1 year, 4 months and 29 days!

1 year, 4 months and 29 days – that is how long it took this nightmare to finally end. 1 year, 4 months and 29 days – I counted!

I sat at the meetings yesterday and I couldn’t help but feel tears burn my eyes and this need to go curl up in some corner and process all things. I finally calmly stood up and walked out to go have a private talk with the only person who understood what was happening inside of me.

“Its finally over,” I silently whispered, knowing that who that was meant for would hear me.

“it has been a long time coming,” the conversation carried on, and for the next 20 minutes all I could do was stand there in that private space and allow my heart to bubble forth all that it was trying to string up to make up proper sentences. (how grateful I am that this person I was trying to communicate with was a master at reading hearts and putting inaudible and jumbled up sentence together).

This has been a long journey. A journey filled with hard lessons, strengthened relations, many sleepless nights and desperate pleadings to anybody who would bother to take a moment and hear me. I fought and lost many battles during this time and I have watched many walk away from me when they assumed I was too much of a mess for them to handle. I have harboured bitter resentment and even managed to get myself slapped around a couple of times by my inner self when it had finally grown tired of the bundle of mess that I had become.

I let a few go too – a type of lesson that I suppose could only be taught this way. Its amazing how fast this type scatters when things start to fall apart.

I found that inner strength that people in those talk shows usually go on about. My inner strength tho came in the form of two enemies who both pulled at me in different directions and at times all I could do was listen in while they had one of their usual screaming contests. Each claimed that they knew what was best for me. There were times when the ganged up on me tho and times when they screamed at me and threatened me when they too grew tired of this bundle of mess that was Me. Cindy and Habit, I called them.

Lessons came too – hard and fast with power relations forged with a few people in my circle that I call the ESSENTIALS. This is a group of people that took my late night calls. They stayed up and listened to me rumble on and on and at times they spat words hard to hear and truths tough to swallow. I didn’t like them much then but I know they meant well. *thinking of B who made me cry one night* To Ms thing, Lady B and Ms LoydBanks herself – MUCH LOVE and APPRICIATION. Look what all of you have done – *raised wine glass and a bow of respect to each of you*

1 year, 4 months and 29 days is how long it took and its finally done.

I know where I am going. The email I sent this morning tells me so. There are no more tears for this and no more regrets here.

With the last final bow, I finally take this closed chapter and throw it in the huge barn fire that I have made for all the pain, hurt, resentment, hate and tear jerking memories. Its done. Its closed and finally burned from existence.

I take a deep breath, say a final “Thank you” to the person I have been silently speaking to and walk back into the hall to join in on the song of praise. I look back, catch his eye and wink at him while I smile and sort it all into words so I can tell him all about it later!

(You should meet him... he is amazing!)

Sunny With A Chance of Rain vs A Turning Wheel

There is something to be said about the period of times that we face. I have heard it being described as a turning wheel (from the famous saying: “the wheel turns”) and im starting to wonder if that’s what it should really be labelled as.

Think about this for a moment: lets agree to take our life time periods as a turning wheel.

We have a period that is all good and everything seems to go our way. During this period, things just seem to ummm follow the right path, fall in to place so as to speak – the sun shines a bit brighter and we manage to maintain that happy step in our walk regardless of it being a Monday or the day when that hectic report is due. We smile a little more and love everything in our world – perfect or not.

Then comes the bad times - which somehow get me thinking of stepping on a piece of gum. Think of how irritating it is to get the gum off your shoe – err without touching it of cause – and yet still managing to have a bit of it still left behind to try keep your shoe grounded rather then move forward so you can finally get to the end of the damn day! We walk around with the whole world on our shoulders weighing us down. And of cause as if that wasn’t enough, we just had to get the speeding fine and mess up the work presentation or even send the terrible e-mail to everyone instead to the one recipient you usually off load on – now everyone knows that you managed to walk around the whole day with a bit of you dress stuck in your underwear!. During this time, someone could offer to take your life and you would gladly trade! And just as you manage to accept that things are to stay like that forever, that wheel does the turning thing and we are right back to the skip ‘n hop in our step and bright sun shines…

And so it carries on with alternating non-ending cycles…

Considering that with both cycles we tend to go through a series of questions such as “why me?” or “could things get any worse”, it makes me wonder if we are not actually willingly setting ourselves up for such things?

Im sure everyone will agree that it’s the bright sunny days that we like better right… but now my pressing question is this: why cant we have a usual sunny day with a chance of scattered thunder showers? That way, we have generally good periods with touches of rain simply because that’s how nature works. We know that the rain is coming at some point so we make it a point to carry an umbrella and maybe even a pair of Wellingtons for the rain puddles. This to me sound far much better then the world-is-ending feeling we experience every time those rain clouds roll in and we are stuck in terrible rain storms. Infact it sounds much better to me then sitting around knowing that all our good times will soon trade places with the bad just because some wheel has to turn!

