Then there’s my latest oneshot. Shards of nostalgia. Sad, gloomy, sentimental.
I miss home. I miss waking up in my bedroom with the sun lighting up my room like a furnace. I miss lying in bed listening to my brothers watching TV on the other side of the house, listening to my mom bustling around in the kitchen, hearing my dad mowing the lawn and the crazy excited bark of our dogs. I miss those horrible faded pink curtains that were worn so thin with time that I could see straight through them and watch the dutch couple across the street fighting in their funny dialect.
I miss lying in the security of my room until the clock hit double figures and my tummy chased me to the kitchen, where my mom’s famous plaatkoekies would be hot and waiting on a plate for me. I miss watching K-T.V. in the mornings, and I miss going to Pick’n Pay with my family and doing grocery shopping until my legs wanted to buckle and my back burned. I miss that bottle of coke we were always gauranteed on the drive back home, and the horrible task of wiping down those ugly plastic garden chairs.I miss playing around in our pool while the fire in the braai got lit, and I miss getting a shout from my mom that one of my friends were on the phone.
More often than not, it would be Zelda, and her mom would come drop her off and we’d walk around the neighbourhood in the heat of day, or we’d listen to music in my room and chat, or we’d wreck the DVD collection to find that good tear-jerker comedy we both loved. Or her cousin that lived up the street from us, would come racing go-karts down the street with me, or take a dip in our pool. Yes, it’s a small world, I know quite a bit of people related to Zelda, I befriended her cousins without knowing who they were. Weird, no?
I miss having the family come over, hanging out with my cousins playing Mario bros or that stupid island video game. I miss the food, I miss the people, I miss the feel. I was secure back then, you know. Life might not have been perfect, but it was damn good. I knew who I was, what I wanted, where I was going. I had my priorities straight and solid. I had my family, I had my friends, I had my territory. I carried my heart out on my sleeve, and I trusted easily. And I was trustworthy. I was happy. I’ve never been as content in life as I was at that stage in my life.
So, you can’t blame me for wondering wtf happened to me. Somewhere along the lines, I missed the plot. Strayed off the path. I mean, it wasn’t easy staying on the path at all, I had to fight to walk the talk, but I just lost it, and I haven’t found my way back. And even now, if I could, things could never be the same again. Love changes life, and life goes on without you. My soultwin went gay, and even if she says she’s back on track, things are bound to be awkward whenever we are face to face again. And it sucks, and it hurts, because that was the only link directly connected to my childhood that I had left to hang onto. Now I don’t even have that anymore. I still have my friends from early days, I count them as blessings because not many people stay in touch with those who shaped them into the people they become later on, but we will never be able to reenact the strengths of our friendship as it was back then. Cliched, but stuff it, I really have been hurt one too many times by people I trusted. Now I have issues with trusting people. Maybe that’s why I am bitter. I can’t get over that hurdle.
I hate love. Love does nothing but stab your heart. Mine is still bleeding, and beating, and sometimes I wish it would just stop because it’s so broken, and it hurts more than words could describe. I never asked for this. If anyone had given me prior warning that love would feel like this, I would have said thanks but no thanks. What has love given me? Bittersweet memories tainted with anger and pain. What has love taught me? That life is worse with it, and far worse when it doesn’t work out. Love has taught me not to trust, and not to love, because love is ugly in its beauty, and merciless in its tenderness, and when it’s gone, you’re left with the unbearable knowledge that it just never was meant for you. When it’s time to turn the page, to end that single entry that encompassed most of your life, and face the next blank piece of paper without love as your pencil, you’re bound to strike a block. You can’t even mourn your loss of love, how can you mourn for something you never truly had? Love isn’t supposed to be like this. Love isn’t meant to turn your life upside down and smash you into pieces. And if it is, then I’m just not cut out for it.