you heal, that the pain fades and life becomes bearable again. You see the beautiful things in every day, notice the sunshine that playfully caresses the ground, scattered by the leaves of a tree. You promise to live up to the inspiration that they left behind, to live an amazing life and experience everything to the full, to give as much as you can… to try to become even a fraction of the person they were.

    With time the hole gets patched up, pieced together, covered with anything that will numb the pain. You become preoccupied with less and less important things to keep busy, to feel like you are doing something, moving forward… moving on.

  And then it hits you on some idle Tuesday rolling in like lightning on the horizon, a storm building up. The filling you stuffed so tightly into the hole oozes out, fills your chest… fills your throat and your head and slowly leaks from your eyes as big salty streams, running down your cheeks, collecting in a pool on the crisp, clean whiteness of your pillow case.

  The thing is you can never replace a best friend. No one will ever match up. No experience, no matter how great, will ever bring back what you lost. The hurt will always be there, some days it’s just covered up better than others. Some days it is easier to blissfully believe the lies that you create for yourself, that you are whole and healed. That you have no scars. That it has left you untouched. That you can cover the hurt with a layer of paint, leaving your heart as flawless as it once was. Innocent… ignorant of what it could mean to truly love someone… and then losing them.

  In these days you can tell yourself that you fully give of yourself, that you open up to people, that you connect and engage and build meaningful relationships. When all you are doing is whispering from behind the layers of stuff that you carefully wound around your heart to heal… to protect.

  Perhaps this pain… these scars will never let me go…Perhaps it is something I will never let go.

  So I will be walking through life, this amazing, blessed life that I had chosen for myself, with a heart covered in scars… swaddled in anything and everything that will make the days happy… finding peace, and quiet for my soul in the small moments of wonder that fill my days… and my nights. And thanking, endlessly thanking Vincent’s beautiful soul for the moments we spent together. For all he taught me. For the inspiration he gave me. For the strength he lent me. For the love he gave me. For the life he helped me find.

 

Rest forever in peace, Vincent Lemmer.


 

Living on the edge

‘You’re moving very close to the edge’ my dad said to me in a conversation that we had recently. He is among the people who I love and care for who is trying to convince me that it might be time to go home…

 And the thought is extremely tempting. Home is filled with mornings where my mom brings me coffee in bed, a house filled with noisy dogs and (I believe) is currently being ruled by my adorable niece. Home is curling up on the couch watching a movie with my dad and soaking up the sun next to our enormous pool. Home has laughter and craziness and long, quiet conversations. Home is filled with fights over silly things and a big brother who insists on wearing his pants a little too low for everyone else’s comfort.

 Home is full of good food, braais, drinks and green summer grass. It gets covered in lights and sparkly things at Christmas time, is the hiding place for eggs at Easter and the bakery for chocolate cake on birthdays.

 It is a haven to run to with a broken heart, to eat candy laying you your big brother's bed while he tries to explain the history of the Dexter series to you through your tears, and the base where you leap from once your wings have grown enough. Home is safe and I yearn for it often. The comfort and ease that it holds…

 Life on the edge is tough… Life on the edge is scary.

 The long, lonely nights of quiet bungalows, the throbbing of your heart when you think about the grassy hills of home, the food, the beauty, the culture, the people. Your people…

 The stress and uncertainty that you experience on a visa run when they tell you they don’t know whether you will be able to get the visa and thus return to the country where you have left the two bags that contain your life and your world.

 The chasing of silly things and realising that it’s a waste of time. The days spent freezing on a longtail boat in the rain. Scars on your body accumulating like the ones on your heart.

 

Sad good byes to people who you are not ready to let go of…

  Life on the edge sometimes overwhelms you and leaves you struggling to catch your breath, tears streaming down your face. You spend countless moment wondering whether this is all worth it…

 But at some point you need to use your wings… you need to leap into life and savour every experience that it throws at you. The amazing, take-your-breath-away sunset dives, the connections with people who would have remained strangers, the memories that you will never regret making.

 The things you do… the places you go… the people you meet… and the endless inspiration, growth and happiness they bring to your life, and your soul makes every bad day seem like a bad dream, forgotten by the time morning comes around. Living on the edge is not easy but there is no denying that it is worth it!!