My Suitcase: a guest post

Sometimes the only we we can make sense out of the madness is by diving head on first into it; standing up against it and convince yourself there's more to it than what there seem to be.

A really heartfelt guest post from a dear friend:

Stuck between these walls that once seemed so familiar. This was supposed to be my safe place and all of a sudden it just reeks of pain and disappointment.  I wake up every morning trying to find reason in this ridiculous thing we call life.

People keep on telling me, don't lose hope things will get better. But just as the one thing gets better the next bad thing happens and it starts all over again.  How much longer do I have to keep on hoping for a better future? 

Everything that happens to me, good or bad, gets tucked away is this suitcase that just travels with me as I think I'm running away from it.  Then I stop and think what will happen if I turn back for just a second and visit my past?

No one is asking me to unpack my bag and move in. So then I open my suitcase and being human I get caught up in all my stories and think but what if... Not being able to just take a glimpse and seeing how far I've come and move forward... I've been struggling with depression for a while now, resisting the urge to cut; to try and just end it all EVERYDAY. People keep on telling me do this; do that but in the end I have to make the choice for me. Regardless of all the people that supposedly loves me. I'm the one that has to get on with my life and I won't always have the same people around me that will understand my stories the way I need them to.

Maybe being stuck in a empty space isn't all that bad. I'm not getting pushed into something I don't want. I can be in the emptiness and just wonder about me, and what I should do to get through this.

Still loving the people around me just learning to love me in the process. One day I will be able to close my suitcase again. Until then I will keep hope despite everything I believe about it because it's hope that get's me out of bed every morning just begging me to try one more time. Maybe this time it would be OK and my house filled with pain and disappointed will turn into my home again. 

Paula

I don't know if this makes sense but ya...

"Although the scars remain, we remember the good times".

Who we are.

The past weekend presented the opportunity for us to be on stage during a dear friend's Benefit Show. Every second of it felt like this is what we're called to do as a movement. We are called to share, in unexpected moments about things unspoken of in our society.

It is true: our stories are important and it needs to be lived, but not a lot of us believe those words, like we don't believe in the government. We end up moving away from our true stories because the pain is too much; our stories don't make sense, or things simply didn't turn out the way we hoped it would. Life is full of surprises. It can sometimes force you to be someone else. many friends, live lives not cut out for them; living to which they're not called to, including myself.

the urge to be someone other than yourself can be pretty overwhelming at times. You know who you are, and yet you can feel yourself slipping away slowly. "This is NOT what it's supposed to be like", you'd say, and yet there's not much you can do to avoid it.

Merique got an opportunity to represent South Africa in Los Angeles at the World Championships for Performing Arts. What an honor that would be for her. But I remember her singing one of her songs that says "this is the moment that I've been given to show the world who I really am". Aren't we all hiding away at times the very person we truly are? the financial challenges for Merique is quite heavy but she stepped out of who the world wants her to be so that she can show the world who she really is. That is exactly the turning point in all of our lives. We HAVE to step out. it's the only way the REAL ME can come forth.....

#stayalivefriends

Fixed

My song for the week is Coldplay’s “Fix you”, and I think many have find some sort of comfort, story, or have lived themselves vicariously through every letter of this song. Mostly because, we all have to agree, we know what it means to be fixed by someone, whether it is a person, a being, or yourself. We were all in need of a fix, good or bad.

I was fortunate enough to have seen Coldplay perform this piece of art live at their Cape Town show, and I remember screaming every word along with the thousands present. I remember how connected I felt. I hugged strangers around me. We looked like loyal rugby fans, singing shosholoza. It was just spectacular. There were fireworks, everywhere. It was better than any revival show. It felt like God was in the mix.

Apart from us all having been fixed once, this song just echoes humanity. It shouts our raw nature to love and be loved. I once loved a girl, but I wasn’t completely myself around her because I wanted her to love me also, and she did. We both were broken and wasn’t exactly sure it was what we wanted. She was and is truly beautiful, but for years she had built these walls around her heart. We tried to fix each other but it wasn’t long before we decide it best to go our separate ways.

Sometimes we think our fixes come in neatly sealed packages, but most of the times our fixes come from our brokenness; from our deepest aching. I was crushed after I parted ways with her, and I lived a total reckless life for a while afterwards, but I’m fixed now. I’m fixed because I was broken. I’m fixed because I risked my heart for something, and even though that something wasn’t for me, it was worth it. I loved again, and this time it’s more beautiful.

