You, who walk into my house and comment that it is too big for one person – look past the size and into the heart of a young homeless girl who had to hide in a pipe to shield herself from the rain

You who notice my lights burning at light and scold me for wasting electricity – what do you know of the demons and dust-bugs in the dark that my mother taunted me with as a child

You, who frown at the chaos and clutter in every room, telling me to start throwing away – see every item as a shield against anonymity and the fear of leaving no mark on this world

You who scorn my shelves and shelves of books, all read, mouthing words such as recycle and space – knowledge is the one thing no person has ever been able to take away from me

You who look at my figure with a frown, then tell me I should take care of myself, shed weight and exercise. I’m not prepared to peel off the layers shielding my fragile self from the world

You who question my lack of friends and a social life… look closer, and also notice my lack of a family. Then notice the wall around my heart built with bricks labelled rejection, fear, betrayal and lies

You who see my instinctive avoidance of hugs and bodily contact and perceive this as rejection – I have no experience of hugs and am unable to relax when you’re in my space

You look at the trail of broken relationships in my wake and wonder what happened. I look at a trail of failed attempts to cocoon myself in a nest and now embrace solitude

You who perceive me as curt, haughty and disdainful, with low patience and tolerance – understand that I’ve given up on even attempting to understand people’s thoughts and actions

You who listen to stories and rumours, labelling me and my actions as unacceptable and ask why I choose not to defend… I choose to use my energy elsewhere and not waste it

You who judge my preference of the company of those who are less fortunate…. See the smiles and gratitude when I enter their lives, and the lack of grading me according to what I own

You who see me as unfriendly and antisocial… You are right. I will rather be alone than hurt again.

Why is it that, just as soon as I find myself ready to kick the day in its teeth, grab it by the horns and mount it to ride towards the sunset at full speed, something happens to steer me off course completely?

I am not a morning person. I am of the firm belief that anything before 7am is fictitious and belongs under the header “conspiracy theories” in my personal filing system. In fact, when the alarm system yanks me firmly by the short and curlies from my peaceful slumber, even then I cling to the belief that it will all go away. There is no time system, there is no clock. There is no schedule, no firm “get up and go”- time.

The point of all this rambling is to really hit home the fact that I take a while to wake up. My brain normally catches up to my body at around 10am, by which time I am ready to go. That is the exact time that all my efforts to get going is sabotaged by the cleaner who starts up the vacuum cleaner. It is impossible to function with a vacuum cleaner running within hearing distance. All my entreaties to shorten vacuum time or to move it to a more convenient time has fallen on deaf ears. The cleaner operates according to a schedule, and, I believe, has a love affair with the vacuum cleaner. She affectionately sucks dust from various surfaces with this infernal noise-maker for hours, whilst simultaneously sucking productivity from my day. I am convinced that the gardener is in on this sabotage. The minute the vacuum cleaner stops, THE VERY MINUTE, is when the lawnmower starts up. Now this is when I dismount the day, let go of its horns, give it a firm slap on its rump and tell it to just carry on without me.

One would think that all this is of course not the end of the world. I suppose I could find another place to work, but, like most humans, I am a creature of habit. I like my familiar space. And one thinks one has all the time in the world to remedy the situation. And yet, according to a large number of individuals and organisations, my time has run out. The end of the world is supposedly in four days.

I am not a huge fan of doomsday sayers. It has been the prophesied end of the world on a number of occassions in the past, and guess what, we’re still here. Plus there are at least four more dates in the next two years that is also firmly believed by other individuals and groups to be the real end of the world. A combination of various historical facts and biblical research is used generously to back up these predictions.

I don’t have all the facts at my disposal. I haven’t spend decades of my life like some of these individuals, hunkered over scrolls and artifacts, to decipher and interpret in order to glean the date that my beloved planet will cease to be. One thing is clear to me though – even if I could have my life over and choose again – I will pretty much relive it the way I have. I couldn’t spend my life searching for the date that mankind dies. If the end of the world is in four days, or next year, or in ten years, or a hundred years, I don’t want to know. I will rather spend my life living it a day at a time – battling with my alarm clock and making the best of the day.