Friday, 29 June 2007
Day 217 – “To new beginnings”
It was exactly a week ago that I was counting down the hours to a weekend in Cape Town and to my first plane flight. Today I am counting down the hours until I say goodbye to a 7 year part of my life. In a few hours I will say farewell to a life and a routine I knew very well and starting a completely new chapter.
I have a mixture of feelings running through my mind today. That of sadness, excitement, nervous anticipation. Most of it only hit me yesterday – I was saying goodbye! So many people around me at the office knew about my addiction and stood by me and my family through this time. I have no doubt that at times some probably thought it would never change. They are as much part of this recovery as I am!
I will be waking up almost 4 hours earlier on Monday to go to my new Head-Office in Pretoria. What lies ahead for me is mostly a mystery and I can only hope to be as happy as I was at my present company. But I find strength in the knowledge that I have overcome gigantic obstacles in my life and will make a success of this aswell.
As an added bonus I’ll be seeing ‘my significant other’ the weekend again after 2 weeks apart. We’ve both been counting down the days and by now the hours until we’ll see each other again. As torturing as it can be to be apart for so long, I still feel that this ‘long distance relationship’ is the safest option for us for now.
The changing of jobs is the start of many changes to follow in the future and hopefully I will look back on these moments after a few months and ask myself why I didn’t do it sooner!
Day 217 – “To new beginnings”
Day 216(1) – “Four Cousins”
Thursday, 28 June 2007
Day 216(1) – “Four Cousins”
Most of my cousins I haven’t seen in years. I was quickly reminded that one of them of used to change my nappies. Of course, I was a baby at the time – and again felt a bit exposed by this information sharing.
I must honestly say that I haven’t had so much fun in years. Most of them follow the blog so they knew me much better than you would know your estranged cousin living almost 2000kms away. It was asif I stayed around the street. I just wanted to talk and talk all night catching up on what the rest of the family were doing.
My cousins have all made good lives for themselves, starting families, most of them with a loved one to keep them warm at night. My past few years were spent in a state of suspension in a way not really realizing how much everything around you changes. And seeing them noticeably more mature and happy than they were back then – is a great reminder of what I still have to catch up on.
Between the Diemersfontein Chocolate Pinotage (which is by the way one of the best red wines you’ll ever taste) we drank Van Luveren’s Four Cousins. Since we were indeed four cousins there – it was a very appropriate choice. And I got a quick food lesson as a bonus from somebody I now regard as an expert on the subject.
After we consumed way too much food the day and an excessive amount of alcohol during the night we called it a night. It was off to bed again for an early start.
Day 215(2) – “Hairy or smooth?”
Wednesday, 27 June 2007
Day 215(2) – “Hairy or smooth?”
“The Birthday Boy” and I wanted to check out one of the clubs, have a drink and maybe have a quick dance. Since I’ve never done the party thing in Cape Town and he has only been there a month we didn’t really know where to go. We went looking for a club somewhere but our plans were quickly stopped by the reluctance of my friend.
Clubbing was apparently not his scene and he was unwilling to compromise even though he was the only one that didn’t want to go. In fact he was so adamant on it, that the night ended in deafening uncomfortable silence as we all went to bed. I lay my head down and within seconds I was fast asleep.
For weeks reports were that Cape Town was cloudy, rainy and cold. And even though a slight breeze was blowing the next morning, the sun was shining and Table Mountain was clearly visible. It was weather any tourist or any Capetonian, for that matter – could really appreciate.
We went to Canal Walk and walked around browsing through the various shops. I expected more people to be there but there was no shortage in ‘eye candy’ spread through the corridors. One thing that was refreshing was how clean everything was and how friendly the people were there. Not just Canal Walk but the whole of Cape Town. Even the road signs, street names and number plates seemed unaffected by the constant name changes the government forced on the rest of the country.
It was only when we excited Canal Walk that we found another world outside – clouded, windy and rainy – totally different from what it was just a few short hours ago. The cold wind was blowing everywhere and that combined with the walk through the mall shot pains through my whole body. I was glad to just sit in the car for a while and that is exactly what we did.
My newly found friends knew much more about wine than I can ever hope to know. I felt like a real amateur in their superb pallet presence. We drove over 50kms to Diemersfontein just past Paarl for wine tasting. The young lady helping us obviously knew her wine. She was refreshingly different from the girls back in Polokwane. I could see “The Birthday Boy” liked her and I thought to myself how good they’d actually looked together – beautiful people seem to always find each other.
The ‘tasting lady’ mentioned a play that I definitely have to go and see. ‘Hair’ is currently playing at ‘Theatre on the Bay’ and she caught me a bit of guard comparing me to one of the actors. Apparently it contains a nude scene aswell, which caused it’s banning in the country for a while. I suddenly felt a bit exposed.
Day 215(1) – “Cape Town: Left, right and right again!”
Wednesday, 27 June 2007
Day 215(1) – “Cape Town: Left, right and right again!”
Cape Town is a bit windy but not at all as I expected it to be. Even Cape Town International Airport surprises me with its obvious inferiority to its Johannesburg counterpart. But since most of it is also still under construction I thought I’d give it the benefit of the doubt for now. We exit the building after getting our luggage and I walk into the Cape Air. It is familiar to me even though I haven’t been here in ages. I wasn’t born in Cape Town self but the Province is home to me and brings back a lot of memories.
