Omens, visas and impossible life decisions

So, the world’s being weird to me. So weird it’s spooky.

Not quite the dream I had in mind.

Those who know me know I call myself an atheist. As in, I don’t believe in a godhead. The idea of a human figure running things is preposterous to me. Any spiritual force able to control and link all the world’s creatures is surely more ambiguous and more complicated than the dude in any of the books.

That doesn’t mean I don’t experience what other people call a spiritual life (I’ve seen a ghost), or enjoy religious rituals occasionally, particularly when it comes to the part where you eat and drink feel gratitude for the good things you have.

Being an atheist also doesn’t mean I don’t believe in forces beyond my control. Recently, I’ve been reminded that I have no choice but to do so, because I’ve felt like the world has been trying to tap me on the shoulder and tell me that I’m nobody. I’m nothing. I’m at the mercy of “It”, whatever “It” is.

I don’t know. I’m probably a pretty shitty atheist.

See, while I was trying to depart the USA for South Africa via the UK, first my sandles broke. Odd, timing wise, but no biggie. Then my other sandles broke, too. Then my car broke. But I found my way to the airport.

So close, and yet so very far.

Then, they didn’t let me on the plane because I lacked a UK transit visa. And then, just coincidentally, the UK visa site was down, so I couldn’t apply for a transit visa.

As a young twasa and soon to be sangoma who approached me uninvited in a bar once told me, you ignore messages from the spirit world at your peril. Two days ago, I decided to listen to what I think the world is saying. I was going to get a new apartment in Cali, and see how that went for a year or so. If I didn’t, I feared that the next thing “It” would do is break my legs to keep me here.

Of course, I didn’t get the apartment because they don’t take freelancers and I don’t have six months rent to advance the landlord – not after everything I’ve had to deal with recently. That’s the one landlord that replied to me at all. Most just let me twist in the wind.

So I’m back to nowheresville, limboing from day to day, wondering what the hell I’m supposed to do now. The world and people around me seem unreal, and I’m never sure where I’m waking up until I open my eyes and look around me.

This Shit is Bananas. No kidding.

Life’s full of bumps. Yes. And oddly, all the images on this post were snapped in the last 48 hours – as if some all powerful force feels the need to state the bleeding obvious every time I round a street corner.

I know things could be worse, so I’m trying to stay grateful, but I feel physically tired and heavy and very afraid right now.

I wrote about UK Visas and Human Kindness  (hint: they’re opposing forces) in my News24 column this week.

Moving! Crazies! Love! Cats! I’m not strong enough…

I consider myself tough. Not tough like the 18-year-old who pushed his grandmother in her wheelchair from Afganistan. Not like Syrian refugees begging for anyone, anyone at all, to let them live a normal life.

See what someone wrote on the wall – the orange one? DON’T WORRY. EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE AMAZING.

But I’m only middle-class honkey-tough. Being rootless for so long is taking its toll, and I only just moved out of my apartment, and into the place I’m cat-sitting. I’d say house-sitting, but it’s all about the cats, or there’d be no free accommodation. The house would be just fine without me. It’s a bachelor apartment in Sun Valley, which is like Voortrekker Road in Parow without the glam, but with communal swimming pools, thank god, because it’s 110 degrees most days. Most of the other units in the block of flats are occupied by entire families who’re unbelievably quiet after 9pm, considering they’re living six people to a room.

Seeing their bravery made me want to be a better person…

No… wait, that’s a lie. It made me want to gouge my eyes out with a medieval sword and then run blindly through the streets, screaming that the world is just. Too. Cruel. I want to pity myself. And you are dealing with so much more.

STILL in my own way, I’ve been having a really, really hard time dealing with everything. The Cat Lover who was kind enough to lend me his apartment told me that the cats “feed off my ‘energy'” and I have to say, that my “energy” has never been worse. Not only did I cancel my yoga classes to save money and simplify my driving needs, but I also am leaving a relationship that’s made me pretty happy for a year in my own weird way, and just discovered that the visa process will take three times as long as the worst case scenario I thought I was facing when I booked my non-refundable air ticket.

And the problem with cats is it never. fucking. ends. They poop everywhere. They don’t lick their buts enough, cause their buts kinda smell and are hairy, so they kinda smell. They kinda hate you even though they need you, like a dependent jealous wife in a 50s misogynist movie. And it’s all my fault.

in other news…

The cats just got in a little cat-spat. I wish they would stop feeding off my energy. They’re gonna need all nine lives.

Or maybe all they need is a common enemy, like uh… the USA and Iran… to fix their differences and find something better to do than to crap on my kitchen counters. Maybe tomorrow I’ll buy them a rat called ISIS and another called ISOL, you know, like one for each cat, gift wrap them in plastic bags tied up with computer cables they so love to chew, lock the door, and let them work together to unwrap them and kill them dead.

It might work. I don’t know. I’m like the US military – pretty much prepared to try anything except direct hand to hand combat.

Or maybe, just maybe, I’ll grow up, suck it up, and realise how lucky I really, actually, am. That’s the subject of this week’s News24.com column. Read it here.