Rest for a day and you will feel a difference. Give me two weeks and I am a new person. Like Mercy Lokolutu preaches, “Praise brings fresh comfort and courage. Praise releases power.”

I have been off for two weeks and on a go-slow with my blog for more than a month. And it’s been wonderful. Just before my leave, I attended the women’s conference at my church via a small group watch party. About 10 of us converged under one roof to recharge our spirit because that is what women of God do. We have sabbaticals, we pray together, we recharge, we refresh, we reset every year by gathering and drawing on Godly wisdom to make sense of the lives we live.

I had one request to God this year. It was to humble me and fill me with a heart of gratitude for the life that I lead, husband or no husband in my future. I am okay now.

So my days have been simple. Full of love and laughter - I love to love and laugh a lot.

My mum has also been with me for a while and even though she’s full of moods, there’s a beauty unfolding behind her eyes. A peace almost, an acceptance that she’s not mad. My brother describes it best when he says that she is calm. She recently discovered that she needs a hearing aid. So, no longer does she stew in offence because she feels that no one greets her in the morning or says goodnight to her. Truth is, she never heard our greetings or goodnights unless we looked her in the eye and said, “Hi, mummy. Good morning.”

She is no longer with me and has returned to my brother. Last month I went on a holiday. My first real holiday since lockdown began and I ran the Cape Town Marathon. That’s 42.2 kilometers, and no, I am not crazy.

I was set on doing it at the beginning of September but was wishy-washy about committing. My leave took ages to get approved and at the time, I thought it never would. I had applied for leave numerous times this year and retracted, simply because I just kept getting told that I can’t take leave.

“We’re in training. It’s compulsory. You must attend.”

“We’re moving buildings next month.”

“It’s the elections coming up.”

To describe my levels of exhaustion is hard, but if I had to equate it to something, it would be a stale chocolate chip cookie. Abandoned on a plain saucer, next to an empty mug of milky coffee. It promises nothing and its potential is slight.

When the entry deadline drew nearer and eventually closed, I felt sad but contemplated a full marathon by myself in the Cradle before the year ended. I wanted to try something bold this year. But God had fashioned other plans and it involved growth on a monumental scale. One that even I didn’t quite expect.

Eight hours after the marathon closed officially, I would get a Whatsapp from my line manager during a long Saturday run, telling me that my leave had been approved. Two weeks. Two whole weeks of rest.

To say I was elated is an understatement. I felt like I had burst and come back together, whole, in fragments much like those scenes at the beginning of the Good Fight (the spin-off from the Good Wife). I screamed into the pillow when I got home after my run and I danced. I danced until tears streamed down my face.

I worked a midnight shift that weekend and on Sunday I drummed up the courage to call a colleague in Cape Town. Justin Ford managed to secure a media entry into the race and I felt like the luckiest person alive. I knew that night that I had exactly four weeks to shape-shift and get myself into gear for what would be the easiest and the hardest run of my life.

Training for a marathon is not easy. Neither is running one. But I know myself and once I set a goal I never back away from it. Also, this was not my first marathon. It wasn’t even my second. Technically, I knew I could do it but there was a tiny voice that whispered ever so subtly, “Can you?”

That voice would continue to whisper into my heart until the night before the race.

The month before my leave was not easy, I worked hard until the final day and got sick the week before the race. I didn’t tell anyone how I was feeling because I didn’t want to breathe life into the negative space surrounding my leave. But it was hard to ignore once I got on the plane.

I recall sitting at the airport in Lanseria and having a cup of coffee with God before my flight. I hate flying. I pleaded for a calm heart because I was flying into the province where my ex-husband lived. I prayed to never, ever see his face again and I asked God to keep it that way for me.

When I landed, fear, doubt, and insecurity were not far. I looked over my shoulder so many times and I fidgeted like a restless child on a long journey. Mine was just beginning but I felt exhausted and I just couldn’t shake the feeling.

When I finally got to my hotel I collapsed on the bed and had a stiff cry. I stripped naked and stared at myself in the mirror until I felt like a person again and then I put my costume on, jumped on the bed to the sound of Two Lanes, and spent the rest of the day at the pool with Joanne Joseph’s novel, “Children of Sugarcane”. I fell asleep twice and when the wind started to howl I would wake up with a fright but with a glorious, fluffy blue blanket wrapped around me.

That night, I worked on my website a little bit and felt relaxed. I ordered room service and ate like a champion before tucking into bed with no plans for the week other than rest, reading, and sleeping.

And that’s what I did. I spent copious amounts of time by myself staring into statues, the docks, paintings, the mountain - I visited the Zeitz Museum, I saw friends, I watched the sunrise from the top of the hotel - all thanks to a concierge named Zayne. I made friends, saw old friends, chatted to a few men on Bumble, fell totally in love with one of them in Johannesburg ironically, and would later come to appreciate the phrase, “Distance makes the heart grow fonder.”

So much rest confused my body and two days before the race, my cough started up again. My doctor prescribed cortisone to open my chest and a mucolytic. I ran with those drugs coursing through my veins on race day and even though I didn’t get much sleep the night before. I knew I had the stamina to finish. But here’s the footnote.

I hardly ever run in the rain because I am petrified of thunder. On my last training run in Johannesburg, it poured from the start and almost for the entire run. I was miserable but God knows best. He was preparing me for the rain. I started the race in the pouring rain and it only ended 4 hours in. The rain in Cape Town is not normal, my friend warned me. It whips you sideways. I almost felt that if I looked sideways I would see a firefighter standing nearby with a massive hose just spraying for shit’s sake. That’s how creepy the rain falls down there.

Each step that propelled me forward on 17 October 2021, cemented and sealed my faith in myself and my God. I ran, not away from my pain but into my future for my future. I ran like the 20-year-old Reesha who had found her feet during her tertiary years. I cried somewhere around 8km’s and my tears blended with my sweat and the rain. At some point, I couldn’t tell whether I was crying, sweating profusely, or being battered into submission by the rain.

The feeling was foreign but I felt completely at peace and in total control.

Marriage felt like I had stepped into a safe and sealed myself in for a lifetime. Divorce felt like someone was picking at the lock and it unraveled me.

Today, the door is wide open. And the locksmith?

My mind.

I had landed in Cape Town with fear. What if I bumped into my ex-husband? He described once how he would kill me. Where he would throw my body, and these words engraved themselves into my soul. It strangled me most days when little triggers ripped through scabs of a wound infected. I have walked around for years with that fear. I have walked around for years with fears. But I feel like I left most of it on the roads weaving through the mountains in the Western Province.

Following the marathon, my friend Caity and I visited Hermanus. Another friend, Terence joined us for a day. Together, we would explore the coastal offerings, see whales, attempt to speak whale, laugh, watch the sunrise, run, explore and have many conversations.

On the final day before I flew back to Johannesburg, I watched the sunset perched atop a boulder on the beach. Again I cried - soft, silent, sobs mimicking a heart bursting with happiness. Never had I ever felt so blessed.

That little girl who stood on the beach in East London yearned for a happy life. One completely devoid of trauma and pain. She dreamed of the women she would become. Financially independent, smart and independent.

And so there she sat, looking into a similar sunset.

She is me. She runs marathons.

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