Every little bit of happiness that life throws my way

I started on AFF because I longed so much for a platform to write and express myself through words. I sort of stumbled across it honestly, and to tell you the truth, it was the greatest fall of my life so far.

I’ve always liked to experiment with my artistic side and I honestly tried anything that seemed fitting to my desires and talents when I was younger; from singing, to drawing to designing, painting, writing poetry and now writing long stories. Despite all my experimentations I really never imagined that at the age of twenty I would have a new dream for my life. Before AFF I was convinced that I would become a Fashion designer and rule the world with my wicked skills, enthusiasm and passionate love for designing and making clothing. Now I’m looking to become not only a fashion designer, but also an author.

I love art; the freedom it gives me to express myself is immense and absolutely refreshing. In school, art was my only refuge from the terrible life of a reluctant school girl.

I hated school, from a very young age I really didn’t like going to school because no matter what I seem to always be the different one. I was different, I wanted to work and live alone and be alone because I had somehow convinced myself that everyone hated me and I was just under loved and appreciated

Nowadays it’s a good different but when I was younger, children don’t care about morals and values and I did. I’ve always held myself high and in school, that seemed to be a bad thing because people though I thought I was too good for them. But I never did. I was just that kid who grew up watching Operah and Dr Phil while other kids spent their afternoons at home playing outside or worse yet, playing games on their TV’s and computers. I was basically raised by those two people, they taught me everything I know… not really, but they did form my foundation, and a very solid one at that.

Sometimes I feel like they were really the only positive influences I had in my younger life. In all honesty, they kind of were. Mom was always sewing away at her machine and watching Days of Our lives and The Bold and the Beautiful on TV so we were never allowed to disturb her, and dad was always working. He was a business man and owned a bunch of taxi’s so he had to always make sure that thinks were running smoothly in his business.

Now if you guys don’t know, taxi’s here are not like cabs you find in the US and Britain and what not. We have Twelve-fourteen seater taxi’s where you have to either haul it down using a specific hand sign for a specific place depending on where you are, or you have to go clim one at a taxi rank where you are likely to wait aaaaaages before it fills up and you can finally get to where you’re going. My dad was in that business for a while; I think he owned like 18 of them and they made him a bunch of money until the people he was in business with started getting jealous and threatening him and us, his family.. Anywhoo, that’s not the point.

The point is, My parents were not really present so instead of being Lizeka, daughter of Sweetness and Wesley Ketsekile (or for the more experimental Nomhlope and Sizwe Ketsekile), I ended up being Lizeka, daughter of Operah Winfrey and Philip Degraw. Well at least in my own imagination. (Scary isn’t it, lolololo)

This led me to growing up a lot faster that people my age. I became a drag to be around because I was always the adult amongst children my age and children just want to have fun now don’t they. Not me~ I just wanted to grow up.

So instead of playing outside with other kids my age, I became that girl who didn’t like to play with other kids. I was an outsider; from as far back as I can recall that’s just how it’s been. Having only a few friends when I first started school in primary school, I began to move away from those friends and do my own thing; I really didn’t fit in so I figured that instead of forcing it, I’d just go with it.

That’s when I started to sing.

I loved singing with my whole heart. I would listen to my favourite song at the time (Stacy Orrico’s More to Life… lol, so meaningful to me even now) and just belt it out for the world to hear. I loved singing, really. I was even in the choir in grade 2 and we were so damn good (in my opinion as a 8 year old) that I brought my talent home and thought that my family would praise me and finally give me the attention that I knew I was worth…. They didn’t! :”(

Instead all I got was teasing from my siblings and “Thula! Ng’bugeliDays.”, which directly translated to; “Shut up, I’m watching The Days (of our lives… we always seem to shorten things to our liking now don’t we?? Hehe)

But ja. All in all, my singing talent wasn’t appreciated let alone wanted so after second grade I quit choir and decided to find a new love.

That love was drewing. Well first it started out as colouring in in those terribly fantastic colouring in books and then I decided that I wanted to colour in my own oictures; so I drew. That was fun, and hell, it had many perks to it too:

1*It wasn’t noisy

2*It was my definition of fun

3*It kept me occupied enough not to care about what others were doing without me

4*I was good at it… kinda…. Well for a 9 year old I wasn’t bad!

