The other side of things...

 

We celebrated her fourth birthday in October; the year hasn’t been without its challenges.

You see, my daughter at four has speech delay, she also has scoliosis.

The usual challenges of parenting are compounded for parents and primary caregivers of children with special needs. Some of the many challenges include learning about the disability; researching, locating and accessing effective treatments and resources; Coping with the emotional and physical demands of caring for an individual with a disability; Getting to the innumerable appointments with medical providers, therapists, advocates,  and school personnel; Advocating for appropriate school interventions, accommodations, and/or placements; Paying for the many treatments and interventions not covered by health insurance or the school system

There is also Stress that comes with this; the burden of stress is big for parents of those with special needs.  Finances are often a source of stress. As a parent of a child with special needs; you often have to sacrifice your career to attend to your child’s needs with a resulting loss of income for the family, not to mention time away from work which you will have to make up for because you also want to show that you can actually deliver to the best of your capacity despite what is going on in your personal life, and you need that recognition.

As a single parent; I do not have the emotional or financial support that comes with an additional partner /spouse to help ease this load.

I hugely depend on myself for almost everything, my own needs and the needs of my child.

I have to think about paying for her child care, protecting her emotional wellbeing to ensure that she can be emotionally  intelligent as she is growing and to try as much as I can to play the role of a father as well as mother to her. This means I have to put aside my own needs first because her needs matter more, she’s small and vulnerable and I tell myself am all she has.

I have often gone broke and been unable to save properly because I’d find myself sourcing for her care including paying cash for her brace materials to people who may know someone who knows someone with that material and they all need a cut in this process.

You are at the mercy of the system.

I have had to ask for time off from work often and travel, that meant expenses for fuel and lodging as well as food as I searched for healthcare that was not found in my location.

The emotional impact is enormous, you fear and worry about a lot of things.

Your child’s pain and suffering

Your child’s future

The question of whether you are doing enough or doing the right things to help your child

You tend to have guilt over the limits of your ability to protect the child;  

The loss of attention toward other children (if you have other children), your spouse and aging parent/s, my mother right now, also needs her own medical care.

Your jealousy and resentment of those with “normal” children.

I have often been in situations where I felt “self-pressure” when am around colleagues or friends with children that may even be younger than my daughter’s age, talking animatedly about this and that and the pride in those children’s parent’s faces as they beamed on their children’s “intelligence”

Because my daughter has scoliosis and has to wear her brace for at least 20 hrs. a day, she cannot wear smaller clothes ,I always have to get a size bigger so she can wear the clothing over the brace, however it is not always like that, because sometimes the weather can be really hot and extra clothing on a hard brace means extra weight and heat. So I’d just let her wear a vest and put the brace over, no cute dresses or anything like that because we have to ensure that she is consistent with the brace if we are to see good results.

As a parent for a child with special needs, you feel isolated because you miss out on many family-oriented activities because your child’s disability prevents her/him from successfully participating; or you, because you’d be away at a hospital appointment or something; you usually encounter criticism and judgment of your parenting from others who don’t understand your child’s disability; you feel like an outsider around parents of typically developing children.

I remember the first time I learned about my daughter’s scoliosis and I took her for a physical examination and the doctor there jotted down some notes, looked up to me and said, “how could you not notice this?”

Another time I was unwell and I went for a checkup, as the doctor was asking me about my history and how many children I had, when I mentioned one and he looked at my age on the chart, he murmured that I “started having children late”

I sat there in silence because how could I say to this insensitive doctor that I have had a miscarriage before my current daughter and that I had not been lucky when it comes to relationships?

All these factors play a role in when and how you have children. There’s no woman that wakes up to decide to be a single parent when they had wanted all along to have an environment where both parents where available.

How can I explain to this insensitive doctor that my mental health mattered more than sticking around in a toxic relationship just “to have children early”?

So I sat there in silence. You can’t explain anything to someone who sees nothing wrong in what they do or say.

I have learnt this overtime, that sometimes the best you can do is stay silent even when it hurts you.

You also suffer from a lot of grief.  

You grieve over the loss of hopes and dreams you had for your child; not having the parenting experience you had imagined and recurrent reminders of what your child misses out on leading you into chronic sorrow.

