The rain kept drenching us during Spring, but we all seemed happy…

If you read my headline and thought: “This guy is on crack!” I’m not. Sorry to disappoint you.

It’s the beginning of November here in Cape Town, South Africa, and the rain is still pouring outside like it has no end. Countless rainbows and flooded roads later, and most Cape Townians are grumbling more than they should this time of the year.

My previous blog post was a rather morbid one: I read it just now and realised how much the menopausal weather had been affecting my mood. It seemed like dear old Mother Nature had a different plan for me!

Yet, as the rain keeps pelting the windows, and I tear off the October-sheet from my calender, there is an odd little smile on my face.

2013 has tested a lot of us to the extremes this year. I keep stressing this every time I blog, but it’s just proven itself to be THAT year where everything changes and nothing will be the same. Ever. In a way, we could call it the Big Change, or A Change Hath Commeth, but the point remains that this unlucky number hasn’t been doing anything to set aside its bad reputation.

Some of my friends and I have gone through deep break ups, startling realisations, deep turmoils, changes in cities and jobs, new jobs and the ending of some important chapters in their lives.

Yet, through everything and all this rain, we all seemed happy.

Why?

We’ve got so much to be thankful for.

We’re still standing strong and we’ve been missing out on seeing what exactly it is that we’ve got left to love and hold onto (though some of us have had to learn the hard way that we have to hold onto this!).

If I have to be corny and all: Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, but it’s about learning how to dance in the rain.

Though the rain keeps drenching us, we’re all happy.

Happy for everyone around us, to be alive and for what we’ll always have.

When the sun comes peering out, I’ll be sure to snap a pic and post it as a separate entry, but for now… This will have to do:

Pic: Cheréne Pienaar

The silence needs to be broken once in a while hey?!

It’s been over a month since I last blogged. I can blame life for being hectic at the moment, but at the end of the day I should’ve made time and stuck to my promise to blog at least every week or month…

But life has had other plans with me.

It’s October – HOW DID WE GET HERE FROM JANUARY?!! – and most people are already stocking up for Christmas and leave in December, while I am still recovering from that first few days in after New Years.

Sometimes, life just knocks you down and takes a turn to run over you, and before you notice it, you haven’t blogged in more than a month and your head feels a bit more heavier than usual.

The other day, while procrastinating at work, I was looking at my calender and realised once again how much I changed in 2013 and how this year has influenced so much that will happen for me in 2014. People are always quick to hail 13 as an unlucky number, but ’13 has been my Lucky Charm.

I finished an awesome internship with Channel24, where I moved into my first official permanent position at a local daily newspaper and within a few months my editor was handing off some coordinator and editorial responsibilities to me. And I’ve also started enrolling to study part-time next year to work towards a degree in Communication Sciences.

My career was finally taking off and tonight I kinda realise that I’ve been taking it for granted a lot. A lot of people had been praying for me to get a permanent position somewhere and I never took that into consideration.

As for friendships: I was again taught the value to live in the here and now and cherish close friends while they are close.

Life has a mean way of ripping at the seams and taking away people that we tend to hold close and dear to us. Friends whom I’ve come to love more than earthly possessions, will be moving away at the end of the year to pursue their careers. Some friends changed a lot and others just simply broke away and disappeared into the background.

As for love… It’s all remained unchanged till now. The highest hopes I had in January proved to be just what they were: hopes.

My heart got broken, bruised and stepped on, and I now fear the worst… That I’ve built those walls too high and I’m trapped fearing being hurt again.

I had my Meredith Grey-moment where I was spilling out the contents of my heart to that someone special and they threw it back into my face… And chose someone else.

Yeah. It was that Carrie at the prom with pigs blood on her-moment for my love life this year.

And even after my best friend’s boyfriend committed suicide in July and I had to help her and be there for everyone else, I have not even had time to process that happening in its total as well. As usual I stuffed my feelings into a box and knocked it into a corner to deal with later.  I’ve still not dealt with it and I still kick the box into the corner. It’s just easier that way.

Just reflecting on 2013 for now, I realise that all these things have been a blessing in disguise. For I needed to be torn down and built up to be stronger and wiser…

That being said… My head feels a bit emptier. And the silence has been broken.

I’m pretty sure Peter Pan had something going when he said he didn’t want to grow up!