Being, misfit

Sometimes we trip, and maybe even fall on our face. Some of us cry when this happens and struggle to pick ourselves up, dust off and keep going. People are always saying “these things happen” but sometimes it feels like “these things” are always happening and it just sucks. So, sometimes we choose to just remain facedown.

Right now, I feel like staying down…

I’m not saying I am giving up, but I am saying I am tired of getting back up. I wanna know what it feels like to give over, not up.

Today I’ve been listening to my favorite artists, Ed Shereen, “I don’t care” is playing and the song is making me think to myself, “sometimes you need someone else to give over your misfit to”. Fitting in with someone else can help you find the places where you can slot yourselves in as a pair, that can make the world of a difference. It can make you feel less, alone…

I love being a misfit, primarily because it means I can be myself, unapologetically and that can be liberating. But I also admit that sometimes being a misfits means I spend extended periods trying to find open spaces I fit into so I can find shelter. Cause lets face it, when it rains we all seek shelter, even those of us who see the rain as a means to wash away all our heartache.

Being a misfit means finding joy in those things that allow me to glow in the dark with no lights.

Loving Loss

We always say we want to be happy but do we ever really know what it means to be happy?

Well I’ve found that some people do know the answer to that question while the rest of us have no clue what we talking about. I’ve always been different and in my world that means I’ve never been able to fit in and for a long time I really did care and I tried everyday to change who I was so I wouldn’t have to stand out but guess what it didn’t work, instead of being accepted I was rejected mainly for the fact that I was trying, and in the process I learned to hate myself for all my shortcoming. I lost the person I was capable of being and I didn’t even realize that she was the best thing that could have ever happened to me because I was to busy hating her for loving me.

Yes she loved me and I know now that she was the only one who knew me, so tell me how could I ever hope to be happy?

Forgotten Love

Growing up I always thought myself incapable of love, yet I have so longed to feel the deepest kind of love I can think of. Over three years ago I fell in love with someone who helped me accept that I actually had loved another many years before with all of my heart but refused to admit it, even to myself. So I spent many years with unresolved emotions because I didn’t want to admit I was heartbroken.

The thing about our mind is that if do not acknowledge what is happening inside then it you’re unable to deal with it. And if you don’t deal with it then it will forever be what it is right now. So because for 7 years I didn’t acknowledge my heartbreak, I lived with it for 7 years and every experience I had in that period that brought me sadness just piled on to that un-acknowledged heartache and hence made it near impossible for me to truly be happy, alone or with someone else.

Over the last 3 years I have not only worked through the emotions I have for the first love of my love but I have also come to appreciate and accept the love I felt for the second love of my life in a way that takes away nothing from any love I will feel in the future for the man I will get to keep as the ETERNAL LOVE of my LIFE.

Heartbreak songs

I love listening to heartbreak songs, even when I’m really happy. I used to think it meant there was a part of me that was unhappy in the relationship I was in. I guess the validation my universe gave me for that hypothesis got me convinced I was actually incapable of truly loving another person and being completely content and happy in a relationship. I guess I’m coming up to a year now since the break up with the man I thought was the love of my life took place. I’ve basically had “I’m not sad anymore” by Clara Mae playing on repeat for a week and the other day I broke down crying in the morning while listening to the song. The most shocking part was realizing that for the first time I was actually not sad anymore, I’m truly over him. The only difference is that I’m not mad at myself for being dumb enough to love him. I’m actually grateful I did. He may not have been the best thing to ever happen to me but loving him helped me prove to myself that not only am I capable of loving another person, but it also showed me how amazing it can feel to love completely without reservation. Before him, I had pretty much convinced myself I was incapable of love and now I know that’s not true. I am not just capable of love I am capable of feeling the kind of love that is so often relegated to fairy tales. I am capable of being truly happy, by myself and with someone else.

Whos’ lovin’ me?

