Episode 14: The Weight of Purpose.
There’s a strange stillness that follows impact.
Not the kind that bruises skin — but the kind that cracks open what you once believed about who you are, what you’re meant to do, and how far you're willing to go to change a system that never expected you to rise.
It’s taken me years to realise I wasn’t born to blend in.
Every inch of my journey — from a cricket pitch where I once chased provincial dreams, to a dance floor in Holland where the world called me “champion,” to lecture halls where my research now fights for kids like me — has been about becoming the mirror I never had growing up.
Sport taught me discipline. Disability taught me disruption. Research is teaching me legacy.
Right now, I’m deep into building a framework for high-performance sport centres that don’t just include para-athletes — but elevate them. Because access without excellence is just tokenism. And I’m done asking for crumbs when we deserve arenas.
The interviews have started. The stories I’m capturing? They’re bigger than me. Coaches, federation heads, para-athletes — each voice maps a system that’s trying to evolve, even when it resists change. And in between every quote, every data point, every ethical form and Jotform link — I’m reminded why I chose this path: I’m not just writing a thesis. I’m writing us into history.
And still, beyond all the progress, there's the quiet work. The emails, the meetings, the flights that never consider wheelchair space, the forms that ask if I can walk unassisted — as if the answer should ever decide my worth.
But I keep showing up. Because visibility is power.
If I can build something that makes it easier for the next para-athlete from Bonteheuwel or Khayelitsha or Mitchells Plain to dream beyond the neighborhood... then maybe the fight was never in vain.
Yes, there's a love story somewhere in the margins. But right now, the love that matters most is the one I’m pouring into this work. Into this mission. Into becoming the version of myself who doesn't just survive — but architects a world where we all can thrive.
Next time, I’ll take you behind the scenes of the interviews — the rawness, the resistance, and the revelations. I’ll show you where the research is pulling me, and why the next steps are about more than sport — they’re about systems. About belonging. About becoming.
Because where I’m going? There’s no blueprint.
So I’m building one.