Brilliant Exits and Epic Returns

My life typically goes like this. There’s a low that’s very low. An issue or some crisis that’s all but insurmountable. After this comes the wallow. The pity party fiesta, a series of events filled with moments where I look at my life with much confusion and much mucher regret. I ask myself what I did with the time, and the answer is usually nothing. I did nothing. Too weak to confront the big decisions and actual problems I chase the things that don’t matter. A fictional flaw in a friendship. The curve balls a shitty friend keeps flinging in my direction. A successful performance at a wedding or a dinner party. All of these things that should really be inconsequential handled with the weight of two degrees and a brilliant foundation. Suddenly my mum will find herself using all of her life experience to decode the meaning of a text. Nature abhors vacuums and I seem to fill mine with rubbish and nonsense. After a lot of dawdling and looking at the stars with frustration there’s the great push forward. I devote my time to the things that matter, and everyone that loves me breathes a collective sigh of relief. They wonder how long this push will last for, and if this time will be different. 

Some people tell me that I’m a role model and that I’m brave. It’s always nice to hear even if it’s incredibly untrue. I think it’s because I say a lot of things that other people won’t for better or for worse and that I am publicly brutal with myself. There is no bit of criticism anyone could deliver that I haven’t already given myself a tirade about ten times over. You’ll tell me something like, “Boy! you need to get your priorities straight.” I’ll nod, and agree because I do. It’s clear for anyone to see and then I’ll ask, “but how do I go about this?” You see this is where the problem lies. I may not have been that spoiled financially, but I think I was emotionally. I expect help from anyone and their bed bug. My inability to solve my issues because I can’t see them clearly leads me to seek ideas from anyone that will give them and that’s dangerous. 

Someone once said to me that I should stop putting things in boxes. You know? The piles that the organised mind needs to be functional. It’s how we prioritise. Facing some imagined crisis, I followed this advice. It took three months before I realised that it was a terrible thought from an unstable human-being. That one decision quite literally fucked up a significant area of my life. It set off a bomb that I’m still dealing with. Sometimes you see yourself dash from pillar to post and you can’t figure out what part of life you’re fucking up at - not without hindsight. Then I’ll hear someone calling me brave for talking about depression and maybe it’s true for them, but it isn’t true for me.

Bravery for me is something more than talking, or writing. It’s finding the balls to make a decision and stick with it. It’s my sister waking up at 5 to revise for an exam a month away everyday without fail. It’s handling your shit with everything that you’ve got. It’s living your truth unflinchingly. It is being diligent in your work regardless of who’s looking. 

I’ve got this belief that everytime I blog about something that I’m going through it means that it’s been handled and that the door has been closed. This is clearly not the case. The Ramblings of a Madman makes me crazy. Some times it’s the best thing that could have ever happened to me and some times it’s the biggest mistake of my life. But this is the thing I keep saying. Everyday is a new beginning bursting at the seams with opportunities if you’re brave enough to take them. There’s a new page at the end of every sunset, and that my friends is the most beautiful thing about being alive. You are never finished, and you’re never done. The only thing to do is be brave enough to continue. 

Happy New Year,
Afam