The Lover

 

Dear love

You are by far, my favourite. You reveal in me, what I did not know I had. You come and bring gifts of peace and hugs. You tear down walls built so high that I even forgot what’s on the other side. You ease my fears and restore my yesterdays. You come with comfort and give my heart a home. You bring a storm only you can calm, at the price of my pride…but then again, you are more than worthy. Each day, without asking, you give me reasons to fall deeper in love with you and myself. You teach me how to carry myself. You teach me how to stand firm in my word.

Dear Rethabile Lerato Mabalane

What a marvel you are to watch. You are soft and vulnerable. You let your guard down and love loudly. You move boldly towards love as though you have never been hurt in it. You give as though you have never lost. You receive love as it is and give it back in ways you wished you received it. You become so gentle that the Rethabile who was taught to harden her heart, fades in the existence of the you, you are in love. You are at your most pure. You aren’t a daughter, a mother or even a girlfriend, you’re just the you that you wish you could always be. I love you when you are in love because the receiver receives more and more of you…but mostly, you receive more and more of yourself because with every encounter with love, you learn and give back to yourself. I love seeing you learn and bloom into the woman you pray about. You are my most favourite. I look forward to seeing more of you. Hearing more from you. Dear Rethabile, I look forward to you

Love

Rethabile, The Lover

The Friend

 

Dear Friendship

How crazy of you to love me. How crazy for you to provide a home for me. You give me so much encouragement and motivate me to never give up on myself. You support my dreams without hesitation and wish me well on my journey. Thank you for allowing me to explore the parts of me I haven’t shared with the world yet. Thank you for loving my loud laugh, dirty jokes, smart mouth and what you call personality. Thank you for the lessons and good times.  Thank you for the nights I cants remember and to our future together. Thank you for allowing me to be…

Dear friends, my dudes

I have witnessed your hunger. You strive so hard to become impeccable young men. Men that protect, men that work hard, men that provide all while finding your identity. The contrast between the expectations of you being the male child to that of a man being represented in each of you has granted me the opportunity to see reason behind how hard you grind and work. The reason behind your hunger for greatness and the sense of being a man. Without you, I wouldn’t hve the drive I have. The courage to start typing and releasing my diary for many to read. As men, you taught me how to face the worldly battles with my head held high and guard even higher. As men, you taught me to put my pride aside.  As men, you have taught me that my emotions truly are great servants and not masters because the challenges you face on a daily take strength to not be reacted emotionally towards. Dear men in my life, thank you for the friendship and security. Thank you for my game and thank you for always inspiring me to do better than I did yesterday.

Dear friends, my ladies

It takes a lot for me to have endless bonds with women, but with what the gents have taught me, loyalty is the best way to have a relationship. After growing up as a tomboy, you helped me find my feminine side. Your world has allowed to explore myself in ways I dreamt someone else would. You softened me up and taught me how to feel. Slowly as I grew into womanhood, you grew with me. When my adolescence hit and the boys didn’t get me, you came running in to save the day and you continue to do so.  With friends in motherhood, relationships and life of a woman, I am blessed to have a group of female friends so versatile that I explore every element of womanhood through you. Thank you for creating a sisterhood like no other. Already having a sister, you are the closest thing to that I can describe. Thank you for the love, thank you nurturing me and thank you for making me want more.

 

Love,

Rethabile, The friend

The Daughter

Dear Parents

I got to see you in a different light. Motherhood allowed me to get a glimpse of what your life. As I was going through my heartbreak, my only thought was that of protecting Panda. My intentions were to continue giving Panda all the love that had been promised that I deprived myself the love I needed to continue the fight. Thinking that I am alone in motherhood, I forgot I wasn’t alone in life. Just as I sought to love and protect Panda, beyond my own life, you did the same for me. I wouldn’t be the parent I am today, because through the love and lessons you gave me, I get to witness many milestones. Thank you for instilling in me everything I need to conquer my tomorrows. You guys did an amazing job with me! Thank you!

 

Dear Mama

I became a mom and saw you for the first time. You helped me define what motherhood is to me from the moment you found out about me. Hearing stories of the day you found out about me, your appointment visits with Neo and my birth and having experienced stories of my own with my daughter makes me look forward to telling her. I realise that as a daughter, I have hurt you many times but never knew how deep the cuts were. Not the pain bore during days for pregnancy and the result of birth, but the pain that cuts so deep, it makes all the pain of labour seem minute. Learning the roles outside of motherhood you had to play has made me learn you more and fall in love deeper with you. Umbilical cord cut, but closer than ever. Your heart still mine, it beats to keep me alive. Thank you Soster!

Dear Papa

My bro. I can never picture a life without you in it. All my memories have you in them. I remember the day you found out I was pregnant. 5 July 2019, Friday. 2 days after finding out about my pregnancy. That’s the moment…bittersweet because that is when your little girl became a grown little something. Well, that’s what I thought. I thought now that I was a mom I was grown, but you continued reminding me that I am a child. You reprimanded and cared for me. You talked to me and held my hand at my most scared. As much as being a mom showed me the importance of a father being present in a child’s life, your presence in mine taught me that his character and actions will define his presence. Trying to replicate what I got from you, for Panda, opened me to the many struggles of fatherhood. I could never do what you do or endure all you have endured, so God decided to have Panda experience it from the best, you. I could ever ask for a better dad because without you, I’d be a whole different being, and I’m happy being me.

 

Love

Rethabile, The Daughter

The Companion

 

COMPANIONSHIP

 

It might not always be what you want it to be, but it is always what you need to get through this life.

