Une étape à la fois

“If I just keep putting one foot in front of the other, it stands to reason that I’m going to get there. I’ve begun to think we sit far more than we’re supposed to.” He smiled. “Why else would we have feet?”

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

Time travel – the stuff of fantasies.

Or nightmares?

If I could go back 300 years, I’d stroll onto a beach, lay out my towel and strip down to my orange bikini. Wide-eyed people would stare, aghast. “I’ve come from 2018,” I’d ‘reassure’ them. “This is modest beachwear in 2018. In fact, on the Costa del Sol they’re not wearing anything!”

Or maybe a man, fresh out of 1718, arrives in London 2018? He stands in his whiskers, hat and coat watching strange hatless people pushing past him on the pavement, pieces of plastic in their ears (not that he’d know what plastic is), and taking aloud to no-one in particular. Hurrying, hurrying, hurrying.

Time is a funny thing.

18 years ago something heartbreaking happened to me (a story for another time).

The consequences:

I started to experience anxiety and panic attacks for the first time.
I took sleeping pills for the first time to shut off my brain at night.
My stomach was in such knots I found it hard to swallow, and so melted down to a mere 38kgs.
I cut my long blonde hair short.
I couldn’t hold down my job.
I couldn’t watch TV or films or read novels. Everything reminded me of my utter aloneness.
I ‘ran away from home’ – I left my small concerned town and family and moved to the ‘big smoke’.
In Jo’burg I was me again – no sympathetic head tilts or worried faces to remind me of my loss.

Nearly two decades have past since I packed my Opel Monza to the hilt and began the +-1000km drive north to my new life in Johannesburg.

So many years on, I hardly know that small sad girl. One step at a time she got better, I guess. She found her feet. People prayed for her and with her. She found safety and solace in God. She found purpose, adventure and some Nyamazela-ness … over time.

So why am I visiting her again?

Because, de temps en temps I still have to fight some of her demons.

Sleeplessness is one demon I’m so tired of fighting.

The hot summer aggravated things, messed up my sleep and now my body (and brain) is just not behaving. I’ve upped my exercise – going for a run usually has the effect of popping a pill. That helped, so I’ll keep at it. But last night was another restless one.

This morning, I gripped my tea and yawned, my Nyamazelaness gone.

Feels like this demon is winning.

Do please say a quiet prayer for me, dear readers, this has been a long battle.

SMALL PRINT:
P.s I’ve always loved my sleep and have enjoyed many years of deep, restful sleep. I’m not a night owl or an early bird. I need a good 8 hours. It’s been a while since my battle with sleep was this bad.
P.p.s. Hubby can fall asleep in 30 seconds. He can sleep sitting up in the car or the plane. He can sleep standing up (I’ve mentioned this in my small print before – it’s true).
P.p.p.s. It’s true that anxiety crept into my life 18 years ago, but thankfully that’s mostly under control and very much within the normal adult range. However, I’m a total absorber so I pick up on others’ anxiety quickly and have to watch what/who I listen to.