It’s a pleasure to witness your happybut not as much as it is to observe your fulfilledwithin the most mundane of moments,within the act of being you,when you’re almost alone,amongst the absence of thosewho think they know you,they for whom … Continue reading
It’s not my fault that you lieand make my dreams responsiblefor what you could not do.But then again,your anger -the oasis of heatrising from your pain-is all you’ve made room for… All Rights ReservedCopyright © 2021 Tebogo Ndlovu
We’re not adults. We are phantoms of our former child-selves, built up over the years because you are supposed to be good to children, then torn down over time because that’s what you do when they look older. All Rights … Continue reading
Gratitude Goal for 2021: To express gratitude for the ability to show love and integrity, in spite of what has happened in the past.
The resilience of a child is admirable in that it can endure large amounts of strain without the child holding back from showing love to whomever is around to receive it –and hopefully give it. Ideally, the child should not be going through anything too stressful but I have often observed that children bounce back quite quickly from tough times in the family and can more easily form healthy relationships afterwards than adults do. Of course, the issue will still affect the child –sometimes in ways that can manifest themselves in adulthood. But it is amazing that children have the capacity to welcome health after trauma.
Adults on the other hand… We need persuasion. Once something painful has happened in our adult lives, we curl up and die a little; we find it hard to welcome well-meaning strangers, or even to tell the difference between a stranger that has come to plunder and one that has come to help bring out our good side; we sometimes even dig in and vow never to try again, to never really live again, or to never to have a similar relationship again –allowing one person to ruin one area of our lives forever.
Yes, situations hurt. But once someone has meddled with our equilibrium or once we’ve destroyed ourselves, unfortunately, it becomes our responsibility to deal with the damage. It’s either you let the situation swallow the rest of your life whole or you learn the respective lessons and move on. Or do we secretly expect our lives to roll along in perfection? If you are alive to give yourself another chance at something you used to enjoy and value, why not do just that? We like to ponder the meaning of life. What if it is simply to live thoroughly? Whatever that looks like to each of us –simply and quietly or complex and loud. Every day. Without assigning impossible expectations to life, to each other. (Like 100% success rates in every aspect of life.) Without apology.
There’s also the issue of how adults tend to enjoy their own pain, with people competing to be the one with the heaviest problems in the room. We wear our challenges like badges of honour and hold on to them in the hope of being empathised with, or pitied, or being found to be relatable. We value our losses and weaknesses far more than all the people and the things that have stayed constant and faithful in our lives.
That said, sometimes it is a privilege to be able to get over things at all. Those of us who can do it take it for granted. But it really is because of chance that some are more susceptible to giving into the trauma of trauma than others. Just as some children can rise above challenging times easier and in more healthy ways than others, so it is with adults. It is not even about who is stronger but is mostly a game of chance.
I just think it’s important to leverage our luck, wherever we can find it, rather than repressing it in the name of relatability. Because there are people who need empathy (however much society is willing to give) more than others. I find solace in thinking there is someone who has been through a similar situation and actually rose above it to such an extent that they no longer feel it has a stronghold on them.. I think people think others care more about hearing an ‘I’ve been through it too’ than a ‘you could also look at it this way’. Or maybe they think the latter is patronising. But I really would rather have the latter (from a trustworthy source).
At the end of 2018, I met a woman who taught me the ‘you could also look at it this way’ mindset and my problems have shrunk ever since. Very slowly but surely. (She’s one of those women who makes you feel that there is a sisterhood after all in this world. She’s real and compassionate in all the right measures. She tells you the truth no matter how brutal, which has always been how I learn best. There are so many things women hold back from telling each other until it’s too late. And also there are so many lies women tell each other so that we grow up with a very skewed view of how things really work in the world. She’s one of those who tries to catch you way before you feel you need to be caught. She says things as they are, not as we wish they were –which has done me so much good. I now feel I am armed in some strange way. She makes womanhood NOT feel like victimhood. (I had begun to feel men recognise the advantages of being a woman more than some women ever will.) And in general, she makes being a person in the 21st century make sense –via different points of view, not just her own. She is rare (in my own experience) in the world of women (and also humans, overall) and I wish every girl had someone like her from the jump.)
I feel more ‘ready’ than I did when all I knew was that someone else has gone through the same things. Because I’d rather not as many people had gone through the same things. (What was I supposed to do with that fact? Because even though many had experienced similar things, we each went through them differently –leaving us feeling that no one will ever understand us.) I feel that there is a higher probability that I will be able to handle whatever rears its head next. And my past mistakes and traumas no longer define me. Sometimes, the residue of pain is still there. But I have become less and less angry. Less and less of a reflection of the past. More and more capable of being who I am, properly. More and more capable of building new and much healthier relationships. I know better *how* to rely on people, how not to, and what I can offer the people I rely on. And how to cope when someone sees nothing, no value in me. And when I’ve strayed too far… I know when I don’t necessarily need to be strong. I know that my perspective is not all there is. I can be the ‘main character’ one minute and be a supporting character the next –because both are relevant. I am learning to better balance being a human being and being a woman (yes, I can see the irony –if irony’s the right word for it. But sometimes it’s as if there are human beings then there are women then there are people and everyone is a person/is included in that group called ‘people’).
(This article is not necessarily about womanhood, by the way. It’s just that womanhood was one of the facets of this year’s gratitude goal. It’s as if the more I mature, the more that topic demands to be examined.)
And so this year, I wanted to take the time to be grateful that I have the right to be resilient (and to change) yet to depend on people and not to base my identity on how those I disappointed see me or how I see them; or even on those who disappointed me.
