Products

I announced in my last post that I plan to return to South Africa where I believe I am meant to be and where I think I can be my best true self. Meanwhile, here in America, I am working on other aspects of my self improvement.

As I wait in the USA for approval from the South African government to live out my dream I am keeping myself busy with other critical and life affirming work...buying a multitude of beauty products online. It seems crazy things can happen when I have a little too much time on my hands. 

I have already admitted my vanity in past posts. A main area of focus continues to be my obsession with my skin which recently someone described as "ruddy" (not a compliment by the way) and which tells me I still have work to do. Many of my online purchases are part of my continued effort for a flawless glowing face with a new goal to be rud-less.

As you savvy online shoppers know, once you click on an ad for a product on Facebook, or buy a product online on Amazon or any website, the floodgates open and (in my case) suggestions for facial creams, serums and magical elixirs that I can't live without come pouring in.

Intrigued, I recently clicked on an ad for a product called Crepe Erase. Really, the name says it all. I dare any of you 40 plus year old women who are shallow like me not to admit to having some area of skin crepe that you'd like to see erased immediately. I didn't end up purchasing any because all of the reviews said the product didn't work at all...but Dorothy Hamill and Jane Seymour are featured in the ads and they both look great. Especially Dorothy....I didn't see one speck of crepe on her and she's a lot older than I am.

Instead, I bought this eye gel by Baebody which got good reviews.  In addition to some crepe, I have really fat upper eyelids...so much so that botox injecting doctors on two different continents have commented on it....as if perhaps my eyes were so puffy that I ironically could not see out of them and view my own puffy eyes when looking in the mirror. This gel is supposed to reduce puffiness so we will see if it works.

Not one to miss out on any latest craze, I also purchased rosehip oil which if you don't know is the coconut oil of 2018. Apparently there is not a skin problem that rosehip oil can't solve. Ever since my bottle arrived I have been slathering it on my face religiously and I do like it. It seems to absorb well and hasn't caused any breakouts. 

Another product I recently bought not online but in store are these Trish McEvoy exfoliating pads because everyone knows you can't liberally coat your face with rosehip oil and not properly exfoliate. I bought these when I was having my make up done for a party because the make up artist told me that "as soon as she used one on my face" it began to glow. Glow is my magic word...say glow and my credit card automatically comes out of my wallet.

And then there is the Aztec Secret Indian Clay Mask. You may think the Aztecs were best known for creating a calendar, building pyramids and developing farming techniques. While all true, they also found a clay that miraculously does the equivalent of "vacuuming out your pores" is referred to as the "world's most powerful facial" and has "practically formed it's own cult." I certainly wanted in on this ancient Aztec secret and so I bought this stuff also. You mix the clay with apple cider vinegar (another magical potion these days in America) and apply to your face, it stings a bit because...vinegar and then dries and gets very tight. I've only used it once but I can't imagine that weekly use of this product plus daily use of the exfoliating pads and a nice layer of rosehip oil is not going to be the ideal skin perfection cocktail.

I also purchased a new mascara which is supposed to arrive sometime today...by the way don't you love how you can get a text SMS when your product is almost to you and also once it's delivered...America has this online shopping stuff down! I heard someone in the nail salon talking about this mascara one day. It's called Better Than Sex.

It's here! 

Finally, everyone knows that if your skin glows and your eyes pop a bit due to being less puffy and wearing the world's best mascara, but your teeth are yellow then you may as well throw in the proverbial face towel so to that end I also bought charcoal powder which I am now using intermittently when I brush my teeth. No, I am no longer pulling with coconut oil because it's a pain and kind of gross to swish oil around in your mouth for 20 minutes. Not that having your mouth (and entire bathroom if you're not careful) turn black from charcoal powder is not a bit unsettling. I was going to post a pic of me with a black mouth...but I just can't.

Limbo

No, not the dance contest where people try to bend backwards and pass underneath a pole without falling or knocking the pole down, but rather the state of my life. 

