You know the cliché ‘live every moment as if it’s your last’? Well what if it’s not a cliché, what if it’s the truth. Because you know what, it is. Stru. Life seriously is that short. Today you’re awake and blessed and tomorrow? Well, you’re still awake and blessed, but just in a different kind of world and total separate mind space. So why not celebrate life as often as you can and by that I do mean everyday people. Njalo nje. You see to me, celebrating life begins from the very first moment my eyes open in the morning. THAT right there is something to celebrate, I am alive! I then lazily creep out of my warm bed and walk on over to the bathroom to wee and while I sit on that cold bowl (yeah, that ish be icy in the morning) I thank the Lord for I have woken up, I can walk, I can see and o thank you God, I can wee too. That’s something to celebrate isn’t it? The beginning of another day IN the life I’ve been blessed with. Let me hear you say preach Nokx preach… (lol) Celebrating my life isn’t about celebrating the day the earth stood still for a minute. The day the birds sang the loudest and the sweetest ever. The day when my dad had a case of Lion Lager for the entire neighbourhood (to my mom’s utter disbelief) @ Maphanga Section. Nope it isn’t about the 10th hour of the Sunday, the third of the tenth month of the nineteenth and eighty second year. It’s about who I think I’d like to be and most importantly, who I am, in this time, at this place.
That alone of enough to celebrate. I am what I am and that I will give thanks for and celebrate. You know sometimes when I wake up for work and think, ‘urrrrrh, fc*%%()%*’ and all sorts of curses you can think of, I have to snap out of it and actually celebrate the fact that I have a job, a bonus for me is having a job I like. Let me celebrate. And then shortly after, my mom will find any reason to shout at me, nje scolding has always been her thing. The fact that she’s a 50 something year old Dom-Dom (Grade 1 teacher) doesn’t help matters, it become part of her, it’s in her blood. So the next hour or so will be spent explaining at the top of my lungs WHY I’m still half asleep at half past 6 when she has to leave the house along with our fellow South Africans, some of which are already at work at that time. And even though I’ll be on some ‘Ag Mawe, phuma kimi’ and wish that she could just go away, I know that’s not really what I want because I am what I am because she is who she is. I have a living mom, that’s enough for me to celebrate. O how blessed I am. And then there comes fun times.
The times I spend with the people who mean the most to me. The people who piss me off more often than not, and yet when tomorrow comes, there they are because I am stuck with them. Yebo, I’m talking about my family. My sisters, black sheep of a brother, drunken uncles and all my fabulous cousins. There’s always a reason to be mad at one of them. I’ll be mad at my mom, again, for forcing me to wake up half drunk on Sunday morning and not only make me take her to church but I will find myself in the midst of the congregation. Thank you Mawe, because it is at this time that I get a moment to praise and thank the Almighty for my life. Here’s a tip: praise and worship (mixed with a few sips of water) is a fabulous remedy for a late-night Saturday night hangover. And then we have the sisters, my cousins included. These are the people whom have the privilege of knowing me 200%, and that is all my deepest, most treasured secrets included in the deal. Now they have to be objective rather than subjective most of the time and as much as I put them between a rock and a harder rock when I reveal something they simply just cannot repeat to anyone; the word always finds itself in my aunt’s ear and that definitely leads to a battle of voices. Yes of course mine is always the last and the loudest at the end of it all. The fights never last very long because as pissed off as I can be at them, I love them. And I’ll be damned if we are one of the families that appear on Khumbul’ekhaya on Wednesday nights at nine. Tuning into that show is my constant reminder of just how fortunate I am to have family that loves and cares for me wholeheartedly and unconditionally.
Their being and selflessness I celebrate with the rise of the sun. I’m one of those gorgeous women (inside and out – well I’d like to think so) who are really unlucky in love shame. I find myself always being that someone between a lover and friend. And the boys appreciate that so much that they feel they love me so much that they don’t want to lose me, and when I say lose, I do mean in any way. Which boils down to an ever so shattering break up that leave both of us broken. They ‘feel’ well they say, that I am of so much value in their life that it ’d be better if we simply just stay friends. That way, I’ll always be there, even after the fight, I’ll always be there. There will come a time when I sit down, reflect and study the pattern of the relationships I find myself in and make no mistake, the reason why they don’t work is that I end up loving them more than I do me. As righteous as that sounds, it is more of a drawback for me than it is a perk. But for that I am grateful, for it means that I can ‘feel’. And he loves me more than he is IN love with me and vice-versa. And as for me, I’ll continue to live my life. Make mistakes and learn from them. I’ll keep walking towards the lights, no matter how dark the tunnel because I know that at the end of it all, whether I get a pot of gold or eternal life, I have lived and therefore I will celebrate my life with every step I take and for as long as I live.
Writer: Nokuthula Maseko Photographer: Austin Malema