Fighting for services, feeling unskilled, experiencing stigma and prejudice as I had shared in my examples and also coming to terms with life being different from how we expected can all take their toll.

You can feel a range of emotions, often all in one day, dependent on what is happening in your life, an ‘emotional rollercoaster’, which I can sum up as “your greatest joy and also your greatest heartache”

You are our child’s greatest advocate but this can have an impact on your wellbeing.

 No one can fight forever without there being a knock on effect. 

Moving from worrier to warrior is not an easy journey and neither position is without its challenges.

Parents of children with special needs are often exhausted and frequently become depressed.  

I rarely share my thoughts and feelings about this with even with some of my friends as I loath the thought of them going about “broadcasting” about what I was/am going through, especially to people that do not support me or that have hurt me.

I do not remember the last time I ever felt rested, I often wake up feeling tired, even when I may have had an early night still wake up feeling tired; I often work on zombie pilot mode and get my work done, have conversations at work with people, associates and colleagues; relatives and friends.

Once in a while I treat myself; I do my nails, do my hair, I try to look good always, because I do not want to appear as I often feel, and it does help to lift the mood sometimes; and sometimes I meet a guy I like and it almost feels like I have my shit together; but when I get home and close the door away from the world, I feel the weight of exhaustion and depression accompanied by feelings of helplessness.

You will find that parents who have children with special needs will have their reserves of time and resources for self-care are even more depleted than those of parents of typical children; and yet their need for refueling is also greater.  

However; besides these challenges there is also the positive impact that comes with raising a child with special needs: you grow as a person; put life into perspective and appreciate what is really important; greater expertise, knowledge & awareness; you make new friends who truly understood you; you become more determined, you fight & find strength as well as enjoyment and pride in your child. 

You learn to hope and have a sense of purpose.

You are not alone

I hope that by raising awareness and writing about this, we can realize we are not alone. 

As my daughter is growing up, despite the numerous professionals I have met so far, no one has ever asked how I am doing or acknowledged that the situation, especially the behaviors that I found challenging, could be difficult for me and our wider family.  It is assumed that we ‘just get on with it’ or if it is clear that we need support, there often isn’t any funding or anyone who can provide that support outside of friends or family.

Also; any suggestion that we may need help can feel like a personal failure; I mean surely we can manage to exist on two hours sleep a night, hold down a full-time job, support a home, manage challenging situations or behavior, fight for services and education and have no mental scars!

Knowing and feeling are two very different things. I knew I wasn’t a failure, but I couldn’t shift the feeling that I was; that in some way I was weak or not able to cope whereas others were.  Whatever I tried never felt enough.

I realize now that is not the case.  

We all have our struggles, our times of despair or ‘failures’.  It is ok, we are ordinary human beings in an extraordinary situation for which nothing can really prepare us.    

And sometimes hearing from others in a similar situation can be helpful and even empowering.

I am still learning on how best to cope with everything but some of the things that have helped are:

Being realistic: I always try to cope with everything alone. Maybe you do that too; sometimes I stop people from helping in case they don’t help in the way I want them to. I often do this and it isn’t helpful, it can actually build resentment and create further isolation. Am learning to slowly to allow others to help me, it cannot always be perfect, nothing is, but you need the help and when it presents itself, all things considered that it’s ok, allow it.

Self-Care: Taking care of yourself is part of taking care of your kids, and a happy mom manages better; this may not be what you think it is. It isn’t necessarily a trip to the nail salon or a spa day (although those are great too), but self-care is also just even having 10 minutes to yourself, locking yourself in the bathroom; with your phone or a book. Sitting down with a coffee. Asking a neighbor to come in and sit with your children for 15 minutes. Joining a support group, whether in person or online. Exploring what's available in your local area.

Becoming aware of unhelpful feelings: We all experience them, for example, guilt or anger. Use them instead to drive you to act on why you are feeling that way. Guilt can really trap your mind and make you believe what you are feeling is truth, so having awareness of it can help deal with it when you need to.

Remember that feelings pass: They come but they also go again – how you feel now is very different to how you felt last year, last month or last week and will be different again next week, next month, next year.

If adopting a strategy like mindfulness remember that you can do as little or as much as you need to and it doesn’t have to be the whole 45 minutes – 10 minutes ‘being in the moment’ while you go for a walk will help calm a frantic mind.

