Of myself and others

My heart starts to beat a little faster every time I click on the 'New Post' button of late. Usually, I take a minute to breathe and try to calm down but then when I do start writing, the words do not come so today am doing this with the pounding of my heart in my ears.

The rush I feel when I begin to write makes me realize just how much I have missed this.

Some of what I have to say is far from being ready for the public but I will go with the flow and see what streams out.

I have been going through a celibate stint in my life. A part of me wants to claim that it's by circumstances but the part of me that begs to differ reminds me that the offers are plenty, am just the one who isn't willing to accept any. Not forgetting the ones I initiate then find myself holding my breath when it’s time to deliver. I am not ready (or atleast I didn’t think I was ;-) ) It's not my over active imagination, it’s that my body wants to be 'filled', craves to be tortured and made to burn up. It desires that rush that comes with release that leaves me weak and incoherent. My body wants it but my mind tells me it cannot handle it. My hands start to shake, my breath quickens, my thighs start to quiver, my vision clouds, my throat runs dry, my mouth salivating but unable to remember the simple task of swallowing. My mind wants to mourn for the losses I have suffered, most of which have been self-induced; my body wants to purge itself of any connections I have made with my soul. It wants to be free, to be with others who have not tainted us before. To run a marathon with no end line but my soul wants to weep and self-destruct. Suddenly, everything is too much, specific things are too little. There is no balance. Am not able to create one or find one that works. It feels like am eating myself from the inside out, yet my body is burning from the outside in.

Am scared I will burn to nothing. I will be a pile of ashes, lost and blowing in the wind. Different parts of me in different parts of the world. Am afraid, but am also at peace with the idea of being in different places. It is better than being in one place and waiting to blow up.

Strangely, the act itself does not affect me as much as after the fact. Every so often, I lose my confidence and find that am stuttering and mumbling. I begin to doubt my ability to get anyone but myself off but then I take a deep breath and jump head first into the deep end just to find that I can still swim. It does not mean that I gain my confidence back; it sometimes means that I can bullshit my way through things that I would rather feel excellent at. (Knowing that you are, feeling that you are and thinking that you are makeup angles to what and whom we are but nothing makes the existence more real than knowing).  

I miss so many things about myself. Like how much I loved a good laugh, how open-minded I was and how much I let myself get away with. Not that am close-minded, just feeling claustrophobic in my mind. The evolution of the self, which is what I have been going through, has taken me to very dark places in my mind, places that I had always hoped I would not have to go. Knowing that it is darkest before the dawn was supposed to make me feel comforted but instead it makes me antsy at the prospect of getting stranded in the dark. Self-evolution being a process, I have gone from Sunrise, to noontide, to sunset quickly followed by dusk and now the dead of night. Am approaching my new sunrise as a new being but that is not to say that I have fully actualized all the stages. Every so often, I go back to a stage I have crossed to find that I have something pressing that I wish to do and I do. (Am saying a lot but saying nothing…uuuggghh… I will try again). In my self-imposed actualization, I met an amazing man. He was too old to be my boyfriend, old enough to be my father but sweet enough to be a friend. He would talk to me about what I wanted for myself. I was expecting then and I needed someone who would do that with me. I had exiled myself from a community that I thought understood me because I finally realized they did not even know me. Not to say that they are bad people, it is just that they knew me that had different ideals from the person I have been striving to be. They knew one side to my two-sided coin and I was not ready to show the other face. He was a breath of fresh air. He helped me come to terms with the person I was, embrace the thought and act of being a mother and still chart a way forward to the person I wanted to be.

Recently, I had a nasty run in with someone I care about and my ’friend’ took it upon himself to help me settle the matter. He did something for me that I could not do for myself. He reminded me that sometimes in the process of finding ourselves we have to lose touch with some people around us that we thought would be with us during our transition and would come to love the people that we become when all is said and done.

My baby is now 1, she has done a milestone and after a year of being a mother, I guess it’s also a milestone for me. I took my first weekend off being hands on mother. I was not planning on doing it, but I needed to confirm for myself if I truly had changed. I was missing my baby for the most part (except of course when I was busy being a sweeter version of my confident, charming and go getter self). I had fun, had a hard time then was back to being all smiles when I held her again. Motherhood has made me complete in so many ways but took away a lot too. My mother constantly reminds me that it’s a sacrifice that one cannot keep mentioning because love is a sacrifice. I like the way that sounds. I am no longer alone. I have hopes and dreams for her. No stakes, I just want what is best for her and that comes with challenges. I have a newfound respect for all mothers in the world. The time and energy it takes to raise a child is tremendous.