A gut-wrenching Old Year's Eve

... and not in the way you'd think. I spent Old Year's Eve clutching the porcelein edge of our toilet bowl, retching my entire food intake for the day. Isobella and I took turns to empty our stomachs, and by 10 pm, we were parched and fragile. It felt like we'd been lassoed around our waists and dragged behind a horse for an hour.

Some start to 2009, I thought grimly. On the other hand, it felt, on some masochistic level, strangely liberating to be purging the remnants of the past year. I had a few fleeting thoughts about things that had made me "sick and tired" lately, and took a tiny pleasure in saying, "Let it go. Let it all out." Even if it was a toilet bowl I was talking to.

So New Year's Day, 23 days till we leave, I'm lying on our couch recovering from the stomach flu. Our trip to visit friends in Riebeeck Kasteel is cancelled, and today it's K's turn for close communion with the toilet. I tease him, calling him "Mr Carbonara Man". He'd insisted on cooking up a rich dish for himself to celebrate Old Year's Eve, and the smell of eggs, ham and cream wafting upstairs had made it even harder for Isobella and me.

I am not used to "lying about", and the house is strangely silent as we all recover. It gives me time to think about things I am grateful for, things I appreciate today.

TIME: I just know that, in time, the discomfort I am feeling on all levels - a sore body, a worried head - will pass. I will soon know again the taken-for-granted comfort of a healthy body; I will, over the next year, encounter strange and scary times, and these will pass. Deep down, I know we are entering a new stage of our lives. I see peace ahead. An opening for something nurturing and more carefree.

HEARTACHE: Thank you for my heartache. Without it, I wouldn't have felt alive. I wouldn't have known what lessons I have to learn, why I am here. It's bliss to stare my heartache in the eye, know it belongs to me and my life until I die. I can't fix this one, no matter how hard I try.

KINDNESS: I am blessed to have a partner who has brought kindness into my life. All the happiest times over the past ten years have been with him, and the family and community of friends we have created together.

K has stood gently by my side, weathered each crossroad in my life, quietly watched each choice I made that usually turned out so well. He is the best thing to happen to me, the kindest person to share a Sunday morning.

CHOICE: The power to choose is surely one of the most invigorating aspects of being human. We could easily stay in South Africa. We could spend the rest of our lives trying to fix problems that do not belong to us, waiting for the fear to stop, waiting for a sense of belonging and peace. But we are not.

We gave it our best shot, and now we are trying a different road.

GROWTH: I am grateful for all the paths we have taken over the past 10 years, moments of fortuitous synchronicity that just worked out so damn well. It constantly amazes me that most of everything we love unfolded with little effort, one good choice leading to the next.