Eating well: Eat and drink healthy and lots of water; or juice, it helps keep you hydrated. There have been times I would go all day without drinking water because I’d be busy with work, it used to leave me feeling even more exhausted at the end of the day. Nowadays I ensure I move around with my bottle of water and sip all day as I go about my business.

Trust your parenting: Know that you know your child and their needs and be confident knowing you don’t have to justify them to anyone. You may have to evidence their difficulties if you're seeking help and support, but that is very different to justifying their behaviors to family or peers.

Quieting the inner critic: I am the worst at this and i do this a lot to myself, but above all don’t be your own worst critic. If negative thoughts automatically spring to mind, or you have a tendency to be self-critical, remind yourself how disempowering this is, not just to you, but to everyone you're trying to support.

Being kind to myself: Remind yourself that when you've had a difficult day or needed a daytime nap that it is OK to do so – it was what your body needed during a difficult day. Tomorrow will be different. Today I ate unhealthily, but that is OK, tomorrow I will try to eat more healthily. I became frustrated due to outside factors, but that’s OK, tomorrow I will try a different approach. Adopting self-tolerance and understanding is one of the best strategies of all.

 

 

3 a.m conversations : What is love anyway?

 

She had almost forgotten what it was like to feel.

His lips felt warm and his hands were firm and confident in what they were doing to her body; he seemed to know his way around pretty well and did not need any directions…or permission…

And she let him

She had forgotten what it felt like to be taken, ravished, devoured, appreciated…valued.

To feel warmth, to feel safe, and happy and wanton at the same time.

It felt surreal, was it really her he was holding this way? Kissing this way?

Making her weak in submission?

It was bound to happen anyway, one day, one way or another.

It had all been building up to this…the constant time spent with him, and conversations that stimulated her mind, unravelling her imaginative spirit.

It was in the way he’d make her laugh so hard her tummy hurt…

It was in the way he’d make her feel like she could do anything, be anything, it was in the way he believed in her.

It felt so good, it felt consistent and true….like home, a place to go anytime; a safe place

His kiss had gotten deeper and his tongue felt even warmer ; almost hot she thought to herself…he tasted a little sweet and salty…as if he had just had some salted candy..

She felt like she could eat him all up, immerse herself in him, in his scent, get deeper in his chest…she felt her knees go weak and give way, she felt him hold her even firmer..

She sighed as he caressed her breast, and gave out a small gasp as he felt for her folds…

She had wanted this feeling to last…except….it didn’t….it couldn’t....like everything else....it was too good to be real and only moments were enjoyed.

She threw her house keys on the coffee table and slumped on the couch.

 

Life had gotten busy and the days had become duller by the day, consumed by the shenanigans of adulting, of chasing paper and striving to excel in the work environment; to “make a name for herself”; she had forgotten what it was like to feel and for a moment he had reminded her what her body was capable and what she had been missing; that she mattered too, as a person.

She took off her heels and slumped back in the softness of the couch, it gave way as she sunk in it, almost as if to give her a hug after the day she had had.

She untucked her blouse from her skirt to get more comfortable and unbuttoned her it to reveal a pair of soft firm breasts in a laced bra, it had been a long day at the office and she had been looking forward to this moment right here.

To be by herself and just be …it was nice just being away from the usual monotonous conversations at the office, making the necessary talks to the necessary people in order to do the necessary work so she could get paid and get her basic necessities at the end of the month.

The day had dragged on, long and dull with a line of boring meetings from morning till late afternoon.

Chanda was always trying to show everyone how smart he was by talking all the time, paraphrasing the same point and delaying the end of almost every meeting. She had never met anyone more obnoxious.

She often wondered what his wife found so attractive about him, Chanda had this wide nose, small eyes, and his hair looked like patches of shrubs in the desert.

How could any woman sleep with him on a daily basis and survive? She mused.

Perhaps it was because of the money. Anyway, it was none of her business, after all, it’s not as if she had any real love story to write home about…except for the moments with Will.

People didn’t love anymore she decided as she proceeded to unzip her skirt; people used each other for relief…relief from life it seemed.

