Blood stains on the carpet

Guess who's been having more fun than me lately?

I just stumbled upon a picture of a friend of mine on facebook where she did a tandem jump a few months ago. I spoke to her last night to hear how she was doing. Over the past few weeks she has been paragliding in Barberton, 4 x 4-ing (if you get such a word) in the Richtersveld, been to Mauritius for a break and then returned via Mozambique where she was deep-sea angling from a jet ski."I'm going to climb out of my skin" she said, "I am as bored as hell."

Two weeks ago after shark cage diving and returning from a trip to Prague I told my wife I am totally annoyed as everybody is doing fun things and I am about to cut my wrists, bored as hell. Depression was not only written on my forehead, it was tattooed across my whole face. My one biking buddy did a trip to Sutherland with his wife, the other went to Lesotho and saw the thickest snow this country has ever seen and I was at home dealing with boredom and bad weather. Yes, I have just been to Prague and stuck my head under the water to see some sharks, but that does not mean I can sit back and relax now and that I have done my outings for the year. No, it means that I kept myself sane for a few weeks longer during this cold and raining winter season which does not seem to have an end in sight. 

Where was I when my buddy took this photo? (Photo: Francois Joubert)

While talking to the "I'm-bored-as-hell" buddy of mine last night I realized that we both suffer from something most people won't understand. It has been bugging me since I was a child as my mother always wanted to know why I could not sit still. At a point I thought I was being selfish because I always wanted to be involved in some sort of adrenalin adventure. I even thought there was something missing in my life and that I was looking for it by doing dangerous stuff. I am not an irresponsible person otherwise I would not be sitting with a steady job and a beautiful family, but today there is DEFINITELY something missing in my life....I need to do something exciting or I am going to kill myself AND the people around me. I am sitting waiting for summer to return and I have a list of things I want (need) to do. So please Mother Nature, I beg of you, bring "Summer" back, I miss her tremendously...! 

We've made a date for the weekend to discuss plans on how we are going to make sure we going to keep ourselves "alive". My only salvation is the fact that I have slightly more activities I can get busy with when the weather does not play along, but we still seem to be fighting our own boredom wars alone while we could be sharing ideas and trips. I wanted to finally do my scuba course this year, but I think I would rather invest more time and money in my paragliding. I need a new kite for kitesurfing and she said she is going to give it a try too. Then for rainy days there is indoor rock climbing maybe. I also play squash a lot although I would not classify that under "dangerous stuff", but it surely helps for seasonal affective disorder. Sadly I am a sufferer of that too. Anyway, what I need is balance in my life because at the moment it is toppling over towards boring and suicidal and it has to be corrected. No-one likes cleaning blood stains from the carpet.....