A bit of His(Her?)story

Posted in Memoirs","Re(d)patriation on November 10, 2012 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Today, exactly 17 years ago, I set foot on U.S. soil for the very first time.

I'll never forget the date, because I left South Africa the day after my mom's birthday (I still remember telling her that leaving the country and thereby getting out of her hair was my present to her).

I still recall the flight over too, almost in vivid detail. It was nerve-wracking, exciting and very very VERY long. Sade's album, the one on which No Ordinary Love appears, was one of British Airways' selections way back then, and I pretty much kept it on a continuous, repetitive loop. (Hearing her voice today still chills me out to the extent of jetlag. Probably not quite the listener reaction that she'd had in mind when she set out to become a musician!)

I wonder how I would have felt if I had known that once arriving there, I would not leave again for nine years.

I think I would have totally freaked out. (To the point of not actually going in the first place.) And no one (including myself) would have believed that I would actually go through with leaving. Let alone ending up not coming home again for almost a decade.

And if I had never gone? I wonder how life would have turned out differently for me. Kind of like a Sliding Doors effect.

Do you have any times like that in your life where you keep on quietly wondering "what if"? Asking yourself if you would have done anything differently, how your life would have turned out instead? Would it have been better or worse?

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2 Comments

Po said:

Those questions run through my heads for various times in my life too, that is for sure!

November 11, 2012 4:05 PM

Redsaid

said:

I'm really really glad that I'm not the only one, Po! Sometimes I drive myself mad with all the what-if's. How are you? Has the transition back been hard for you?

November 12, 2012 12:23 AM

is a South African girl living in South Africa. That doesn't sound very original, we know, but you might find it remotely interesting when you learn that she has only recently returned to South Africa for the first time after a nine year, one month and two week (non-stop!) stint in the United States where she accidentally became an outlawed alien (also known, especially in immigration circles, as an 'illegal immigrant.' We prefer the term 'outlawed alien' ourselves). During her reversed exile from her homeland, she kept herself occupied by winning this website (but only after shamelessly bribing the judges) and thus being unleashed on the web where she slowly, leisurely became the World's Laziest Blogger; by being a nanny and by attending sci-fi conventions in search of other aliens. In the US, she also made her sailing debut, her international acting debut, tried and failed to learn the piano, and never learned to cook. She is hopelessly addicted to coffee, dogs (especially Labrador Retrievers), how-to books (with a particular fondness for her copy of the Time/Life A - Z Medical Encyclopedia), and she tends to grossly overuse parentheses (we're not kidding) during her attempts at writing, which you may - if you really have masochistic tendencies - subject yourself to by reading the words to the right of this column. If you REALLY and truly STILL want to know more, you can read her C.V. here.
Or you can ~~stalk her~~ send her some love via e-mail at: redsaid[AT]gmail[DOT]com

The Wish List (Because yes, she really does need more how-to books. Honestly!)

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