Grieta Lindeque

Posted By Grieta on February 1, 2012

I know there is a nervous breakdown somewhere in my near future. I can feel it lurking in the darkness which surrounds me. It circles me like a hungry lion, waiting for me to show a sign of weakness before he will pounce.

Most of my energy is expelled on keeping up the pretence of strength and vitality. I seldom sleep at all, fearful of what may haunt me in my dreams. When I do sleep it is in short ineffective bursts that bring no relief or relaxation.

I smile bravely when acquaintances ask me how I am doing. Those who know and love me are not fooled by this façade- they see my bruised heart in my eyes. I build up a storeroom filled with the correct phrases: This is for the best. This will make me stronger. I will look back at this and wonder what all the fuss was about. They all sound equally empty and powerless to me.

I try to hold on to the last trace of my sanity. I do not want to be stripped completely to the core. I diligently ignore any sign of physical weakness or need. I constantly feel tired. I have an ulcer that is worsening by the day. I eat irregularly and do not make healthy food choices.

My defences are crumbling. I cry all the time. I cry when I see something beautiful. I cry when I see something upsetting. I cry for a couple on the Dr Phil show. I cry when I am trapped in the dark and I can’t see anything. I cry when I watch an advertisement on television. I cry when I see a beggar on the street.

I cry for the pain in my daughter’s eyes, and for the stiffness in the shoulders of my sons. I cry for the way they ball their hands into fists. I cry when they turn their faces away if they see me searching for signs of their agony. I cry for the way in which they pretend to be fine to spare me more heartache. I cry for everybody. But I don’t cry for me. Not once. Not one single tear. Because once I start, the crouching predator lurking at the edges of my darkness will jump me and tear me into a million little pieces.

I am a tower of strength to the other victims of this tragedy. I give council and support. I check their mental and emotional temperatures with a barrage of questions. I know they follow my example. I know they are hiding the true magnitude of their devastation.

I scrutinize myself in the bathroom mirror. I hardly recognise the woman looking back at me. My eyes drift across the strange planes of her face. Her mouth tries to smile at me but something horrible happens to her face and it ends up a disaster. Deep farrows cut into the skin and muscle on her forehead. She looks ten years older then she did a month ago.

They say that the eyes are the windows to the soul. When I look into her eyes I hear a deep satisfied growl from the darkness. Despite all the pretence I can see her fear; I can smell it like the aroma of moon blossoms enfolding us. I can feel her uncertainty pulse like a live vein and the taste of her naked pain is like bitter blood on my tongue.

She closes her eyes- as if to hide her pain from my revealing stare. I force her to open them again. I see her defences crumble in front of me. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. My vision becomes blurred by the tears in her eyes.

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Posted By Grieta on September 2, 2011

In the early days of my divorce disappointment strangled me.
I remember being disappointed with my husband for giving up on us. I was
disappointed with God for allowing this to happen to me. I was disappointed
with Him for not showing me clear signs of the impeding danger.

Most of all I was disappointed in me. I was disappointed
because I did not see it coming. I was disappointed because I could not save
the marriage once the word ‘divorce’ was uttered. I was disappointed in myself
for ‘wasting’ the best years of my life on someone who was walking away as if a
marriage of 21 years was a second helping of ice cream at Sunday lunch.

What I learned about disappointment is this: it is a friend
of us all. We all have to face it during the span of our lifetimes. We all have
to fight against the darkness that disappointment brings. We all have to stand
up boldly, or be drowned by its tides.

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Posted By Grieta on August 28, 2011

I gave a lot… hell everything, away in marriage. It happened so subtly that I
never noticed just how much of my own personality and passion and heart I was
loosing. It was only when I was alone after the divorce that I realized I
allowed someone else to define who I was for so long that I did not recognize
the face I saw in the mirror. For more then a month I could basically just wallow in a
little heap and fester. Then one day I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror.
What I saw scared me into action.

I decided to get to know me… to find my place in
the world. It was not easy. I had to do a lot of soul searching and had to face
a lot of demons. There where times when I was too scared to move for several
days… or even weeks. There were times when I gave up on myself. My kids
usually came by and gave me a good punch or a kick in the ribs to get me going
again.

