My greatest Fear @Writersbootcmp Day 3

My life used to be ruled by fear.....

When I was 24 I was promoted to being the boss and became principal of the nursery school I was teaching at. I was a terrible principal, partly because I was so young and had 3 kids and a hectic schedule, but my biggest fear was letting people down. My family was so proud of me for my achievements that I never let the cracks show and this led me to attempting suicide on the 24th of November 2000.

When my kids were little, their dad was quite harsh (not abusive in any way) but he would moan at them if they broke a glass or bowl by accident. So whenever someone broke something in the house we would hide it from him for fear of him finding out and crapping all over them about it.

When I finally decided to ask my ex for a divorce (after 22 yrs together) I was wrought with fear, scared that I was making a huge mistake. Afraid of the future and not knowing where it would take me. I had been married to this man since I was 16 yrs old and didn't know how to be an adult on my own. Fear of the unknown and fear of disappointing my family who were dead set against the divorce led me to procrastinate about it for another year before I finally took the plunge.

I met Scott while I was still married, but in my heart and in my mind my marriage was over long before I ever met him. I didn't start a proper relationship with him for fear of my kids thinking he was the reason I left their dad, he was not. I was afraid of what other people might think of me and I was afraid of the future. I had no idea if leaving the life I had known since I was 16 was the right thing to do or not. I was afraid of making a mistake. Again afraid of failing at life.

I did it anyway, I overcame that fear and today I

can honestly say that I have no clue what the future holds, I have no idea if I am going to be a success at anything I do, but dammit I gotta try right?

What's my biggest fear? FEAR itself.

My 5 Favourite words @Writersbootcmp #blog

Day 2 of the @Writersbootcmp challenge and the topic is: My 5 favourite words...... so here goes.

1  Serendipitous- Occurring or discovered by chance in a happy or beneficial way.
                             Just love the meaning of this one!

2  Scrumptious - splendid, delectable, pleasing or delicious.
                           The best way to describe anything that gives you a mouthgasm.

3  Onbeskryfbaar- Afrikaans for indescribable.
                             Some times Afrikaans words just sound more meaningful than their English counterparts.                                Imagine if the love of your life said: My liefde vir jou is onbeskryfbaar!!!! oooh lala. My                                    love for you is indescribable. Also I like the fact that it's spelled exactly the way you say                                it.

4  Prestidigitation - Performance or skill in performing magic or conjuring tricks.

                             I love this word mainly because it's such a difficult word to pronounce correctly and little                                children generally struggle to say it. Also you can play that game; Say prestidigitation 10 times                               in a row really fast without getting your tongue in a twist. (bet you can't).

5  Bonjour - Hello, a greeting in French.

 I have always loved the sound of the French language. I purchased a 'Learn to speak French fluently' CD and a French dictionary about 10 years ago. Can I speak French? erm....no, but it's still on my bucket list.

Even if you know me well, you won't know this

The past couple of months we moved house, started planning our wedding, had a few ups and downs

a photo I took last year on my blackberry

financially and through it all I have neglected my blog. I am not a prolific writer at the best of times so my blog has never been a priority. So I decided to try this challenge in order to get me in the mood to blog again.

Even if you know me well, you won't know this: * I suck my thumb. I do it when I am comfortable and relaxed. I can't fall asleep without it and I have not been able to stop. If I have a cold and my nose is blocked I am highly irritated because if I have to breathe through my mouth and that means I can't suck my thumb and if I can't suck my thumb, I can't sleep. My family tried all sorts of things to me when I was little to get me to stop, needless to say, none of them worked. 

* I like symmetry in my decor, like if we have lamps in the bedroom next to the bed, they must be identical. I do not like things to be out of place in the house and will get very annoyed when things are not put back in their proper living space. I realise I have 3 step kids, 3 grown up children and 2 grandchildren, so when they are all visiting, the house is always a mess. I love having my children over and enjoy their company, but feel very stressed after they have gone, because now I have to put everything back in its place. On the upside though, I find cleaning helps to calm me (as long as I am left alone to do so) and I feel a great sense of achievement when the house is neat.

* I have very strong feelings about toilet paper in odd numbers!!! (now I can see your raised eyebrow and hear you mumbling under your cough "batshitcrazy") I have no idea why, but I cannot buy toilet rolls in denominations that are uneven. You buy 2, 4 or 24 but never 3, 9 or any uneven number EVER!!!! My fiance thinks this is quite funny and will often throw 3 toilet rolls into the shopping trolley just to get a reaction out of me. Shame he doesn't get out much and has to get his entertainment somewhere.

* Lastly I hate not knowing something. Like if you start a sentence and then halfway through say "Ag never mind it's not important" This is a pet peeve of mine. Now not only will I forever wonder what it was you were going to say, but my mind will obsess over it and think of all the gazillion possibilities of what it could be.

I dislike Sci-fi movies and heavy metal music. I love classical music, Akon, autobiographies and thrillers.

Oh and I love trees!

And here endeth confession hour.

The evolution of the favourite button

When I first joined twitter I used the favourite button for several things, saving a link to read later as I had no time now, a compliment I wanted to treasure, or a mention from a celeb to keep just in case no one believed me. It was only reserved for tweets that were of importance or profound in some way.

Yes like most people I followed celebs back in the day in the hopes that they might actually converse with me, I know. I was wrong, I know better now.

Lately I have noticed that people have been favouriting the most arbitrary things, things that were not particularly important and I wondered why?

