& poof! you are a different person before you recognise it…

It’s been a little while, I’ve been better recently and it’s only nearly a month… so I am quite proud of myself. I always have the best intention of writing but then somehow i find myself doing something else and then the moment disappears. I’m thinking its time i schedule a moment on my weekend to write in this here blog and keep my too many thoughts at bay…
so much has happened in this last 3.5 weeks and i’m not quite sure how i got here, but however i did, i am closer to happy. i can say this for definite. i haven’t been legitimately happy since boxing day 2013, when that horrible what’s app message from my sis came and my daddy was officially gone. i haven’t and don’t think i ever will forgive myself for not breathing the same air as him in his last days. i comprehend that we did not know it would be, but the minute we got his cancer diagnosis i should have gotten on a plane even though they said we had a couple months and then only got 5 days but still, i should have not booked a flight 6 days later, i should have just gone home, immediatemon! (yes that word does not exist) my flight was a day late. a day late that i can never redeem. the only way i can move a little closer to redemption is every sunday morning, around the time that he would be cooking sunday lunch, i make sure and talk to my dad for a while, i listen to Stevie, Elton, Lionel, Paul, Billy x2, Michael, George, Shadow, David, Sting – some of his artists – and make sure he is up to date with how i’m thinking & feeling… i know he can see everything that is happening, but i want him to know how i feel & what i think. Those were the important things to him.

Last sunday, i told my dad i am closer to happy…i still have the hole he left, but i have finally found my place to spend my days after leaving my disney home of 10 years and i know that this new place will become home and i will learn so much and carve out a Zara Aba shaped space at the core of ROLI and it will be great. that is just 1 simple thing. he would have loved this company as well, they have an approach that he would support and the idea of sharing and communicating that we foster would have made him very proud that i work for such a forward thinking company. not to mention the fortuitous moment, I was in the middle of my 1st interview and to signal that lunch (cooked daily in-house by our wellness manager, Mary) was ready, Mary turned up the music and there played Andre Tanker, living for lena, she found it on a random playlist and really liked it, and had no idea about the dude. I stopped talking mid-word, completely lost for words… it was fate & daddy’s touch intervening.

i saw many men of my past, over NottingHill weekend… and boy was that interesting! but what was most interesting, is that i can see how far i have come from each of them but also what i learned from each of them. the last man that i cared for was most present and most unaffect-ing and it felt great to see firsthand. i saw how much i affected them being in their life, so i guess i am living up to one of my life guardians, i would rather be unforgettable than stagnant. i am sure that many won’t agree with me, call it commitment-phobia, i call it living for me, so far it seems that i am always enjoying and leaving at its best with good memories in tact, & i think the men get exactly what they want. a woman they can look at from afar and remember some great times with a very personal large smile. they all commented on my loss, only 1 of them actually met him, but i guess dad was always a bigger part of my life than i recognised and subconsciously i exhibited that. most importantly, they are all my past and not my present because they lacked the characteristics of a man my father would approve of for his daughter. he never was interested in meeting any of the men in my & my sis life, he knew he would never be happy with any dude. i loved that about him.

i have become quite solitary in the past 8 months, a solitude that i need, it’s the only way i can think clearly and try to deal with the multitude of emotions that swirl around my brain. in my solitude, i have found myself appreciating the little things so much more, i have always been a little thing lover, but the simplicity of enjoying a peaceful bus ride and looking at the world go by, the niceness of getting up at just the right time and leaving the house in the perfect moment so the rain starts to fall just as you step foot on the bus, just sitting and reading with only good music for company, and the best part a silent phone, i don’t even need to put my ringer on silent anymore my phone never rings, and if it does it is always someone i want to speak to.

