What was simply an idea for over two months has become a reality. I went ahead and cut my hair! I cut my beautiful hair off! It had been with me all my life, never having cut my hair, ever. What prompted it?

Hey there, precious.

I have been talking self-love for months now, and have avoided the exercise topic like a plague. If anything, I am probably the laziest person to ever live in the face of exercise.

I was the grandchild that did too much. I was the child that was naughty that it took a very strong woman to help raise me. I was what they deem “ungovernable”. She would sit on the veranda, dressed to the nines telling childhood stories of the “Mavis that would never listen”. These stories were ludicrous, if not for the fondness with which she would tell them.  Ranging from the times I would refuse to wear the same pair of shoes in one go, as I could not comprehend how one wears the same shoe on both feet. This was a fight every morning before taking me to day care, because a strong-will is what I inherited from her, and so she would find herself arguing with a four year old about wearing the same pair of shoes on both feet. The cries would be smoothed by the promise I can wear two different pairs of socks, if I wear one pair of shoes. As though that is not enough, I too wanted a lunch box for the road to school and another one at school, because she loved me, she would adhere. There we would go on our merry way, after mornings spent negotiating with my dear grandmother.

When you have been struggling for the longest time, scrapping by and simply fighting to survive, it comes as an absolute shock to your system when the dynamics change and you finally catch a break. It leaves you holding your breath, anticipating the next disappointment, because life has conditioned you to always expect the worst. You hardly ever believe there can be any good meant for you, because past experience has shown you that good things comes in threes and so do bad things. Yet, all you are accustomed to is the bad. Interesting enough, the struggles and hardships you have faced initially were intended to be life lessons that will toughen you up and you had yourself convinced that only the strong face the hardest battles, because that teaches endurance.

I was the girl who was always left with my heart in my hands, trying to figure out how and when did it all go wrong? When did the man I once looked at with stars in my eyes become someone I no longer recognised? To such a degree that I started to feel like this person staring back at me is a total stranger, because surely the man I fell in-love with could not be this cruel. Yet, time and time again, I found myself sitting and telling the story of a failed relationship to my mentor and she would ask me the questions that usually followed;

We live in a time where we are all trying to keep afloat. There is a need to ensure that this rat race does not consume us and drown us in the many responsibilities that come with living. There is so much to do, so many dreams to achieve, so many places to go and such little time. In most cases, it almost feels like there simply is not enough hours in a day to get everything done. So much so that it gets overwhelming. It always feels like the moment one takes some time off to either rest or reboot, the work pile doubles upon return. This results in a feeling of guilt when one actually takes time off to rest. This is the reality of many people, and has become the catalyst to keep going, because the dream is that one day you will have achieved financial liberty to allow you to REALLY live.

To which one would have to pose the question; what does it mean to REALLY live?

It feels like a lifetime ago, the date was 26 April 2017. This was the day my writing journey started. Titled the piece “Taking the first step” and in many ways it was the first step.

I tried with all my might and all my strength to hold onto life as it was. I did not like new shifts, new habits and new possibilities. They made me nervous, gave me anxiety until all I wanted to do was lie down and hope my world would stop spinning. I did not like change, I did not like evolving and so I did as I always did, held on to what I knew, the familiar and the places that felt like I was imprinted in them. These familiar places were what I knew, they had come to define who I am, and I liked who I am. I was adamant that change would not happen to me, I treated change like a disease that was to be avoided, because for as long as I held onto pattern, I could predict the outcome.

They say that writing doesn’t start until you are being honest. This is a statement I struggle with when writing, because as much as I want to push the boundaries of my writing, it is very difficult to be honest without exposing fragile areas of my life. It becomes even more difficult to strike a balance between writing honestly, without giving too many personal details. It is a daily struggle, because I start to feel bare in the articles I lay out there in the hopes that my personal experiences can help someone who shares in the same experiences. Moreover, I start to feel like the articles in which I am not honest, simply aren’t that well written, because there is no soul in them. They seem to be monotonous and bland. This week I had a trying weak, and my struggle at present is how much do I reveal about myself without feeling bare. Truth is, I owe it to myself to write honestly, else I shouldn’t write at all.