These past four weeks have been some of the most
confusing days of my life. I’m talking about proper daytime TV worthy stuff
(but then again I think my life is more interesting than it actually is).
Am I the only one who absolutely hates being
confused? I do not want to be Mary-Jane
(if you watch ‘Being Mary-Jane’ you know what I am talking about. She’s one of
the most confused people on TV. In my opinion.) I can hear my mother telling me
‘For God is not the author of confusion but of peace…’ (Side note: if you start
something but do not feel at peace with it after a week or two, do re-evaluate)
Ever gone to bed feeling a certain way, and then you
wake up feeling the extreme opposite of whatever you felt before you hit the
bed? (No, this is not being bipolar) It just happens and there’s no one simple
explanation what could have caused the change in feeling.
So you sit down, analyse the time lapse between
events, evaluate, and draw graphs to try to make sense out of the madness. You
fear you might catch a serious case of the King Leah (O, that way madness lies;
let me shun that). Looking back at everything you have done to cause this
state. In those flashbacks, you realise the very first moment you should have
re-evaluated, the moment you could have nipped it in the bud, the moments you
compromised your truth and let the fear of not being enough take over. You
chose the known, the easier option over the unknown. In those moments it made
sense, you could even justify it. (I want you to know that there’s nothing
wrong with that, because now you know)
Slowly unravelling the madness, it dawns on you that
this entire state of confusion was solely your own making. You fought so hard
and yet you lost even harder. You ask yourself over and over and over and over
‘what was it all for?’ You could have easily avoided it all but you were
blinded by the illusion of endless possibilities one compromise could yield but
now you find yourself feeling depleted.
Have you found yourself in that place? You’re not sad,
you’re not depressed, you’re simply meh and bleh (definition: a place between
slightly unhappy and slightly happy). Going to bed feeling exhausted more from
your own thoughts than the hard work of the day. You recognise bits of yourself
but not all of you even when you are asleep, ‘you’re awake as a rumour of war.’
Do not compromise your truth; stand in it even when it seems difficult. The
reward is better than the fleeting moment of triumph.
Bringing this back to myself, after my few weeks of
camping in meh and bleh land making simple prayers, contemplating and assessing
my own truth, God sent me someone unexpected, a Jewish stranger.
This gentleman indulged me in conversation; my job
requires that I take the client as they are. So, I fully participated in this
mid-afternoon convo like we were old friends. Halfway this intellectually
stimulating convo, things got real, like REAL and he told me exactly what I
unconsciously needed to remember about myself. (By the way, who does not love
intellectually stimulating convos? the kind that balance wit, intellect and
spirituality? They are to live for!)
Sometimes we forget who we are, who we deserve to have
in our lives, we get so used to our parents’ praise or forget what God has said
about us. Those times God sends you a Jewish gentleman to reawaken you to who
you are and to your purpose. I am not able to disclose his message here, but
the encounter closed the door of my meh and bleh days and pushed me back to
myself and it feels so good to be at peace with everything that I have been
trying to fix, and to make sense of.
You will find this peace after you KNOW where you’re
stuck, admit it to yourself, take responsibility, and forgive yourself and MOVE
FORWARD. Do not let the past define you, do not let people’s lack of seeing you
for who you are define you, do not conform to what will make someone else
comfortable because you will lose yourself in the process. Stay the path and
stand in your truth.
Can I just encourage someone camping in the meh and
bleh place, it is going to be fine. This is just one of those times when you
have to find clarity out of the confusion and you will, keep at it and find
your truth. It will literally set you free again. So “run mad as often as you
choose; but do not faint”.
You may not get the Jewish man experience but take
this from me. You may not have got things right but you have a story, and an
experience to up your growth. You’re still lovely, you’re still beautiful,
you’re loved, you’re worthy and you are part of everything that is right with
this world. You are good!
In the meantime something unrelated to the above, I am
reading Life is _______ by Judah Smith. I love books that challenge me to love
more; love requires one to be selfless. I need to be reminded that way too
often otherwise I get back to me, me, me. Honestly, with everything that is
going on in this world, earthquakes, race issues, religious issues, wars of all
kinds, gender issues, poverty, famine. The list as we all know is
inexhaustible.
Be a nice human. Be compassionate. Be kind. Be love.
Be forgiveness. Have a sense of humour. A lot of unhappiness and suffering
could be cut back if we took our eyes off ourselves and looked at others.
“The opposite of love isn’t hate; it is selfishness.”