So I mentioned this on twitter the other day and a few people responded with their reasons for using the favourite button.

People are using the favourite button as a type of acknowledgement akin to the like button on Facebook.

When you say something and I like it, but really have nothing to add to it....favourite.

When there has been good banter, but the conversation has now come to an end ... favourite.

When you rant and rave about something and I agree, but don't necessarily want to get involved in a rant fest....favourite- I acknowledge your point and maybe agree.

Or my personal favourite....When you passive aggressively subtweet someone and they favourite your tweet!
uh oh...they saw! and maybe they are oblivious to the fact that it was aimed at them and actually like your statement or maybe, just maybe they are saying: Uitgevang (Afrikaans for caught out). I see what you did there.

This is of course just the opinions of myself and others, if you have a different reason for favouriting a tweet, do share.

ramblings

And just like that, the past was erased…..

A conscious decision made……

No more wandering down that dark path of fear, self-loathing and doubt

Her curiosity to see where the rabbit hole leads and just how deep depravity can go had scared her

She thought she could handle it, she thought it was safe as long as it was one tiny step at a time.

She was wrong.

Her desire to connect in that place somewhere between.... where no judgement took place.

That’s all it takes…… a few tiny steps in the wrong direction and you end up on the other side of the road. A road she never wanted to venture down.

Adventurous spirit crushed? She thought…… play it safe all my life?

NO!

Adventurous spirit intact….. Just caution. Can you really dip just one toe in the ocean and not be affected by the tide. She didn’t know

“Forward” she heard a voice say, “always forward” one cautious step at a time.

You can still be curious, you can still be adventurous, you can still be you….. Just better

Sunshine on steroids and end of year blues

I have been teaching since 1992 and I have loved every minute of it. Every year at this time though I get very nostalgic as I am preparing to say goodbye to my class who are going off to big school.

Every year I make a DVD slide show of pictures I have taken of them during the year and as I watch their happy little faces I feel like a little part of me is going away. These are my children, yes I call them mine, because that’s what it feels like. I have worked with them all year for 4hours every day and they have become a part of me. Each child is unique and each class brings something new and different. Each child has different strengths and all of them have lovely qualities. To name a few: I have a boy who has the most enquiring mind, he never stops asking questions, then there is another boy whose smile is so big that his whole face lights up. There is the little girl who is loving and affectionate she is always making me little drawings. I could go on and on about each child and find at least one wonderful thing about them.  And then there is one little girl who just stands out, not as a favourite or anything like that, but just because she has taught me something amazing this year.

She is the most cheerful little girl I have ever met. She loves everything and approaches all activities with such enthusiasm and joy. She arrives every morning with a big smile and gives a big hug. Then enquires about our activities for the day and when I tell her she just gushes with excitement. She is like cheerful on steroids. I call her my little ray of sunshine.  I have only ever seen her unhappy once, and that was because her dad was away and she was missing him. Her attitude towards everything is so positive and she is caring and kind towards her fellow students.

Last night was our class gym display and at the end when I was saying goodbye to everyone in the doorway, this little girl turned to me and said: “Oh teacher, look the sky is pink, it’s so pretty” I looked up and saw that it was. And you know what, had she not pointed it out to me I probably would not have noticed. As I was driving home last night I marvelled at how pretty the sky was.

This little girl has taught me to look for the good in everything and have a positive attitude towards life. I hope she never loses her sunshine.

A life full of rewards

Monday evening I had a moment of shear euphoria, yes I was happy. In fact I was so happy I had a fit of laughter, the kind of uncontrollable laughter that left me with a headache and aching tummy.  And then of course in true Karen tradition I had to over think this phenomenon, why am I so happy and how did I get here?

I started thinking about rewards and what the term “to live a rewarding life” really means. We all (whether we realise it or not) do things based on a reward system. We work all month to claim our reward of a salary at the end of it. You see rewards are great incentives. We enter competitions in the hope of being rewarded with a prize. There are businesses whose marketing involves some kind of reward system should you join their mailing list and what not. Buy in bulk and you are rewarded with a discount. Buy a magazine and you get rewarded with a free pair of sunglasses etc. Rewards are everywhere and in almost everything we do.

One thing I have learnt about human beings is that no matter where in the world you live, who you are as a person and despite cultural differences, there are two things everyone needs:

1.        The need to feel loved

2.        To feel good about yourself

Everyone wants to feel loved, whether it’s  in an adult relationship with a partner, the love of a pet or simply the love of a parent, everyone needs to feel loved by someone or something other than themselves.

Feeling good about yourself, everyone loves to feel good, in fact it is even better when you are feeling great. That feeling you get when you leave the hair salon and your hair is perfect and you feel awesome. The feeling you get when a new outfit fits just right in all the right places and makes you feel sexy. When you are praised for a job well done, you feel on top of the world. I could go on and on about feeling good about yourself, but you get the picture.

Then there is the unselfish act, the one that you do to help someone else feel good and expect no reward.  When you help someone in need with no expectation of them returning the favour, a true act of kindness.

 Even in those moments, there is a reward. Even if you don’t want one, there is, because it is in those moments that we feel good about ourselves. Not in an arrogant way where we smugly proclaim to the world, I am a good person, see I just helped someone. No, it’s in those unseen moments when we genuinely have compassion and want to make a difference for totally unselfish reasons. Even in those times we are rewarded.

 That is the true meaning of living a rewarding life.