5*I loved it

And I was convinced that this would be the talent that would finally get my family’s attention and impress them so much that they would name me the Picasso of the family. Good news about that is that they preferred it to my singing so I did receive some praise for it, which just encouraged me to keep drawing.

At some stage, I don’t remember when, I got curious about my mum’s occupation. I started to draw people, not for the sake of drawing people , but for the clothing that they were wearing. I mean, my mum is a seamstress so I always witnessed customers coming in and out and all those fittings just inspired a new hobby. I started drawing clothing. At first I was terrible at it but… years later and I’m not drawing squiggles for hips anymore :D

That soon developed into an obsession with designing clothing and about 500 plus designs later, I turned 13.

“Mom, teach me how to sew please :[]”

“Later, I’m busy.”

Later came and went.

“Mom… You said you’d teach me how to sew later. It’s later already :3”

“Can’t you see that I’m busy? I’ll teach you when I have time.”

It was a year later that I realised that my mum never had time. So one day, early in the morning, I snuck over to her pattern room with a pair of expensive suede pant I hated and a pair of old jeans that was holey, and I picked a pattern, stole some pins and a pair of my mums fabric scissors, and I started to pin that pattern to my pants (without even unpicking them first- I had no idea what unpicking was but now it remains my biggest sewing nightmare), and then I cut the holey ness out of those pants’. It was so much fun and I wanted to do it again, but as I was trying to figure out how to pin the pattern pieces together, mum walked in and bit my head off before deciding to finally teach me how to use a sewing machine for the first time.

At the end of that day I had made my first jacket, it was ugly as hell, but I was so proud because I made it. I F***ING MADE IT!!!!!!!!! :D

Biggest day of my life. I knew that I wanted to do fashion design for the rest of my life and so later that year my mum let me design my sister’s Matric dance dress. I was so happy! Though I wish she’s let me sew :’[ But ja… I was happy.

Soon after the hype of my first sewing experience was done, my mum dismissed the whole idea again and so I tried to find ways to teach myself all that I needed to know to become the world’s next best. I wasn’t very successful. I started to lose hope until one day…

“Hi Elsie, I’m Lizzy. I saw your add in the local newspaper and I was wondering if you’d help me with something?”

“What? You want me to sew you something love?”

“No, I want you to teach me.”

And so the housewife and seamstress named Elsie Lourens taught me to sew formal wear for ladies. I made my first corset!! I was happier that happy and I was learning as each day passed.

Fashion became my ultimate dream, and I worked hard to try and get people to believe in my abilities, but as people started to tell me how I would never succeed, I started to lose hope. My dad was the number one contributor to the new fear of failure I had developed and he and I spent years arguing about my future career.

I was supposed to be an architect. Every subject I took in school was for that purpose and that purpose alone. Lizzy would be an architect because mom and dad said so. For a while before and after becoming a senior in high school I gave up on my dream. I became so depressed that I actually felt like there wasn’t a reason for me to live anymore. I just had no hope.

And so I attempted to run away from home. I would have succeeded too had I not decide to take my entire room with me to goodness knows where! I was out of it and I walked kilometres on the freeway carrying tons and tons worth of stuff (because honestly, I had strength for the world when I was younger). I even got help from some creepy man who helped me carry my room for a while and I told him my entire life story- it was mostly made up because I didn’t want him calling the authorities to come pick me up- but after a while, he got sick of carrying my heavy load and made his excuses to leave.

I has just managed to hike a ride and put my stuff in some random stranger’s car when I was pulled out by my older brother, who thank GOD had managed to find me. I mean, where the hell would I have been now had I gone in that car? Probably dead.

There were many contributing factors to my depression when I was 14 and 15 and I’m glad to have had to go through that phase without any aid from anyone because it just forced me to grow up and be a much stronger person. My life was hell at some point- if I had to tell you all the bad things that have happened to me, you wouldn’t believe that they all happened to a sane person, but I’m here. And I’m sane and dreaming still.

One thing I just want to add to those of you who are my close friends on here and anyone who has ever felt the way I was feeling at 25 about my life is that… life is too precious to throw away because you’re unhappy today. Tomorrow will bring sunshine despite the storms of today so always push on. I’m really glad that I did because at least now I have the opportunity to dream and work to fulfil my dreams.

That phase of my life was a wakeup call and let me tell you something:

IF YOU CAN’T MAKE YOURS3ELF HAPPY, NOBODY WILL BE ABLE TO!