I phone my cousin to get directions to my aunt’s house. After a few rights and lefts and rights again we end up at the house. My aunt has moved twice since I last saw her so it is all new to me and I ring the bell in the hope to see a friendly face. A Portuguese woman opens the door with exactly the opposite face gawking at us, demanding to know what we are doing there and who we are looking for. I distinctly remember my aunt not to be a Portuguese woman – so figured we are at the wrong house. It turns out my cousin had the wrong house number and soon pointed us to the house next to the “friendly” Portuguese woman.
I met a very interesting guy this weekend. He is the friend of the friend I went to Cape Town with. They seem to be the most unlikely of friends but on close inspection I find some similarities between them that no doubted made them friends. It was his birthday on Monday so we celebrated it by going to ‘Belthazar’ a restaurant located at the Victoria Waterfront. It was voted ‘Best Steak House in South Africa 2005’ and most definitely lives up to that title. The restaurant oozed with classiness and I hung on every word that came from out waiter’s mouth.
Belthazar is famous for their wine collection and boasts with the largest wine-by-the-glass bar in the world. Their menus remind me of road maps and they confused my indecisive mind even more with a wide variety. I ordered a steak that was perfectly prepared with their pepper crust house basting and served with rice. Apparently their chocolate chili sauce is also something to try out.
We left Belthazar after dinner and even though we clearly had just eaten a big meal, “Birthday Boy” and I were in a real party mood…
Day 214 – “Upside Down”
Tuesday, 26 June 2007
Day 214 – “Upside Down”
It is funny how fast a person’s life can change. In a few minutes all that you know as normal or routine can be thrown upside down and what lies ahead is a mystery. I’m filled with excitement and eagerness to tackle the next few days and find myself overlay nervous and stressed in uncertainty. We all knew it was coming and without proper time to even react to the news it changed all of our lives. I got a new job!
I went for an interview on Monday afternoon and this time I was slightly more prepared than the previous one. I left the interview with confidence that I at least didn’t make a fool out of myself and at gave it my best shot. Before the hour passed I received a call to say I was the best candidate for the job. My facial expression was difficult to pinpoint at that moment. Out of all the emotions I could feel the realization suddenly hit me – I had 4 days to complete everything at my current job.
This change in my life is much more important that most can even imagine. Changing jobs mean I won’t be under the constant eye of my parents any more. I’ll be traveling around much more with only myself as any kind of supervision. I’ll be taking control of my finances again, salary, accounts and payments. It is the ultimate test of responsibility starting from the 1st of July and a huge sign that I am starting to take my life back.
I will continue the Cape Town story tomorrow but just had to share this exciting news with you. I am incredibly sad to leave my job of almost 7 years and to say goodbye to the people I dealt with everyday. I have no doubt that in the end this move is to my greatest benefit and a very important factor in starting my new life.
Day 213 – “Cape Town: Departure”
Monday, 25 June 2007
Day 213 – “Cape Town: Departure”
The plane makes a slight turn and I look through the window at the scene outside. It is beautiful; I haven’t seen the sea in 7 years and now it is lying beneath me with the moon’s reflection on its surface. There are millions of city lights covering the dark earth and for the first time I see how big and beautiful it really is here. It is Friday and I am about to end my first plane flight ever and land in Cape Town International Airport.
It was roughly 7 hours prior to this landing that we started the trip from Polokwane to Johannesburg. After a 3 hour car ride (which was funnily enough longer than the plane flight to Cape Town would take), a speeding ticket and a pileup on the R21 we finally reached the airport. I’ve only been there 4 times either to see someone off or to fetch them there and every single time the airport was under construction. I guess an airport will just be something that always has construction somewhere.
It is my first plane flight so everything around is me is new and strange. The airport is busy and covered with people arriving from all kinds of different places. A model agency looking for a new sexy face would have had a field day there on Friday.
After finding parking, baggage check in and security we waited in the departure lounge for our flight to board. The departure lounge is full of green and gold jackets of obvious Springbok supporters on their way to Durban and by the excitement between them I almost thought the game was on Friday night.
We board the plane and I am visibly more tense when the plane starts moving and shoots up into the air. We are moving above Gauteng at over 900kms/h and the buildings become smaller and smaller until it eventually disappears and the only visible sign of this huge city are faint lights in the distance…
More on Tuesday: “Cape Town: Left, right and right again!”
Day 212 – “Cape Town Anonymous”
Sunday, 24 June 2007
Day 212 – “Cape Town Anonymous”
It is a few minutes before 7 on Sunday night and we just got back from a magnificent weekend in Cape Town. The whole weekend was filled with a lot of firsts for me and I was reminded once again of how much I have missed out on over these drugging years.
To do the weekend justice I will tell it over a few days starting tomorrow (Monday). I’ll try to remember everything that happened but Cape Town being famous for its wine didn’t help much with my memory.
The blogs came up on several occasions over the weekend. The people I spend most of the time with didn’t know about my heroin history. And once again I was faced with the dilemma of telling them about it immediately or only talking about it another time. It is obviously not a big secret and I always try and be honest about who I am and they were so wonderful that I doubt they would have judged me on it for a minute.
Still I don’t think I should start every conversation with “Hi, I’m Christiaan and I’m a Recovering Heroin Addict!” Too much of my life reminds me of that part of my life already.
To my friends and family that were involved and even the new people I met this weekend who made it spectacular – a big Thank You! I can only hope I’ll meet up with you all again!
On Monday: “Cape Town: Departure”