I am glad this divorce happened to me. It changed
me for the better. I have found divorce can be a spectacular journey. Keep your
eyes open and your heart light. You will be okay most of the time.

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Posted By Grieta on July 18, 2011

Here am I… forty years upon this road called life, and still making mistakes as I go along. Some of them are small hardly noticeable little human errors; some are major storms of life kind of calamities. Some are easy to get up and walk away from, some not so easy to correct.

In the midst of my deepest hurt and hardest parts of my journey I have learned that life is filled with second chances, even thirds and forts and fifths.

So I keep my head up and my eyes open because I know that no matter how lost I feel- no matter how deep these wounds are, no matter how far I have strayed from my path- there will be another day, another opportunity. I find life filled second chances to get up from my knees and walk the road with a little jive in my steps and a lot of faith in my leap.

Second changes

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Posted By Grieta on July 17, 2011

The faces of loneliness

I think the reason we have trouble defining loneliness is because it is schizophrenic. I think it changes at different times of day. I find that if I had spend some time with loved ones, like my kids, and they have all gone off to their different lives, I am embraced by a loneliness that feels like a “empty vacuum” trying to drown me in silence. Sometimes I would be with a large group of friends or family and in the midst of them feel lonely. This is not the empty vacuum lonely. It is more like a “no-one-here-belongs-to-me” or “everybody-has-somebody” kind of lonely feeling.

At night in the dark, when there is no one breathing next to me it is a deeper kind of loneliness. One that goes right down to the bone… a physical pain kind of lonely… an overwhelming kind that leaves me unable to sleep. There is a deep need… a hunger for love. I call this the “night blues” loneliness. There are differences in my loneliness. It cannot be defined by the same description every time. I think that whoever wrote the song by Elvis “moody Blues” knew this… he is not talking about a woman per se, but about the blues… the feeling of loneliness that changes colours like moods.

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Posted By Grieta on July 13, 2011

When I was twelve years old the Salvation Army came walking down our street the night before Christmas. It was in the form of a Brass band and they played (to me) music which must have been born right in the sacred halls of heaven. I followed them for almost an hour, listening to the beautiful sounds they majestically pulled out of thin air. The saxophone was the one which grabbed a hold of my heart and squeezed tears out of my eyes. I saw myself on a stage, surrounded by a band, playing the most beautiful music to the world.

I ran home to my mother and proudly declared I want to learn music. She looked up from her knitting with tired eyes. She nodded agreement and smiled softly. The very next Sunday at church she told all the people I have a dream. I was duly called forward and asked about this beautiful dream to learn music.

Before I go any further, you have to get the “behind the scenes” information in order to understand exactly how this dream died a terrible death before it could even see the light of day. At this time my Mother was deep into church. I mean deep enough to go there every day of the week, and drag us with her. Add to this the fact that the church here was going through a very deep legalistically fundamentalist period and you may get a little picture of how it was. The only musical instruments allowed in our church were organ, piano and vocals. Everything else (including guitar, keyboard, drums and all brass instruments) was right out of hell.

So I am asked what instrument I want to learn to play. Saxophone, I tell them. I hear a collective taking in of breath so huge that for a moment I think all the air in the building is being sucked up by the congregation. I go all white… no- death white. What did I say wrong? The sentence cost me half an hour of laying on off hands by the elders, as they pray for my immortal and deeply lost soul. After my dutiful repentance the whole congregation support the fact that I want to learn music. A search was started to find me a suitable instrument.

So somebody that knows somebody that knew me got me an accordion. I hated the thing from the moment they proudly hang it around my shoulders. It felt as if the weight of the world just came down on me. It was heavy enough to kill the music demon right out of me.

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Posted By Grieta on July 8, 2011

The deep end of the ocean

Right after the divorce I was so devastated that I lost sight of who I was completely. I think in divorce you loose so much of yourself. It is only then that you realise how much of your personality, security, self-image, dreams and aspirations is tied into your role as wife. Divorce strips you down to the core and leaves you standing not
only empty and exposed, but without any place to find solace. At the time when
you need support the most, your husband, who has been your crutch, is not there
to hold you as you cry. I was tossed into the deep end of the ocean and had to
learn to swim alone for the first time in decades. It was not an easy crossing
onto dry stable land, but I managed.

