After school I studied and worked part-time. I was confused about my future and followed the direction my dad suggested to me. Being out of school took some pressure off of me. I could come and go with more freedom, and not having to pretend going to church or believing in God anymore. I lost my respect for all clergy. If they couldn’t answer my questions and made me feel like a fool for having them, I did not want to listen to anything they had to say. Lots of parties, lots of bad friends, and lots of bad influences. I moved out of town on an offer of my aunt and uncle for a change of scenery. This was good for me, because it was new people and a new place and time alone. I started to see a psychologist who put me on a six-month treatment program, which really helped me getting a hang on my emotional state and depression. That move became the launchpad for me to leave South Africa. My first opportunity came as a student on an exchange program-like internship in America, and I leaped at it. It was for 6 months; far, far away, completely new, completely anonymous and completely free.
In America, I lived and worked with 3 other girls. One South African, one Australian and one Polish girl, Vivi. This Polish girl were a few years older than me, a psychology student and a good friend who treated me as her personal case study. Every off day and evening we would sit and talk for hours, her coming from communism and religious persecution, and me from my trauma and broken trust in South Africa. She pinpointed many things out to me and dragged me with her to the big Borders bookstores, bookstores as big as warehouses. There was every book about every topic, and I could start the hunt for answers without restraint. Vivi and I started to look for something new, as we were both sure we were “spiritual” but didn’t know how to express it. We read up, experimented, and changed our minds. She found what she was looking for in Reiki, while I had specifics I was looking for. I did not want to have another one-direction faith. I wanted something that was two-way. Not what I had before, because that was not helpful to me when I needed it. I also did not want anything that dictated to me. The moment I understood that the whole spiritual and believing part would fall on me to keep it going, I lost interest.
I also want to add, that I could just let go of all my religious beliefs. I was young, and because I did not know that much of religious doctrine at the church I grew up in, I did not have that much that had to be broken down or unlearned. My strict two-direction requirement dealt with that. My personality also helped me in that regard, because I was the kind of person who could burn a bridge and walk away. Every spiritual thing that came my way, or which I went and actively sought out, was measured against that one requirement. The moment it fell on me to perform, or to sacrifice, or to submit, or to give, or to blindly follow, it was rejected.
Vivi left America two months before me, to return to Europe. We would meet up again in London for my layover when it was my time to return home. By the time I returned to South Africa, I had the travel bug. It was not months before I left South Africa again, this time for a couple years. Vivi and I met up in London again – she moved to London to live with her brother, and I got a job north of London. Our friendship remained for many years.
After three years in England, I went to work on a cruise ship, which took me around the world for the next few years. This way I had many opportunities to explore and experience different faiths and religions. It also opened the door to a new venture: visiting fortune-tellers and mediums. I do not mean it is a malicious sort of way. There was a culture on board of looking for and locating the best-known fortune-tellers in every country we docked. We were a big group of young people working onboard, from every possible country you can name, and we all wanted to know what our futures were looking like. We spend a fortune on mediums, fortune-tellers, some supposedly Christian and some others. We explored many fertility ceremonies, shrines, temples and festivals. Some of it was good fun, some of it was too intrusive for my peace of mind and some opened terrible doors in my life. On the ship you had a Crossing-the-line ceremony for every time you crossed over the equator. During this ceremony you made a pact with King Neptune, the ruler of the deep. After the ceremony, you are officially part of the ancient order of the deep, supposedly safe to traverse the oceans. It was no comfort in rough seas, but “ship law” in any case.
I returned home to South Africa on holiday just a few weeks before 9/11. Not many of my friends were personally affected by it – we were mostly all foreigners – but we were not that lucky with the 2004 Tsunami. It was the Christmas holiday cruise, and the crew were working long hours. It was only a day or so after the Tsunami happened, that we heard about it. We were circumnavigating South America at the time, cruising deep into the Amazon, and had no idea what happened over the festive days. Only when crew had finally time to go and check emails and call home, did many of them realise that they cannot reach their families. My dad was also working on a research ship in the deep sea, and they too had trouble connecting with their families and letting us know that they were ok. It was a traumatic time, and there I learned that trauma builds on top of trauma and the shock and horror we went through on the ship with our fellow crewmen, were terrifying. Crewmen and women were desperate to return home to help look for children and family members, having lost their homes and belongings too, but were not being able to. They had nowhere to go until the authorities could clear them to return to Indonesia.
By the end of 2006 I decided to retire from the cruise ships. As global terror started to spread over the world, cruise ships became terrorism targets. I was scared of dying, and very afraid of being bombed on the ship or while I was in America. Travelling abroad became a frustration with all the customs requirements; especially when extra checks were being added to South Africans as well. I took it as my queue to return home and build a new life there.