Nowadays a person can be with someone for convenience, for the fear of being alone, for companionship, for money, to gain favors, to be linked with specific networks…but love? Hm, love was farfetched.

The world was becoming even colder, and old fashioned love rarely existed anymore.

There were just too many lies and superfluousity.

She sat there in her bra and G-string as she appreciated the cool air on her warm skin coming through from the open window.

The curtains billowed softly

Then there was Elizabeth who was married with two children, her husband was seemingly well off but she never really looked happy.

She was always the first one to come in and the last one to leave the office, she seemed to spend more time at the office working than spending time with her family.

There were rumors that her husband had been cheating on her with a student from a local university.

Another rumor suggested the reasons she was always early and knocking off late was because she was having an affair with the accountant who followed similar time patterns.

The office was full of rumors anyway; better to just mind your business, people’s tongues always wagged there.

A shower would definitely ease out all the day’s tension and Chanda’s constant chatter, she needed to reset. She stood up and headed for the bathroom.

Can someone actually love you? As in genuinely love you no questions asked? She thought to herself as she turned on the shower and proceeded to remove her bra and string…

She closed her eyes as the water hit her shoulder and ran down her body. She stood still as the water continued to hit on her shoulder, that one spot on the shoulder; for some reason it felt comforting.

Time flies so quickly, one minute you’re just a girl full of dreams for the future, and the next minute you’re a full grown woman, an adult that had barely enough time to dream…chasing bills, office reports, family problems, occasional social activities where you had to fake smiles in order to fit in…

She lathered her bath sponge with soap and rubbed herself gently and slowly as her mind continued to wonder about the day…

The rich lather ran down her legs taking a journey through her crevices…

Love can be so dynamic, it cannot always be found in what you’d call traditional set ups, sometimes it can be found in the most unorthodox ways.

Sometimes it only lasts for a short while.

Sometimes we can love someone based on our moment in life, a particular phase in our life that has drawn us to certain people.

Sometimes loving someone is not always for a lifetime, and sometimes you can love someone that you cannot be with for a lifetime.

Sometimes the person you love, love’s someone else and you may be their alternative due to the unreciprocated love they actually want.

Some rare times you can actually meet someone that matches your vibe and fire and you would not think about being with anyone apart from them.

And sometimes…like Will...you love them silently, close, yet far and once in a while they remind you of what you need, what you are capable of, your vulnerabilities and your strengths.

A friend and a lover.

Someone you can have and cannot have all in one.

There was a knock on the door, she turned off the shower; wrapped a towel around herself and quickly tiptoed to answer it.

Will stood there with a grin on his face: “Hi, I got us some pizza”

 

 Photo credit:

#Artfromtheculture:https://instagram.com/artfromtheculture?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

 

 

Period pains no one talks about....Rectal Pain

 

Let me start off by saying that period pain is real, it includes everything from bloating to acne, and we’re all too familiar with the pains caused by that time of the month.

I for one even get the period flu, which is weird but surprisingly I get a little “flui-sh” around “that time”, and sometimes I can actually think it’s “real” flu until the period comes and then am like “”a-h-a” no wonder...

Just bringing this out here so that if any women have this, they shouldn’t feel alone and that men can also understand what happens during this challenging time of the month for some of us.

“Some of us” of course, because not all women go through hell during their period.

They move on from month to month like a ballerina in a breeze, with only slight discomfort or none at all and are perplexed by some of us who literally feel like we are on the verge of dying from period pain.

I have come to dread my monthly “visitations” due to the pain that often accompanies them.

Besides the usual tummy cramps, I have occasional terrible rectal pain that shoots through my anal region and holds me a prisoner for a good few seconds or minutes and let me go like it never happened.

This pain would freeze me in one posture and any movement would invite more spasms.

This pain is almost debilitating because I don’t function properly in my normal day to day activities.

I recall one incident where this “savage little demon” possessed me during a meeting where I was chairing and I had to act like I was ok through it all. It was definitely not the easiest thing to do….I couldn’t concentrate on what participants were saying all of a sudden because I was so focused on squashing this pain with the least amount of facial expressions possible that would not give me away. Lord…

Running is definitely out of the question and any other strenuous activity during these “episodes”.

All I want to do during this time is lay in bed and take it easy.