Never give up on love; it’s too beautiful a thing to let it go to waste. You might not want to love now, or maybe you’re not ready for it. Or maybe you are ready but nothing is happening.

“Lights will guide you home, and ignite your bones”.

Something somewhere will spark inside you, and you’ll be fixed from whatever distorted your picture of what love is supposed to look like.

“But if you never try you’ll never know, just what you’re worth”.

You have to put yourself out there and risk it for love. Love is taking a chance on someone with your heart. Letting them into who you are, without assurance of getting anything. I have a friend who is so, so beautiful, I’m sure she’s a goddess, but she hasn’t been on a date in months. Many times she would question her beauty and I have to reassure her over and over that love will find her at the right time. As much as I want her to find love, I want her to find her worth from within, with or without someone to love. The person that will love you will just add to the worth you already possess, but don’t find worth only after you have found someone.

Lights will guide you home. 

"Shadow Days"

One have to admit, even after being tortured at Pneumatix by all the John Mayer lovers and their commitment to trying master the art of John Mayerness (if there was something like it) , the guy is magic to the ears and especially to the soul. I don't know what makes him such a good musician but i know that when he writes, it must come from somewhere deep within. i doubt that anyone writing for the fun, and the money of it, would be able to put words so lyrically beautiful together, and still be able to make good, quality, appreciative music.


i had my ears on on his latest single, "Shadow Days", which is also the title for this post. Not all our days are brightly shining with moments unforgettable. How we wish that could be the case, or not. Mayer suggests that it was hard times that have helped him see. how true is that? i remember the times I was caught up in the lies i believed about myself, and how hard it was for me to get to the truth. But those hard times, just like shadow days, eventually blew over and i was able to see. i was able to appreciate the "me' now.

"Some people been known to do it
All their lives
But you find yourself alone
Just like you found yourself before".

Some people choose to believe in live lies all their lives. Lies can become comfortable. Lies can assure us that it's not as bad as it looks. Like, you don't have to reach out and make friends; be honest; reconcile; forgive. Lies can leave us in pieces, and only truth, authenticity, can mend those moments we want to forget.

We have to learn to let go of the lies we believe about ourselves. Our lives are flooded with beauty, but our lies entangle us and we get distracted by the things we're not, instead of seeing the thing we are. Human. Loved. Graced. Beauty. Living Stories.

"Well it sucks to be honest
And it hurts to be real
But it's nice to make some love
That I can finally feel
Hard times let me be"

Honesty, most of the times is hard to live with. it hurts to live with it. but its the only way for us to be free. When we look at our scars; when we look at our flaws, the only way for us to deal with it is staring it in the face and be honest to ourselves about it. We are in need of help. We are in need of redemption. We are in need of other people.

Our shadow days never lasts forever. Our truth does.

Our Heads

"Our heads are horrible places to live in", a friend used to say. I would always know exactly what she meant, because for some reasons, unwanted truths or accepted lies, she struggles to feel loved. She would accept compliments in shy, unbelievable ways, smiling at least. No matter how many times I try to show her how loved she actually is, and she get show a lot, her head refuses to accept it. She said sometimes she would long to hear she's loved but when her longing are met, she shy away from it.

Last night I had a conversation with a friend whose brother died in an accident couple weeks ago. Her world completely collapsed because he pretty much was her world. People often say we shouldn't make someone our world. Parts of me wants to agree with that but there's also a part of me that want to know what it feels like to pour your everything into a person, opening yourself up completely, and in return, being drawn into their world and explore what adventure, love, joy, hopes, dreams there might be.

My friend battled depression for a long time, even before her brother's accident now, and she'd been playing hide and seek with cutting also; hiding from it more than seeking it. But our addictions have funny ways of sneaking up on us when we expect it the least. truth can be hard to find when all we've known are lies, and when that darkness come it overshadows whatever little we knew to be true about ourselves.

I want to fight for my friend. We have to fight for them when they cant fight for themselves, because most of the time when they're pushing you away its when they need you the most. depression and his friends, they don't get tired. they're constantly battling to see you find comfort in the homes. Sad thing is, as inviting as their homes may be, they always finds a way to kick you out and make you feel like you feel like you need them.

