2010
A long December and there is reason to believe, maybe this year will be better than the last.
Outside, the very first, very early bird has started to sing. A car speeds jovially down a quiet suburban street. Life on the first day of the new year, begins.
Another year, indeed, another decade, ends.
And so, wired and awake, I find myself at that very familiar place in front of a screen, with a ear to a speaker, pondering the possibility of a year better than the last.
2009 was, for me personally, a roller-coaster year. In retrospect I can roughly divide it into to parts: the First Half and the Second Half. The First Half was about being care-free, motivated, ambitious, making new friends and learning new and exciting things. The Second Half was about feeling defeated, being caught in an impossible situation, being tired, being taxed and, in a certain sense, alone.
All the details of all of this I keep to myself, for now. A highlight, though, was definitely getting more involved in the church which I am currently attending and forming and strengthening relationships there. Through such inspiration I launched a new website called Café on the Rock. While it still needs a lot of fleshing out, I am still excited about it and hopeful of great things.
As the year progressed (and in particular as it drew to a close), I became acutely aware, however, of pain, need and distress around me. I experienced some of this myself, but primarily I stood looking in from the outside as hearts broke, and silent, invisible tears rolled from the eyes of those I care about. At the very end I also bore witness to a silent exodus of friends and colleagues as they moved on from Stellenbosch to fields far, far away. The remnant is very small; I just don’t want to be the last one.
One of the greatest lesson which I feel I have yet to master is patients. But my primary instruction this I, I believe, was in humility: learning not to go gun-ho and trying to resolve situations when all I can see is one piece of a very large and intricate puzzle.
The year was also characterised by a lot of inertia and early on I realised that I would need another year to finish my masters degree. That year has arrived now and the clock is ticking down on what I hope to be the last six months of the 3 year post-graduate adventure. This means that, hitting the ground running, 2010 is going to be a year of hard work and sacrifice. I’ve done it before and I can do it again. But while I last time only had the murky certainty of continuing my studies to look forward to, I now have the exciting prospect of not knowing what is behind the next door. Usually something like that would terrify me to pieces, but I am strangely positive about it. This optimism stems from the fact that, when I finish, I grow up. I leave Neverland, and then the adventure can finally begin! In the meantime, my sacrifice will, hopefully, forge me into the man who I want to be and, more importantly, the man who I need to be.
Thankfully I am blessed with one more week of holiday before I return to Stellenbosch, to work and to my studies. But I’m looking forward to all of it!