I'm trying to embrace limbo. But it's extraordinarily difficult. 

You may have guessed from this post, or this one, that I didn't love living in Geneva. Let me clarify that there isn't anything wrong with Geneva. Plenty of people live there and they love it. My problem with Geneva was that it wasn't South Africa which obviously it could never be.

My time in Geneva was comprised of a) thinking b) crying c) running in the park or as we like to say in Geneva, parc and d) drinking cappuccinos excessively. That is until I realized they were making me fat and I had to switch to tea. 

Note, here is the point in this post where I tried for over an hour to insert a photo from Geneva but none of my photos would load which maybe is a sign that it's not "meant to be."

Strangely, Geneva was also a positive experience. Kind of like the way someone might describe being stranded on a deserted island as a positive experience. Not pleasant in the day to day but once rescued you enjoy more clarity in life. In Geneva I found clarity for which I am grateful. I found it in the beautiful Parc de Bertrand where I ran, walked, sat, laid in the grass, dodged scooters, watched the leaves turn and pondered my life until clarity finally arrived. Even though I couldn't wait to escape Geneva, I find myself missing Parc de Bertrand and wondering what it looks like now covered in snow.

It was in Geneva that I made the decision to return to live and work in South Africa.  

We have all met people who have a serious love for the color purple (the color not the movie.) You don't meet people who love red, green or blue the way some people love purple. Why this is I don't know. I have google searched this purple loving phenomenon but haven't found anything. I think it's the same for those of us who love Africa, we love it so deeply that we are in love with it. Just as it seems odd to us non purple lovers that someone would want to dress from head to toe in purple, paint a room purple or drive a purple car, those of us who love Africa feel there is no such thing as too much Africa.

It's not just that I love Africa, or more specifically South Africa, it's that I loved the me who lived in South Africa. It's where I became the best version of myself. If you've been reading this blog for a while, I don't think you find this surprising. 

To that end, I decided that I not only wanted to return but wanted to figure out a way to work there combining my years of experience working for a non-profit organization with one of the things that I loved doing most of all when I was there, helping kids to improve their English literacy.

You would think, as I certainly did at the time, that living in Geneva and feeling so directionless was the hard part.  Or, you might think the hardest part must have been talking to Mr. Deep about going back to Africa alone. There was also the difficulty of figuring out how to get back to Africa because we as humans aren't just free to roam the earth to live and work where ever we want whenever we want. There are rules and visas and paperwork to be attended to.

With the help of many people including Mr. Deep and a South African lawyer I was able to figure it out and on February 2 I submitted paperwork to the Department of Home Affairs in South Africa, which once approved, would allow me to return there to live and work. 

Which brings us to right now, which it turns out, is the hardest part. You have no idea how much I wish I was a person who had faith. I wish I believed all the things that other people tell me such as "if it's meant to be it will happen." 

It's not that I don't think that the paperwork will be processed or that I will receive eventual approval to return, but the process will likely take months and months. A minimum of eight months my lawyer told me, until she told me it was a minimum of ten.  

This must be what it feels like for people who want to adopt a child. First, they make the hard decision to do so, then they spend a lot of money and time working with lawyers and proving their worthiness, and then they wait. They wake up each day wondering if it's the day they will receive what they so badly want and then, around 4:00 p.m., they realize that it's not going to happen that day. Maybe they spend time preparing and buying baby stuff or maybe they don't because they are so afraid that it will never come to be. It's an unusual circumstance to make such a big, important, life changing decision only to find yourself solely at the mercy of others facing a timeline you can't control or even impact. 

Tom Petty, who I've listened to and loved since I was fifteen years old passed away while we were living in Geneva. Yes, on top of everything I had to cope with Tom Petty's death while there...but Tom said it best....

"The waiting is the hardest part
Every day you see one more card
You take it on faith, you take it to the heart
The waiting is the hardest part" - Tom Petty

And so I wait it out in America. Trying to embrace my limbo by spending meaningful time with people I love while I wait and wait and wait.