A letter to me,
Don’t let the world try and change you. Embrace the unique qualities about you. Love the person you have become.
It’s not often that you are reminded of this so let me remind you again. You are strong, you are beautiful and you are intelligent. Take care of yourself.
Love, me.
This morning as I walked out of the garage to go to the train station I realised that I always put others before me. I have neglected my own wants and desires to such an extent that I have forgotten what they are entirely and is presenting itself as lack of desire. Or maybe I’ve just come to a point where I am content with my life and I’m not looking for anything to fill it with. I’m now just bored instead. It’s a little confusing. What I do know is that I would like to travel. I want to see parts of the world I haven’t seen before. I want to feel all the different kinds of wind brush against my face. I want to taste food I have never tasted before and experience flavours that are completely new.
My realisation came after I yelled at my sister, frustrated that she kept giving me the clothes that she didn’t want and just assuming I would put them in my wardrobe and readily wear them. She had good intentions. She didn’t want to throw them away and she thought maybe giving her track pants to me would be better than donating them.
I didn’t want them though and I felt like she was in some way just dumping her clothes on me. I was getting a little annoyed as well that she kept asking me whether she should keep certain clothes or not but maybe she was just looking for a second opinion rather than validation. Maybe I should have thought about that first instead of getting frustrated.
If I really want to be honest to myself, I think it is time I start putting myself first instead of others. It doesn’t mean I’m going to become selfish for doing it. I don’t want to be a selfish person. It just means that it will be ok for me to say no sometimes to other people and that I should do things because I really want to, not in the hopes that I would be pleasing the other person in some way. I think I do it subconsciously now, my actions are driven by wanting to please others. It’s not a bad thing, but when I do it to the detriment of my own well-being and self-worth, the action only goes to hurt me rather than providing a sense of fulfilment.
I’m looking for something stimulating. Something exciting. Something, just something different to this…
Last night I had a dream that my eyebrow was growing the same way as my hair does, curly and really bushy. My eyebrow was growing really thick. Part of it was growing out and over the middle and when I pushed this bit to the side, underneath I found the remains of a spider’s egg sac. It was covering most of my eyebrow and had left a brown, sticky residue. I was already in the bathroom and when I looked in the mirror, I noticed that the spider was still there. It was the size of a two dollar coin and was crawling across my face. I wasn’t scared by it and calmly swatted it off and started to wash the weird brown webbing off of my eyebrow. The dream was more than strange. I got the sticky stuff off and thought about maybe trimming my eyebrows.
I never considered myself beautiful or to be even more specific I didn’t think anyone would consider me to be beautiful. Slowly I came to learn to love myself. It took years but I eventually got to a point where I was comfortable with the way I looked. The thought was still in my head though that no one could see that I was pretty. It was an idea that was only shared by me and the girl in the mirror. We would exchange smiles when I complimented her hair and her full lips. She would tell me how nice my eyebrows looked and assure me that I had a cute looking nose. We smiled at each other through the glass, my room lit by the lamp on my bedside casting shadows on the wall behind me. She had dark brown eyes that sparkled when she was happy. Those were on the good days when I woke up and could look at myself in the mirror and feel beautiful. I’m glad to say that they far outnumber the bad.
I may have noticed my beauty but I didn’t think anyone else had. I was surrounded by far more attractive people and what was my look compared to theirs? Rather than trying to compete, I accepted my appearance. I had other things to worry about than the latest line of clothes or the newest makeup trend. As long as I felt comfortable with what I was wearing and how my skin felt that morning, I was ok. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself anyway. My newly discovered beauty was not something I was ready to share. Somehow, people noticed. I didn’t mean for them to. I first realised this in October of 2015 when I was at a local ‘club.’ Two boys came up to me and my friends and commented on the volume of my hair. My hair had finally grown long enough, after having a pixie cut, that I could wear it out. It was the first time that I realised I could stand out. I didn’t intend to.
I had developed a new appreciation for my curly black hair after watching a multitude of videos on how to style it. I never knew how to look after my hair so I used to just put it in a bun or braid it. I never wore it down.
My mum would have preferred me with straight hair or thought that’s what I wanted when I was in my teens. She bought straighteners, which she tried on me a few times, but I didn’t like the way they made my hair smell. It was like putting hair to a lit candle. I didn’t feel comfortable with straight hair either because I couldn’t quite recognise the person in the mirror. It wasn’t who I wanted to be. So the straighteners lie in the cupboard, waiting until my mum eventually takes them out to be used on her own hair. Mum looks lovely, by the way, when she does her hair. It suits her. (My mum looks great all the time).
Being noticed for my hair was new to me. I felt like I had hardly been noticed at all and all of a sudden there came about an identifier unique to me that I had had all along. Learning that I could wear my curls, by watching other people do it, I found new confidence in myself. So, I tried something different. I wore my hair down that night at my friend’s party and we ended up going to the club where my appreciation for my hair was solidified. That was also the same night I realised people other than myself might actually think that I was pretty and somewhat attractive. That, is another story.