It’s interesting how some supervisors at the work place underestimate the need for a woman to take a break from the office during this time. When you request for a “mother’s day” (fashionably named this to escape calling it “period day”) 

Sometimes you receive snubs as to why you need a day off, after all “it’s just a period”, you are weak, you are lazy…truth be told a period can actually make you feel weak and pretty much unproductive. Not by choice, but because you simply don’t have much control of the drama that is currently going on inside of you during this time and your body is literally drained.

Sometimes a supervisor will tell you to push your "mother's day" to the next week because the current week is busy. By then you'd have already "crossed the bridge".

Sometimes work gets in the way that you cannot even get yourself this day off; what with deadlines, short notice meetings, running around with family errands and basically catching up on trying to survive in this crazy world; but it’s very necessary to do so as you need to replenish. I personally feel a day is not even enough, I’d go for 3 days at least.

I honestly feel like commercial ads on tampons and pads that show girls and women jumping up and down are not a reflection of what actually happens.

Who wants to jump hoops when a cough can deliver a litre of blood right out of you?

No one.

Who wants to run around the yard when you feel like your ass is getting kicked and your tummy feels like it is being ripped from the inside? Absolutely no-one.

So, I became curious and wanted to find out what the pain in my butt was because I needed some relief, also whether it was actually a real thing or if perhaps I was a unique case.

To my relief, I found that it was quite a common symptom of pre-menses and also during one’s menses- or period if you will.

This shocking symptom of periods is called proctalgia fugax – or in layman terms, “anal pain that has no specific cause”.

According to Dr Raj, this is why you can get anal cramps on your period...

"It's known as proctalgia fugax - fleeting anal pain. During your period, hormones called prostaglandins are released, which causes the muscles of the uterus to contract, causing the lining of the uterus to shed and it causes pain and cramps.

"Prostaglandins also cause contractions of the rectum and the pelvic floor muscles around the anal canal. These intense contractions can cause muscle spasms and anal cramps."

According to Webmed’s website, Proctalgia fugax is a sudden intense spasm of the rectum that lasts anywhere between a few seconds to a few minutes, or as in my case the other weekend, it lasted for close to an hour.

I had to lay there immobilized for a good hour as any movement triggered spasms to course through my anal area. Spasms so sharp that left me clutching my fists, gritting my teeth and leaving me breathless.

One thing that helped me find some relief was a hot water bottle that I put under my butt for the duration I lay on the couch in a limited angle.

I also took a pain killer, what works well is probably a pain killer such as nurofen, (costs an arm and a leg but can provide relief).

Much like with period diarrhea, shooting anal pain during your period is also the result of overactive prostaglandins. 

These mean hormones don’t play; it actually feels like a knife is stubbing your bootyhole...

Simply put, periods are quite literally a pain in the ass

**If it gets too bad for you, please seek medical help as this may be due to other underlying issues.**

 

7 days later....

 

7 days after my birthday and I start thinking about what I may have done to celebrate it.

I’ve never really had a wild birthday full of friends screaming and surprises delivered to my door.

And as I get older it seems even more pointless because I feel like am already drained enough by the stresses of life and the best birthday would really be a sleep in at home, with completely no interruptions, or a lazy warm afternoon with my feet in the water by a pool, lying down on soft grass and staring at the clouds or a star filled night figuring out constellations.

This time around on my birthday, I was on the road heading back home from what had been a crazy three day run around in and out of hospitals doing consultations on my daughter.

By the time it was my birthday, I didn’t even have enough money to buy myself something nice.

I lay on my bed the day before my travel back to my small flat on the copperbelt and thought about how life just seemed to have zoomed by and how much time I had wasted on the wrong people and not pursuing my passions and I suddenly missed the old creative me, the one that read a lot of books and painted on Sundays. The one that liked to invite people over for board games, the one that still believed in love and forever.

Life was not like that now; now it felt like I was always too tired to read and not creative enough to paint, now it felt like the spare time I had was time for my daughter and little for myself.

Now it felt like I was working half the time or catching up on trying to make it in the “normal” world.

I suddenly felt defeated, I was doing all these things about life, being a single parent, trying my best at my job, trying out fleeting romances to make me feel alive and yet never experiencing the real thing.

