It’s holiday party season. But this year, I get to wear sandals and sun dresses. I rushed home after work to throw on my cocktail dress and slather lotion on my sunburnt-but-not-quite-peeling shoulders (VA beach motto of gotta burn to bronze carries across continents apparently) before rushing to try to make it for the 6:49 sunset. GPS Jane flipped into deep blue Night mode as I was pulling out of the driveway, and I knew I’d already lost the battle.

Emoyeni was lovely. Overlooking the jacaranda-ed hills, I was awed by the big view. With an oversized glassful of sweating Chardonnay to match, it was perfect. Gavin was bopping from table to table with the microphone crowdsourcing songs. That man is Joy.

 The night got more vibrant with each round. When the dance floor opened up, it was game over. Before long, Fred was grilling Ryan on ALA’s Values down to each word of the details, Chris was rapping Ice Ice Baby, and “This is the BEST wine EVER…NO you cannot try IT!” was overheard several times from one particularly enthusiastic attendee. It felt like an oversized family Christmas party. Looking around, I just kept thinking, This is a family I want to stay a part of.

As is my usual party move, I ended up in a heart-to-heart outside on the now-freezing terrace. Shivering through philosophy and life stories with Veda, I completely lost track of time. By midnight, the dance party behind us had ramped down while the GoodFellas wait time had ramped up. When I pulled out my car keys and shined my phone’s 1988 “torch light” (a white screen reading “Light On”), on my new GoodFellas the smart way home keychain to dial out the digits, I was answered with a “Ahh, it’ll be an hour, at least.” Great planning, Al.

Veda offered to wait for them to get there and I figured I’d turn on my car to listen to the radio in the meantime. A lot of good songs come on 94.7 Highveld Stereo between midnight and 1am on a Wednesday, after all. But when I went to turn the key… Silence.

And there it was. That little hashmark still pointing to the double light bulbs. Idiot. So I did what I always do in situations like these. I laughed until I couldn’t breathe. Veda was an amazing sport about the whole thing, offering to drive me home. To repay his kindness, I demanded to show off my new stick skills and insisted on changing the gears for him the whole way home. He obliged and made me feel like I was helping as he re-taught me Anjarae’s lessons from the weekend. I learned that you can use 5^th gear even when you’re not going 100km/hr+ and that first and second were ALL THE WAY to the left. “First. Ok good. Now second…That’s fourth…Yep, STILL fourth.” “AYEE not yet, the clutch isn’t in! Ok… now” the whole way back home to Sandton.

As if that wasn’t enough, he left his house before 8:30am and instead of driving the ten minutes straight to school, picked me up 30 minutes away in Sandton, drove me through the morning rush hour traffic for another 30 minutes down to Emoyeni where Nugget was waiting loyally in the parking lot, same as we left her, but with a little more bird crap on her hood. We (Veda) pulled out the jumper cables and rescued Nugget with a few revs of the engine. Success! And with it, Veda got promoted from MFC ("Model for Community" in ALA terms) to MFJ in my book.

Over breakfast (at 11am on a work day, by the way), I confessed my love for ALA- the people, the work, everything. This “What if I stay” voice started off as a joke, but I’m becoming overwhelmed with this desire to stay. To see this Arts project through (among other things), because four more months is just not enough time. Gavin’s insistence that “it’ll never happen if you leave” last night didn’t help, either. I launched into my fear of getting trapped at 80% happiness, in a job that is good – but not it. Do you keep a good job that pays well but leaves you hanging at the end of the day?  Leaving you to get your happiness in the “spikes” of weekends and vacations? Or do you pursue work that you really believe in, earning the basics and doing work that you’d be willing (and happy) to do even for free? With constant daily dose of fulfillment, do you really need much else?