No Rest

2015 gives me great pangs of anxiety before it has even begun. This is perhaps not the right way to start a new year, but what is a new year? Just a change of a date, not the clean slate most purport it to be. Little rays of sunshine in the form of Skype sessions with friends and family interrupt the permanent sensation of panic (that is, in part at least, self-inflicted through my procrastination and weak prioritisation, which goes a bit like this: hmm, we should read those texts. Ja. Let's bake cookies instead and iron the clothes that have been gathering over weeks. Smart move.).

Yesterday I spoke with two friends, both currently in Pretoria, both complaining about the heat and the mosquitoes, both in summery clothes. Then there was me, heater turned up, with a cup of peppermint tea in one hand and an enormous sweater wrapped around my body. We talked as though distance did not exist about the trivial things, the everyday embarrassments and tiny bits of gossip. My one friend was knitting and laughing as I told him about a series of cringe-worthy events from the past week. It was wonderful.