I enjoy watching K drama a lot. It all began late last year, occupying my days like nothing else on Netflix. And as I watch it – mostly the romantic stuff – as a romance writer, I wonder if what they write is even true or they have turned your Mills and Boon/ Silhouette novels into TV series/dramas just like they did with the Bridgerton series. It’s like watching all you used to read materialise into reality. . . or something like that – having your fantasies come to life. It’s beautiful but I am also wondering if they are selling us something that doesn’t exist, or does it? Only a little bit exaggerated.
I mean I am going against myself here by saying this because I am a person who also dreams and writes about happy endings, although a part of me is a bit cynical about it all. If I was a pet lover, I will see myself growing old – moneyed with my cat or dog just the two of us but I am not that fond of pets. However, I have given marriage a thought or two. If someone ever asked me and I feel like I am in love enough to accept, then I will. Otherwise, romance is nice to dream about or fantasise about and maybe you can relive it in two or three relationships, but it does not last or mine hasn’t.
It’s all collections of memories built from different individuals, who tried to show me romance or what I believed was romantic in my mind. To others its either just a norm or ridiculous – living your life in that kind of a fog. They believe love is a fairy-tale or real love is anyway. Some have experienced it in its truest form, and they are still living proof, married to their true love or what they will call their “Soul Mate.” While some of us are still searching or rather waiting to see that it even exists or if it’s all a big lie like those exercising products they sell on TV, showing us a body of someone who has been in shape their entire lives, as an example. While true relationship is said “to be” – many years of trials and failures but never giving up and sticking together.
All I know is I love these little romantic dramas and all these fantasies they weave, whether I believe in them or not. And as much as a part of me is cynical, I still try whenever I enter a relationship to give it my all, although I am often disappointed. I do know though, in those relationships I mentioned having, there was one guy who I could or might have said he loved me and meant it, as I believed then. We all know that love is proven by actions more than it is by words. And so, it does exist, and it is possible to experience. You can experience it once in your lifetime or you can experience it repeatedly in different relationships. . . but who knows if you are just a thrill seeker looking for a good time. Once things start to get sour or the honeymoon phase is over, you jump into the next thrill-seeking wagon or you are either unlucky in love or you are just not good at dating, at all? You might be awkward, sometimes too social or a little bit eccentric. We all have our little eccentricities anyhow.
It takes a lot from a person this dating thing or love on its own. You are physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually exposed to another person. Sometimes, it feels like such a big gamble to go through it all, believing or hoping things will turn in your favour and when that doesn’t happen, you either take it as lesson for life or it’s a trauma for life. It is yin and yang this relationship stuff. But for what it is worth, it’s not all that shabby.
Relationships teach you about yourself. I don’t know if I would have learned so much on my own than I did being in any relationship. At times, it is thrilling and at other times, it is depressing. But it is something that I rarely regret, as I taught myself a long time ago to make decisions mostly based on my mind than my heart. That way I will have less to regret. It’s both a combination of the heart and the mind because the heart helps you feel, and the mind helps you decide. It all works well in unison. . . or so I believe.
Sharon Mogoaneng is from Benoni on the East Rand, Gauteng. She currently lives in the small suburban area of Pullens Hope in Mpumalanga, where she works as a lamproom assistant at a local coal mine.
She holds a National Diploma in Management Assistant from EWC (Ekurhuleni West College) and a certificate in Business Administration specialising in Human Resources Management from PC Training & Business College.
Sharon has been writing since the age of 14, aspiring to be like her favourite writers – Shakespeare, Jane Austen and Harold Robbins. She published her first short story with POWA in 2017 and her second in 2019 while in the writers’ programme with the Jakes Gerwel Foundation. She subsequently published short stories on FunDza and Paulet House Stories. Sharon continues to write as her goal is to one day be a published novelist.