In the process I was reminded of how strong I really am. I used to be the woman I
am now, but somewhere along the line she gave up on herself. It was not as if
my ex took everything from me… it is that I allowed myself to be taken. Does
that make any sense to you? I cannot blame him. He asked a lot, but I could
have said no at any time. I chose the easy way out time and again. This was one
of the demons I had to face on my journey after divorce. I could not blame it
on him… not if I wanted to learn and become more then what I used to be. I
had to face reality because when the next person comes along my path, I do not
want to repeat the same mistake. I am not perfect and I am sure that I will
make mistakes again… but not the same ones.

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Posted By Grieta on July 7, 2011

I am divorced, single and celibate at this time. I worked hard on finding out who I
really am, where I want to go, what I need to survive and what I will never
compromise on. The last few weeks I have considered the fact that I am ready for
a new relationship. Of course, at my age this is not easy. When I mentioned
this to a friend he said that relationships at this age are difficult because
people have so much baggage. I told him I have worked hard since the divorce
and I have only a little overnight case of baggage left.

I will never again go into a relationship with someone who is totally wrong for me just because I am scared to be alone, or need the intimacy. I have seen in these last three years that I can be alone and not only survive it, but thrive.
I am no longer intimidated by society. I go to restaurants alone. I go see movies alone. I pitch up at parties and weddings and other events alone. I do not feel guilty. I do not feel abandoned or alone. People ask me: When are you getting a new boyfriend? I answer: When I find one that matches my particular brand of crazy. We all have our little quirks and peculiarities. In a relationship we need to find ways in which to get along with the little crazy in each other.

This is me… take it or leave it.

The hazy shade of winter broken

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Posted By Grieta on July 6, 2011

The way of the sway.

I really love a good pair of shoes, especially a good pair of comfortable shoes. Today I went to work in a beautiful pair of boots. I love boots, or rather I love to look at boots. I never wear them at all. I loved these boots the moment I saw them in the shop window. So, against my better judgement, and trespassing all my own rules about shoes, I bought them then and there.

I broke several of my own rules in getting them. Rule number one: never buy clothes or shoes on the spot. Go home and ponder, make sure you have something it will go with in your wardrobe, come back and fit. Rule number two: NO HIGH HEELS! I don’t know who the first dooffuss was to think about putting women on high heeled shoes, but I bet you it’s not a woman. No woman I know would even consider such an atrocity, or torture thousands of women still to come with something like a high heeled shoe. Rule number three: never pay more then the limited amount for any item. So, now I own a pair of boots which I got on the spot, it cost trice what my limit for shoes allows, and it has HIGH HEELS.

I am not good with high heels. I have three pair of high heel shoes in my closet which I look at often, but never wear. There was a time when I wore high heels all day and night. I even carried two kids simultaneously wearing high heels and kept the sway in my hips. But after a certain age it just no longer seemed so important to have that swagger in my step, and the comfies became my friends. Today I swayed around the office, enjoying all the compliments on my shoes, and feeling very chuffed with myself.

That is until the business owner decided to appear on the scene. Now, our business owner cannot do anything himself. He needs someone at his beck and call every moment of the day. At home it is his wife, at work it is me. He was only there for an hour before I started regretting the shoes. Two hours into the ordeal I was wishing I could sit for about ten minutes with my feet lifted unto a table.

Three hours into the horror I was in serious trouble and thinking about taking the shoes off and gliding around in my socks. The sexy sway was now nothing more then a stupid looking stagger. I spend the rest of the day dreaming about how I would toss those boots out of the car window on the way home. At the end of the day I stumbled out to the car, precariously poking the asphalt with heavy hammering steps and barely able to stay upright. One of my co-workers whistled out of the office window. “Looking good, Grieta!” I forgave the shoes.

I think we can grow on each other.

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Posted By Grieta on April 12, 2011

I am a 41 year old grand daughter, daughter and mom. This means that I am a student of life in all its facets. I have learned much from my journey so far and continue to learn every day. I make sense of my world by writing about the things I see and experience. These pages are my thoughts, philosophy and life experiences. Please enjoy them with me.

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