I’ve settled back into the slow and simple existence that is my curated life here at the foot of the Cape Point mountains. Maybe the places we find ourselves in unplanned and unexpectedly are the places we were meant to belong to all along.
I spend a lot of time pondering about the two times in my life that I felt like I was home and how I’ve not been able to get back there ever since. Home was once a person and once a place, both of those are now somewhat in the past and for five years straight I have worked hard to make home in Cape Town.
I am constantly consumed by my career, married to it in fact. It keeps me curios, entertained, humbled and growing. But it has taken up a large part of my life and more often than not I have willingly chosen my passions above a lot of other things. Building a business and keeping a roof over my head for a self-employed creative is a full time thing. By the time the cogs are properly turning your biological clock is on its last legs, you live in a world you’re convinced couldn’t house a wholesome future for generations to come and you secretly mourn the loss of never going to experience what it is like to share raising kids alongside someone you love. The cherry on top is that you find yourself having to face the dating pool at forty.
I am acutely aware of how different the trajectory of my life has been when I look at my guy friends. Over the years they have been my adventure buddies, my catch up over beers and burgers buddies, my laugh until our stomachs hurt and our lungs constrict type of friends, my favorite people to be myself around. They have all partnered up, got married, had kids and things are different now. Not bad different, just different. I’m not crazy about the changes as partners, wives and kids are now to be prioritized and considered in a way they weren’t before. It’s an interesting place to be when life changes for them but stays the same for me. I miss them.
Life can easily get complicated so I make sure the parts of life I can control stays as simple as can be. My world consists of work, home, time spent adventuring outside, weekly therapy and a handful of friends. Work is ten kilometers down the road, reached on foot, by bicycle or by car. Home is a sanctuary, for over two years I have been nesting and creating a safe space for myself in a basic cottage on a farm at the foot of the Cape Point mountains, a refuge after days in the world feel too much. My home isn’t open to everyone, I’m selective about who spends time here. Adventures outside is a stones throw away, the Cape Point Reserve has become a healing space of sorts. I might know a lot of people but only a handful of people are really called friends. I don’t party, drink or experiment with drugs, I therapy. To have an hour a week to just talk and take up space does wonders for my current state of mind.
I guess what I’m trying to say and share is that simplicity for me is a way of life and it’s an art to consistently stay simple and prioritize it in an ever changing and evolving world moving fast and furiously towards what we are told is greatness…pppfffttt. Keeping life simple is a way of staying present. Staying present is a super power that few posses today and this super power will be the thing that saves humanity. Bold statement I know. What do I know. It’s just something that feels true in my bones.
Believe me, simplicity has consequences too. But when you start making choices with consequences you are willing to shoulder, I truly believe you’re winning at life.
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