Oat

One of the biggest mistakes immigrants make is thinking that the moment you leave, everything stops. HITS PAUSE. Your country of origin is a robot busker waiting for you to get back. I promised myself I wouldn’t. I remember being irked by immigrants who’d lecture me about the advancement of milk technology while Checkers was serving oat milk in the long-life section. I ignored it then - when my body could process lactose. 

It’s hard though. 

Today I found out the price of a cup of coffee has changed. I’m not sure why I looked. Maybe it’s the Cape Town Test Match that’s making me miss home. I’d be there. Drinking a Castle out of a plastic cup. Never letting it get cold, because you don’t do that to a Castle. It’s silly, but some part of my FOMO wants it to stay as it was. I don’t want things to move on without me, even though I’m the one who pivoted in another direction.

I want to return one day and find everything I loved exactly as I left it. I know that defies logic - but you’re a dick. 

I have changed. I’ve got older, which is well documented. I get older with every character I punch into the keys. 

Here’s what took me a long time to see: I’ve been doing the same thing to myself.

In my head, I’m an athlete. But truthfully, I don’t think I ever was. I'm trying to force my kids to be athletes, as though athleticism is something you can inherit by association. I write this, but I don't believe it. I'm an athlete.

I’m the one who saw the Knysna Lagoon Mile and entered with little deliberation. More here: 

I’m the one who, a couple of beers in, signed me up for three ocean swims “because it was cheaper.”

I’m the one who said yes to two big events in November that are two weeks away. 

And I’m a different man by the time I turn up to do them.

My mouth writes cheques my body can’t cash. My mouth is Tom Newby’s swimming captain, and my body is a forty-something with two cramping quads, a saturated-fat habit, and a hamstring that tears when I think about touch rugby. I’ve also entered a touch rugby tournament. 

Every time, it’s the same exchange. A friend asks. The captain says, “Count me in.” Three months later, the body arrives at the start line, looks at the water, and I can shit myself. 

I’m not being modest. I’m good at the first half of every challenge, the saying-yes half.

It’s the same mistake I made about home.

I assumed the country I left was frozen. Meanwhile, my friends picture me the same way: loud, quick, exceptional at golf. They’re waiting for that guy to show up when I see them again. I’m not sure he’s coming. 

People go on about what a terrific golfer I am all the time, but I just don’t get to play any more now that I’m an endurance athlete. 

I’ll still do the events, because I said yes and a commitment is a commitment. 

I’ve moved on to Almond Milk. Oat Milk is shit. 

I miss that version of me as much as I miss home. 

Neither is gone.