Allow me to even take it a step further with this: forget about trying to get out of the storm, life is about learning how to dance in the rain (Tamia)

- Happy puddle dancing everyone!

Happly ever after is not real...

Letter:
                                                          Dear_____________
Wow where do I start…

As strange as it may seem but I believe in fairy tales… or at least I used to.

To me what has always made sense was the idea of happily ever after, you know the guy meets girl and falls madly in love with her. He shows her, as impossible as it may sometimes seem - that they belong together. She agrees and they live happily ever after.

Now I have let that idea go with me through life and it has helped me stand up and dust myself off and try again every time when I have had my heart broken. I say it may seem strange, because to many, something like that is impossible. In the tale, the man goes to all lengths for the woman who he loves and he falls in love with every little thing that makes her up. He loves the way she smiles and the way that she looks when she is upset. He falls for the way she gets so worked up over the smallest of things or the way that she cracks up at the most stupid yet insignificant of things. He loves the way she calls him like 10 times a day and never gets tired of it. When she is unhappy he becomes unhappy and when she cries he is always there to hold her tight and tell her that everything will be ok even though to him it may be so clear that they won’t. Life without her is an impossible something to him because he realizes that she forms such a huge part of his life to the extent that without her, he just isn’t. When she says “I love you” everything in his world is ok.

Many have said that something like that is simply what it is meant to be – a fairy tale that will never come true…

… Sadly I am beginning to see what they mean and it hurts.

I’m tired of dusting myself off because my dress has simply gotten too dirty for me to still hold my head up and carry on with no hint of bitterness.

I look back on the last couple of months and I notice how they have been so enveloped around this one man. I thought I liked him but that is simply an under statement. I fell in love.

When we turn bitter, it simply means that we hold on to this one bad experience and even though we may say that we are over it, we really are not. From that point onwards what ever happens along the same line will always be graded on this one experience and no one ever is able to change that. I used to feel so sorry for woman who let things get to that stage yet… I sit here today and I have let the very same thing happen to me. I have finally turned bitter towards men and I doubt if it will be changed or should I rather say – I doubt if I will ever allow anybody to change that.

I woke up this morning and I had this fantasy running in my head where a guy who has been seeing me from a distance for a while now finally approaches me and lays it all out in the open. He tells me from the get go that he thinks I’m amazing and that he now has gathered up enough courage to come up to me and talk to me. He says he wants to get to know me better. I smile. And he says that smile is something he has seen so many times and he has lost count of how many times he has prayed that I will flash him that smile one day…..

Reality hit and I remembered that I have sworn off men for life.

So here is a fairy tale situation that automatically played in my head and here is my heart screaming ENOUGH with a loud speaker.

Looking down at my worn, dirty dress (from all the falling and dusting off) and thinking of how difficult it is for me to find, pick up and put together the pieces of my shattered heart, I unfortunately now finally give up on my idea of a happily ever after and join the masses in saying…

Fairy Tales do not exist…

Signed: a member of the real world

Girl-On-Top has been found!

Was watching a show last night about a designer girl who’s week went from great to drab in a matter of days. Her FIRST collection was stolen in a huge mix-up with her best friend, the ex that DUMPED her like yesterdays rubbish and moved away popped back into the picture, she has a HUGE fall out with her new beau, her OTHER best friend finds out that she is the other woman in her new, exciting relationship and on TOP of all that – she still needs to design a new collection in 7 days since hers was stolen…
What got to me was the fact that amongst all that and through many tears-full nights, she pulls it off - manages to help her buddy fight her battles with the new romance, ditch the ex who took their past


- i am super woman -

(the white skin colour is part

         of the costume)

relationship as a little fling (while for her it was earth shattering) and still wowed the crowds with her newly made range… then on the night when all that seemed to be behind her and things started looking up – her boyfriend brakes up with her.

SCENE: she stands outside listening to this guy give her the good-bye speech, climbs ino a texi and leaves. With a feeling of knots in her tummy, she walks into a room full of people, puts a smile on her face and just for that moment holds it together for the sake of other people…

Would you be able to do that? Hold it together while your world seems to be crashing around you? I ask because in simply the first 6-months of a year that was said to be the greatest ever, I have had 75% of my deepest fears come true and yet here I still stand. Sure at times it feels like the world just wont stop caving, yet strangely enough, it never manages to fully swallow me – regardless of how close to the edge I am…

I am a 20 something year old black female with a drive to make it regardless of the hills and mountains I gotta trample and trip over to get there. I am loud and I love hard. I have passions that grow everyday and I have no patients for under achievers. I get that no one else can do it for me while I sit in a bunch somewhere hance my every-where-all-over routine. I cry and I shout, I sing and I dance…


There are factors out there who have made it a passion of theirs to bring me down and that’s ok – I suppose they too have the right to fulfil their dreams. Yet note that it being ok does not mean they will get their way. I am super woman and I can take on the odds – sometimes with the help of huge doses of chocolate cake and wine but bottom line… I will do it!

I AM GIRL-ON-TOP!