👟👠 The best of times, the worst of times (#22)

Hi !  Welcome back. I am (reluctantly) back from Kruger and settling back into craziness. This week I am thinking (and writing) about Kruger hikes, lives ended too soon, platonic relationships and delightful songs. If you haven’t subscribed yet, you can join here or by clicking the button below. - Eve D.❣️

WEEK IN REVIEW

Life is an unrelenting rollercoaster.

🦒 I had an exhilarating, breathtaking week: I rose to a challenge to push myself beyond my limits, I (re)connected with an old friend and made new ones, and I recalibrated my life. I was given the gift of a reset soul, and a new perspective on what was important and worthy of my focus. I am very grateful.

💔 But then, just as I tentatively stepped back into the real world, I was crushed by a tragedy of the unspeakable kind. It happened while I was on the trail, not to me but to a dear, dear friend. She lost her son, to what must have been torturous but acute despair and helplessness. A brief moment. Everlasting impact. I am broken, for her, for the siblings, for her community. If suicide is a trigger for you, you might want to skip some of this newsletter. 😭 

The life-changing Kruger walk

I managed to do the full trail: 27km over 2 days and 3 walks 😀 . It wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t impossible. And if I have to be honest, the “not easy” part was mostly due to the heat. Walking in the cooler temperatures of dawn and dusk was not really an issue.

We spotted the Big 4 (no leopard) and countless others, including a very angry hippo (hippos kill more humans than Big 5 combined). Birdlife was abundant, and I maybe, maybe might catch the bug of obsessing over the little (and not so little) creatures in the sky? Did you know that bateleurs can live up to 55years?

I made new friends, who gave me new insight to what it means to live a full life. The universe seemed to carefully select each trail participant just for me. The two guides taught me about what it means to pursue one’s passion in life. One hiker reminded me so much of my mother…similar age, similar talkativeness and exuberance for her life experiences. She taught me patience. Another had had an almost identical health journey to me (lymphoma), something we discovered by chance while resting during a walk. She taught me survival and hope of renewal. Two youngsters showed me that the future is actually in good hands. And my fellow roommate (I was his guest on the trail) topsy-turvyed my heart a bit, but that’s a discussion for another day.

The bush, with all the experiences, somewhat overwhelmed me. I was definitely not ready to leave, and am still processing. (It’s common to book two trails back to back for a 6 day experience, and I now understand why). To be honest, I have been somewhat depressed since coming back, for a variety of reasons. Not in a bad way…but definitely in a loud enough way to know that my life needs to change, and I need to be proactive about it. So watch this space.

(I am going to do a full write up of the trail on my blog this weekend, if you are interested to learn about the logistical details, and the personal impact it had on me. There’s a lot to process.)

END OF THIS STAGE

I only found out about my friend’s son’s suicide as I got back into our car in Kruger to drive back. We didn’t have cell phone reception (or electricity) at the camp, and so I had no idea, as I was enjoying my sundowner drink on Monday night, that the poor, darling young man who was so loved, had lost all hope.

It was totally unexpected, my understanding is that there were no signs. He was graduating on Monday, and was looking forward to being celebrated. And I know my friend…her kindness, and ever-present love for her children always kept the door open for them to ask for help and guidance. Even that was not enough, and the question of why will never stop haunting.

The boy was the brother of Zac’s best friend. So Zac was the first one to find out in our family, and kept it to himself for a full day because he didn’t want to disturb or distress Micole (she was studying for an exam later that day) and I was unreachable. He did tell her in the evening, and she briefly thought it was a cruel joke the boys were playing. When I got back the following day, Zac was emotional and overwhelmed, although didn’t directly attribute it to the tragedy. It’s a cruel world, and it hurts to see others suffer.

It’s also fcking scary. This friend and I discussed the danger of suicide among children often, but we never directly attributed the fear for our own children. This is the second child I know who has died this way, and it hurts so much to know that whatever felt too difficult to handle at the time was probably relatively meaningless crap that would be forgotten in a year or two.

The book I discuss below, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is set in a world of computer game designers, and a recurring theme in the book is how games are so compelling because we can die, and die, and die and restart from scratch, sometimes at will, sometimes not, with no real harm done. And in the book, almost every character wishes they had that luxury in real life. Because yes, life is difficult, we make mistakes, we want do-overs. But no, it doesn’t work that way. I don’t know why life is so difficult. It’s a bug, not a feature.

I’m broken for my friend and her family, and I have no idea how to navigate this or how the future can possibly unfold for her with any joy. If anyone has any advice, please let me know.

ON THE BOOKSHELF

Platonic friendships

I took a well-loaded Kindle to Kruger and randomly picked a fiction book to read while I was there (fun fact: there was very little time or energy to read!). I chose the book blindly, not knowing what it was about, but confident that since it was on my Kindle it must have been well recommended somewhere down the line. Plus, I always trust the universe to put me in front of content relevant to my current phase of growth (which, now that I think about it, I guess it absolutely did).

