Written by Sinalo Bambeni
I’ve always carried an emptiness that weighed heavily on me. Living often felt like trying to find my way out of a dark room that had precious items. After trying to take a step or two and realising that every action leads to breaking something that I could not replace or fix, I would find myself standing still. Afraid to take another step forward. Completely immersed in the darkness, a part of me would want to take the next step but I would be too afraid of what I would damage or break.
This was how I lived for a very long time. I do not know how else to describe living with anxiety. You know that there is a chance that you could take the right steps and not fuck anything up but the thought of making a mistake takes over every part of your mind until you are convinced that there is no way that you could do something right. This time last year, I opened my journal, fresh from the shops, I remember that the papers were stuck together, and the fresh book smell was not quite the same as the novels from my favourite bookstore. They smelt like bleach. Which was reassuring, I bought that book because I needed to believe that putting my thoughts on paper meant that I could clean the mess in my mind.
I was too scared to really face my thoughts, so I wrote two questions I wanted to answer for the next year in pencil. With the lightest pressure against the paper as possible...I “asked myself” two questions: 1) What is valuable to you, 2) Honestly, what do you want in the next 10 years? Two questions that I had never thought of asking myself because the people around me told me what I should value and what I should have in my life if I want to be successful or to be happy. I proceeded to answer those questions and as morbid as it may seem, it felt like I had taken the me that had barely been holding onto life, half dead and half hoping to be resurrected, tied a rope around her ankles and thrown her into the middle of the ocean. There was no turning back, she was gone.
The realisation of what I had done came over me and I could not help but feel like the weight was gone. In a chaotic moment of desperation, I had put on the simplest outfit, walked in the scorching South African sun, bought a simple book, and wrote the first words to a new life. I had come home. The emptiness had been replaced by a satisfaction with myself that felt like a high because I finally began to think about myself without a shred of guilt, disappointment, or condemnation. Over the next couple of months, I slowly began to fill this new “home” of mine with the things that every home deserves. Love, patience, understanding, laughter, warmth, but most importantly, I filled this home with honesty.
Being a [emotional] late bloomer really is one of the most frustrating things a person can go through. It often feels like you are going around in circles, constantly falling apart at the same place. Anyone that knows me could tell you that I tend to have intense conversations, always picking other peoples’ brains for answers that I was searching for. I turned to my spiritual leaders for answers and they also could not give me clarity. Instead, they would send me off with a “just pray and listen to God’s voice”. When I would ask what it would sound like, they would say “you’ll know”. I spent 5 years searching, closing my mouth, always speaking in turn, I smiled, I laughed and let my eyes crinkle up at dry jokes all in the name of being a good Christian woman at my young age.
I became less harsh, I became more in tune with God...more suitable for his presence, less of me in my little house and more of him. I put crosses all over my walls and prayed I never stepped out of line. I chastised myself at the smallest hint of deviation or ungodly decoration. I swallowed my tongue hoping I would not choke on my own thoughts, I shrunk into the word of God. I stopped eating, I stopped listening to other voices (including my own), I fell on my knees with my hands raised towards the heavens and cried out for relief and yet, nothing. I lived in a haze of disappointment and condemnation until that fateful day. When I wrapped that bitch up and let her die.
My debut on this platform (CAFTA) could have been much more pleasant, more artistic in my opinion, more graceful...but I felt that it was necessary for me to begin this journey with the same “chaos” that led to me finding the strength to ask those two questions. The chaos is the reason why I was able to move from a light pencil gliding on a book that only I would ever read, to having the audacity to send my thoughts to the World Wide Web. This was the year that allowed me to realise that I had been searching for stillness in a turbulent world but really, I was my own sanctuary. Holy. Sacred.
Do I still carry the emptiness? Definitely not. Which is a thought I could not fathom a while ago because the emptiness was all I had ever known. But I will admit that it often feels like I cannonballed into the deep end of an Olympic pool...when I have just begun learning how to swim. The fear of being rejected by the very people that loved me when I was at my emptiest is ever present. For the most part I wanted to write about this because of where we are as a civilisation. I may not live to see tomorrow but I find peace in knowing that I am exactly where I need to be emotionally, I have never felt this centred before. So, if this were to be my last blog ever, I really would have no regrets.
It’s quite ironic that my debut on CAFTA’s platform is the last written work to go up but I think it’s perfect. It took me months to really sum up the courage to write something largely because my work would have an unpredictable destination. A tweep once said that we spend our adulthood trying to fulfill our childhood desires. I agree wholeheartedly, I also believe that we spent our adulthood trying to heal our childhood traumas. Forever licking our wounds. But most importantly, we attempt to live up to ideals that were projected onto us by people that were not fully satisfied with their own lives. As we begin yet another trip around the sun, I dare you to be brave enough to let the emptiness die.
With Love
Sinalo.
Photo by Amy Humphries on Unsplash
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