I think a good place to start is to tell you a little about myself. With 2 younger brothers and parents who have been very happily married for 37 years, there is always enough love for everybody going around. I grew up in a small town in South Africa. A little town where everybody knows everybody. It was one of those places where we walked home from school with bare feet. In November we would dance through the jacaranda flowers laying on the hot pavements. Summer holidays was like heaven on earth. When school started again in January, it would be boiling hot, and we had to do athletics in the sweltering heat (something is still don't understand), but lets just say it all built character. To me, its home. Its a place where I still feel most protected.
Nowadays I live in London. The bustling, don't make eye contact on the tube, mind your own business, double decker bus town. Its been said that London is one of the loneliest cities in the world to live in. I can tell you this is true. From time to time that loneliness chews at your ankles, but I have amazing friends who, in a sense have become like my family away from home. Even though it gets tough sometimes, this city is amazing. There are so many little hidden gems in this city. Just the other day I went to Portobello Road Market for the first time. What a feast for the eyes! Whenever things gets a bit too overwhelming and I miss "home" too much, I like to take a bus across Waterloo Bridge and just realise again, I live in one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Big Ben (or actually St Stephen's Tower) can take your breath away on a beautiful day. It is here that I really grew to know myself. What I want out of life. It gave me guts. Coming here has made me realise I can do anything I set my mind to!
As my close friends know very well, I am also very random. I absorb random information (sometimes useless) like a sponge. Whenever I had a question about any topic, my dad seemed to have the answer I was looking for. I guess this is where that hunger for information comes from. I am also very attentive. Nothing escapes me. I notice peoples expressions. I notice weird little things. When I come to the end of my life, I don't want to think I was one of those people that, when asked: how are you? who just replied, fine thanks. I want to be honest. I want to build relationships of substance, so that when friends/family/people around me say they are fine, I want to be able to see deeper and give comfort where it's needed.
The aim of this blog, is to give and gain perspective. To inspire. To give hope. That is something I am a master at. Being hopeful. I am a true optimist. When you say the glass is half empty, I might just tell you that actually even if the glass is only half full, that the rest is filled with air, so technically, the glass is always 100% full. Some find this crazy. Some may even find it annoying, but you know what? I wouldn't live my life, or survive for that matter if I didn't adopt this way of thinking.
A wise man once said: "All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope" ~ Winston Churchill
See you soon,
Liezel x
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