I recently came to realize that not everyone is as fortunate as me. Some people don’t have people who worry about them at all times of the day every day. People who care that they are happy and well taken care of. Some people just have themselves. I’ve always been a firm believer that we all need and deserve to be loved and I think it’s important for us to remember that we are not only worthy of love and affection we deserve it and no one should ever have to prove themselves worthy of love.

Someone told me a long time ago that I was the best thing to over happen to them. It made me feel special. He then went and broke my heart and I’ve since spent a lot of time trying to remind myself that his supposed love was not the best thing to ever happen to me. Reminding myself that he wasn’t doing me a favor by being with me. It’s taken me a long time but I’m finally figuring out that I am worthy of love and belonging. I am worthy of acceptance and I am more than good enough. I am an amazing human being and I deserve to be treated as such, not least by ME.

Perfectly IMPERFECT

I’ve always known that I’m imperfect at most times and only manage to be perfectly flawed the rest of the time. With my patented inability to keep quite, stumble over my own feet and maintain unhealth relationships, I’m something of an anomaly. It’s sad that I’ve spent so much of my adult life trying to fit into a world that was never built to fit anyone naturally. A world where the status quo is defined by a minority and upheld by the majority, so much so that even when disruptive ideals are introduced they can so perfectly fit into this dysfunctionally erected system of creating misfits.

And yes I am a misfit, and I bet billions of people on this planet can identify with that sentiment, if not most of the time then at least some of it. I think this is simply because we have such a deep desire to belong to something and/or someone, that we’re willing to keep giving up pieces of what makes us unique in order to fit something. If you have any doubts about this then look at the entertainment industry, its basically held up by this premise, the idea that we need something to feel whole.

But what does it even mean to be whole? There is a quote that says “the diversity in the human family should be the cause of love and harmony, as it is in music where many different notes blend together in the making of a perfect chord.” and I wonder if this isn’t the key to helping us to better understand and accept the beauty that comes with being different.

Forgiveness

What happens when we lose hope in humanity?
When we lose hope in our own ability to be better today than we were yesterday?
When we no longer see the point in being any more than that which others perceive us to be?
What happens when we no longer see the point in allowing others to prove to be better?

Is it possible to recover from this state?
To find value in that which has been long devalued by those around us or rather devalued by us?
To find it within ourselves to love those who hurt us the most?

Is the way to come back to a state where we allow everyone to feel unconditional love regardless of the mistakes they have made in their life?

They say time heals all wounds but what do we do with the wounds it creates? Are we expected to give them time as well to heal? Or are we expected to find other forms of healing that exist outside the paradigm of waiting for time to heal us? 

I find myself wondering what it means to forgive myself for the decisions I have made, especially the ones I call mistakes, as I lay awake at night? What does it look like to love myself even in those moments when it doesn’t feel like I should be lovable? And most importantly what does it mean to accept myself as being imperfect and to still chose to love myself anyway?

Forgiveness is such an interesting concept because it implies allowing ourselves to not be upset anymore which can be hard to do. But I have found that when I allow myself to stop seeing my mistakes as ill-intentioned efforts to bring misery but rather as well-intentioned efforts to bring about joy in the spaces I find myself in.

Forgiveness means to recognize the imperfection and choose to accept it anyway.

My hair, my skin color, my curves

“I wore it with shame then, but that was before I learnt/realised that nothing on me was placed there by mistake, that he knew me and he loved me fiercely before the idea of me existed to those who conceived me. He loved me and I am only now starting to love me back by loving Him more everyday. “

It’s been 5 years now since I wrote these words, I wonder how much they still apply to the way I see myself today? When I look at the mirror who do I see? The engineer with a years worth of work experience in the industry? The inconsistent blogger who is trying to figure out what consistency looks like? The unpublished author of countless books? The unpaid life coach who hasn’t figured out yet how to share her vision with others? The artist who has been meaning to record songs for years? Do I see the girl who never followed up on her dream to be a model? Or do I see the amazing woman who has a myriad of talents she is yet to explore fully but is making an effort everyday to make a difference in the world she gets to live in?