I realised that and chose to be the source of my own happiness. I hated my home life, I hated my school life and I hated myself. What was there to live for?

That was up to me.

I decided that the world could go (excuse my language) and I did my fashion and I did art and I sang every chance I got so long as it made me happy. I had to grow into the person I am today, and it took time, it didn’t happen overnight. There were many influencing factors that pushed me in the direction I’m in today and good or bad, I’m grateful for them.

I was still in high school and I spent all of 6 years having hectic boy problems, from the moment I stepped into Bracken High. It was hell but I had art and I had fashion, and I had also started writing short poems (all gloomy and about how the world didn’t value me) and I grew up from the 13 year old who nobody believed in and the 15 year old who wanted to die, and I became the 17 year old who wanted to make her own decisions in life.

But that didn’t last long.

My matric year was hell in itself. I wasn’t committed to anything besides art and I had this one teacher who kept bullying me from the moment he set eyes on me. Two whole years I spent with that . Two whole years, until I stopped caring and I told myself that I wasn’t going to pay him an inkling of respect and so I rebelled against him.

Needless to say, it wasn’t in my best interest as I only managed a measly 47% in Technical drawing because I had stopped working in his class and started bringing headsets to school. It was a move on my part but he only countered it by letting everyone bring them. Tch! That arse.

But ja… that was another learning point in my life.

Rebelling by throwing away your own future doesn’t serve anyone well.

So I matriculate with a pathetic National Diploma Certificate. I can’t even get a degree in anything ever!! But ja, my own falt for not caring when I needed to. And no my parents have expectations.

“What are you gonna do with your life now? You basically failed matri (such a lie) and now you only have limited opportunities.”

“I wanna study fashion.”

“Like hell you will! You’re not going to go waste your life away sitting behind a sewing machine while competing with the likes of China and their FongKong (SA version of “knock-off”) clothing. You must chose something else.”

“Fine then, I wanna do multimedia and go into animation and advertising.”

“Fine”

“Fine”

That didn’t happen. The University of Johannesburg rejected me and after I was unwillingly signed up for a correspondence business management course in 2013, they called to tell me to register because they decided to accept me after all. Mpf! It was too late.

I spent a year at home and got really fat while pretending to study for my course; Honestly though, I had discovered AFF and was reading most of the time to stay sane, and when I wasn’t reading I was sewing or drawing and later, writing.

Needless to say, I failed the course. I told them I would, but they didn’t listen to.. oh well.

My dad finally let up after that, countless fights later and many cruel remarks about my pathetic fashion after, he decided to let me study fashion; Honestly, I had given up hope and made plans to work as an English teacher for a year in Korea, but he finally said yes after many, many tears and I was beyond happy!

Finally, my fashion dream was going to come true and I’m going to show them all!!! Huh!

I got really excited for this year and I made major plans that would lead me to success. It was all going to fall into place until…

Well, until college started in Feb and a month later my dad died from a . That was it. It just took me back 100 steps and I didn’t even realise it.

We had been working for the church the weekend of my birthday and my dad had started showing signs of being unwell a week before. He was admitted into hospital two days before the 16th of March and after working that entire weekend as a family without him, we felt exhausted and just needed to rest. Monday was school so I never did get the chance to visit my day because of my busy schedule. We bought a birthday cake for me Monday night and tried to celebrate my birthday but it just wasn’t the same with dad in hospital. Tuesday came and went and on Wednesday, after deciding to come home early from school to rest up, I got home to find my extended family there and received a big hug from my great aunt. She sat me down and asked me about my day but all I wanted to know was what they were doing there and why they wouldn’t let me see my mum.

After a while of small talk I finally asked where my mom was and they told me she was in her room. When I tried to excuse myself to go to her, my great aunt sat me down again and and finally told me what they had been keeping from me all along.

My dad wad dead…

I didn’t believe it so I never reacted. It was unbelievable because dad was the strongest and healthiest man I’ve ever known and suddenly he’s gone.

I had thought that he would get better, really, I did, but he didn’t. Just like that, he was gone. My great aunt embraced me for a while before letting me go see my mum and when I got to her room, everything was stripped bare and all the walls were gone and my fathers and her possessions packe in our storeroom. My dad was wiped way just like that, with just a few layers of paint.

That hurt me the most, not seeing his mess in my parents room. That just made it all sink in. And the fact that they’d removed all his stuff so quickly… I broke down and looked for my mum, finding her in their bathroom.

