Wowzers- 23 years of being on this planet! My first personal blog post! Lockdown! This seems like a good time to start writing my first post and actually introduce myself. This isn’t something I feel comfortable with, or have done before but I’ve learnt and grown a lot in my 22nd year. This is going to hopefully be a place for me to share my life, thoughts, and all things good and positive!
I’ll start off with introducing myself to those who decided to join me for this journey. So, hi, I’m Cait, a now-23-year-old Capetonian studying towards my dream of being a Speech Therapist. When I’m not doing varsity work, I’m most likely snuggled up watching a hoard of series, spending time with friends, or organising. I love organising everything. It might be getting my diary out and writing down hour for hour what my week plan is, or using my variety of coloured pens to organise my calendar or notes. It might even be cleaning out my cupboards or drawers just so that I can feel that I’ve got my daily fix or organisation. I’ve found a recent love in cooking and baking, and being creative. I love food! I love finding new restaurants that serve elegant and not-so-elegant but all round delicious dishes! My biggest fear is sharks and I don’t like being somewhere that I can’t see that bottom of. I get nervous when I’m swimming in the sea, although I find it’s life super fascinating.
My parents divorced a couple years after I was born and it gave me the biggest blessing of two families. I have three younger brothers, incredible step parents, and amazing parents. My dogs are humans in dog form. I can spend hours just sitting with them and love that they’re always excited to see me. I think dogs bring a calming energy to our lives and I’ve definitely got the kindest of the bunch. I love spending quality time with my big family- whether we are having big family lunches, face timing during lockdown or just sitting around watching a movie. I believe that it’s important to spend quality time with those you love. 🙂
I’m usually one who loves a plan, loves to be organised and often gets very frazzled if something changes last minute. I feel uncomfortable being spontaneous because “what if”. I’ve always got this back-of-my-mind fear of something going wrong and not being prepared for that. I get anxious when I know I have to travel long distance. Now we get to the good parts- the lessons I’ve learnt by the ripe age of 23.
It’s okay if plans change
I spend a lot of time obsessing over planning and having to know what is going on. I like control. I always got nervous when plans would suddenly change and I had already planned everything in advance. The past year, actually the past few years, have taught me that it’s okay if plans change. It’s corny but “everything happens for a reason”. Some people will know that I always wanted to study Occupational Therapy. When I didn’t get into OT at UCT, I was devastated, and of course still set on going to UCT. I studied a BSocSci majoring in Psychology and Linguistics in my first year of varsity. Reapplying for OT and Speech Therapy for my second year. Again, devastated for not being amongst the lucky few who got accepted for OT, but grateful for being accepted into Speech Therapy (and wow did I not know what I was actually in for). Four years later and I am absolutely in love with what I’m studying, and wouldn’t change my journey for anything.
But “what if it doesn’t”
Another reason why I decided to start this blog and post all things me was because I started to understand that fear is often unnecessary. I always think “what if” when I have to consider plans. “What if I get into a car accident”. “What if someone catches me”. “What if there’s a shark in the water”. But what if it doesn’t happen? I spent the beginning few weeks of lockdown taking up yoga and spiritual awareness. A big part of what I was learning was that fear is holding me back. Essentially without this fear, the amount of opportunities I would have taken far exceed the times that something has actually gone wrong. I’ve now started changing my narrative from “what if” to “what will I see/learn/experience”. This is going to be my 23rd year motto and push me to experience things, even if I am scared.
Express yourself
I use this as my final lesson for my first post, I may post some more lessons as I get more comfortable with writing to my computer screen. I learnt a lot about myself and my creative ability during lockdown. It all started with borrowing my grans ancient sewing machine to try and sew my own scrubs (WOT). Haha from someone who has never used a sewing machine (or even a needle for that matter) to sewing scrubs that I would have to wear to work one day, I really go into it! Lockdown made me do crazy things- I crocheted octopi to donate to preemie babies (I’ll add the link below for anyone who wants to try and give back a little). I sewed my own scrubs, although it took a couple tries, I think they’re wearable now and so so comfy. I fixed an old pair of long pyjama pants, AND sewed my own (wearable) winter pyjamas from scratch! I even took up embroidery. This is still a new one for me but I’m really enjoying being able to be creative and using time this way instead of vegging in front of a computer screen. I baked, I cooked.
And lastly, I started this blog, with fear, but knowing that if I don’t do it, I’m adding fuel to the “what if” fire. So here I am, on my last day of 22, writing my first blog post because what if I get to inspire people to do small things like bake, or cook for a friend, or sew their own pyjamas, or even just learn to love themselves a little more.
A Piece Of Cait 
Hi Cait! So excited for your posts – you sound like such a lovely person and I cant wait to hear more of your journey. Really amazing because its not easy to share so kudos to you for that! Looking forward 🙂
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