Space

I love my space. Growing up in the wide open neverending Namaqualand, I am used to having space around me. I don't do hugs or sitting close or crowds very well. That is also why I hate living in cities, I feel that I suffocate and struggle to breathe. So, miles of nothingness around me is how I prefer it.

However, now that I am a mum, I am slacking down on the hug restrictions. What is more heart warming than a hug from your son or daughter? The internet transcends space. I can see and speak to people in my bedroom, even if they live in Katmandhu! But, now that I am older, the crises in the lives of my friends are way more serious than when I was young and seemingly bullet proof.

Friends find out they will never be mums, others get divorced, some have horrific health scares and some just give up. And I ask myself, did the world really get smaller with the internet? The space between New Zealand and here is still 4 hours on an aeroplane, South Africa is still 21 hours away.

So, we chat and we send messages and we talk for hours on the phone or on the internet, but there comes a time in each conversation when you need to sit down for a cup of coffee or red wine with that person, when you need to give them a hug, when they need to see in your eyes that you believe in them, you love them and they can count on you. And so, space -the nothingness that can be measured and sometimes denied and forever present, becomes the enemy,