I could see that she was broken but she wasn’t crying. That only made me cry harder because she was putting on an act for all these people who didn’t even care about us and acting strong when she was at her weakest.

I think what finally got to her was seeing me cry.

I never really cored in front of anyone before, I always hid my tears behind my bedroom door and so when she saw me fall apart she kind of did too.

We cried for the longest time before we finally decided to leave her bathroom but before we left she told me one thing.

“Be strong my Liz. Don’t let them see us fall apart now that your father isn’t here.”

And after months of being bombarded by family that didn’t care for us until they wanted to see us fall and us dry, I finally understood why my mum never cried in front of them.

We all never cried, my brothers and sister and I. We stayed strong and got all their stupid rituals done for my dad’s sake and so much money was wasted on feeding people who insisted on having unnecessary cultural rituals preformed and buying and making them booze so they could drink us into more sorrows by draining what money we had saved.

It was safe to say that by the end of July, when we were finally free of leeching family, we were exhausted.

I got into bus accident in my and injured my had and from then on, my body just started to give me trouble. My legs would hurt to the point that just couldn’t walk anymore without help anf my hands would swell so badly that I used my arms to lift things and holding a spoonful of food was a mission.

I spent my three week June holiday in absolute and utter pain while my scavenger family wanted to be taken care of and nursed by us. They stayed in our house and demanded what wasn’t theirs and made judgments and decisions and whatnot and blamed it all on ritual.

I HATE F***ING RITUAL.

I hate how black people in South Africa always use their culture as an excuse for making the lives of the family of the deceased hell.

Because of ritual my mother was banned from working for months while she had to worry about paying for our school fees. She has three kids in tertiary and one in high school and Education here in SA is Expensive!

And they told her not to work and put traditional “grieving” clothes on her making her loss known to the world!

How the hell could they when they couldn’t even offer a cent to assist up to pay for my dad’s funeral. They came, they ate our food, they slept in our beds and broke out dishes and they still had the nerve to tell my mom she wasn’t allowed to work for her children?!

Being the respectable woman she is, mum did as they said for my dad’s sake and name and spent 3 months confined to the house. THREE WHOLE MONTHS!!

It was so stressful and the stress of it all affected us in different ways. Mom and I got really sick and my older brother became obsessed with taking over my dad’s trucking business (not taxi’s anymore)

We all went through a lot for a long while, until finally, my mum was set free and she started working, though even after that we were both sick.

I had school and home responsibilities while trying to work and mum was on the verge of depression after 3 months of no income.

It’s been three months now since I can say we started our new lives and it’s been rough.

Mum’s been overworking herself and I’ve been exhausted beyond belief as well as sick. My right wrists and hand still swells up on the daily even now, despite getting “treatment” from doctors. The medical system here btw.

I just wanted to tell you a little bit about myself and vent. I started this blog out talking about expression myself and art.

It’s still about that, but now it’s going into the meaning behind my expression and my art; the reasons I write and my portrayal of life’s events in my fics.

I know this has been a lot to read, but those who stayed with me to the end of this post, I want you to know that it really means a lot that you took the time to get to know a piece of me.

For those who read my fics; those fics are a piece of me. Everything in my life, the good and the bad (but mostly the bad) has served as inspiration for the path that I am currently persuing.

I know I’m not the best AFF author out there, I know I have only a few subs in comparison to many authors out there who have subs and upvotes and comments for the world.

I don’t know their stories. But I know mine; and I want my friends and readers to know it, because all that I do and write was influenced by my experiences, and I wish to share them with whoever wants to listen.

I have learned to appreciate every little bit of happiness that life throws my way, and to me, every subscriber, every upvote, every comment, friend request, blog post comment PM, etc. They all mean the world to me because it is through those platforms that I have discovered a world of support.

And maybe some don’t realise this very important fact in life, maybe it’s only important to me, but it’s as simple as this:

“It only takes one person’s belief, to make the dreams of another come true.”

And I believe that I will succeed, in both my fashion and my writing careers, because I have people who believe in me…

Thank you all for reading my blogs, my messages, my fics…

My world is brightened everyday by the never ending support I get on Aff.

For those of you who are interested, please support my page on facebook; it’s called OursAlone and I wish for that to be another platform to aid my growth.

I hope at some point in my like, I can make a difference to those who need me.

Yeoreobun Neomu Kamsahamnida.

<3<3<3