A part of me felt quite unfulfilled.

I had disabled my birthday on my socials, because I did not want to be bombarded by a flood of happy birthday messages that were just from people who well, just saw it was my birthday on my wall and just said it just because..

I needed something more meaningful.

Four days before my birthday three years ago, I lost my father. So every time four days before my birthday after that year, I get some form of sadness when I think about it.

I still remember vividly seeing him be a shadow of himself, from the once ever argumentative Dad I knew full of energy, the academic who loved books and travel and never got to fulfil most of the fantasies he had dreamt of.

I still remember the last day I had seen him alive, he had called all of us his children, as if he knew he was about to leave this earth and we all had to find some time from our private lives to go and see him at our family farm.

I still remember very vividly as I approached him with my siblings when we entered the yard of the farm, he was lying down, outside by the side of the house. Initially I didn’t even realize that there was anyone lying down, it looked like some beddings spread outside. It was only when the beddings shifted with movement that I saw a peak of his head.

His voice had become hoarse and almost inaudible and his hands were shaky. My father had always been a dark skinned man, but this time, he seemed to have gotten unhealthily dark with sunken eyes.

To this day I think about that scene and how he reached out to us one by one as we approached to greet him.

No one had anything to say that day. We all had lumps in our throat and to each his own feel of grief because we knew the inevitable.

Two weeks following Dad’s funeral I found out I was pregnant. It felt like on one hand life had left and on the other hand new life was coming.

So my birthday month that year was full of mixed emotions, losing my father, discovering I was pregnant and would be a single parent because of a failed relationship was a lot to deal with. I felt very much lost and alone.

Over the years I have pulled myself through some of the loneliest of nights and the worst of days. Sometimes I didn’t feel like going to work, other times I just wanted to work all day, to get myself distracted.

Now that I have my hands full with a little one and trying to just live each day the best I can by myself, it seemed kind of pointless to celebrate my birthday this year. Am focused on other things.

However, I do appreciate that everyday should be a celebration because am here and I’ve been strong enough to fight through the pains of yester years, I suppose a birthday just adds an extra touch to a celebration of life.

The day God decided to actually bring you to this world, to be a change maker and to touch lives. We are all basically looking for our purpose, sometimes it takes a lifetime to figure ourselves out, but each day has purpose, in everything that we do. Some of it we may not understand there and then until later on in life but we keep living regardless.

Life is short enough as it is and to the privilege of it is to be exactly who we intend to be and no one else. To be our authentic selves.

 

 

 

IF YOUR LIFE WAS A SONG,WHAT WOULD YOUR LYRICS BE?

 

If your life was a song, what would be the lyrics to your song?

Would it have a steady beat to accompany it?

Do you think your life sounds more like pop rock music, with waves of guitar strings? Or more like hip hop, filled with attitude and self-validation?

Perhaps it is quieter, subdued, like soul music, moving up and down softly, like shadows on dunes or waves in the ocean…

If my life were a song, I’d say it would be a mix of different genres of music…

One minute my life sounds like hard rock and am in limbo, without a care in the world, swinging my imaginary long hair like them band members I would see on t.v; in that space I don’t care about my problems, am just like “fuck it; it is what it is and I can’t do anything about it”

In that space I just hurl the weight of the world down, like a sack of potatoes I had been carrying…

Sometimes my life sounds like hip hop and the lyrics to my song would be full of attitude and I would not let anybody cross me, in that space, I swear I can feel myself invincible, and am like “I could run this shit, no shit’s gonna get to me and if any shit tries to get to me, ama fuck that shit outta my way”…

Most times, my life song is soft and gentle, like a breeze on a summer night, or like a candlelight in the stillness of the night, in that space my heart feels big, it feels a lot of things, most things I cannot even explain except on paper, or I just sit by myself and just soak in all those feelings.

Sometimes I feel like I could just give everybody hurting a hug and make them feel better, everyone in a lonely place, every sad heart, because I’ve been there and I know that a hug can go a long way in making someone feel better without saying anything.

I suppose a large part of life song is soul, for I tend to feel deeply, I understand that probably not everybody gets this deeper side of me, hell, I don’t think anybody in my family has really gotten it either.

I don’t think they have really grasped just how deep I can go in my thoughts, in my mind and may see me as a little queer.

