Doepelgogo and Friends – Reliving Moments

So…

Sunday morning, I woke up on a cloud. Sun shining on me played shortfilters loud.

Okay something like that, been an interesting few weeks, a lot going on in my life. Realisations, career changes, friend changes, family crises, praying for uncles, good news bad news… in a nutshell… LIFE.

So I guess I was trying to escape, reading articles online, putting stuff on tumblr and then somewhere between all of that, I came across this question that made me stop and think… ponder.

“If you could relive any moment in your life which would it be”

This question basically took me on a little journey through my life, back to my memories of Diepkloof phase 2 (sorry that’s as far back as this immaculate brain of mine goes) memories of growing up without a care in the world, of going to my grandparents’ farm in Mafikeng, other weekends in Pietersburg seeing my mom’s family, holidays with cousins, days with school friends, getting older, being happy, being sad, time with my sister, my brothers, their friends, my friends, new friends, old friends, getting sick, the look of complete worry and fear on my mom’s face when getting a diagnosis, this face changing to strength and inspiration for me to know that I’ll be okay. More growing up, holidays, varsity, more family time, heartbreak, challenges, memories, new things, old things, new people, old people, young people, work, work, work. Well you get the gist of it…

So I posed this question to two of my friends, one of them came with the answer very easily “the first time falling in love before all the bad stuff ruins it for you. That first glow period” and she is right, that is a lovely feeling. This was reiterated by three other people. Another said it so poetically “that moment that I’ve realised that the person  I’m in love with loves me too. I’ve experienced it twice and it’s the best feeling in the world”. So what I took from this is that 1) my friends are lovers and not fighters 2) true love is something that honestly makes people feel genuinely happy. I’ll call this group the lovers.

This was turning out to be loads of fun, so I extended my sample pool to the rest of my friends that I could easily get hold of via BBM or Whatsapp (our DOEPELGANGER research budget has been exhausted for the year so no sms haha)

One of the answers that became one of my favourites was birth, which I first got from one of my favourite people in the whole world, Raiko! Birth. That makes sense right? Like if you relive birth you get to do all of it, all over again, or rather let me say, if you relive birth, you get to go through another lifetime of just doing things, trying things, finding your passion, being a human (or alien for some of you)! For the purposes of this study, I chose to add the people who answered me with “all of them” into this category because essentially these people are those who I would call the luuuurvers, they are jaaaast luuuurving it!

Next comes my portion of friends and acquaintances who are cynical, philosophical and optimists all in one! A few of them said there are none that they want to relive, essentially I would have to hope that their amazing moment is still coming. They tend to emphasise the fact that they’re not very nostalgic. Another broke it down like this “without sounding too philosophical, I wouldn’t want to relive any moments. I believe that I have far more exciting moments to experience in the future, and that reliving any specific moment would deter me from experiencing  NEW moments. I have favourite moments but don’t necessarily want to relive them” he just wants the feelings of  joy, peace and happiness. And this crew is right too! I mean, living in the past is like torturing yourself, or rather wasting time, missing out on all the possibilities out there. I will call these people the Socrates Crew – because in a way ‘they only know that they know nothing’. The sense that surely there’s more further on… I like that.

Here’s a reading break for you, some of the answers that made me giggle:

“losing my virginity – should have waited longer”

“the ones where I wasted precious time worrying about which moment I’d relive”

“what about the first time you realise sex is actually nice! That’s pretty re-liveable”

“my birf so I could slap myself and tell me to quit crying like a little biiiitch”

Hahaha I know some dope people… anyways back to more answers

The next group of course made me smile. These ones… well I havent decided what to call them yet, but their answers went like this ‘meeting you’ , ‘the day I met you baby’ and so on. This of course made me smile, and laugh but they wasted their answers man! Haha I will call this group ‘the sweetest bullshitters on earth’. Thanks guys. I appreciate it!

