New Understanding

I think as you get older you want to take care of your body a bit better. Well it should be that way, The reality of physical illness, mental illness, death is very much a reality and a scary one at that, well for me at least... DEATH. Now that topic i am sure I will write about one day, when I fully understand it and dont freak out everytime I think about it.

My whole life up until a year ago, I wasn't much of an eater, I never really exercised. I was never the type of person to eat food for the taste and experience, I was never the type of person sprinkle some love over my food while cooking, patiently roasting that yummy lemon and herb chicken with ever so tastey veggies on the side. Nope, not me!(I was an afrikaans mans' worst nightmare). I used to eat to survive, sounds terrible I know, and so unappreciative!I always wished that there would be a pill I could take just to get the process of eating over and done with. It just always seemed like such a mission, a hack, sometimes just a waiste of time. What a sad existance that was. My self worth was at an all time low. Its absolutely amazing how your emotions effect the way you care for yourslf.

Having been through quite a lot of hardship in my life, (cue violins), I mean, we all have our sad story to tell, but years and years of suffering through emotional abuse, stress, stress and more stress , I totally abandoned myself, My life became something like that of an animal, I needed to survive, protect, I even felt wild at times. 'Success' was always on my mind, I needed to be at the top of my game, reach for the stars, exceed the limits society or famiily put on me, 'show em what im made of'. With all that drive (I definatly inherited from my father) and my very goal orientated view on life, I completely forgot about the little girl inside of me. The dork with mousy colour hair, bare foot playing in the garden with my dogs from sun rise to sunset. Cruising on my mini four wheeler motorbike with my dad through the fields, stopping at times to chomp on some super sweet sugar cane, picking mussels off the rocks to make home made mussel soup with pops, Swimming in the pool with my friends until my feet wrinkled up with my very noticeable blood shot eyes, from chlorine overdose, Lying on the hot concrete next to the pool after swimming in durbans winter( which is not really a winter if you ask me), to warm up before I jump right back in again, hearing a big SPLASH while my labrador takes a dip in the pool with what always seemed to be a huge big smile on her face. I was living in the moment, I was ever so present , my thoughts never drifted further than what I was doing at that very moment, unless of course the care bear countdown was about to begin, then my mind might have been a tad distracted from that moment.

*sigh* the care bears, gummy berrie juice, the evil gargamel from the smurfs, It always confused me that smurfette always wore the same dress and the same heals EVERYDAY without getting tuned by all her mates!....Thats how deep my thoughts got at that simple part of my life.

Then it dawned on me, the meaning of it all as I know it, the different meanings and degrees of success . With God as my guide, I began to understand today. When I am 80, old and wrinkly hopefully hot and spunky, but when that stage of my life arrives I often ask myself when I'm stressed, unhappy, over committing , under delivering, will all these unnatural and uneasy feelings filling my mind , body and soul, I asked myself, will this really REALLY matter, when I'm old?Will I be able to take that promotion I got with me when I die? Will that HOT sports car drive me all the way to heaven?What will my story be when its all over?Will it be one of cherished moments, warm, real connections with family, friends, strangers?It all sounds cheesy, or a bit Oprah-ish, but for me, this rings so true, to the very heart of me, and with these few words I make my decisions, with these few words I appreciate the food I eat that I know is good for my body, I acknowledge and allow more positive influence and food for thought to feed my mind, I say I love you more often to my family and make that one extra call for the week, with these few words I have become to love more and fear letting go less, and with these few words I make a huge effort to remember whats important...

so ask yourself, does it really matter?