Skeletons Knocking About

Hello Adults! How's life? Good right? Yes, No, kinda sorta maybe?  I don't really want to know anyway! I'm joking I do care that's one of the reasons why I take time to share insights. Not because I'm together, but because we're all a mess and we share pretty much the same struggles so we need to cut each other some slack! Keeping up appearances is so tiring and I'm lazy I really don't like to spend energy on useless pursuits. I really don't!  Ask my exes... I'm joking don't simply because I'm telling you right now and Maya Angelou famously said "When someone shows you who they are: believe them, the first time."

This is the bee that's firmly stuck in my bonnet is how we tend to fear our own narrative and we get upset when somebody other than us tells it. Ooh gosh I need to break it down. We fear our own stories. Our personal HISTORY. You know like if your life was a movie, you wouldn't watch it, you wouldn't script it, you would relinquish all power over your own story simply out of fear. I see you going "no I wouldn't," getting all hoity - toity... stop. Would you include the story of the REAL number of abortions you've had?  Would you add the story of that 3 day visit to the muti man so you would get that job or marry that guy? What about that money you embezzled?  Would you tell that story truthfully ?  What about your fear of abandonment would you talk about that?  Do you even know what your greatest fear is? When last did you visit the skeletons in your closet?  When do you plan to haul them out and Bury or burn them?  Can your closet hold any more? May I suggest a thorough spring clean of your skeletons closet?  Some of the skeletons in there are so old, they are just begging to be put to rest so they can decay and so keep the eco chain going! 

The good news is that you are your own undertaker!  All you have to do is own up to your mistakes, learn from them and forgive yourself. It's okay really it is one of my favourite Iyanla Vanzant quotes is "When you know better, you do better!" Knowing better = learning! A friend took out a loan to help out a boyfriend, I don't remember what he actually said to her, but we found out that he actually took the money and bought his other girlfriend a car! Her ego took a knock but he had promised to service the loan so no harm done, right ? Except he made only 1 payment, proposed to her and refused to pay another cent because he told her that she couldn't be his wife and loan shark at the same time, she had to choose. She chose wife, I don't feel like telling tell he rest of the story but the words 'train smash' aptly describe it. 10 years later she's free of the manipulative creep and although she got blacklisted she learnt the lesson on allowing yourself to be manipulated and the guy she is with now is really friggin awesome! You should hear her tell the story, it's so empowering. The truth is I'd heard it through the grapevine first and she'd reacted very aggressively when I'd asked her about it  ( that's a sure sign of a story that's not being owned ) but just because you're avoiding it doesn't mean other people are too. Quite the opposite actually it's the strangest thing. The minute she owned up to it and reclaimed it as her own story, all the gossip died down. The car is lying in a scrap yard somewhere, the guy is... ain't nobody got time for him he's like on Victim Number 666 yes the number of Satan ( the story still upsets me, she thinks that's hilarious ).

This other girl forged her BCom degree certificate and was caught a few years ago. I used to work with her. For the longest while she was the joke of the town because she was trying so hard to deny the story. She left the town, I recently reconnected with her on Facebook and she's busy with her thesis right now, I checked her profile and there were pictures of her getting her degree in Actuarial Sciences! Who's laughing now?

See everybody makes mistakes and those who rejoice over other people's mistakes are usually those who have more than 1 skeleton closet and they can't bear to be alone with themselves so they fill their lives with noise to drown out the sound of skeleton bones bumping against each other in the closet!  They're also very good at bullying other people but don't fear them they enjoy the smell of fear in the air. What we want is for them to go home and face their skeletons so don't engage them, you'll only be distracting them from the real work they need to do. There is power in owning your story! You could even save somebody least of all yourself! 

It's ALL Good.

Gosh life! The ebbs and flows are worse than any roller coaster ride Disney could ever come up with, simply because you can never tell what's around the corner or even on the horizon the only thing you know is what's litterally in front of you and you have absolutely ZERO control of anything but your reaction! That's doable right? Stupid easy except that we relinquish control of the 1 thing that we have power over and instead opt to try to control the situation and or other people! Think about it: if I ask you to look up right now you'd be able to do that in a nanosecond but if I told you to tell everyone in your family for example to look up that would take HOURS because others would want to know why, others would flat out refuse others would be like "ok I'll do it tomorrow I'm busy right now". Which would you rather?  Maybe I'm just lazy 😟 but I would rather the task that takes a second to complete than the other one hands down anyday! 