it is interesting to find out that the most random people miss you when you are gone. people that i don’t normally have conversation with but nod and smile when i see them out, are the ones that now seek me out when spotted in public and ask how i am, and are happy to see me. i don’t know, maybe they just happy to see what shoes i am wearing, but all the same it’s pretty cool. when i go out i’ve always been an observer of the social interaction but even more so now & the only thing that affects me is if the alcohol &/ music not up to par. anything else is unimportant to me. i like the fact that i now really don’t go anywhere i don’t want to be and when i don’t want to be there any longer – i leave with myself. 

life – it’s intense in the simplest and quietest of time, & when it goes topsy turvy it really creates a tornado, everything is affected & uprooted. i like that now, i just don’t get affected quite so much, so every result has a little less impact and life can keep on a relatively smooth train. i jus had a thought, what if the observations i am writing about are all bullshit!! ahahahah that would be hilarious, here i am thinking i am so philosophical, writing about how i’ve changed and blah blah blah and when in reality  whoever is reading this & knows me is thinking, but this girl on crack and is so far up her own ass she can’t see the clouds from the sky!!!

oi!! to anyone who is reading this and knows me, if i am waxing bullshit lyrically please i beg of you – let me know!! 

anyway, i keep thinking about the things that i do, and how i am behaving and if my dad would be happy with my choices. i know he wouldn’t be happy about the fights that my mom, sis and i have – me vs. ma, ma vs. sis, me & sis vs. ma, me & ma vs. sis, me vs. ma vs. sis – but we are simply just dealing. we are strong, emotional personalities, who have to say what we think, it is the Bartels woman strength & achilles, so we fight.  i don’t think any of us thought that 8 months later, we would be struggling to deal with this loss. for me personally, it’s getting harder, i know my mom and i talked about that it is getting harder, i haven’t been able to bring it up with my sis, i keep getting that image of us sitting outside on the bench, choosing music for dad’s goodbye and just sitting in the rain and crying – not ready for that kind of cry again if we don’t have the bench & the rain. we had been expecting his departure for years, but we weren’t ready at all! we weren’t prepared for the choice of death either; a car accident, a fall and crack open his skull and blood loss, yes but not cancer – he didn’t choose it. dad worked so hard on always ensuring he made his own decisions, good and bad, he made a point of teaching us that we must make our own informed decisions and so we will never regret them which is why my sis & i are so pedantic & dogmatic about communicating and knowing all the information. his decisions were his, even when everyone was in opposition and threatened the intense fabric of our family, he always said, “it is my choice and i have my reasons and as i respect your decisions, you shall respect mine as well.” so even when he made a decision i couldn’t agree with, i knew it was something genuinely thought about, he knew all the information and i loved him more for it, having the courage to make it & stick with it, and he loved me for sticking to the decision i made in response – i have come to realise our family has a deep respect for each other, that no other person will ever be capable of understanding.

i think the hardest part of this whole tale for me is The Bartels women were given information and the idea that we had time to prepare our emotional minds and then angel of death said hahaha! my bad! i hurt from the cruel cruel departure and the many many conversations that were supposed to be had and were thieved. but i have to be pleased & blessed that i am lucky enough to have my ma & my sis; my best friend is not as lucky and has had a worse year than me, losing bother her parents within 9 months of each other. i am pleased that we have had each other through this journey of insanity – with her, my sis, my mom i wouldn’t have wanted any other people to through this with & i don’t need others.

i wake every day and recognise how different i am, everyone i see comments on “happy” i look, and i say ‘yeah i am’ because in the grand scheme of things i should have no reason not to be, i have health (so far as i know), i have family, i have a great job, i have an amazing shoe collection and a fantabulous accompanying wardrobe, what more could a woman ask for… many would say a man, but i am even luckier i have many, many that i loved and they continue loving me, even if they don’t see me; because i made my best informed decisions. so in the big things i am happy… 1 day the hole will be manageable.

so i keep waking, giving thanks & BOOM! 

let the life live & make it well.
artwork by: The 1ndividual – keegan simon

i hope daddy is proud. now to work on the fighting with ma, even though i secretly i like it, it means we still care enough & more. and he will be beaming!

bless.xoxo.