Thursday, January 17, 2013

Concerning Something I Lost

I had this bracelet once. It was a leather strap with the South African flag beaded around it a few times. I bought it at a nunnery for R10.

I wore it all the time - never took it off. I even showered with it, and as such the metal clasp rusted, which encouraged me to keep it on out of fear that the clasp would disintegrate if I removed it (that happened to a similar bangle). I really loved it. When I moved overseas for a bit it became such a constant reminder of home, and of what that meant to me. It somehow represented the dream of my life, and what I thought (still think) I'm supposed to do with it.

But I lost it - it must have fallen off somewhere in Oxford. Maybe it's under the table at that pub we always went to, or in the river or something. I didn't know what to think when it happened, but I remembered it tonight and realised that since then, that dream of my life has moved off my right wrist and into my heart. It's something I'm planning for, and thinking about, and living out.

Sometimes I think the dream was stuck to my wrist and that made me forget about moulding it into real life and distracted me by making it more fun to tell people my dream and show them my bangle than tell people about how I was putting those plans into motion. That bangle doesn't exist anymore, but soon, neither will the dream. It'll just be my life.