Part the First – An Introduction

It’s early-July. I’ve finished my semester exams and, now that my results have been announced, I know I will be able to graduate my Undergraduate Degree in English Literature and History by the end of this year. To top it off, by early-December, my parents and I will bid a final farewell to Cape Town and embark on a new and exciting journey in England. Things are on the up. The idea of starting a new chapter in a new country where my opportunities increase dramatically is thrilling.

As good and necessary as this move is for me in particular, the organising, down-sizing, and mental shifts that accompany this next phase have left me feeling somewhat like the Roman god, Janus (from which the month ‘January’ is almost certainly derived), who has two faces facing in opposite directions – one to the future, and one to the past. Just as we should be wrapping up our lives with the last few months we have, I find myself reminiscing about many things: my early childhood, the start of school, the seventeen anesthetics I’ve had over the course of my life, writing my school-leaving exams, starting my degree, and, soon, the closing of the introductory chapters of my story.

Part of our leaving process revolves around reducing the amount of stuff we have to take over to the UK with us. Over the last week, I have been going through the several files and folders that my parents have kept on me in the twenty-one years I have been bugging them. They kept everything.

In a single afternoon, I was able to traverse over two decades of my personal history. I was able to read a 1998 letter stating my acceptance into the foundation phase of my school career while, moments later, I could pick up the last school photo taken months before we embarked on the exams that ultimately ended a thirteen-year-long chapter of my life and sent me catapulting into the beginnings of my professional field. All I can say is that holding eighteen years of history in your hands is a strange feeling that I don’t think you can find anywhere else.

No matter how good that feeling is, though, it’s bitter-sweet if I’m honest. Reading the letters and reports, listening to the recordings, and looking at the photographs has distilled the memories across the last lifetime into a purer, clearer rendition. Events I’d long since forgotten come running back like a speeding train, almost as clear as if they were playing out in front of me. In short, it reminded me that while Cape Town may not be perfect for me, it is the stage upon which all the actors in my life work their magic. Leaving might be good for me but I cannot deny that the gains will mean significant loses.