Preface: I started writing this blog after a week of being sick and not working. With time on my hands and nothing on my mind my thoughts have freely flit throughout my mind without distraction. I considered not posting it and keeping it for myself, but, ultimately decided to swallow my dignity and release it into the public domain. It isn't so much about Africa, as about myself, so now is the point to stop reading if you're here for updates on the African adventure.
Once when I was little, I sat alone on the floor of my room staring at the ceiling and the enormity of the world overwhelmed me. I had lost my mum for moments at my older brother’s primary school that day and panic crushed my lungs as the world closed in around me. For the tiniest moment, in the tiniest place I was alone. It was not a feeling I enjoyed and ever since I’ve never felt entirely comfortable being alone. Which is ridiculous really, because I’ve begun to realize that no matter how many people are around me, I’ve very much always felt alone. Nobody can understand the insane nonsense of my mind, when I myself cannot begin to fathom who I am.
Here in Africa, I have found that I quite enjoy being alone, and even though the other doubts remain I’m no longer completely dependent on the presence of others in order to feel safe and comfortable. Yet still, I’m bizarrely uncomfortable in my own skin. I have pervasive doubts and distaste for almost every aspect of my being. Emotionally, physically, and characteristically stunted is the best way I can describe it. Self-deprecation is, I find, one of the most unattractive traits a person can have, ironically and hypocritically it’s one of my greatest flaws. I’m not openly self-critical but it’s deep below the surface festering in the corners of my mind.
I have an erratic pendulum of emotions that I can barely control and that I rarely understand. Sometimes I don’t know what I’m feeling until it physically manifests itself in my demeanour or behavior, which gives me and everybody around me a glimpse of my true mind. It’s awful to be so disconnected from your own emotions and I’m not even sure that words can adequately describe the nature of the separation that I have between my emotions and my mind. I think, but cannot be sure that it’s a legacy from my childhood. Blocking out emotions was a survival mechanism, because I learnt very young that the boundaries of physical pain are surpassed easily by emotional pain. I learnt very well that it was necessary to avoid emotional pain in any way possible. Most of you will know about my father’s death, but there will be a few people who don’t. When I was six-years-old my father killed himself. I have few, if any, memories of my childhood but I can remember with amazing clarity the events that unfolded that year. My parents had fought a couple of days before his death, and my mum had taken us with her to stay at my nanna’s for a couple of nights. The day that we were supposed to return home, was one of the last times I ever saw my childhood home. At school that day I was restless to get home because I was returning to my own pink bedroom and my dad had promised me the night before over the telephone that he was going to pull out my first tooth. As a little girl I had the blind faith and certainty in my father’s word, and the innocence to be captivated by the simplest notions. I was sitting on tire swings when the principal of the school approached me. Foreboding ran through me, because any student knows that being called to the principal’s office is never a good occasion. I entered the room to find my family crammed into this office. My mum looked empty and had a sadness about her that I had never before witnessed in anyone. From the moment I was told about my father’s death everything changed for me. I remember seeing his body at the viewing, yet I could never rationalsie that the pasty lifeless form in the coffin as a once living breathing being. I think seeing him like that was worse for me than if i had never had an opportunity to see him for a last time. Dead people are cold and empty and now I can smell the embalming fluid and I can recall what he looked like lying there and it's one of the few mental images that I have of the man. My mum used to ask us whether, on the night that we had spoken to him on the phone, he had said see you or goodbye. I guess she wanted to know if he had planned it all beforehand and if in his phonecall he ahd given us any last words to hint at what was to happen. I hated myself for not being able to recall what he had parted with; for not knowing for her and not knowing for us. Rationally I know that it was impossible for a six-year-old to have any inkling of her fathers pending suicide from a fleeting phone conversation but there is a part of me that continues to wonder if he had spoken to his wife and children normally, while contemplating killing himself the next day. I no longer hate or resent him for his actions. I have no sadness or regret in losing him when or how I did. That in itself, i suppose, is a little bit sad.
His death was the catclysmic moment where everything started slipping away, and I realised i had no control. We left our home, my room, the outside swing, the apricot tree and went to live with my grandma. Not long later, our two dogs had to be put down and I progressively degenerated at schoolwork. At such a young age I remember wanting to die; to escape from emotion. When my father died I felt an unabashed sorrow and tears flowed easily. But eventually I had nothing left to cry and sorrow turned to hurt, hurt to anger, anger to resentment, resentment to detachment. I’m not sure after this point at exactly when or how it happened but I stopped caring, I stopped naively allowing myself to become attached to any person, object or place. And it worked. I’ve never felt the kind of pain that could rival those years, but now it’s a different kind of ache. I wish I had learnt a better, healthier way to cope with the way I feel rather than cognitively shutting down my emotion. Because over time I’ve learnt that no matter how well you lock something away, it will eventually come out- usually in an uncontrollable erratic eruption of emotion. Sometimes, when my feelings become too much I'll feel an overwhelming and sudden burst of emotion- usually anger or depression- and I physically can't shut it down. It can last anywhere from minutes to days but I have to wait out the riptide of emotion because attemping to quell it simply makes it stronger and worse.
I find myself to be such a paradox of conflicting identities. I can't seem to find a foothold on who exactly I am. Sometimes I'll be strong, spirited and blunt, other times I'll be quiet and withdrawn and unable to speak my mind. I've always had a romantic side that likes to hope or believe that the world can be better, that I can be better yet its often in direct opposition to my realistic and cynical nature. I've found that I don't particularly hate anything that I do, but at the same time I've neevr loved anything I've done. I have no idea if I'll continue with journalism or wander aimlessly down a path of varied studies and occupations looking for something more than merely the tolerance for a job. I should know enough by now to know that passion is something I'm unlikely to find in any career path, but still for now, I'm looking for it.
I haven’t written this blog for pity; for I despise the idea of anyone pitying me. I have a great life, filled with family and friends, and opportunities to be whoever I want, and do whatever I choose. But for catharsis, I need to release the crazy in me. I used to care so much about what people think, in some ways I still do, but I’m no longer controlled by the way I think people will react to things. I suppose a small comfort to me is that a stranger’s judgment couldn’t possibly be more critical than my own. This is probably not a blog I’ll ever post because it is too honest and just a little bit humiliating.
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