TOMORROW IS NOT GAURANTEED

This year certainly didn't waste any time getting down to business. One minute I was talking to a friend and they were saying that they love the space that I am in and we were saying that we need to milk the good days for all they are worth because we never know when life’s curveballs may hit you and affect your peace.

In what literally felt like the next minute after that conversation, my curveball came in the form of a phone call from a former colleague turned friend. She had been trying to get hold of me for the better part of the afternoon but I was in and out of sessions, couldn't pick up my phone and honestly didn't think much of it.

When I finally got a moment, I returned her call. She was sounding weird over the phone but not even in my wildest imagination could I have predicted what she was going to tell me next. A friend of ours has passed on.

I thought I was hearing things, I wanted her to explain in detail who she was speaking about because in my mind she couldn't be speaking about the person I knew. I spoke to my friend throughout the festive break, she was at home spending time with family and I was laughing at how she was stuck at home and couldn't go out because she had broken her leg and it was put on a cast.

She had just bought a car and was finally moving her son to Bloem to attend school there. That had always been her dream, growing up in a small town where good schools were few and far between. She had achieved what she longed for for years. I was so happy for her and we were both filled with excitement for the new year and the fact that both of us would be staying with our children.

We made a commitment to go on a weekend away in the new year because life had so many responsibilities that we hardly saw each other but we acknowledged that despite that we had to make time for those we cared about. Things were falling into place and finally all her hard work was starting to pay off. So how do I make peace with the news that she went to bed and that was to be her final sleep?

What about all the dreams that she still had? Who would now give her son the life that she always wanted for him? At the age of 31, how is it possible that it is the end? Wasn't this supposed to be the prime of her life? I mourn my friend and my heart bleeds for a child that now has to grow up without a mother.

In the two weeks following my friend's passing, two other people passed on here at work. One was a colleague's daughter, whom I had seen and interacted with at the office a few times - she was only 20 years old and had been battling with lupus. The other was a client, who had lost her battle to cancer.

I think we all know how fleeting life is but we forget and we allow ourselves to get caught up in petty issues that don't contribute anything meaningful to our lives. I found myself wondering, what if I died tomorrow? Would I look back on my life and say that I spend my days in a way that mattered?

Beyond the hurt and shock that came with death, it also gives one a rude awakening and probes you to think about life and how you are living it. We make so many plans and we have the tendency to put off what we need to do and want to do, oblivious to the fact that tomorrow is not guaranteed to any of us. It could all be taken away in the blink of an eye and in a split second so much can change, almost leaving you disorientated.

I've wrestled with many feelings over the last few weeks but I can safely say that, though this was not a good way to start the year, it was a reminder to go into it with enthusiasm and purpose. To live each day with intention, to do what you can when the opportunity is still there and be conscious to the gift that is each day we live and we are still breathing.

Though I am still trying to find peace, learning to accept that never again can I pick up the phone to speak to my friend - I need to be grateful for the gift of life and make changes if anything I am doing now is not aligned to the legacy that I would want to leave one day when I am no longer around.

My hope is that we don't wait for death to knock on our doors before we realise that life is too fragile and too short to get caught up in the small stuff. That we don't live our lives consumed with winning the small battles that we lose the war of what our lives should represent when the curtains close one day.

Light and Love

RLG Lenkoe

#Born To Conquer

#Stepping Out Naked

DEAR FEAR

Why have I allowed you to consume my thoughts, my life? Why have I believed the lies you told me and the reasons you gave me everytime I wanted to do something in life? Why did I think you could have so much power over me and my dreams?

I look at my life and mourn for all the things I could have achieved,  the places I could have seen and the people I would have met, if only I learned early on in my life that you only have as much power in my life as I allow you to. All along I thought I was a victim to your games, I considered myself helpless and gave in to your demands. When the truth is you were only surviving because I kept feeding you instead of starving you to death. I wanted you out of my life but everytime you reached for the door knob, I pulled you back and held on to you. 

I should have let you go the day I realised that you were standing between me and my dreams. I should have kicked you out the day you tried to convince me that my greatness didn't exist. But I let you stay and take over every corner of my thoughts till I almost forgot who had the keys to your place of residence. 

I continued to fight you but at the end of the day, when no one was watching, I curled up in bed with you and cuddled you like your warmth was the only possibility there was. I knew you were holding me back but I kept trying to go forward without cutting off the ties that were between us. No wonder it was so hard to go anywhere, I was your slave and obeying your every command. 

You told me it was safer where I was so I didn't try to be anywhere else. You told me the world was cruel and it would reject anything I tried to bring forth so I dismissed the ideas I had and learned to be satisfied with only waking up in the morning. You told me people only care about themselves so you help me build a wall to keep myself safe but forgot to mention that the same wall would also block out any light that aimed to enter my life. You watched me scream silently and led me to believe that no one could hear me but it was you all along who was suppressing my voice so my scream wouldn't be loud enough. 

I've finally had enough. Enough of watching others live so fully while I was holding on to what you were promising me. I'm tired of being scared, of being afraid to live and try and dare to fail. I'm exhausted from playing small so you could be comfortable and feel big. You have overstayed your welcome,  kept me too long from erupting like the volcano I know I am. You need to leave. 

No rephrase that. You are leaving! Because I have grown too much and you no longer have space here. There is not enough room for both of us to co-exist and since I am calling the shots here, you are the one who needs to disappear. I need to start living,  I need to start being awesome, I need to start living out my dreams, I need to break down the walls so light can reach me and I can finally breathe. I need to start being all that I can be and I can't do that while wrestling with you. 

Goodbye fear. Hello life.