Let's continue the trend of annual year-in-review blog posts, shall we? Something for my biographers to look back on one day. Or just me ... in some old-age home with a magnifying glass.
2022 for me won't be defined by the outside world, for a change. I met the love of my life early this year ... moved from Pretoria to Johannesburg to be closer to her ... and two weeks ago she and her son moved in with me.
This time last year I was sitting writing this update on a laptop before going into a cinema to watch a movie by myself. This time I'm sitting at my PC, listening to my girlfriend and her son talking while she cooks dinner in the kitchen.
I am ... feeling blessed.
I'll be honest, I wanted so much for myself this year. Again. I accomplished so little else worth even mentioning. Again.
Let's call it incremental gains. Small updates on my website. Finally getting my firearm license, paying off my handgun (a Glock 19 Gen 5 for the record), collecting it (feeling simultaneously that little bit safer AND significantly more apprehensive about all the new worries it brings into my life).
No change in my working life (for better and worse in this economy I guess).
It felt anticlimactic when the announcement came early this year that we could all remove our COVID-19 masks. Somehow the infections dipped and the masks came off and ... COVID just disappeared. Herd immunity? Government conspiracy? The vaccines finally helping (I got my booster at the start of this year)? All I can say is it's good to see people's faces again. And I'm not feeling naked in public any longer (it did feel VERY strange for a good month or so without a mask on). There are STILL the odd few people (mostly old couples - understandable I guess) mooching around in masks, but I'm happy to say COVID disappeared just in time for us to collectively face our next national crisis.
Loadshedding.
We moved up rapidly from Stage 2 loadshedding to Stage 4 loadshedding, and are now switching between Stage 4 to 6. I wonder if I'll remember living in 2022 and not having electricity for half the day in blocks of 2 to 4 hours at a time.
We're working around it. Of course we are. Solar has never taken off more across South Africa, and everyone is an expert in lithium batteries and inverters. I can't get solar because I live in a residential estate. My girlfriend is planning to buy an inverter trolley for us, using a small windfall she got ... so maybe we'll be a little bit better off in 2023. Because it's not going to get better. Every day Eskom reports grimly on all the additional power generating units which have gone offline for unexpected repairs. Even the Eskom CEO resigned (no-one is surprised - the only surprise is that he lasted this long, but the political pressure became unbearable).
That's politicians, isn't it? Something needs to happen before the next elections. Only we all know it won't be easy. The warning signs were there the first time we had loadshedding, back in 2009 if I'm remembering it correctly ... when I covered the affects loadshedding had in Knysna while working as a community newspaper reporter. Then it was a novel issue and interviewing the local icecream manufacturer bemoaning the loss of all his stock was just intriguing. Now it's feeling more dire.
Someone in the ANC likened loadshedding to motivating for regime change. That's a rough paraphrase but it'll do. You get the point. He's not wrong. Even the least educated voters will understand there is a problem when the lights keep going off. And they might understand that Eskom's failures cannot be attributed to Apartheid. This is on your doorstep, ANC. The buck stops with you.
*shrugs* Can we stop talking about electricity now? It's boring. It's so contrary to the 'dream life' we're all trying to live, which is hard to do when it's by the light of a rechargeable lantern.
No, let me rather talk about the new hope my girlfriend has given me for both my life personally and the future. For the new responsibilities her son has brought into my life. Talk about going from zero to 100 rapidly ... from not being a father, to suddenly being a co-parent to a 13 year old boy.
I can't tell you how good it feels to hold my girlfriend and to just not be alone anymore.
So ... 2023. What do you hold for me? I swear to goodness I am either going to get my website off the ground once and for all, or else I'm going to start afresh with something else. And ... money. Yeah I want to pay off my debt. Same as every year then. A luta continua.
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