It’s been a long time since I’ve posted. Two, three weeks by my count and it feels like a life time. Our seasons are changing here, slowly, subtly. The wind carries a bite of cold, the night a chill. The few foreign trees that change colour has begun to dress themselves in their patches of brown and the migrating birds gather, waiting for that hidden signal that we never comprehend that tells them to move on. I have watched them from my window these past few days, seen them in my parents’ garden and I have felt a kinship with them that I have not felt before.
You see, like the birds, I have been waiting. Waiting for change, waiting for a signal. Waiting for a miracle.
Now the call has come for me to move, to step out of waiting yet instead of settling me here as I had hoped, I feel that it draws me further away from this place I had longed to call home. You see, I’m done. I am done waiting. Waiting for a job, waiting for change, waiting on people. It has dawned on me that I will be here forever if I do not move on, and like the birds who chose to stay behind, I will wither and die in a climate that’s not suited for me. I have tried, and I have failed and now – now it’s time to move on, past this limbo that’s called my bluff.
After almost a year of trying to find a job in my country, I’ve realized that it’s time for me to try and seek greener pastures in the rest of the world. Like so many people my age, I am going to move on, or at least try to, to a place where I might possibly have a chance to have a life and a future free of fear and prejudice and idiots that govern countries at the people’s expense. Recent events in my country have made it painfully clear to all of us that, although slower, we are moving towards becoming a second Zimbabwe. I will not elaborate further on this, for I do not want to discuss politics or racial prejudice here, but I’ll only say that it’s dawned on me that Lord Havelock Vetinari – a fictional character from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series – had it right when he said: If it’s not broken, don’t fix it, yet if it’s broken and it can’t be fixed, get rid of it…
I’ve come to realize that my country, this Africa of the South, cannot be fixed. It does not work, it never will. Africa is Africa and it will never change.
But, more than this though, I have come to realize that my life’s broken as well. That I am not happy and if it had not been for my Other Half and my horse keeping me together, I’d have fallen and failed many months ago. When I came back from England, I had said to my friends there that I fear becoming ordinary, living an ordinary life. It was a hard blow now when I realized that my life has moved beyond ordinary to being… Being… Nothing. A shadow of what it could be, making me a wraith. The only two things that have real meaning to me is my relationship with my partner and my horse. It’s the only things I can be proud of for I can’t even be proud of myself for I have accomplished nothing.
So, I want to try and change that. Or, just change.
And, try and find work in either Canada, Australia or maybe even the US.
If my country doesn’t want me, I’ll try and find one who does.
Alyssa's Blog 