The book was Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. When I was about 50 pages in, my trail-roommate asked me what it was about, and I said I think it’s a love story, but I am not sure. Now that I’ve finished, I know it is a love story, but it is not a romance. It’s a tale of platonic, but intense, connection between two people.

At first I loved the book. The writing style is somewhat unusual and engaging and, as a bonus, the book opens up with the main characters studying in Boston in 1995…exactly what I was doing at that time 😀 . It was like reliving my own fun student years, through the landmarks, and the bitter cold weather…and my own platonic friendships. But now that I have digested the book a bit, I don’t think I like it very much at all. I’m angered by the characters. It was frustrating to watch two people who are possibly not meant to be romantically attached to nevertheless be so connected that they live unfulfilled individual lives. (That is not a spoiler, the book has many twists).

The book did make me think about platonic friendships with someone you could have a relationship with, but choose not to. I’ve had these, and they were/are spectacular, but in each case at least one of us was romantically involved with someone else. Specifically while in Boston, my friend was Matthew and my boyfriend was Sean. I loved them both dearly (and still do), but differently. (It should be noted that they hated each other 🤣). Setups where at least one party is involved with someone else make platonic friendships easier, I think. The boundaries are clear. The expectations are non existent. No one questions the other’s intent. I suppose it is possible that one of the friends can still be secretly romantically interested in the one who is attached to someone else, and I expect that would be painful and heartsore (it’s also what happens in some parts of the book). It would break me, I know that.

But can intense platonic friendships work otherwise? By “intense” I mean the type of friendships where the friend is almost always the first person you think of when you want to share something joyous, stressful, sad or worrying. Also where you want to do everything possible to help them reach their full potential (of happiness, most likely). If (in a heterosexual relationship) that friend is of the opposite sex, I think things will eventually get tricky. The intensity will bubble over to a craving for emotional and sexual connection, unless that connection is fulfilled by someone else. But if it’s fulfilled by someone else, then shouldn’t that someone else be the first person you think of in those joyous, stressful etc. situations? It’s a bit of a catch-22.

As it is, I don’t intensely connect with many people, and so when I connect with someone of the opposite sex, why in the world would I want to keep it platonic? It doesn’t make sense to me, and all I would foresee is (my) heartbreak. It’s telling that I have never “dated around”, or to be more precise, I have never had a third date with someone with whom I didn’t end up in a relationship. All my ex-partners were instant (and long-term) connections. I am not sure I know how to navigate anything else. It turns out I have a fragile heart 😀 and I protect it well, but I still crave meaningful, romantic connection.

On a more positive note! It is clear to me that I have been thinking a lot more about relationships in general. (Can you tell? 😂 😂 ). So something is shifting. Interesting times loading. I can smell it in the air (maybe I picked up some skills from my Kruger trackers? 😂 ). I’ll keep you updated….

MUSIC

Our trail camp was off the main road in Kruger, and to get to it the guides would drive us down a dirt road that was off-limit to the general public. Halfway on this road was this abandoned trailer, which quickly became a landmark for us. We all joked that the time to drive to and from the trailer seemed to get longer and longer every day, kind of like an expanding universe. (I think we were just impatient to either start our walk or get home to eat 🤣 ).

Anyway, as I mentioned, one of our fellow hikers was a delightful, aspirational elderly lady (think 70yrs+) who was just…bubbly. She talked and talked, and had that air of confidence of a well-lived life that demanded her to be the centre of attention and that can be entertaining, in small doses. And on one of these long trips down this long dirt road, as we again passed the infamous trailer, Jean remembered with a loud exclamation that there was a song by someone that had lyrics with something like “…trailer for hire…”. From then on, every time we passed the trailer - multiple times per day - she would both a) remind us that such a song existed and b) ask us if we would remember to listen to it when we got home. We all probably rolled our eyes too much at darling Jean, but we also giggled and loved her exuberance, so was it such a bad thing? Of course not. I already told you…she taught me patience.

And…I did remember. And of course I know the song. You do too. It’s delightful, and catchy. King of the road by Roger Miller. It’s sweet, and it will instantly bring back wonderful memories to those few who were lucky enough to drive down a small dirt road, to a bush-nestled Kruger camp, back in August of 2024.

🔥 Next week, we return to normal programming where I will share more links to fun things I found online. Promise!

Thanks for reading!

That’s it for this week. (Want more? You can find past editions here). I hope you have a great weekend and upcoming week. Please keep sharing /forwarding to your friends/groups 😄 . You can also email me privately by hitting reply on this email.

PS

They look so cute. He would have killed all of us given half a second of opportunity. He made that very clear.