Friday afternoon 16 May. We had our weekly Team Meeting in the office which went by pretty quickly; so at about 16:30 I left for home, cruising down the street, playing my 5FM on full blast, anxiously waiting to enter my humble abode as I do every week. Unfortunately, this Friday was different. As I drove into the parking I noticed that my garage door was slightly open and the thing is I am the only one that has the keys to unlock that door, so at that moment I knew that something was wrong. To to avoid the sudden flush of raging negativity I tried so hard to convince myself that the landlord was making changes (cognitive dissonance at its best)... Without even getting my bag out the boot or locking my car, I dashed out and walked towards my apartment... Got to the front door and it too was open. All my South African nightmares came true as I could instantaneously tell that from the marks on the side of the door it was forced open. So at this moment in time I had fully accepted it, the hard reality that my apartment had been broken into. The worst part of this was having to force myself to walk into my bedroom: my technology hub, my headquarters, my sanctuary, my life :( ....Knowing what would probably await me on the other side of the bedroom door. With this in mind I did it ever so reluctantly and not to my surprise...my gadgets were gone :/ Stolen, taken...forcefully adopted.
They took my new laptop...
They took my old laptop...
They took my Ipad...
They took my guitar :( , those bastards even took my guitar!.
So the damage as it stands from theft this year is about, lets say +-R20,000
Yeah it hurts, but as always it could have been worse. Much worse, it can always be worse...
I didn't cry, I didn't sniff I didn't scream or shout. The first thing I did was accept it. And the second thing I did was call my mother :) I did this for two reasons, the first was because I actually wanted to check on HER as I had been planning on calling for a while its just these international call rates always deter me. And the second was to let her know that I am O.K because i never want her to get worried about me. The weird thing about traumatic life experiences is that you instantly think of what you really should be grateful for in life. And the first things that I thought of was my family, not my money not my possessions not all the personal work that I had on my devices, but my family. Because there is nothing worse than something bad happening to family.
So I talked to my mother and I made a promise to myself to check-up on family members more often, because in life this is what really counts. It is love, it is relationships it is happiness. And I mean money can buy you material things, but no amount of money can by you love. And in this materialistic consumer-crazed world that we live in we really need to make sure we have our priorities straight in life. Yes, I am sad that my stuff is gone, but I am happy, extremely happy that at that moment I knew deep down inside what was really important in my life. And this is a knowing that should be present every single day. It is life, shit happens, we all become statistics at one point in time, but as long as you know that whatever the thieves have stolen and whatever the moths have eaten does not define you, then you will be OK.
Amongst the things that I was grateful for after my robbery is the fact that I still have my life, everyone I love still has their lives, I have more than enough money saved up to enable a quick recovery and of course the glorious fact that these stupid thieves din't steal my router. So at least the didn't take the internet :)
We shall rebuild!
T4aM
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"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20"But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal" Mathew 6:19
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