The HEART of SELF

21/04/2026

16/04/2026

April

Hello loyal and faithful readers, I come to you with a big decision made. This will be my final post on this blog for sometime. I will be taking a sabbatical for the next 6 months to reevaluate my life goals and get my mental health stablised. thank you for hanging around and when I come back there will be new content and a new look - possibly on a completely new page....

Hello loyal and faithful readers, I come to you with a big decision made. This will be my final post on this blog for sometime. I will be taking a sabbatical for the next 6 months to reevaluate my …

05/03/2026

March

How is it March already? The year is already flying by and my annual bucket list sits untouched. My travel plans have been derailed thanks to the World unrest in the states of Persia and flights being so erratic. This month sees me taking care of family business interstate, which will finalise my parents estate and allow my siblings and I to finally move on from the chaos that was left behind....

How is it March already? The year is already flying by and my annual bucket list sits untouched. My travel plans have been derailed thanks to the World unrest in the states of Persia and flights be…

15/02/2026

February

Dear reader, I came into the year with a new determination to be more focused and prepared for my days. To be more on purpose with what I thought I wanted to achieve this year, less wishy washy and fly by night. However it seems the opposite may be true, I have seemingly lost my passion for almost everything I once had energy for....

Dear reader, I came into the year with a new determination to be more focused and prepared for my days. To be more on purpose with what I thought I wanted to achieve this year, less wishy washy and…

28/01/2026

2026

Dear loyal reader, Another new year has sprung, as it is want to do. Another turning of the seasons has begun. I have been absent from the realm for some time and am no reawakening with a new purpose for the coming era. I do hope you will join me and perchance bring a friend or two along for the journey....

Dear loyal reader, Another new year has sprung, as it is want to do. Another turning of the seasons has begun. I have been absent from the realm for some time and am no reawakening with a new purpo…

10/12/2025

🖋️ S. C. Lourie

10/09/2025

Time for a cuppa ☕️
The kettles on...

Sometimes, I imagine setting the table as if my mom and dad were coming by.

Three cups, a plate of ginger biscuits and some spice cake, one pot of tea, the steam curling upward. The chairs across from me wait...

And then—they’re here. My dad in his cap, my mom’s hair tucked neatly into a bun. Not as they were, but as I might meet them now—beyond time, beyond illness, beyond fear. Their eyes are softer. Their smiles come easier. We pour the tea as though we’ve been waiting for this moment all along.

“I’ve been through so much since you left,” I tell them. “There were days I thought I couldn’t do it without you. But I did. I learned...
..I miss you every day.”

This time, they listen fully. No distractions. No shadows between us. And I find myself saying what I never could before:

“I know you did the best you could. I know you loved me, even when it was complicated. And I love you still.”

In this imagined room, where the kettle hums and the tea warms my hands, I feel their reply—not in words, but in a knowing:

We see you now. We’re proud of who you’ve become. We were learning, too. And love is bigger than what we managed back then.

The cups empty, the plate of ginger biscuits and spice cake gone, but I’m not sad. I’ve had the visit I needed.

The tea lingers. The warmth remains. And I realise... this table isn’t make-believe at all.

It lives in me.

They... live on in me.

✨️

“Love doesn’t end when they leave,” began Bear,
“it grows into new conversations
we never knew we could have,
and it waits for us in the quiet places,
like a cup of tea still warm in our hands.”

©️Tara Shannon

03/09/2025

“They keep saying that beautiful is something a girl needs to be. But honestly? Forget that. Don’t be beautiful. Be angry, be intelligent, be witty, be klutzy, be interesting, be funny, be adventurous, be crazy, be talented - there are an eternity of other things to be other than beautiful. And what is beautiful anyway but a set of letters strung together to make a word? Be your own definition of amazing, always. That is so much more important than anything beautiful, ever.”
Nikita Gill

Marie Bashkirtseff - The Umbrella, 1883.