Cause when a heart breaks, it don't break even.

The in between truly seems endless. When everything is too slow or too fast; too bitter or too sweet, and you're moving at a pace completely detached from what you thought was your life. You ask yourself the scary questions. Will I ever write again? Will it ever feel the same? Was that my shot? And you tear yourself apart, bleed the broken heart out and try to feel the emptiness at it slowly creeps up on you. The Script had it right; we don't break even. But the same goes for the mending. It comes in waves, like the beach you're too afraid to face because the last time you were on it, it was in that past life before everything broke and had to be picked up by your absolute and complete self. There are inbetweens in the in between, and sometimes your feelings will trick you and make you believe that it was over when it isn't. But eventually you realise that all you need is not love, but time. Time to let the pieces find each other again and become a brand new whole that now consists of one more experience you kinda wish you hadn't had, but kinda feel like you needed. And when your mind and heart begin to wrap themselves around that fact, things pick up. You opt for three jobs, two brand new and one old, but still new because you're approaching it from an entirely different perspective. You start smiling again, and laughing at the things that used to make you cry; you go to see sappy romantic movies such as Water For Elephants, and enjoy them on your own. The in between is still there, but it is not as strong or fierce as it used to be, and you start to see the end of what used to be a grave, horrid, long tunnel. It has become linear, instead of the repetitive cycle you pessimistically had begun to believe would never end, and it makes you feel good to know that even though the experience can never be forgotten, it can be left behind. So you start reading again, and cleaning the dishes after a meal, rather than leaving them for days. You delete the pictures you had hidden, but still saved, in the hope that you could one day take them out and see happiness, and it makes you feel good to do it. You begin to wake up feeling happy, and not incomplete at the empty other side of the bed. In fact, you place the pillow in the middle, so the whole thing is yours. And eventually, one day, you turn around while tending the bar to face a lovely young man who is smiling at you, without expectation or discontent or fear. Just a smile and piercing blue eyes, which lift you up for that one moment, while the amazing jazz music plays in the background and becomes the soundtrack to your own and finally deserved restoration.

Overweight

“Remember in the good old days, when you could take 30 kgs?” my friend Lindi says to me in an irritated voice after hearing the explanation for my pre-flight paranoia. I am 10 kgs overweight, and have very carefully packed my stuff together so that I will not get caught and have to go through another draining ninja move with my extensive excess luggage. Coming from Perth to Africa it had been a near-death experience. It seems, however, that human beings are always in the business of wanting more. Taking luggage, for example, my friend Lindi was right in her reminiscing about the insane amount of weight you could bring onto a plane ten or fifteen years back. But there was a weight limit back then, too. Which I’m sure was exceeded, like now. And eventually, like I tend to think I can always get away with a trivial six kilos, I’m sure the airlines stopped to think about how much they could get out of that exact craving in their passengers of wanting more. I can picture the board room meeting, where a brilliant apprentice says quietly to himself “I’d just make ‘em pay for it,” followed by the evolution of such an idea in the greedy CEO’s mind. And where does this leave me some years back? “You’re looking at about 200 dollars,” from an Irish woman who I have to explain the principle of electronic encoded visas in my passport to. That’s what I’m looking at. And still, it gets me thinking; do we always want more? And, much more to the point and so much more interesting; do we assume we can get away with it? These thoughts brought to me further philosophies about our relationship with good old Mother Earth. To me, the parallel is simple; like I tend to assume I can easily get away with an extra 10 kgs, I similarly tend to assume that the global exploitation of increasingly degrading natural resources will not affect my life. I can get away with my massive ecological footprint. I will always be able to throw my trash out into bins for someone to collect, and there will always be healthy salmon for me to purchase at the local Coles. But still, it gets me thinking. What if Mother Earth decides one day that she’ll make me pay for my overweight? I think I can say with fair certainty that the price won’t be in the form of an uncomfortable credit card bill in my mail box.