First off, Big Up! all the beautiful people out there who are reading and giving me so many words of love and support over the last few of months.
I’ve been through some traumatic shit over the last four months. Yes, yes, yes. My heart didn’t break, cause it was never that fucking fragile, oui? No chile, I been furious… a strange sort of fury at that.
I want everyone to know Big Mami’s alright! Part of the reason why I find it hard now to write personally in this space, is because of the sheer number of people connected to my life read what I post in this space. It makes you scared sometimes to put yourself out there. To expose one’s thoughts to the world.
This blog turned three last week! Three years of writing, of keeping a regular journal. This journal has in fact been the most consistent aspect of the last three years of my life. My writing therapy. My speak meh mout, buss de mark, tell it like it is space.
I’ve made so many declarations about my writing here, but now this blog has become a place where people who have axes to grind and skin teeters come to read about me and my life; and I have to admit it can be inhibiting.
I wonder what makes me so interesting? Am I doing things no one else is doing? Is what I’ve experienced and am currently experienced so unique? I don’t think so. I am just muddling through my life, and trying to do the right thing for me and for those around me.
I have carved out this space to tell my story as it is, as it was. It is combined with offline journals, but to be truthful, the bulk of my history over the last few years has been shared in this space. And I know I touch people…. so many of you have reached out and touched me back. And it’s beautiful… it’s beautiful to know so many people think well of and for me. Somedays that’s the one thing that helps me out more than anything else.
I have been struggling recently with the need to continue to write my story down, and saving it here so my family and friends can read, and with the need to protect myself from the Axe Grinders and the Skin Teeters. I’ve been writing this entry since April 21st. Just jotting down things as I proceed. How to be personal, without being to personal…
After surviving some of the nastiest tricks played on me recenty, and what it cost me in terms of emotional energy, financial loss, and the loss of three quarters of my material possessions, a friend of twenty years said to me, “Fuck things girl, Ndela can always get things. You have life, and life in you, and talent to give the world. So fuck that to raatid, and worry not about what you leave behind.” And you know, we’ve been friends since I was 13, and she doesn’t lie to me. She tells me the truth. So you know, I just find myself going, “Well it could have been worse.” So you know, it was hard to walk away, but I did it. I live to tell a tale.
Part of the reason why I love my life, is because no matter how fucked up some shit goes down, I don’t ever seem to fall down so hard, I can’t get back up. No matter what challenges life throws at me, I always seem to manage to get through it somehow. And there are always people who reach out to me and help me along the way. So I guess my challenge right now is to make peace with myself, and just learn how to be patient.
I miss London a lot. I think, of all that I miss the most, it’s the city itself; the Tube, the trains, the architecture, the billboards, the familiar names (from Colonial streets and buildings from my childhood with the same name), people watching, people meeting, the accessibility of all kinds of technology, the world of cultures blending and mixing. I miss the anonymity in all that. I miss being able to walk down the street and not see anyone I met…. although, you’d be surprise who I’ve bumped into in train stations and on the street, in the last couple of months I was there. (It was down right spooky on two or three occasions! The last people I’d expect to see by chance!) I miss the trains, the buses, the little gardens and parks. I just miss the city.
I am here, somewhat hermit-like it’s true, because I do not have the same sort of ‘love feelings’ for Barbados, but you know what, I am really just starting to get excited about the baby. I’m getting close to that gotta start ‘preparing’ as in, changing the house, changing my living space…. :sigh: buying ‘baby stuff’.
I worry a lot about what kind of mother I’m going to make. I worry about money and how I’m going to manage doing this as a single mother, but life is strange. Strange and beautiful. Somehow me and my pickney will make a way. And there are people who have come out from everywhere to offer some help, some love and support.
Despite all the unpleasant side effects, the intense change of it, this ‘becoming Mami’ is actually starting to take on interesting dimensions in my personal life experience. I guess in some ways, I have an opportunity to do things differently. To experiment in shaping a human life, and I get to do it on my terms. Interesting dimensions indeed.
All I’m saying is I’m alright. I bitch and moan because right now, my physical reality is quite awesomely uncomfortable, but I’m actually feeling positive about having a baby at the end of all this, even though it terrifies me at the same time. I suppose it’s not called labour for no reason. Making a baby is really tremendous work.
I am pushing through it all. Oh, and I sing songs!
Sing a Song
Earth, Wind & Fire
When you feel down and out
Sing a song, it’ll make your day
Here’s a time to shout
Sing a song, it’ll make a way
Sometimes it’s hard to care
Sing a song, it’ll make your day
A smile so hard to bear
Sing a song, it’ll make a way
Singasong
Singasong
Singasong
Singasong
Bring your heart to believing
Sing a song, it’ll make your day
Life ain’t about no retrieving
Sing a song, it’ll make a way
Give yourself what you need
Sing a song, it’ll make your day
Smile, smile smile and believe
Sing a song, it’ll make a way
Singasong
Singasong
Singasong
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