I’ve had much on my mind lately, one of the chief concerns being my health. It’s no secret by now that my ovaries are in trouble, and my mind races at what the consequences might be. This notion has been highlighted for me, especially since getting a kitten at the end of January.
Having a kitten is like having a small child. I know it’s not exactly the same, but it takes a lot of effort, determination, training, behavioural nuances, and long hours into the night of getting up to check what the little thing is up to. I’d like to write a blog entry about things I’ve learnt (although a lot I know already) from having a kitten that can be related to motherhood. I was almost nine years old when we got our cat at my parental home. As I was still in school (third grade), and the kitten belonged to my older sister, my experience then far differs from my experience now. But we’ll get back to that later.
With my ovary problems, I keep wondering (a) whether I want to have children, and – more importantly – (b) if I’ll ever be able to have children. This makes me think about my older sister, now twenty-six, who had bulimia at the age of sixteen, seventeen, and who until this day has many issues with herself, her eating habits, wanting or not wanting children, et cetera. And I wonder, could I be the same? I have never had an eating disorder. Like any ‘normal’ girl, I tend to worry about my weight, and to feel like I have my ‘fat days’. But, truth be told, recently I’ve lost a bit of weight without even trying. I’ve been making fudge and brownies and cookies here at home, eating more than I used to (and I don’t eat much), and the consumption of delicacies and ‘bad food’ has caused me to worry on numerous occasions that I would gain weight. The opposite, however, has occurred. My mother constantly complains that I am too thin (even though I eat a substantial amount), and my father even had a chat with me yesterday when I went to have tea at home about how I look – which, coming from my father, is saying something.
After my sister had bulimia, I always felt that I was being treated unfairly. I can understand my parents’ concern, and that they didn’t want another daughter to go through such an ordeal, but sometimes being so obsessive about something can only make things worse. There were times that I didn’t want to eat, but I did, because of the way they went on. I suppose that’s one of the reasons why I have resigned myself to merely sighing and saying, “yes, mommy”, whenever she talks about my weight.
Although these are but some of the skeletons that are ever present in our familial closet, what I actually want to blog about today is something totally different – something that I hope will elicit a laugh or at least a good-natured chuckle from my readers, perhaps even a squirm or two of discomfort or embarrassment.
So, here goes.
As is my nature, I spent a great deal of yesterday morning obsessive compulsively cleaning out our bedroom cupboards (or closets, if you will). I was trying to get rid of some boxes, putting a lot of computers cables and whatnots together in one box, throwing other stuff out, and organizing even more stuff together. It’s something I’ve been meaning to do for a while. Not that the cupboard was messy, or anything – I simply wanted to conserve space. And while I was busy taking everything off a large top shelf, I found something that both amused and startled me.
Now, when I turned 21, my older sister bought me something I couldn’t quite deal with yet, as I was very, very green. Aware, well-read, blah blah, but still green and awkward about certain things. She had already given me my birthday present earlier, having bought me the DVD of Pink Floyd’s THE WALL (great, trippy film!) when we were together in Musica. Then, on my birthday, she and her fiancé drove through to Stellenbosch to surprise me. My Significant Other, then my boyfriend of only two months, was going to take me out for dinner. When my sister and her fiancé arrived, she handed me a gift bag and handmade card, the bag containing body lotion/hand cream, two slabs of nyummy chocolate… and… a vibrator.
I thought I was going to die.
I didn’t even want to show it to my Significant Other. It made me feel… I don’t know… filthy, in a way? I suppose uncomfortable is the best word I can come up with for the situation. My older sister told me that she got it for me as a joke, and it was a bit funny, I’ll concede to that. Yet her fiancé added something to the gift which totally disgusted and appalled me, and which I promptly told him to take with him: dirty magazines. I was not impressed.
When we got into his car, my Significant Other wanted to know what was bothering me, as he could see I was not impressed with my sister’s fiancé. Eventually, I told him about the vibrator and magazines, and we laughed a bit about it, although he did agree that the magazines were pushing it. I don’t know how my soon-to-be brother-in-law could think that I would like something like that. It still mortifies me, even though I am less than two months away from my 23rd birthday.
So while I was cleaning things out yesterday, I found something in the far right-hand corner, face down. Intrigued, and ever the Curiosity Cat, I leaned over, standing on tiptoe on the chair I used to reach everything on the shelf (I’m only 1,65m tall, after all… or should I say 1,65m short?) Before continuing, let me say that my Significant Other comes from a family of four brothers (himself being the youngest of four). As such, I suppose it is not unusual to think or expect, even, that your sons will be sexually active sooner rather than later, although I personally don’t like to think of the fact that sleeping around and having a few sexual partners is necessarily ‘right’. I have nothing against it, but it’s something I feel to be extremely personal, giving away a bit of yourself, which is why I only ever want to have one sexual partner for my entire life. Be that as it may, I ‘accept’ the notion that boys will be boys and that sex will come into play eventually (no pun intended). I suppose that is why I wasn’t completely shocked when I found what I did in my Significant Other’s cupboard, although I never expected something like that from him.
When I turned the object over, I looked smack-bang into a copy of The Ann Summers little book of sex: raunchy ideas to get your sex life sizzling… *awkward moment* Not wanting to worry or fret about it for too long, I sent my Significant Other a message on Pidgin, telling him that I had found an interesting object tucked away quite stealthily and secretly in the farthest recesses of his cupboard – a skeleton in the closet, of sorts. Naturally, he was eager to find out what it was, and once I told him, he couldn’t stop laughing (if one can consider the repetitive use of ‘LOL’ in a conversation via a messenger as laughing).
Turns out that he had never heard of it before. We never bothered to check if the previous owners of the apartment left anything in the cupboards (and by ‘we’ I mean my Significant Other; he had to check his bedroom, and I cleaned the rest of the apartment, scrubbing the daylights out of everything). My Significant Other merely pushed a few things onto the top shelf, barely using the right-hand side, and that must be why we never found the little, quite graphic book… and he and his brother have been living here for 14 months.
That’s one skeleton I could have done without – especially the pictures of people jumping each other’s bones in demonstration of the book’s various tips. And even though I felt a bit odd about it (the book belonged to other people, people who I know nothing about, and especially nothing about their sexual preferences… enacted in my Significant Other’s very bedroom… *shudder*), I couldn’t help but to read it and ogle at the pictures last night, both mortified and fascinated, feeling slightly voyeuristic.
Hopefully, the next time we move somewhere, the previous owners will leave something useful – mixing bowls, furniture, mirrors and jewellery… or even a bunch of clues leading to a body. It’ll finally give me a chance to play real life Scooby-Doo. After all, things usually turn out a-okay when the gang solves their mysteries…
…don’t they?!
The Skinny on my Jeans (Genes) 