Chances are, we didn’t know what we were doing to each other at the time, anyway.
I’m grateful for the woman who was put in my path and opened my eyes to my own resilience, helped me remember myself. And to remember all the good, inner things we undo with time in the name of relatability/getting along with other people. And the fact that it’s not over yet. I define the things that happen to me or the mistakes I made. I no longer have to look back at the past and make it a barrier to receiving everything and everyone I want in my life.
All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 2021 Tebogo Ndlovu
… and yet somewhere,amongst our varying lives,is a world in which we don’t cradle a man’s ego as if it’s what we were born for. All Rights ReservedCopyright © 2021 Tebogo Ndlovu
No.No need to rehash the past,to hear an apology,to roll out punishment,to unload my side of the storyin order to move on. Close the door behind yousilently or otherwise.Our actions,they speak for themselves. There doesn’t have to be a haloinnocently … Continue reading
…but it’s not always for the love of chaos,or for applause from the apathetic,…not for ushering in a new seasonby force or fire,or getting the gods to sit up-finally notice their existence.Those who may be a trifle too much,don’t always … Continue reading
Maybe we’ll wither and die. Well, of course we will. But maybe we will be mocked, stones hurled our way because we don’t own houses and pot plants. Maybe our skeletons will lie in our graves long after we’re gone, mourning all the success we could have had -success valued via the quality of the couches we could have had, the threadcounts of the sheets we could have owned, the extra cars and holidays we could have flaunted.
Or maybe our skeletons will be grateful that we dared to choose. That we even realised there was a choice.
No, this is not a poor man’s anthem. This is a recognition of the value of choice. The choice to value life over and above the assumed value of life. That living and existing is enough over and above the thing we call net worth. That a human being can be weighed by the beauty of their choices, the various colours of their love, the honour of their free will -rather than what that all amounted to in dollars and cents.
…the honour of free will, the will to live the life we each want – regardless of how lowly it may be perceived by family, friends and the masses. The will to be a plumber in a world of white collar dreams. The will to happily own nothing in a world that is calling for a fight against ‘owning nothing yet being happy’. The will to be a housewife when the future of work has been proclaimed female -if not automated. The will to strive for a house in the suburbs, a spouse and two children when that can be looked upon as accomplished brainwashing. The will to wander, a nomad in a culture that pushes us to settle down.
Maybe our skeletons will be grateful for having lived at a time when they could be anything they wanted (when whoever said that could actually mean it): the acting-accommodation for a soul that was old-fashioned or trendsetting or comfortably mundane or in the middle or world-renowned or on the fringes. All we needed to do was choose, those of us who could choose.
We know ourselves, the ones who were lucky enough to be in an environment where we could find out that we could choose. Where our liberties are not as few and far between as the world would like us to believe. Where the Sub-Saharan sun shines on landscapes populated by unpredictable economies, stubborn cultures and even more stubborn subcultures that insist, “But did you know you could…?”
And you wouldn’t believe the breadths of the coulds. Things unimaginable to my mother – just one generation away. And I know what you’re thinking: it’s always like this. From the beginning of time, the first family: the generations were broken up by cracks and gaps -gaping differences each issuing out sensitive and sensible arguments, at times waging all out war -pressing fissures deep into, against our roots. But then why does this time feel different?
With us, it’s not a matter of free will. Not anymore. Now, we have the privilege of free will. We don’t have a few options open here and there. We have a wealth of options. But we know it, this time. We know it. It’s not something we will find out from our children. The coulds have been revealed to us and now we live them. Whomever so chooses – if she dares, if he dares – may live them.
And more and more, some of us don’t have to die for our chosen coulds…
All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 2021 Tebogo Ndlovu
PS: This article is based on my concept for my gratitude journal in 2020. Every year, I set a theme for what I should remember to be grateful for. My 2020 theme was based on some of the thoughts above.
Hi, there.
I hope you’ve been having some good days and that the rest have been unexpectedly loyal.
Just checking in to let you know: I had scheduled some posts for the 20th, the 23rd, 26th, etc. But I still wasn’t happy with them right before the first one was due to publish. So bear with me while I fix the problem. Chances are my best shot will have to be good enough if I’m still not content with those posts by the 1st. If you’re expecting to hear from me in your email, I’ll be in your inbox by next weekend. I’ve drafted my emails to you but I need to go over them again.
I’ve received a few respectful comments over the course of the year about how the poetry I publish here may be negatively affecting some people. Any time that happens, I urge you to take a break from this blog and regularly visit Keith Kreates. Well, at least that’s one of the things I do whenever I feel quite down. He’ll turn your emotions in a more positive direction. At the moment, I do not seem to be writing upbeat poetry. Turns out ’tis not the season.
I was just thinking the other day that I’ll write bluesy posts versus nothing at all so I’m not too worried about what I’ve been coming up with. As gloomy as it is, I’ve enjoyed coming up with it and sharing it with you all.
Don’t take what you see here so seriously 🙂. It is just one stranger’s point of view out of billions.
If, perchance, some of you meant that I inspired you (hides blush, puts on modesty) to come up with some bluesy poetry of your own otherwise you’re okay then (breathes again) thank God. Can’t wait to read it! (hoping you’ll share)
If I completely misunderstood your comments, picture us sitting at a table laughing our heads off, hot beverage in hand.
In the meantime, I hope you’re all enjoying the last few months of this year. It’s almost Christmas again. We made it! (To this moment, anyway.)
🥂
’til next post; take good care.
-T. N.
The Amateur's Quill 