I know it's not easy to do, but pain was my greatest teacher. I met a guy on my 18th birthday, he came highly recommended and well you know because raging hormones, we had a son a year later. We got married 7 years later and the fairytale litterally ended before the wedding meal had been digested. We tried though for another 7 or so years and there were factors tearing us apart but we really gave the best that we could based on who we were at the time. In 2010 however our 18 month old daughter who was the most rambunctious girl I have ever seen, I swear Nakho had zero fear, she had hundreds of dolls but she preferred a weird crocodile like toy that used to belong to her brother and of course climbing stuff and just adventure in general. She wandered out one day, she literally climbed up to open the door to the gate and went through to the neighbours adjoining gate which she had taught herself to open *I did say she was adventurous didn't I*, got in and subsequently drowned in their fountain. All this happened in less than 10 minutes. She was still breathing when we found her, just a little bit, but I was so focused on the mouth to mouth, I forgot about the hypothermia which is the danger one in drowning accidents, I'd heard that on an episode of Oprah a few months before and I forgot it, a silly part of me still bangs it's head against a wall anytime I think of it but oh well I saw her little body turn lifeless as we were rushing her to the clinic. But there you go!  At 14:30 she had been getting her hair plaited, at 15:30 she was being pronounced dead. BOOM!  What do you do with that?

Okay, so I conceived shortly after that, but the marriage was beyond salvageable and people grieve differently some find comfort in the arms of other people, I suppose because they give you a break from reality you know like you're able to forget when you're with them, and that's fine too, but the marriage couldn't handle a third so it ended. Even the birth of a baby boy, Nkazimulo 9 months after the death of Nakho couldn't save it. Fast forward to 2012, ironically the 21st of December the day the Mayans predicted the world would end and we were at a friend's house there were at least 7 or 8 kids all different ages running around and stuff that kids do and Mazee as we called him was also in the mix. Now he was a quiet child, friendly but with definite loner tendencies and he wandered off through a door that hadn't been opened for the whole 3 years that the family had lived there. They didn't even know that there was a key for that door but somehow somebody had found it that particular day *it matters not who* and Mazee wandered through and 5 minutes later we found his lifeless body in the pool. Pronounced dead at 15:30 on a Friday, just like his sister. He was also 18 months old.... What do you say?  What do you do?  What the FUCK?

I chose ANGER! It's so easy to be angry and it feels so good when you're raging and you annihilate everything and everybody with just the cutting ability of your words. But then you have to keep pushing yourself to shock people further, make them fear you more so you have to get physical! I  punched a guy and busted his lip *gasp* y'all should see how soft and small my hands are 🙈. Now anger is easy rage feels good while you're seeing red but what about the aftermath?  Not good. I ruined so many things, hurt so many people it came to a point where I just couldn't even look myself in the mirror. NB: anytime you find yourself having beef with everyone in your life please know that the problem is you!  I came across an excerpt of Iyanlah Vanzant talking about her journey of dealing with the death of her daughter that the dam walls broke! Sometimes you need someone to speak their words in order to unlock your pain which you have been struggling to articulate. She knew exactly how I was feeling and gave me hope that nothing was wrong with me and that it wasn't my fault AND there was nothing I could do to prevent or alter the situation except to accept it and make peace with it. Now this is the the thing emotional issues can't be explained with logic. Some things you just have to FEEL.

This is what I'm saying today. Nothing is wrong! There may be things that you are not enamoured with, it's okay there's a lesson that you're learning try to relax around that situation mine it for all the beauty that may be found in it and allow yourself to grow. Someone you're in love with doesn't want you?  That's okay!  Nothing is wrong with you, let them go, IN PEACE, you never know who is around the corner waiting for you to free up your schedule. Disease comes knocking?  It's okay, the human body does that sometimes when it's been loaded to capacity. Make peace with it, allow people to look after you, there is no strength in isolation we are humans we are social beings connection is our greatest need, it's okay to be vulnerable. Whatever is going on have peace! Allow people to be who and what they choose to be that way you get to know the real THEM sooner than when you try to beat them into submission. There is beauty in the world. There is beauty in you. Nothing is wrong with you. Selah.