Blog 3

I’m supposed to be writing a blog about my experiences, I’m sitting at the desk in a room, surrounded by some amazing people on the eve of the beginning of the best year of our lives. I am overwhelmed. I have nothing. But here I go, telling you about whatever is going on in my mind.

I have no sense of time, I just realised that a moment ago when I was trying to figure out how long this whole process has taken. From the moment I dreamt that I might have a chance to travel the world to the point where I was sitting around a cosy dinner table with seven of the best from round the world just a few nights ago as we had a beautiful meal together. All feeling blessed.

It must have started in my bed at about two am one late night/early morning. After having had an extremely long day, a norm in advertising, I was unable to sleep that night and all I was imagining were the possibilities that might be. I had done the first audition and video challenge for the Smirnoff Experience contest, and it had been a couple days later and I couldn’t get the images out of head. The clear blue beaches of Malaysia, the energy and intensity of Brazil, the history of England, the sky over a desert, the spices of India and the essence of South Africa I would explore and share during the travels and the search for more. I could even taste the air filled with the freedom of living. Living life to the fullest and making sure every single moment was the making of a masterpiece.

Can you imagine escaping your comfort zone? Exploring the unknown without fear and doubt. Can you imagine letting your soul run wild and free of convention. Can you imagine feeling like you are blessed? Can you imagine having a moment with some of the greatest makings of the universe? The thoughts became a desire I knew I was alive only to make real. For the first time ever, I was in love with my long and loyal friend called insomnia. Insomnia allowed my imagination to create images I required to feel alive; I could lie there comfortably with my thoughts for as long as I wanted to. This was definitely what I was made to be. The ‘this’ I speak of is being an explorer. Searching for originality. Searching for experiences that make life all the more interesting. Searching endlessly for the best moments, furthermore, given the chance to live those moments I had been searching for. Moments of pure happiness.

A few days of welcomed sleepless nights were catapulted into days of anxiety with excitement and disbelief when I got that special call telling me I was going to the week long – and sure to be rigorous – London selection. This week was going to be a break it or make it week for me. Two South Africans were to pack up their things, as if going away for year, and get onto an airplane and say goodbye to all they knew and be ready to learn a whole lot more about everything. (Which means, out of a couple hundred beautiful and brilliant South Africans, I was one of two going to the finals)

There is something about being loved that gives you irreplaceable comfort. When you have more people than you imagined letting that soothing love flow freely from them to you. People whose love I had either taken for granted or chose to believe existed were here showing me so much love. The support and the faith they offered gave me the safety and warmth only babies feel in their mother’s womb. The gratitude I now feel makes me feel like I could burst. One of my favourite quotes is by John Updike and he says, ‘Dreams do come true, without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them.’

I was now, a week away from the beginning of the rest of my life. I had a fifty percent chance of engraving my name on the golden key to a million doors and I could be admitted into the university of life and experience. I was a week away from opening my eyes and letting the glory of the universe in. All I had to do was keep believing in myself and annihilate the competition.

Saying goodbye was the strangest and most surreal moment of my life. Actually, it was more than one moment; it might have been over a hundred times. Everything I knew and had come to love. Everything I wanted to get away from. Everything I wanted to keep close to me. Everything I thought I knew. At some point during the endless goodbyes, I had an intense conversation with my better half who was in shock that I was leaving. My response surprised even me, but every sound and syllable was true to its very purpose. I wasn’t leaving, I was living!

There is a line in the movie American Beauty that has touched me immensely – ‘Sometimes there is so much beauty in the world, I feel I can’t take it, like my heart is gonna burst.’ How could I consider not experiencing the world? Would it be fair to the world’s creator to have made so much beauty and not every inch of it explored?

I realised from the very beginning that this opportunity was going to be filled with millions of firsts. Starting with my first international flight. My first long flight. My first stamp in my passport. My first trip outside the borders of my South Africa. Every second of those first few firsts felt right and it was as though I had space in me to absorb it all because I now had to learn to take in as much as possible and pick up things that most people may not see, feel, touch, hear or taste.

The London selection week was emotional, rigorous and nerve wrecking as I had imagined, with many surprises. Every single one of the people I met, who had the same drive and desire as I did to win, were so wonderful. I was surprised that we created bonds so powerful in such a short space of time. Had I gone home, I would have gone home having taken more out of the week than I would have thought. The week on its own was an experience I will never forget.

We moved into a house somewhere in London the day after the announcement, eight of the chosen people, still reeling from excitement and disbelief that we were now going to live our most unimaginable dreams.

So just a few days ago, we were sitting around our dining room table, feeling blessed and loved. A month ago, we knew nothing about each other, now there we were sharing a meal with people we cared so deeply for, people who had now become a brand spanking new and perfect family. On the eve of the beginning of our original adventures, I still had no sense of time, and it was perfectly fine. Happiness lives in moments, moments made up of our clearest desires and the force of faith.