Labels and why , oh HI !! …

I always was a sucker for labels. To be identified as good, smart, intelligent, sexy, and witty. The constant need to be the perfect woman and get everyone’s approval. Whew!! It was stressful; the journey of people pleasing is so exhausting. Do you know why? Nothing is ever enough, you are kind and people think your kindness is a scam to manipulate them. You are generous and they may think you are trying to buy their affection .You are happy, you may have a secret lover.

Screw label’s, I am a weirdo. Sometimes, I am overly loud and say and do inappropriate things. Other times, I am the patron saint of love. I am unusually kind, forgiving and amiable.

Who/what makes us care about labels? We are labelled from an early age, in playgroup, that’s the shy kid, that’s the vibrant kid. In high school, the labels are: popular kid, smart kids, loose kids, born again, etc. You are the bully or you are getting bullied. Or God forbid the untouchable cool kids. Those we all want to be but love to hate. They do the most on Instagram (i.e perfect posts by the beach #waves, #summer vibes) .

Please we all drink coffee and I know it’s the Holy Grail to you but a morning run, or any workout gives you the same feeling. You don’t see a lot of #greentea posts without the chill vibes; coffee drinkers will make you believe they are zombies before coffee (I know I will get backlash for this, you guys will be ok). Yes, we tea lovers need to start a movement.

I haven’t written in a while but I am back now. I thought I was hiding behind words and not living but that was the opposite. The keyboard is the truth; I am the most authentic when I write. It doesn’t matter what people label you as; but it’s important to know whom you are and own it. That’s how you become whole.

What’s your label? Embrace, it. Except you are: a F**CK Boy, a Stalker, a con artist etc. . You need to find another label.

For the rest of us weirdos, see you tomorrow. Oh, I’m going to do a why series? Who knows why?

 

 

A Journey !

Andrea, started her tale to me ” This Pain is from ages past, Unresolved grudges, rejection from people unknown, staring at my difference, my shyness and my struggle to stand out, the struggle between been normal, average or extraordinary, to shut out the voices in my head or to listen, the pain is from thinking I wasn’t enough, and maybe if I worked harder, fixed the exterior, and the interior made it acceptable to all maybe I will find someone accepting of me, maybe I would find love.

Yet, I have travelled many places, who can love a chameleon, true to itself yet adapting with every environment? Instead of being a peacock I made myself smaller and bigger as the case required ( it seemed like the smart thing to do) . How could I have been so lost? So hungry for affection to not appreciate this perfect piece of art?

Who heals our soul, when its been grazed? When betrayal and rejection taunts the core? What mends us? When we are so afraid to feel the pain?

The heartache or heartbreak doesn’t ruins us, rather the taste of our lovers past that haunts us and reminds us how penetrable we can be.

We are not as closed off as we think we are. Pain reminds us of our humanity and this breaks us even more. I hoped my walls were made high enough, that all I could manage was an august visitor every now and again but the heart suprises us with its strength, it tempts our humanity and betrays us more than we bargain because some of us are born all heart and no matter how closed off we seem, we long for a more intimate existence one enriched with effort, living not just existing.

How have I been so wrong? Chasing a dream, that anyone can complete me? When I myself i am incomplete? That is wishful thinking, to be a peacock is to be one’s authentic self, unapologetic for your awesomeness. A peacock does what a peacock does, to be the best peacock ever is the dream rather than living a life of a pigeon.

she looked at me and stared, peace strangely came to her, knowledge of her struggles past and she continued ..

Yet, I think I am comfortable with this pain, maybe i even willed it because I somehow refused to see the suffering ahead. Maybe, I needed an out ,an excuse to not try again, to say I have done my bit, in this quest. So, maybe I self sabotaged because fixing and repairing my heart and respecting it to wait for the right one is hard. So I got tired and tried to control the situation. Forcing something that was meant to be intermediate into forever time and time again.

Maybe, this is a reminder that as much as I plan, I can be surprised with unexplained joy & pain from detours. It may not be a straight road to the Promise, maybe I am the promise.  I am learning to enjoy the journey of self-discovery and happiness in one’s individuality and maybe every person we meet experiences a bit of us in their own special way. Maybe, the need to own one special person and to belong to one isn’t for everyone, maybe our purpose or my purpose is one greater than one man can bear.

 The truth, I will always hope for a life partner, a fellow traveler but I won’t be sleeping beauty, Cinderella or snow white, I am and will be me.

If any one decides to join me , he must be worthy of the person i have become and viceversa with a hell lot of explanations for where he’s been but most of all he has to have found his authentic self.

Authenticity sees itself, my soul should mirror his and be proud .For only then will this journey and forever, ever truly begin”.

As i listened and watched her , my dearest friend; i knew that she had begun a journey with a truly amazing end.

Celebration of Life..

My dad passed a few weeks ago and I have tried to pen how I feel. He was an old and very wise man who said to me about 8years ago that he would know when his time is near. The truth be told he told us his time was up and a month later he was gone from us.

Friends, colleagues and friends of friends have asked me how I feel; the answer is downcast but not downtrodden.  Some how I feel free yet I feel watched. I feel his piercing eyes when I’m about to do something wrong. I know God constantly watches us but with my dads passing I feel he is privy to me more than I would like to share. This is frightening and disconcerting. I think it has to be with my desire to get my act together in life especially my personal life and with his passing the desire to make him proud is more reinforced.

My dad was more spiritual than most, he read at least a page of a book a day and kept abreast the daily musings in the world. As a young man from a small town he braved the world and conquered it with tales of many distant lands.

Yet a Man he was flawed and all but we loved him all and in the days to come I hope we all find the peace we need.

He lived his life and this we celebrate. Dad you were and are loved from the tiniest parts of the earth to the largest parts of the continent. You are loved through family, friends, and us your kids and loved ones as you ride on angel wings. Be free papa, you stayed true to your beliefs and were never shaken, now that you can see the world beyond I hope it meets your expectation.

 I hope we meet some day at our master’s feet.

 We celebrate YOU Papa!

Oyenneke Douglas Warmate (September 20, 1934-March 29, 2013). 

Rest in Peace.