A lot about this piece has to do with my love for God and His influence in my life and I think that’s the basis I need to remember to look at my life through because when I do that I can see all the good that exists in my life and I can remember to be grateful and can accept myself and others completely.

Graduation: My Ten seconds of Fame & Glory

My walk down the graduation aisle started with a very sweet moment of my dad helping me put on my shoes just before I walked onto the stage for my long awaited ten second of fame & glory. Which I think was a fitting conclusion to a journey that started with him taking me to Wits for the first time for early bird registration in January of 2014. Back when I was fresh out of high school, filled with big dreams and certain of the person I was and whom I was to become.

It took me six years to finish a four year degree and for a long time I felt only shame when I thought about it. For three years I would wish with all my heart no one I knew would ask me what I was doing in life right now because to answer that question only brought embarrassment and I often wondered how I would ever be able to call myself smart again when I couldn’t even manage to finish university in the allotted time frame. My conception of who I was and what I was capable of had been obliterated and my sense of self altered completely. I had lost confidence in myself and I no-longer believed myself capable of becoming an amazing engineer or changing the world as I had so dreamt I would one day do.

The six years I spent as a university student were really long and hard and caused me countless sleepless nights and brought with a multitude of emotional, intellectual and spiritual challenges I never would have known myself to be capable of overcoming. And for a long time the delayed completion of my degree caused me a lot of shame, I could not reconcile myself with the reality of my imperfections and my failures.

As I walked down that graduation stage I realised that there is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of because in-spite of or maybe because of everything I went through in the last 8 years I have grown and learnt so much, about myself, and about the purpose of my life. I have learnt that I am an active participant in the determination of the quality of my life. I have learnt that it’s more important to strive for higher and higher levels of joy, which is a condition of my soul, rather than chasing happiness which is a fleeting emotion which comes and goes with life’s changing circumstances.

I am so proud of the person I am right now and so grateful for the opportunities for growth that I was blessed with by all the challenges I faced while at Wits university. So for creating an environment for me to be stretched and tested to my limits I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the amazing people I met in my time at Wits who played a role in the person I am today and most of all to thank God for giving me the strength to overcome all the challenges I faced. I do not know who I will be in the future but I’m looking forward to seeing the woman I become as I continue to grow.

Dare to be Extraordinary

One of my favorite poets Thuli Zuma once asked this question “What is it you hope to gain by folding your frame to fit men’s palms?”.

I’ve spent years wondering what it means to be extraordinary, to be so remarkable that you have the audacity to make someone else pause long enough to admire you?

I often find myself wondering what the difference between being peculiar, weird and extraordinary is? Are they all not equally “abnormal”? Why do we celebrate others while we shun others? Do we consider only those qualities we wish we had to be special?

I’ve learnt that a lot of people go through life wishing they were someone else. I know I was and maybe even still am sometimes one of those people. Which is a shame because when I was 16 I wrote a poem that outlined just how special I am just by virtue of my existence in this world, at this time. A poem in which I acknowledged that only I could add to this world what I was created to add, that no one else besides me could ever amount to “me”. And no one else but me could truly ever be better than me, because only I can be me, so I implored myself to be just that, me.

Back then I recognized the beauty that is all that I am, all that I hope to be and all that I can be. Back then I could see how much value I have to offer to a world that would otherwise be robbed of a most valuable gem ever created. I recognized that we are all created the way we are for a very special reason and even if we don’t understand this reason right now doesn’t make it any less significant. Back when I was 16 I was smart enough to understand what it meant to be enough, just the way you are and I wasn’t the least bit shy to share this with others.

It’s a shame I lost that poem and have been robbed of the opportunity to glean any more insights from a younger me but what I do remember has stayed with me for 10 years, even though at times I forget it long enough to hate who I am, even if its just for a moment.

So as I sit and wonder what it means to be extraordinary I can’t help but feel that it comes from forgetting to be the person you wish you were, and focusing on being the person you are, just a little bit better today than you were yesterday. It comes from daring to be yourself and truly believing that you’re enough and that you add value to every space you choose to inhabit. It means to dare to be an ordinary YOU!