My True Love (A Tragedy)

I was wearing the world’s most comfortable onesie and I really did not want to change. We had a bond. A warm, assuring intimacy built on years of trust, closeness and chemistry.  And, as often happens with real love, dark forces try and creep in and threaten to tear you apart. 

 

In our case, it was coffee. There was no coffee! The dark force decided to strike on the coldest morning of the year.

 

So, I did what any self-respecting woman in love would do. I lifted my game, taking the risk and going in the direction of my destiny. Showing the dark force who’s boss, I put on a long coat, Jackie O glasses, a baseball cap and I headed out.

 

I was also wearing sneakers because I told our cleaner I was going to the gym. She side-eyed me. I knew it! We had to keep our love a secret. Nobody could find out. There would be consequences. People were talking. I could see it in her eyes.

 

As far as I was concerned, our secret was still pretty safe. Safe under the beautiful vintage cover of my granny’s tweed coat.

 

Still acting like Madonna, and just like the lovers who err every now and then and risk getting caught, I had a serious case of the guilty conscience. It hit me hard.

 

Hot, sweaty, high from adrenaline and feeling the full pressure from “society”, I decided to do the “right” thing.  It was painful but I had no choice but to break up with my onesie.

 

It wasn’t him, it was me. He didn’t deserve it.

 

It was either that, or my husband would get the text message telling him that our gym membership was about to be revoked because we had used it less than 3 times in one month. (Can you imagine our cleaner’s face then?)

 

…I still think about that onesie.

Especially during squats when I think I finally know what Adele meant when she said “sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead…” 

© A Heart Full of Stories, 2016

COPYRIGHT: 

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Lee-Ann Mayimele and www.aheartfullofstories.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

 

 

Massage with a HAPPY ending (A story about honesty)

My Thai massage did not have a happy ending and my doctor told me that I was “not the first person to suffer this fate”. Honestly.

 

Now, before you go wild and start picturing me lying topless, before your head goes to the vision of all the fat and balding men in Bangkok Tuk-Tuking home with their pants still bulging, hear me out.

 

I was there for a massage.

Nothing more.

Honestly.

 

And it was in JoBurg.  At a spa.  A legit spa.

Honestly.

 

About 6 hours after the massage, I thought that I had contracted a dreaded disease.  No, not from the Thai lady.  Stop that.  I had long forgotten about the massage.

 

I could not breathe.  I had to stay hunched over.  When I tried to sit up, I was in excruciating pain. I started off with Panado, but about 2 hours later, I needed morphine.  I was in serious pain. Honestly.

 

My sister googled some words and we concluded that it must be a “collapsed lung”.  My pain levels shot through the roof and I had to see a doctor.  He sent me home with some “muscle relaxants” (honestly!).  Less than 24 hours later, I was back in his office. Not relaxed in the least!

 

This time, he sent me to the ER and they did an X-Ray.  A bit like a ping pong show, I guess.

 

The good news was that my lung was not collapsed. Stupid, Doctor-Google.  I listened to X-Ray woman on the phone :

“There’s a lady here. Ja, she says she had a massage…” (I did!)

“Jaaaa, the one where the China girl sits on your bum” (Thai! Thai, you idiot)

“Ja, she says it was nice and soft..not sore” (It’s true, you Tom Yum head!)

“Jaaa, jaaa I wonder that too….”

 

I give up!, I thought as I Hunch Back of Notre-Dammed my ass back to the counter to collect my file.

 

I decided right there that if anyone else asked, I would have to lie.  I mean, can you imagine me telling my mother in law that I needed to RELAX and ended up with two fractured (nearly broken) ribs because a Thai lady sat on my bum, and spread her thighs on either side of my back, that we exchanged money….but I was honestly just there for a massage?  Honestly!?

 

My story may not have had the intended happy ending but I was grateful that I was not dying.  Honestly!

 

Lee-Ann Mayimele

Chief Storyteller

© A Heart Full of Stories, 2016

COPYRIGHT:

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Lee-Ann Mayimele and www.aheartfullofstories.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Have you ever? (A deep and personal reflection on life revisited)

Have you ever listened to the rain falling?

Did the gentleness of drops tumbling get you poetic or did the sheer power of the storm remind you of your owns storms?

 

Have you ever felt like you’ve been kicked in the gut?

How did the breaking of your heart sound? Did it grind, wring and burn corners of your chest that you had long forgotten?

 

Have you ever received a gift?

A blessing out of the blue for which no amount of gratitude would be appropriate?

 

Have you ever been betrayed?

Did you stand in the doorway of broken trust and bleed as the shattered pieces of glass cut you as they fell?

 

Have you ever danced? Really danced?

Did the primal impulse to sway create waves of sexual energy that made you high?

 

Have you ever been needed?

Did you beam and melt, motivated and elated or did the knowledge turn on your need for control and power even more?

 

Have you ever traveled alone?

Did you have a partner with you who was not there in spirit? Did the vibrations of civilisations past call out your name and send you home changed  but on fire?

 

Have you ever blessed someone with prayer?

Did your heart send vibrations across tall walls and rough seas; intercessions seasoned with grand visualisations of success, prosperity, abundance to people who you dreamed great dreams for?

 

Have you ever watched a loved one hurt?

Did you feel hammers banging inside your chest and did the shivvering knees make you nauseas with helplessness?

 

Have you ever been touched?

Whether by the 80 year old hand of a stranger, rough with callouses but warm with unspoken stories about abuse, slavery, loved ones that have never returned? Or, was it simply a simple line from a simple song that charged your soul’s batteries and flooded your veins with warmth?

 

Have you ever been lost?

Were you lost in the forest of someone else’s shadow or perhaps lost in the company of familiar people dancing to a beat you could no longer hear?

 

Have you ever been silent?

Did the inner noise, tainted with memories and paranoia, make you doubt whether to trust the whispers emanating from your pulse asking you to be still and trust yourself.

 

Have you ever had a brush with God?

Did it happen when you were at the top of a beautiful mountain or did it happen when you came face to face with a hijacker?

 

Have you ever been an addict?

Did your drug of choice soothe you, own you, control you and lift you all at once? Did your alliance seem ubreakable?

 

Have you ever received a compliment?

A genuine string of words about who you are, not what you can give? Did it remind you of the value you create, the impact you have, the light that only you bring?

 

Have you ever looked your soul in the mirror?

Did your reflection smile lovingly, nod tenderly and embrace you with comforting words of encouragement?

 

Have you ever been seduced?

Did it help you to escape your bad reality only later to return you changed and unsure of the way forward?

 

Have you ever connected with another heart?

Did it feel predestined to happen? Did you go there?

 

Have you ever wanted a glimpse of your future?

Did you follow that need to seek guidance from soothsayers, Tarot cards, horoscopes perhaps? Anything that promised the slightest secret fast forward to a life more grand?

 

 

 

I bet you have! And, guess what? So have many spirits before you, many souls yet to come. These shared experiences give us the assurance that we are part of the same journey and that the “answers” we seek already exist. 

 

These experiences should also remind you that YOUR unique set of experiences, YOUR unique choices, YOUR bespoke combo of emotions is what makes YOUR story a story that deserves its own page in the great book of life.

 

May you learn to appreciate that. There is no story without YOU.

 

Believe it!

 

Lee-Ann Mayimele is Chief Storyteller at  A Heart Full of Stories ©, 2016.

Copyright: Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Lee-Ann Mayimele and www.aheartfullofstories.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.