The next group, well these are the ones I relate with most. Family is such an important thing for me. I had some mention certain pivotal moments with their siblings, others mark the birth of their children as that special moment. And many mentioned that they would have wanted to spend more time with lost ones. I think it is a beautiful thing. Bitter sweet. We get blessed with these amazing people in our lives and what is inevitable is that at some point, death comes along. The bitter sweetness of it is that, it’s terribly sad when we lose people, yet the sweetness of an answer like this is that this person completely touched our lives, so much that out of all the things we’ve experienced,  more time with them is what we want most. This I can definitely relate to. And in a way, it motivates a lot of my actions. I often say what’s in my heart, at times it’s because I have no idea how much more time I have on earth and don’t want to go without saying these things. But like any other human, I can sometimes be crippled by fear. I guess these are the things that make life interesting. Two of the answers that touched me most were from two really good friends. One of them lost her sister in the tsunami in Thailand in 2004. Her response when I sent the question out was “choosing to miss going to the full moon party – somewhere else in Thailand”.  I think that answer speaks for itself. We have moments that we play over in our heads, some very frivolous, this answer speaks to my heart. The other response which I found to be equally as honest was “the first time I saw my dad cry and I didn’t hold his hand. I want to go back to that moment and hug him this time” again, I feel this needs no explanation. This group, I affectionately call ‘la familia’

I really could go on for days, but I bet you’re all wondering what my moment is… welllllll I did this all for my personal amusement so I don’t have to tell y’all.

I’m kidding.

At first, my moment was one of the more special moments on stage but I realised I relive that all the time, in my shower, rapping to myself haha.

But on a serious note, the one moment that I think I could relive was one where I basically made a transition from depressed, to alive. It was last year and I came across a person who spoke to me for maybe 5-10 minutes. We spoke about the most random things and did not once talk about how I was feeling.  This person made me laugh, like you know that laugh from like the depth of your laughter vault, the laugh that is mainly saved for yourself coz it’s kind of the best to laugh at yourself? Yup, they made me laugh at myself. Well that could be because they spent most of the time dissing me!  The crazy thing is, I left that conversation with like this veil lifted off my eyes. Seems crazy, whatevs but it gave me this new lease on life. I think the reason why I would relive that feeling is because it’s a rebirth of sorts, and the feeling of, ‘I can be happy, I can go do some crazy shit, try things, do what I want and be alive’ it’s a feeling that some may know, and others may not, but it is real. That moment is on my top two for now and I reckon it will be for quite a while.

(I also cherish every single moment with my family, that goes just above my rebirth!)

A big thank you for everyone who responded my BBMs and Whatsapps! You made my morning super fun!

My contributors:

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Here are some of the other responses in more detail. Hope you find it as interesting as I did, and manage to find some inspiration.

Maybe listen to this while you read them…

my son’s birth // late December 2009. Anti-depression time with the homies // the moment when I realised I was in love // high school years // another day with my mom // meeting you coz I say so and you’re awesome // getting up every morning. I am glad to re-live that moment every day // the moment I stepped out of my apartment in NY for my first day at school. That feeling of being in such an awesome city, pursuing my dreams and just feeling like anything is possible, that my dreams know no boundaries // watching my friend walk down the aisle // don’t have any // all of them // times with my uncle // first time being with my older siblings having some drinks and chatting // holiday in Brazil //  seeing Kanye perform live // coming home from US after being there for two years without seeing friends or family // driving golden gate bridge in San Fran // walking in Paris // kissing someone you have a crush on or like or love // seeing the floating market in Thailand // the doepelganger x goldtooth gig // the day my mom and dad ambushed me with an impromptu braai for my 21st birthday when I didn’t actually want to do anything // the first moment I touched snow // when my dad and I were best friends // not sure if I have any moments worth reliving…need a bigger carpet to sweep more stuff under //

(I will add them as I get more responses, or you can comment and leave your moment!)