“Enough!” “Enough!” I screamed and strangely enough there was instant relief and that was a shock.

My normal beautiful stroll with my dogs had turned me into a gibbering idiot, details will follow….

Some background to my final outburst : For the last 5 weeks, I’ve been treated for a glute and hamstring injury possibly incurred after 1 or both falls on my last two runs with my closest friend and mentor. So just understand that my karma is not good right now with no running at all added to the fact that I miss my soul mate dreadfully. 5 weeks of physio for the painful and often totally numb limb have eventually led me to a chiropractor who says it’s my sciatic nerve compressed as a result of non aligned hips, yeah, my undercarriage is in dire need of an overhaul . So I’ve had two sessions with a chiropractor who is gentle and firm, he has hauled my hips from left to right, had me in contortionist like angles, tweaked (literally) acupuncture needles into the whole area and I think I may be seeing the light eventually, HOWEVER between my first session and my second I had a 4 hour drive to Stilbaai and back to celebrate a beautiful couples wedding, but the sciatic nerve did not behave. I was reduced to tourette kind of outbursts of the most foul language every time it twinged. I tried sitting on a pillow, would then haul it out, throw it behind me, lower my seat until I could hardly see over the steering wheel, anything to relieve the currents of pain.

I don’t consider myself a wimp, I can take pain, and I know that there are many people every day with far more serious afflictions, but after this morning I’m feeling very sorry for myself.

To add to my sciatic ailment, I have suffered from (this is gross, sorry) acid reflux, which usually strikes in the dead of night, it has me writhing in pain in almost labour like contractions, sweating up a storm, I half think I’m having a heart attack and then it’s gone, like nothing ever happened. Well suffice it to say, there I was trying to enjoy my daily dog walk this morning with the odd tremor of electric pain shooting up and down my leg, when I coughed and swallowed and was suddenly aware of what was coming, well the pain came hard and fast, I clung onto the leashes and just kept telling myself to get home, don’t collapse on the side of the road…..what will the dogs do and half terrified that maybe it was my heart this time.

Well I did get home, it did settle and totally disappeared, but not before I screamed “enough”

I do know that this time will pass and that tomorrow will be a day of new opportunities. I will get fit again and join my friend to reconnect. My fortnightly couch sessions are enlightening me on my often irrational decisions. Somewhere along my road I seem to have lost my purpose.

Ikigai – a Japanese concept that means “a reason for being”. The word translated to English means “thing that you live for” or ” the reason for which you wake up in the morning “

In my latter years I’m suddenly terrified that I have no idea where to start. What is my Ikigai? Do you know yours? I would love your comments if any of you feel something like me.