But I have no fear of this, words are my comfort space, in them I can be anything I want, and on paper I can bleed and I lose myself. I just wish I had more time to do it.

It is nothing new, being seen as queer; when you’re a little different from the general folk, most creatives are seen as a little weird, perhaps deep thinkers or lonely sad people with nothing better to do than follow shadows not really fitting in with the crowd.

But you know what, a lot of events in life’s history have transformed the world, events started and pursued on by people seen as weird or “different” in their abilities and interests.

The world laughed at Christopher Columbus’ rantings when he wanted to see what else was out there in the world, this was exacerbated by the fact that a number of his journeys resulted in disasters but he never gave up, he still believed in himself and what he loved to do.

At that time everybody thought the world was flat, and that if you dared venture too far out, you would fall off its cliff and get eaten up by huge monsters that lurked there... But because of someone who did not give up despite being laughed at, we know now that the world stretches miles and miles and you cannot fall off anywhere.

Everybody laughed at Noah and thought he was crazy when he was building the Ark, talking about some rain that would come and wash off everybody off the face of the earth? It was unheard of, even unrealistic.

The rain came anyway. And for 40 days and nights, it did not stop...

If it weren’t for Isaac Newton we would not have fully appreciated the laws of gravity and motion and electricity, breakthrough science to so many things we now enjoy.

Apparently Isaac Newton was born prematurely and was so small that people did not expect him to live. It is estimated that he may have been born up to 15 weeks early; he was also a stutterer.

All these people among others have pursued their uniqueness and believed in their abilities and pursued what they loved to do, even when people laughed at them.

They had their own lyrics to their life songs and danced to their own tunes.

I always talk about how we do not always see ourselves as others see us because often times, we underestimate ourselves, mostly because we want to fit in, to be what is considered as “acceptable” “normal” and “consistent” with the world and with everyone else in it.

In this way, we lose our spark that which we need to stand out and create. It is dimmed down by social expectations and weighed down by life’s problems as you navigate your way through each deadline at work, or through each bill you have to pay, through family expectations and through parenting responsibilities or marriage obligations, and in large part, lack of support by the people that matter in our lives.

I think people underestimate the power of a supportive partner, friend or family; it can be the difference between achieving your dreams and living an empty life, the difference between feeling confident and feeling worthless, love is a powerful thing; love can inspire and change people; it can change the world

And lack of it can do so negatively..

Lack of love can change a person, and ultimately change the world

It is because of lack of love that we have experienced wars, it is because of lack of love that we experienced slavery and racism and so many other inhuman things.

Lack of love and appreciation can easily dim down the spark in a person, change them, make them cold, make them lose energy in themselves and how they see themselves, it can alter who they are supposed to be.

I still remember how in my past relationship, my partner, used to make me feel less of myself at times. It was what you would call...”subtle jabs” that I used to brush off. Comments that would worm their way to bruise my self-esteem, such as my makeup, or how could I not easily grasp something, or a remark about my body and appearance, or it was in a stare about something I had said when we were in a group of people that warned me about how I probably shouldn’t have said that.

I don’t know why i stayed so long in that relationship, maybe it was because I convinced myself that if I did this and that he would be more accepting of who I was and he would be proud of me. It was very important that he would be proud of me. Now I know that you have to be proud of yourself first, more than anything.

In all this I was slowly losing my spark, I don’t think he fully understood or appreciated who I was as a person, and my love for words and expression and the creative ARTs; I think self-image for him was very important and how he “looked” and his reputation..

I realized later that we were total opposites, and even though we were initially drawn to each other somehow, eventually this relationship ended, of course I did not come out of it scar free, there was a lot of pain and lessons along the way.

After this relationship, my spark dimmed and it took a hell of a long time to get to a place where I felt almost back to my normal self. For a long time I felt like an empty shell of myself, I was going through life on automatic, smiling at work, getting things done and coming home to sit quietly in front of the t.v till I fell asleep, sometimes crying on the floor till I fell asleep and the cycle would continue next day.

I packed away my pen and paper and forgot about my interest in writing, I could not even place myself in my safe space, it used to be where I would go each time a cloud came over my life, this time I couldn’t even write a thing.

