Dear Blog…

Posted on December 17, 2014 by Bo

I’ve been distant and I know it. I’ve been far too quiet and haven’t posted quite as many blog posts as I used to. I’m sorry. It’s not you, it’s me. I’m unsure what’s wrong with me and I keep thinking of all the excuses as to why I’ve been neglecting you.

– Too busy with work. Yes, it’s been a busy year with so many exciting challenges that have taken up all my time and energy. I’ve worked on projects that I never dreamed I’d be part of before. Projects that have pushed me each and every day and challenged me like nothing before. In fact, work has been fabulous and come to think of it, here ~~would’ve~~ will be the perfect place to talk about it.

– Vulnerable is how I felt. I came across two strangers on Twitter discussing my blog a while back. The fools didn’t realise that I could see their conversation. They called my blog self-centered, self-loathing and a real sad pity party. One of them even said she couldn’t believe I even had so many people reading my blog because it was sh*t. For days their comments gnawed away at me as though they were speaking on behalf of the universe. Bouncing back has been hard.

– Two good friends have left a hole in my heart. One moved on and one passed away. Their opinions mattered and without them, I feel as if some of my mojo is missing too. Accepting that people come and go in life has been tough.

– Time. Oh my gosh, where does the time go each day? I used to be able to write up to three blog posts a week, filled with the most awesome pictures. Nowadays, I struggle to post even one. I have hundreds of ideas and thoughts written down in a book and even more in my head but finding time to sit down and write hasn’t been easy.

Something I’ve learned this year with my running is that it takes consistency and discipline each and every day. I need to make time to run and I guess the same is true of my writing.

Next year will be different. I can already tell that I will have so much more to share. Crazy work stories, an update on my running training progress and exciting holidays planned for 2015. I promise to be more dedicated and committed to making this work. I promise. If there’s one constant in my life, it’s this blog. It’s you.

Love Bron

Even if you know me well, you don’t know this…

Posted on July 1, 2014 by Bo

Polony. If there’s anything that makes me remember where I’ve come from in life, it’s that big fat pink roll of enterprise polony.

Even if you think you know me well, you don’t know that when I was growing up, life was a struggle. I was always scared. I was always waiting for something bad to happen. I used to curl up in a ball sitting on the back wall in the garden and rock. Just rock. It was comforting.

Unlike my life of luxury now, we never had cans of coke in the fridge. We didn’t have bags of chips in the cupboard. Underfloor heating was unheard of. I didn’t even know that toilet paper came in two ply.

We once lived behind the parking lot of the Checkers in Primrose on the East Rand. But we had polony.

Fried in margarine. Thinly sliced with cheese. Or just cut up into big blocks. Happiness.

Growing up, our daily chore was to clean the house every day after school. Once that was done, we’d have to make supper so that my mom would be able to pop in quickly, eat and head back to work a double shift to earn extra money. In my mind, this was the norm. It bothered me more that as a child of divorce I was stuck cleaning than the fact that my mom was absent. But we had polony so life was good. We were doing okay, right?

My mom remarried and moved away. Whenever we visit her, there’s polony in her fridge. Comfort.

Inside I’m still that scared, insecure girl. I still wait for bad things to happen. Beneath my happy smile is a frown of disappointment when so many people let me down. What exhausts me most is trying so damn hard. I keep trying…

To this day, I still eat polony.

(Disclaimer: I realize my blog post for the @Writersbootcmp is late but I wasn’t sure if I’ll be able to keep it up. This topic intrigued me. And I was craving polony.)

Slack runner = slack blogger

Posted on April 21, 2013 by Bo

You know that feeling when, in the back of your mind, something gnaws at you, but you ignore it. You constantly feel guilty and keep making promises to yourself that you inevitably land up breaking? Well, that’s been me and my blogging (as well as my running) lately.

The truth is I’ve been neglecting my blog. It’s not that I’ve lost my mojo or don’t have anything to say. I’ve got tons of drafts written down (in my head). But they don’t feel ‘right’. They are lacking that ‘something’.

It’s been the same with my running. The weather has slowly started to change into chilly Autumn mornings and the sun has been setting earlier and earlier each evening. My motivation to get out there and run has been lacking as I find every excuse to work late or spend Sunday mornings in bed.

It was only after coming back from a run this morning with my good running friend Terence, that I realized something. The more I run, the more I think of things to write about. When my running is at its peak, I have a gazillion blog posts that I want to write. But when I slack off, so too does my writing.

When I’m out on the road, be it walking or running, I have the chance to properly process my thoughts. I have time on my hands to think of what’s been going on in my life and to explore my feelings for situations. It then becomes so much easier to write things down and in some weird way, make sense of it all. It’s as if I have time to ‘talk to myself’.

~~Offloading~~ Catching up with Terence on the run this morning, I realized that there’s quite a bit going on in my life. Some big issues, some smaller ones. Nothing serious or anything. Just stuff I haven’t yet thought about.

Okay, I need to run more. But more importantly, I need to blog!

(Image: http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/trail)

You’ve found my blog, but what were you looking for?

Posted on March 3, 2013 by Bo

The Site Stats section of my blog always reveals quite a few insights about the readers of my blog. It shows me how many views my posts are getting, what are my top posts and pages, and arb info such as who are the top commenters of my posts.

But it’s the search engine terms that are used to find my blog that is the most revealing. The top search term that I see daily is “tired runner”. Now I know that a lot (maybe too many of my posts) have centered around my struggles with running times, pace, sore feet etc., so it’s no surprise that they find my blog to read this kind of blog post.

Are runners out there tired? Are they seeking advice on how to deal with being tired and why are they tired? I do suspect we overdo it in SA with all the races we participate in and our competitiveness. We don’t take time to rest.

One of the other top search engine terms is a real concern for me. It’s “little girls in the bath”. I wrote a blog ages ago about bathing my dogs and used the title “Two little girls in the bath”. But I doubt the person looking for these terms have any interest in dogs. I warn all my family and friends to refrain from posting naked pics of their toddlers on social media platforms because there are some sicko’s out there trawling for pics. Sickens me really.

The last search engine term that I see often is “how to cope” or “how to admit not coping”. I smile at this one because if you’ve followed my blog, you’d know that I don’t seem to have an issue with admitting I am not coping with my running. But do I do so as easily at work? Or even at home? I don’t think that I do. I also suspect that the person looking for answers may not even be a runner. Sad. I hope they find the answers they are looking for.