How did she even get here?!
The first of January 2019 – The night that changed everything.
Nights were filled with clouds of sadness and air of
despair.
No sleep!
She loathed sadness but these days, sadness seemed to be the only emotion that keeps lurking.
The days were long and agonising. Filled with fears and uncontrollable tears.
Fear? This was uncommon ground for her and this left her
uneasy.
Slowly and slowly, in her brokenness, she succumbed. She
embraced all of what pain and sadness had to offer as she learnt that this was
not going away anytime soon.
Life took all her options away and Life changed in a twinkle of an eye.
She was offered lemons in exchange for her cherries. They
say when life gives you lemons make lemonade but her lemonade was undrinkable,
indigestible and rancorous.
Waking up was a task, talking about it brings floods of tears
and life itself became a very dark room.
Curtains closed, all curled up in a foetal position, her
mouth trembled trying to string a prayer together as the constant beeping of
the iPhone becomes an irritable sound she lives to despise.
She had questions. She had many unanswered questions.
Why her, why now, why hers and simply why. She dwelled and
dwelled.
She drank subconsciously from a cocktail of emotions and
feelings that she didn’t know how to manage. Because of that, they got the
better of her.
Everything was a trigger. A happy family, her favourite
food, stop crying, a prayer, her bedroom, her racks of collectible trainers, it’ll
get better, happy siblings…every single thing became a trigger.
She wasn’t bitter, she wasn’t jealous…she was just in pain.
A pain that she couldn’t feel but she must endure. A pain that had no antidote
but she must endure. A pain that that comes in flood in the mornings, when she’s
in the middle of something or when she was doing the most mundane tasks.
She was a woman in pain. A pain you can’t possibly explain
to another. A pain that requires courage and tenacity but sends hard blows and no matter how much the next person
was feeling for you, they can’t take an ounce of it away.
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| Holding on to Memories... |
A pain that she must endure. But first, it consumed her. Her
whole being. Her life!
She felt trapped and annihilated. Helpless! Simple tasks
required insurmountable strength.
And when she was asked how you are.
She mustered up strength from where she didn’t know it
existed. She wiped her tears. Bandaged her wounds and put on the mask.
And with a deceitful tongue and a plastic smile.
With a redundant and aptly disguised expression.
And a heavy shoulder and a burdened soul.
Locked in with sad eyes and a well-rehearsed lie,
Her lips curve in unison.
As she sinfully says it one more time, like every other time.
‘‘I’m Okay’’
I’m Okay was the greatest lie she’s ever had to tell.
And still telling…
It was an easy escape….still is.
Its fobs people off and it’s easier to explain.
It is dismissive and it fends off a helping hand.
It stops the questions and eases the triggers.
It prevented her from talking about her loss and actual
state of being.
It prevented strangers from preying in her untouched
territory.
Grounds that she has yet to explore.
I’m Okay tucks her reality neatly away.
It was her coping mechanism.
Less preying questions to awaken a hurtful reality.
Or discuss something she was fighting so hard to not deal
with.
It was a very strong fence.
I’m Okay... was her
greatest lie. An uncomfortable place to hide.
It used to be a familiar place and a place she once used to
live. But that time, she was Okay and that was her reality. Now… not so much.
At this present time in her life, this very moment.
This is the greatest lie she has to tell.
As inquiring minds press on and ask ‘’Are you sure’’
She will steadfastly repeat…‘’I’m Okay’’
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| A Void...The Void! |
In her numbness, she realised that happiness can be faked but
Joy is internal and that she was lacking. She learnt that joy can never be
attained when the soul is not at rest. It can never be experienced when there
is a void within. The void was now occupied with this pain she can’t explain.
But she can fake her happy so she continued to do just that.
All this while, she was breaking inside. She was a broken
woman screaming for the pain to go. Praying for someone to wake her up from her
nightmare. Hoping for the pain to go away.
That pain built a home in her chest and stole her life. The
same pain pulled her apart in tiny different pieces and tested everything she
believed in.….prayers, family, friends!
Everything!
That pain was hell-bent on destroying her and combined with
her greatest lie well encompassed, she became a mighty fine candidate for
destruction.
When everything inside her will be screaming, her pain
demanded to be felt. It was going nowhere and demanded to be dealt with but she
was too weak with not a fight left in her. She bandaged some more.
She became numb and realised that this pain was here to
stay.
And in this fragile moment, she leant her greatest lesson.
Pain demands to be felt in all its intensity and frequency. It demands to be endured. Pain is
here to teach us and it will not go until we’ve learnt. Even after we have
taken the lesson, the pain lingers. With another chance in life, we live and learn
to smile through the storm even with tears in our eyes.
It’s so easy to say I’m okay but that does nothing for
the healing we so indirectly seek. The fake smile coupled with all the
disguises make a great concoction of foolery but in the grand scheme of things,
we are just prolonging our pains, telling people what they want to hear while
we have a thunder boiling inside and a volcano waiting to explode.
A melting pot of emotional disaster she became …in a twinkle of an eye.
How quickly life changes.
She was tired. And just wanted to come up for a breath of
fresh air.
To her, it wasn’t just a lie. It was more than an untruthful
confession.
It was her affirmation to herself that one day,
Without knowing how, when and where…
One day she was going to be ok.
Okay with this pain.
And that greatest lie will cease to be her greatest lie.
Her greatest lie will go on to become her truth!
A truth she has fought so hard for.
A truth she worked so hard to uncover and reveal in a shiny
unveiling.
A truth that will become her very own truth.
I’m okay, I’m not where I hoped to be…
I’m just okay.
And with every passing day, she grew to be okay in her own
Okay!
To make peace with things that were out of her control and
focus on the choices life now offers.
And for now, that was enough.
But the most intriguing question lingered…
Will she ever be truly OKAY again?
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| The Chaos in Her... |
Sometimes the chaos in her still wonders.
