Whatshot
Through My Eyes
Through My Eyes
Date: 2015-12-04
Over a quarter of a century ago (it seems like a lifetime ago and it probably is), I too came to Ballito after my matric exams and had a huge party.
Unlike my children, I found an inexpensive site at Dolphin Coast Caravan Park and like all the youngsters, I enjoyed the legendary bar hop holiday revelling between La Montagne, Chakas Rock and Salt Rock Hotel. The little pubs in the hotels were our hangouts and we were innocently and frugally trying to make our R100 holiday allowance last for the entire two weeks.
Those were the days; before the madness, before the spiked drinks, the excessive drinking and the all night raving with chemicals galore. It was just so different in my day.
That was before the Internet and cell phone, before Black Rage Passes and truckloads of booze. In our days, all that time ago in Ballito, we spent our days physically connecting with each other on the beach.
Sharing our much-prized bottle of Coco Rico while getting sunburn blisters on our noses - come to think of it, it was before the sunscreen and the skin cancer scare, oh and probably the last time I was seen in Ballito wearing a bikini (I reserve this extravagance for far off places where no one knows me).
Things have changed so much since that time. For starters my mother didn't even know where I wasshe was oblivious to any dangers. We were so independent and the world was a different place.
As I sit here in the dark listening to the party next door waiting for my boys to come back from a concert, I so much wish my mind was at peace. Its not that I do not trust my sons, that is not my worry, its that I do not trust this world that they are revelling in.
As the night breeze whispers sweet nothings into the darkness my heartbeat slows down and as I hear the gate opening and their happy voices in the driveway I can finally breath a sigh of relief.
"What you doing up at this time of the night?" my youngest asks, coming to me with a big hug, he knows but tries to make light of it, "I told you, we will be home on time, I told you not to worry mom."
Oh yes I know, I shouldn't worry but that's just what mothers do. We worry about our children's wellbeing even when we don't have to.
So whether you are nursing your new born or staying up with your toddler or waiting up for your teenagers to come home after a night of 'jolling', let the force be with you. Be strong and keep smiling, the holidays are almost over.