Dear God

Thank you for the smiles and thank you for the laughs. Thank you for the time and thank you for the chance. Thank you for the conversations and thank you for the silence. Thank you for the feeling of home in others and in ourselves. Thank you for tomorrows fuelled with hope from yesterday’s promises. Thank you for the tight hugs we get. As tight as though they will hold us for tomorrow. Dear God, Thank you for companionship.

 

Dear Companionship

I have come to know you in many forms. As a daughter, a mother, a friend and a lover. Each relationship different from the next, two common things about them all is love and growth. You provided peace through conversations filled with laughter and peace in moments silence was a third partner in our encounters. You provided friends to celebrate the joys of life with and shoulders to cry on, on our days to mourn. You provided beings our hearts can call home and equipped us with the tools needed to build homes in ourselves. You require nothing but time to strengthen bonds of friendship and mould them into brotherhoods. What we consider a meaningless meetings by chance, becomes your birth. God was right when He said it is not good for man to be alone because in all my happy moments, you were there. You came with blessings and lifetime lessons. In moments of despair, you come with words of encouragement. I have yearned for you on many occasions and mourned you more than a thousand times.  

But, with everything that I know, the good and the bad, I will always welcome you. Wholeheartedly   

 

To the many beings I am blessed to have in my life, thank you. Thank you for seeing something worth staying for. Thank you for never ending reassurance of love. Through the memes you share, the ideas you inspire and words of encouragement. I truly am a better person because of the roles to choose to play in my life. What we didn’t think much of has now attached itself to my identity through our experiences together. Thank you for the part you played and continue to play. I pray our being connected brings nothing but the best in you and me. I love you, always and forever

Love

Rethabile, The Companion.

Eat, pray, self-love

 

 

Dear Motherhood… Dear Rethabile

Thank you. I am grateful that you helped me find myself. I am grateful that you have allowed me to hide behind you as I pick up the pieces to the rest of me. Thank you for the laughter, the pain and the lessons. I learnt so much about myself the past four years (pregnancy included) through you, that I am looking forward to the joy you will bring as we celebrate Oabetswe’s third year. Here is to you!! For you came with so much joy in my life and those around us.

 

March 2^nd, 2023

Three years ago, on this day, I went to the hospital. Signs that I was about to go into labour were showing. My nerves were all over the place as I was about to be a mother to a human being and not just my belly. The past months had just been about ensuring I eat, pray and carry myself with love so I could take care of my baby, Panda. I ended up sleeping at the hospital for two nights because just like her mom, Panda works at her own time. The damn audacity to do that to your own mother!

 

With this coming Saturday marking our 3 year anniversary, or as Panda calls it, her birthday, I realised the amount of pressure I had put on myself. The pressure of ensuring she knows that she is loved and cared for…but I soon realised that I am the one who I was actually worried about. Again, I am learning to deal with my issues outside of parenthood.

 

During my journey of finding fulfilment, I asked myself the question Elizabeth Gilbert received in her movie and book ‘Eat, Pray, Love’, “What is your word?” Basically asking who are you or what word best describes you. I have struggled with this question because I am continuously finding things about myself and cannot be boxed into one category. In the movie, Elizabeth throws out words like “wife” and “daughter”. This took me back to a conversation I had with my God Baby Daddy (Panda’s Godfather) where I was telling him that I am finding it hard to balance life as a mom and life as Rethabile. His response was so simple yet effective because all he said was “Stop trying to be one thing at a time and embrace all of you. You aren’t just a mom and you aren’t just Rethabile. You are everything in one”.  

 

What this made me realise was I was so focused on everything I am not that I never celebrated all that I am and all I have done. I am always focused on the next move and not what is right in front of me. So in the spirit of celebrating and giving thanks, I decided to just write what I am grateful for

 

1. ·       I have acted for big and small productions.

·       I got the opportunity to study and graduate.

·       Thanks to Thato having had a show on BMH Radio, I have been on live radio.

·       I have been featured on people’s songs as a vocalist.

·       I successfully registered a business (as sole proprietor) and one with a partner.

·       I have worked hard and got modelling gigs

·       I started a family of my own (Panda and I).

·       I have had the opportunity to be a working mom and now a stay at home mom.

·       I survived the most abusive relationship I have ever been in and still came out believing in love and good in other people

·       I started my own blog

·       I get to celebrate 3 years of Panda’s life daily!

 

By acknowledging all the things I have, I realise that sometimes self-love isn’t telling yourself how much you love yourself or how pretty you look, but by reminding yourself of all you have achieved and gotten through. I am really my favourite reminder of just how good God is as I have seen miracles happen for me. My next and current adventure includes me taking my place in God’s kingdom. I have worked hard to prove myself worthy of worldly status and I am beyond happy. It is not everyone that gets to live their dreams the way I have. I am proud of myself. I eat more, pray more and love myself so much that I have been receiving love from outside too.

So, who am I? I am God’s child. An heiress to His kingdom. One of the kingdom builders and I am absolutely proud of it.

 

Anyway, let me go play one of my roles and prepare for Panda’s day care birthday celebration. I am beyond pumped!!

 

-        Love, Rethabile The mom

P.S Psalm 100

(A psalm of thanksgiving)

“Shout with joy to the Lord, all the earth! Worship the Lord with gladness. Come before him, singing with joy. Acknowledge that the Lord is God! He made us, and we are his. We are his people, the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving; go into his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good. His unfailing love continues forever, and his faithfulness continues to each generation.”