I’m in a weird season right now — one of those in-between stretches where nothing is officially on fire, but everything smells faintly like smoke. Limbo, basically. A limbo made of sharp edges and soft sighs.
I just walked out of my main job. Not with some heroic mic drop, not with a triumphant soundtrack — more like slipping out of a room that had started stealing oxygen. And now I’m arm-wrestling my side hustle, trying to force it into something structured, fair, rewarding… something that doesn’t rely on adrenaline and last-minute miracles to survive. I’m also poking at new opportunities, the ones that promise real money and a shred of sanity, but when people are involved the waiting room becomes a lifestyle. Their timelines. Their rules. Their “soon.” Their half-promises that I keep trying to sync with my own pulse like I’m the one who’s unreasonable for wanting clarity.
Patience has never been my thing. And yet here I am, wrapped in it like a scratchy blanket I didn’t ask for, trying not to itch my way out of my own life.
Then there’s my relationship — or whatever shape it’s currently taking. Nine months in, and we’re not even near the easy part. We want different things, pretend we don’t, then rebrand reality until it fits the illusion we’re both trying to sell ourselves. He isn’t malicious. He’s just… comfortable. And comfort is addictive. Comfort makes you defend your bubble like it’s sacred. Committing to someone means poking holes in that bubble. It means letting someone else rearrange your furniture. It means stepping out of the mother-nest version of life and into the messy, grown-up one where you can’t outsource responsibility to routine or family or denial.
Real is loud. Real is inconvenient. Real asks questions you can’t answer with “we’ll see.” And not everyone is ready for real — not because they’re bad, but because readiness requires grief. You have to mourn the old version of your freedom. You have to give up the fantasy that you can have intimacy without friction.
So I wait. I watch. I call it what it is. No romantic filters. No “it’s just a phase” wallpaper. Just observation. Just truth, even when it’s not pretty.
Meanwhile, Dubai and I remain awkward roommates. Functional, yes. Efficient. It prints money and polishes illusions better than any place I’ve ever lived. But do I love it? No. Do I walk out my door and feel kissed by my surroundings? Not really. Dubai doesn’t kiss — it negotiates. I tolerate it. I use it. I let it fund my future plans, because money still fuels most exits.
Some cities fill your lungs with home even if they were never yours. Cape Town did that to me. I didn’t have to earn my love for it. It just happened. Dutch-style houses, Table Mountain always peeking over my shoulder like a guardian with an attitude, ocean air crashing down the hill to meet you halfway. I could wander my neighbourhood and feel restored without doing anything impressive. That was my simple heaven.
But paradise isn’t enough if you don’t feel safe inside your own walls. And I didn’t. So I left. I gave up beauty for predictability. I swapped stolen walks for well-paid office hours. And no, I don’t regret it.
But sometimes it does feel like a bad trade — like I exchanged something alive for something manageable.
So here I am: job half-lost, job half-built, a relationship twisting in circles, a city that feels like a beautiful prop. A few years ago this cocktail would’ve drowned me. I would’ve spiralled, rebuilt myself from rubble, made it dramatic, made it a whole identity. Today it doesn’t drown me. Not because I’m magically stronger, but because I finally learned to sit still inside chaos. I stopped treating every life shift as an emergency that requires a full personality makeover.
Now the core of me stays put. The walls outside can quake and crack, but I know what’s worth saving. I know who I am. I know what I want. And I know who’s got my back when no one does: God. Not a sudden discovery, not a trendy spirituality phase — more like a quiet friendship I finally respected enough to lean on.
This is how I keep breathing while everything else falls apart, reshapes, or drags its feet.
This is how sadness doesn’t ruin me anymore — it just sits beside me.
And I sit beside it.
And together, we watch what comes next.
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