Truth is, you don't need them.You don't have to live in your head. You can throw the blanket off. Accept your value like soft silk.

Stop living in your head.

Death and his friends.

In less than a month I had to hear from three of my close friends that someone close to them had passed away. Three times in less than a month I had to come up with words that could offer hope and understanding in situations that will never be clear to anyone, but would still be painful to everyone. Both life and death is ironic.

Death has no respect for the living. The fucker shows up without an invitation; barging though our backdoors while we try to enjoy every slice of toasted brown bread to stay healthy. I guess sometimes his presence serves as reminders that we have only so much time to do the things we love and take enough photos with the ones we love but I still hate the cowardice son of a bitch. No one gave him any right to step into my friends’ lives; mess up their rooms and leave their floors scattered with wet tissues- confetti of his after party.

I have lost my parents at an early age. I was three when my father passed away; 21 and in prison when my mother died. I have no recollections of my dad and my mother left two brothers and two sisters with a house and no will. I can’t remember crying when my dad passed away and I remember I didn’t shed a single tear for my mother. I wasn’t even allowed to attend her funeral. I have lost all respect for death and every friend he brings along: chaos, fear, pain, confusion, remorse. I don’t shake hands with them and I certainly don’t eat with them after the funeral.

What makes it okay for people to say that no parent should outlive their children? Where does this come from; as if it is supposed to be okay for parents to die before their children? I don’t get it. The Bible says a wise person think about death a lot while the fool thinks about only having a good time now. Isn’t that called living? To laugh, have fun, and seek eternity in each moment?

I find myself to be awkwardly, and extremely superficial at funerals. I feel like Hitler who would, by some miracle chance, stand in front of the Jewish community and show true remorse for the evil he had done to them. Truth is, at all the funerals I’ve been to, whenever I find myself circling through the perfect clichés, hoping this time I would mean it, I walk away hating myself for it a little bit more than the previous time. Every time I’m at a funeral the barbarian in me wants to scream, “Death is assured but it’s not ultimate”. We’re all going to die. In the flesh, no one makes it out alive.  Not that anyone would care because no one prepares for it, except with funeral plans and Sanlam policies.

Our stories are precious and sacred. It doesn’t matter how bad a person has lived their story, the value of it can never be decreased. Also, to have lived a long life doesn’t mean necessarily you have lived a full life.

Last night a young 16-year old boy’s story was cut short. The last words he spoke to his mother was, “I’ll be back”...so painful yet so profound. Pain always has beauty locked up somewhere inside of it every time, if we choose to search for it.

 We shall return, all of us. In the new, in Christ we shall be back. In Christ we shall be renewed and return without the hatred towards death because only through death will we appreciate the resurrection.

And the resurrection is always a beautiful thing.

When peace gets disturbed

"I think my dad is cheating on my mom", she said. "I think he's cheating on her because he haven't hugged her in ages. He doesn't kiss her, or show any affection towards her. I just feel like drinking pills and cutting. But I guess this is how life is".


My conversation with a friend, after the usual small talk, turned into this. Somehow, we've seen or heard this picture played off so many times that we've become desensitized with it. It has become "how life is". The truth is that that is NOT how life is. Life is hard, yes. Life is full of pain and hurt, yes, but life doesn't have a formula, or a manual to refer back to. You can't look at a situation in life and say, 'but that's what the manual says'. Nothing in life is as it should be. For years things are out of place, and people are fighting, losing their lives to restore the corrupt of this world. We lose things in this life. and things are taken from us. We are kept from what we love. We are kept from peace- the very thing we are to pursue.

At times our peace get disturbed by people close to us. Those who are supposed to protect our peace; to help us keep shelter from the cold love we get sucked into every single day. Right now, at this very moment I know, personally know, of at least 20 people who's feeling like this friend of mine. There's thousands of people tonight whose peace get disrupted because other people make decisions for whatever reasons. I feel your pain. Its okay. Where you are and what you feel, and what you wish was different. Its okay. You're still here and this day will pass and tomorrow has never happened before. Things can still be new. There is room for healing and surprise and even room fro change.

This life is not a race. Its not a contest or a competition. Its a patient broken story breaking more and healing more every day. Sometimes the things that tear us down can lead us to freedom. You remain worth the heavens, regardless of who disturbs your peace. You remain loved, by me, us, and everyone who believe in brokenness and healing.

Peace be to you.