The beginning of a new season always brings forth change. Fresh winds, baby leaves, growing thorns, rain, life, and hope.

Enter my mother.

Yes, she’s back. Back again.

Living with me and just in time for the online Women’s Conference at Rivers Church. I am excited about it. Sometimes hearing motivational, women with a strong faith preach empowering messages is liberating. Nothing excites me like this. I cannot wait for the winds of change to breeze through my soul in the coming week.

I admit I have not been feeling myself lately. It’s because I am bearing witness to so much pain around me.

I am an empath.

I didn’t define myself as one before, but I know now that is who I am. I absorb not just information as a journalist. As an individual, the role of servant gets taken very seriously. I give away my time like a frugal Dutchess and when I say I love you - I mean, I LOVE you. Hard.

Helping, listening and knowing when to walk away is my strength. I always want to help. It is in these moments that I absorb people. I, like a sponge, drink up heartache, heartbreak, joy, kindness, anger, frustration, hurt, pain, success - all of it.

I take it all in.

I do feel people and their spirit before they get near me. And I am stiff with the ones who are fake or self-righteous. I meet a lot of those in my two lines of work. The entitlement used to bother me before but as death suspends itself just a short way from my nose every day, I am conscious of living my life in a radiant spectrum of positivity.

In this last month, I have been building time zones. There are block periods in my day when I don’t utter a word to anyone. Unless it’s an emergency. Someone must be dying. I am realising that less is more and when you talk less you tend to feel less. There’s no confusion, no questions, no doubt. There’s just calm.

Words are so important. They bear fruit and nasty words, sentences, stories - can manifest in a restless sleep, self-doubt, and questioning. I am constantly replaying conversations in my mind. I replay scenarios, moments, news, books, facts, fiction, eyeball rolls, attitudes, and my behavior when I close my eyes at night. Everything awful happens at night for me. My mind gets carried away some days and this is my challenge. Overthinking.

It is not a new thing for me. I’ve been doing this since I was young.

‘Why is daddy cross? Did I do something?

Why wasn’t I invited to XYZ’s party? Everyone else was.’’

My peace was always far away and last month after my friend died it started to feel like that again.

Only a few friends know how I’ve been doing.

When I’m working I fire on all cylinders and am truly happy. But on an off day, I don’t bother to shower until noon.

Washing my hair is an absolute no-no.

I’d rather oil it, switch my phone off, and read all day. Some days I wait until the very last minute before bedtime and limp hesitantly to the shower like a giant sloth with just a facecloth over my eyes. It’s painful. I am tired. Beyond exhausted and then there are those days when I don’t even bath and that’s shameful. I know it. Like, sis!

My sleeping patterns are also a bit off. I can sleep for hours, I know it, but I’m usually awake for hours and sleep like, maybe 3-4 hours a night. My runs have been taking the strain. This week I went out for one run on Monday after maybe a four-hour sleep. My body shut down and my sinus got the better of me.

On Tuesday my throat was swollen, I had a cough so tight that every time I sat down and breathed, I sounded like I had emphysema. The wheeze was just so bad. My doctor booked me off for the entire week and told me to sleep. So I did, and I’ve been dreaming. I’ve been dreaming of everything and everyone. I have been dreaming of the living and the dead.

In the last few weeks, another friend and former colleague of mine died. Her death knocked me sideways. I had just arrived at work when I found out and I had to bury my feelings until 11 PM that evening because I had a job to do. It was torture.

When I got off shift that day, I didn’t talk for two entire days after that. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to cry. I wrestled with my emotions for a bit on my bed and when I say a bit, I mean for almost half a day.

I just laid there. Looked at the balloons on my ceiling, hugging my knees to my chest, and talking to God. The fetal position soothed me. But my conversations with God were tense.

My questions were not questions they were more like statements. I asked and said a lot to God - out loud. Tears formed at the corner of my eyes but none accelerated down my cheeks. To this day I have not cried for Ragani Achary. I’m honestly afraid to let go because I cannot make sense of her death or Celeste Phillips. I am afraid that if I start to cry, I may just weep and I will begin to feel like there is no rainbow to this tsunami of death that’s wiping away most of my joy.

I’ve argued so much with myself in these last few weeks that I even resolved not to get married. And my reason is simple. What if I fall in love with someone and then he dies of Covid? What if we have a child, my goodness, and he dies of Covid? This period in our history is not normal. It’s crippling, but the rationale behind the psyche of my thoughts at night is not sane. I recognize this. I am aware that I may be too single. Too alone. Too independent and too isolated.

Then the day breaks. The sun comes up and I spot a tree in full bloom. Some days I stop and stare at the beauty around me. I run my hand through the leaves when I pound the streets of Fourways. When I run with Run Like A Girl Fourways, I listen to the rhythm of their steps. It’s melodic. Each shoe hitting the tar at a different pace and I fall in love with the simplicity of breathing. I take care of my body and it takes care of me.

I most times look into the eyes of the people I pass. Sometimes I stop to talk and ask how they’re doing. Fine, is the reply I get most. But are they really fine? I am not. I am trying to be fine.

These tiny moments I consciously take the time to absorb the peace that’s so freely within our reach.

The stench of death doesn’t feel so nauseating in these moments.

I have tried to write numerous times but nothing comes together nicely. Instead, I work. I do extra work and I look for stories. I bake, I blog, I watch YouTube videos, I take pictures, I have conversations with strangers, I look at the clouds, and watch birds dance. I wake up early to witness the sunrise. I pray when it comes up. I have coffee with Jesus, I pray some more and I pray over my friends.

My body feels like it’s constantly dripping sadness. It comes out of every pore. And there’s nothing I can do other than feel it.

When I’m running in the dark, I am sad. But when I turn the corner sometimes and look up at the soft shades of pink, purple, and orange. The bold, magnificent promise of a new day humbles me. It encourages me to run faster, laugh, visit my family, sing, dance, and move.

God is watching. I am still alive. And the cool wind massaging my cheeks almost every day feels like an embrace.

I have two choices - waste time or live.

I always choose the latter.

It is a decision I make daily. Each day it gets easier.