EDITOR’S LETTER - Nicky Furniss
Ol Doinyo Lengai, a volcano near the town of Arusha in northern Tanzania, is known to the Maasai people as “The Mountain of God”. Not surprisingly, as its top glows spectacularly when it awakens, and – on the occasion it erupts – a unique lava flows down it sides. “Cooler” than normal lava (it’s still 600 degrees), it also moves at an incredibly fast pace, much like water, and once dry turns the ground a startling colour of white.
For some reason, I woke up this morning with its name rolling around in my head. It’s such a beautifully lyrical name, but I think its appearance in my sub-conscious has more to do with the fact that I, myself, have been on the verge of “erupting” fairly regularly in the last couple of months.
“You’re burning the candle at both ends,” my mother used to chide me. But, then, it didn’t matter if I had three part-time jobs and extra majors at varsity and spent at least three nights a week dancing till the wee hours of the morning… because I was student. I could sleep until 11:00 on the weekends; didn’t have to worry about paying insurance and medical aid and RAs; and there was someone else cleaning the house and doing the laundry and making sure the dogs’ vaccinations were up to date. Plus, when you’re 19, you have oodles of energy and lack of sleep is hardly debilitating (which seems incredibly unfair when one considers just how much more we have to juggle as we get older).
Sadly, none of these things are the case these days. No one said “adulting” was easy, and everyone hates throwing money away on insurance, but generally we all manage to muddle along – and it’s worth it not to have a curfew and to have (sometimes) more money than you had when you were a student. But every now and then a couple of extra stressors get thrown at you and life goes from thriving to barely surviving.
Such is the case with my life at the moment. I haven’t had a full weekend off since January and can count on two hands the number of nights I have had more than six or seven hours a sleep in the last two weeks.The universe has conspired to throw me well and truly in the deep end and I am currently doggie paddling like a beast just to stay afloat.
But even in the midst of all of this, there are some positives I have discovered.
These kind of situations make you realise just who your friends are. It’s certainly not the ones who get upset when you haven’t replied to a Whatsapp message in half an hour, or who throw passive aggressive comments your way about how little they have seen you lately. But they cer tainly are the ones who offer to take you for cocktails and are willing to wait for you – without any complaints – because you have had to work late. Or the ones who offer to cook you dinner, or go shopping for bridesmaid’s accessories for you because you just don’t have the time.
When you are pushed to your limits, it also forces you to stand up for yourself, set your boundaries and just say “No!” when people are trying to take advantage of you. Being a people pleaser, I am spectacularly bad at doing these things, but sheer exhaustion has led me to doing all three recently, and, surprisingly, every one of those situations worked out well. That’s a lesson I definitely need to continue, during sunny times as well as stormy ones.
Finally, these kind of stressful situations show you just how strong and resourceful and capable you are – and that does wonders for your self-esteem. Though I keep reminding myself that this current pressure pot of stressors will eventually pass (sooner rather than later, I hope), it is certainly reassuring to know that I will be able to cope with the next one.
Sometimes adulting sucks, but at least now, I have its number!
Happy Travels Nicky