Step outside

RUIWAIDA

Chapter One

Where I Live

I am a homebody from Cape Town. Beautiful city, yes, but mostly I see it from taxi windows or through my phone. Mountains rise in the distance like they’ve always been there, silent witnesses to my life. The sea glimmers on some days, angry and gray on others. I’ve walked the streets of the city, but mostly I’m passing through, carrying my thoughts like a backpack too heavy for me to set down.My mom is from Elsies River. Loud. Alive. Laughs before she even opens her mouth. Talks with her whole body. Makes every room she walks into feel full. When she laughs, it’s impossible not to notice. I remember one night, years ago, when she came home after a long day. She threw open the front door and the entire hallway smelled like perfume and curry. She spun around the living room, waving her arms like she was conducting an orchestra, and suddenly the whole house was alive. Even the furniture seemed to breathe with her energy.My dad is from Zimbabwe. Quiet. Calm. Observing. He listens first, talks later. He has hands that carry both work and care—the kind that know how to fix a door but also know when to pat your shoulder in silence. I watch him sometimes as he reads in the living room, the sunlight catching the edges of his glasses, and I wonder how someone can carry so much stillness in a world that refuses to stop moving.I am somewhere in the middle. Or maybe not in the middle at all. I’m quiet. Careful. Always thinking. I notice details others miss: the way a taxi driver taps his steering wheel to the rhythm of a song only he hears, the smell of wet earth after rain in Wynberg, the soft hum of a neighbor’s radio at night. I live in observation. I exist in reflection. Sometimes, I wonder if I will always be this invisible, even in my own life.

Chapter Two

The Good Girl

I’ve always been the good girl. School. Finish. Work. Home. Sleep. Repeat. Every year blurred into the next like a slideshow that moves too quickly for me to pause. No chaos. No wild nights. No mistakes that became stories to tell later. Just… existing.But inside, I have thoughts. Too many thoughts. They sit in my head on taxi rides, in the dark during loadshedding, in the quiet after work. They speak in questions I don’t always have answers to: Is this all there is? Am I missing something? Why do others seem to be living while I’m surviving?I remember the time I stayed late at school just to help a friend finish her project. She went home, cheerful, and I walked alone down empty corridors, the echo of my own footsteps louder than I could bear. I wanted to shout, “I did this, too!” But no one was there to hear. No one ever noticed. And maybe that’s why I became the good girl—because if no one watches, at least I know I’m doing it right.At home, I follow the rules my parents have set, not because I fear them, but because I fear failing myself. I never forgot my mom’s voice, loud and booming, on mornings when I dared to be late: “Ruwaida, time waits for no one!” Or my dad, calm and unwavering, reminding me softly, “Do what you must, but make it your own.” I try to live between these two energies—fire and calm—but mostly, I live in the quiet. I do what is expected. I smile when necessary. I nod when expected. I survive. And sometimes, in the middle of all this surviving, I wonder if life is supposed to feel like this.

Chapter Three

No Role Models

I don’t have role models. Not really. No one to look at and think, that’s the life I want. My life feels like a quiet room compared to the noise I see online. Everyone else is moving, loving, achieving—living as if there’s no tomorrow. Me? I scroll through my phone and it’s a gallery of other people’s lives. Bright, loud, exciting. I watch them laugh in foreign cities, kiss under sunsets, order food they can’t afford just because it looks pretty in a photo. And I sit in my room, eating leftover takeout from last night, feeling the walls press in a little tighter.I hate my phone. And I love it. It shows me everything, but it doesn’t let me live any of it. I try to take comfort in the little things: a taxi ride with the window down, the smell of the sea, the chatter of street vendors. But even then, I catch myself thinking, They’re living while I’m existing.Sometimes, late at night, I write small lists of what I want. Not big things—tiny, almost invisible things:A meal I cook myself, without burning it. A book I finish before sleeping. A conversation that doesn’t feel rehearsed and then I stare at the ceiling, feeling frustrated that these little things feel monumental.

Chapter Four

Existing

My routine is safe. Wake up. Work. Come home. Sleep. Repeat. Predictable. Comfortable. Lonely. Everyone around me seems ahead. Graduations, promotions, new cars, babies, trips abroad, new loves, stories they tell with laughter in the background. Me? I survive quietly. Grateful. Careful. Tired. And yet, in the quiet, I feel empty in a way I can’t explain.