I told myself what was the point of it all after all, who cared anyway? But the truth is, there are people that still cared, however because my spark had dimmed, I did not see this, I did not see myself as others saw me, I did not see myself in God’s eyes and how he loved me because in that moment, I had not been loved right, and in that moment I was like a bird with a broken wing that was unable to fly.

In that space, the words to my song were lonely and empty and caged, I did not see myself as someone who was worth contributing to this world.

I had been loved wrongly, and in that space, I felt like I had failed and therefore the lyrics to my song were flat, like a guitar with only one chord.

However, through all this and in my journey in rediscovering myself and who I am, I have learned to accept the pains of the past and continue to move on with my life.

Not that I will forget those pains because I won’t, but that the past would not be my present and that my past hurts would not stop me from living.

In my journey to rediscovery, I have been different people, I have been an angry person, angry at God and the world, at my family, at my friends, I have been angry with myself, I have been a sad person who would spend hours staring at nothing, or spending hours awake because I couldn’t sleep, I have been a numb person, unfeeling and unmoved by words of encouragement, I have been a quiet person, being invited out and ending up in a corner alone, I have been a loud person, trying to attract attention. All these different people were just someone who ultimately just sought inner peace.

I am still learning even now just how to be comfortable in my own skin, to love myself unconditionally ,regardless of what the world says I should be, to be me, to love myself regardless of who or what hurts me, to forgive myself for my mistakes and not blame myself when am not loved right.

I am me and I have within me right now, everything I need to deal with whatever the world can throw at me.

 

The Female Eunuch~Germaine Greer

A girl who studies medicine will qualify if she works hard enough-but it is true that women patients prefer male doctors and so do men. A girl may qualify as an architect or an engineer and if she can get employers to regard her seriously she may do well. Evidence is that women who learn a trade like electrical engineering or radio operating can find no employment. Female chemists and scientists can win the Nobel Prize, if they are researchers, but they are unlikely to become heads of professional research establishments. In chasing all these asexual academic attainments a girl faces one relentless enemy-her family.

The constant recriminations, the lamentations that she is missing out on what makes being a girl such fun, on dating and pretty clothes, that she will waste her training by getting married and so forth, the whole tiresome rigmarole, wears down her resistance from day to day. The pressure of home duties which are spared by a boy in her situation is not relieved, unless she goes away to study at a distant university, an expedient which may meet with parental disapproval. A girls emotional welfare is so much a matter of the demeanor of men towards her that she may jeopardize her academic chances by emotional involvement…....men may take their pleasures how and where they will or not at all: girls feel rejected without male attention, and degraded by anything less than total involvement, and as long as this is the case, they are likely to be academic casualties…

.......Not all the women in history have been humble and subservient to such an extent. It is nonsense to say that a woman feels nothing when a man is moving his penis in her vagina: the orgasm is qualitatively different when the vagina can undulate around the penis instead of vacancy.

 The differentiation between the simple inevitable pleasure of men and the tricky responses of women is not altogether valid. If ejaculation meant release for all men, given the constant manufacture of sperm and the resultant pressure to have intercourse, men could copulate without transport or disappointment with anyone.

The process described by the experts in which the man dutifully does the rounds of the erogenous zones, spends an equal amount of time on each nipple, turns his attention to the clitoris(usually too directly),leads through the stages of digital or lingual stimulation and then politely lets himself into the vagina, perhaps waiting until the retracting of the clitoris tells him that he is welcome, is  laborious and inhumanely computerized.

The implication that there is a statistically ideal fuck which will always result in satisfaction if the right procedures are followed is depressing and misleading. There is no substitute for excitement: not all the massage in the world will ensure satisfaction, for it is a matter of psycho-sexual release. Real gratification is not enshrined in a tiny cluster of nerves but in the sexual involvement of the whole person. Women’s continued high enjoyment of sex, which continues after orgasm, observed by men with wonder, is not based on the clitoris, which does not respond particularly well to continued stimulus, but in a general sensual response. If we localize female response in the clitoris we impose upon women the same limitation of sex which has stunted the male’s response. The male sexual ideal of virility without languor or amorousness is profoundly desolating: when the release is expressed in mechanical terms it is sought mechanically. Sex becomes masturbation in the vagina.