Turmoil

1 October - 22 October 2007

Typhoon Krosa

october was the decisive month. the month where everything that had slowly been falling apart in both colin and my life started to pick up pace, run out of control and threaten to eventually crash and destroy us both. i started to get very sick that month. i was having severe convulsions almost every day, i felt nauseous, weak and depressed. some of my increased illness was due to the many dentist visits i had been making, obviously having someone drilling into one's head is not a good idea when one has a brain problem. i stopped going to the dentist. i was physically incapable of going to the dentist anymore. i also became sicker due to stress.

colin started drinking and going out more, especially thanks to this neighbour of ours, the fact that he was barely working and the fact that south africa was doing very well in the rugby world cup. (as i have mentioned before, the games were at 2 am and you had to go to a bar to watch them). this obviously didnt make me very happy as i got left at home alone a lot and felt very left out. knowing that colin was going out and partying with friends, living life and having fun made it very difficult for me to accept my situation. i started to spiral into depression and hatred; hatred of myself, hatred of my situation, my life and hatred of colin as well as anyone else that wasnt sick.

colin was also 'at the end of his rope', he was sick of looking after me and just wanted to get away, escape from the horrible reality of our lives. this led to many ugly, ugly fights where terrible things were said and done (things best forgotten), where both our hearts were repeatedly broken and i contemplated suicide. i became the bitter, old woman and he became the resentful, young man who "just wanted to have some fun for a change. for fuck's sake, sue!" it was the slow building up of tension, the typical relationship between the sick person and the carer; the carer resents the sick person for being sick and the sick person feels guilty for being sick. we were fighting so much that sometimes it seemed we had forgotten that we loved each other at all. we were tired, strung out, we had nothing left to give, so colin called our travel agent and changed our tickets ... we were now leaving on sunday, october 28 (more than a month earlier than planned). THANK GOD!

during this month of turmoil i, repeatedly, offered colin his 'freedom', i told him that we could just be friends, then he could live his life, he could party without guilt, find girls that he could have sex with etc. but he, repeatedly, refused me and often got angry when i tried to speak about this option. i was so depressed, so filled with self-loathing that i could only see myself as a burden, an unpleasant responsibility, a sick person who had nothing to offer to a relationship, not even sex. why would anyone want to go out with me? i loved colin and wanted him to be happy. i wished i could be a normal girlfriend so many times and i wanted to be the one to make him happy, but it seemed to me that that was impossible. i was blind to colin's love for me, to his steadfastness (stubbornness? ;-), his faithfulness and it must've killed him to have to constantly prove himself, but he never stopped.

of course, just because colin and my lives in taiwan were spinning wildly to an end didnt mean that the rest of the world stopped going. so there are a few dates, a few happenings, in october that i would like to highlight.

on saturday, october 6 we were treated to the spectacle of the strongest typhoon seen by taipei that year, typhoon krosa. now, i love typhoons. i find them mysterious, terrifying, exciting. so, the experience of being in a small rooftop flat in the mountains during a typhoon of that strength was exhilarating for me. i took photos and videos like a crazy person, watching the rain being blown UP by the strength of the wind and listening to the otherwordly roar of the typhoon. the wind was howling, yes, but the typhoon itself ... it was roaring at us; reminding us of the power of nature, the insignificance of the human race to the earth and its elements. being in a typhoon like that was a most humbling and magical experience.

on saturday, october 20 south africa won the rugby world cup and a nation, my nation (?) rejoiced. i was alone at home, trying to sleep, when it happened. colin came home drunk and ecstatic, but i couldnt share his joy. i felt completely detached from what i now viewed as his and other normal peoples' world. but one thing that did impact on me was that i was finally reconciled with my friend that i had so long ago dismissed (friendship). we had both changed during the intervening months. we had a talk about what had happened to end our friendship and decided that we had been friends for too long to throw it away. my friend managed to come and visit me twice before i left and it helped to ground me and remind me, just a little bit, of the woman i had been and still was. i was sue, dammit! i was BRAVE. i was INDEPENDENT. i was INTELLIGENT. i was TALENTED. i was WITTY. i was SEXY. i was HARDCORE!