The feeling of life moving and shifting while I remain still and merely exist as it pulses around me. The sound of car tyres rushing along the bitumen and of feet hitting the pavement. The smell of gasoline as it escapes from a hot exhaust pipe. The feel of dry air and warm sun touching my skin as I sit on a park bench. Life is a series of moments that come together to paint a picture, which I call my story.Interlacing events, which build on top of each other to create my experience of the world around me.
I am only human and I only have so much time, what am I going to do with it all? My fear is that I won’t have enough to be able to achieve my goals and to move towards the success I want for myself. What can I do today to walk away from my fear, what can I do today to move closer towards my goals? What is the story I hope to tell and how do I want to tell it?
I am my own jigsaw puzzle. I have to solve myself first before I can imagine trying to solve everyone else. So, what is it that I want to say?
I want to be bigger and better than I already am. I want to be the biggest and the best that I can be. I will be all of this and more. I hope to be somebody, I will be somebody.
Just because I’ve managed to stay whole doesn’t mean you have the right to try and tear me apart to ease your broken soul.
If you need help, I’m here for you. I’m only sorry that I didn’t see that you were in pain sooner and only found out when a close friend of yours told me. You’re still not over her, I understand, you must be in a lot of pain. If I had known, I probably would not have slept with you. But you didn’t have to take your frustration out on me. Calling me names and degrading me, all because of the fact that you and I had carnal knowledge of each other. Maybe it was your way of protecting yourself, your way of stopping me from developing feelings, your way of venting how used you felt after it happened. I don’t know exactly why you said all those mean things and the silly thing is, neither do you. I was angry at you for treating me that way, especially because I didn’t understand why. But knowing now what you went through, what you’re still going through, I understand a little better. It doesn’t justify your actions but I can empathise with you and I feel sorry for you.
I hope you find peace within yourself and make peace with the people around you.
I would much rather see you smile and just so you know, I’ll be trying my best to make your face light up.
Delving deep into the mind of a dreamer
As she whispers sweet nothings to his ear
Maybe love has finally found her, maybe she is looking still.
Wounds so deep took years to heal, yet somehow she has no scars
Only a trace of worry when she furrows her brows.
A gentle hand on his nape, a stroke upon her cheek
A quiet moment passes and they smile, blissfully.
Who are these two lovers, laughing away the night?
Is this more than passion?
It could be, it might.
But the dreamer is woken
She stares blankly at her ceiling
The face of her lover, a moment, fleeting.
I thought I was in love, an easy mistake to make when my brain was filled with nothing but chemicals and hormones telling me it was so. It was an illusion that fell apart too late. Our bodies got the best of us before our minds could see reason.
Our time meant nothing, to either of us because it wasn’t that kind of relationship. I was left with disappointment and longing when I realised love was not built on lust.
What made it more difficult was the fact he couldn’t treat me the same as before. He became mean spirited and would find ways to tease me or prove that he felt absolutely nothing for me. I tried to be kind and play along with the secret that nothing happened between us but he didn’t seem to know how.
He began by telling me he hated me when we first saw each other after the act. It felt unfounded and uncalled for, even if he didn’t mean it. I didn’t understand, I still don’t even if he meant it as a joke. What was he trying to prove, that he had no feelings for me? That wasn’t the best way to prove it. After I asked him about it he stopped saying,
“I hate you,” instead he began finding other ways of being mean and insulting and rude. Even though he might not have meant it and he was trying to let other people know that there was nothing going on between us, it still hurt.
What bothers me most of all is how he can’t seem to speak to me whenever I approach him. Just talk to me like you would have before, how is it any different? Why do you have to ignore me and pretend like I don’t deserve your time or energy? Nothing is different from before, just talk to me like you do with everyone else. You don’t even smile when you see me, is there something wrong with me? Did I do something wrong? I would really just like to talk to you, as friends. If you don’t want to be friends, that’s fine, the least you could do is tolerate me and treat me like you do everyone else.
I’m a sensitive soul who deserves respect and to be treated kindly. I don’t know what he expects if he keeps going on like this. If he doesn’t want this to go on. All he has to do is say so.
Men are not men when they behave like boys.
To think I might have moved past all of this by now and yet here I am still struggling with what to do. I’ve taken a break from studying and have been working full time for the last three months and part time before that at mediocre jobs. They’re the kind of jobs that, for me, will only ever be temporary while I sort out my career and figure out what the hell it is I really want to do.
What is with this pressure to find your “true calling” and why haven’t I found mine? Should I have by now or maybe it has always been this? I’m a writer but who would care enough to read the words of a voice unheard of?
If you are reading this, thank you. I am one in eight billion and my story is not all that special but it is mine.
