A day without rain

I think it safe to say that for the very first time in my life, I am striking balance. I feel like a tree, swaying to the rhythm of the breeze, yet firmly rooted in the earth.

It has taken more than a little effort to find peace in the midst of such immense change.

I am happy. I have found joy in the little details of life that we often take for granted when we are too busy to pause and see them. I find that my connection to others is deeper than ever, and I truly feel other people's joys and share their pain in depths I never thought possible.

I have also found sincere peace in solitude and stillness. I no longer need external stimulation to pass moments. I even shy away from company when the energy isn't right.

I trust my spirit and my intuition.

I trust people when they show me who they really are.

I have been spending my days feeding my body well. It is thanking me for it. I no longer have stomach problems, depression is a thing of the past, and even my eczema is keeping its ass quiet. My body is slowly morphing back into a shape I can identify with and I am eager to find out as much as I can about fitness and nutrition. I read as much as a college student but my voracious appetite is fueled by a hunger for knowledge as opposed to good grades.

God has been good to me. He really does take care of His own.

I never knew that marriage would be the very thing that grounded me but I guess wonderful things happen when you begin to walk in alignment.

I now know that I can truly find peace anywhere.

Note from a spinster

I used to hate that word. "Batchelor" conjures all things George Clooney and "Spinster"... my granny's miserable twin sister. "Batchelorette" may be politically correct but I am not certain that the British First Aid in English has made that the official synonym for "unmarried woman."

Then somewhere along the way...through great soul searching, I found my peace with the word, the term, the concept, the existence. I was an unmarried woman, no? A spinster, no less, no more.

I started off my 20s as most of us do questioning everything. God, religion, family, friendship, relationships, people, the opposite sex, the same sex, age, work, love, hope, life, peace, sanity, identity. I started off my 20s depressed.

I remember Azikiwe explaining to me at about 23 years old that my constant doodling of abstract faces and my counter-depressive practice of drawing faces with charcoal in a drawing pad was the revelation that I was questioning my identity. It was subconscious. But I had every right to be doing so.

I had some fundamental paradigm shifts in my last summer of being 19- the one that ushered in twenty. Being born in early August means that I spend two summers at every age. The ushering in...and the fading out.

It was a cathartic point. I made decisions that would forever disrupt my worldview and how I viewed myself in it. Therein lies the conflict. If I no longer knew who I was after 19 years, then who was I really?

That took me years to answer. Almost 10. And it wasn't smooth sailing.

There were some hits and plenty more misses. In the quest for finding out something of which you know the foggiest, there are often times more failures than successes. There were many lessons in that... chief of which was the one taught by the harrowing process itself- resilience. Anyone can fail. Everyone will fail. It is the process of starting over after failure that truly reveals character.

So there were many starts. I started many jobs. Many relationships. Many friendships. Many interests. Many philosophical outlooks. Many self-help projects. Yet, I continued to fail.

And then... as I developed a new language to name this new identity that I was discovering, I began to have a concept of who what where when why and why not.


Fire. Fascinating. Beautiful. Hot. Burns.

Talent. Embedded. Growth. Release.

Work. Love. Visible. Square-peg. Round-hole.

Love. Fascinating. Uplifting. Transforming. Hurts.

Grace. Undeserved. God. Granted. Revealed. Redemptive.


I have been thrashed about on love's floor and broken into pieces. Yet, like the phoenix from the ashes, I rise.

I rise, rose and continue to be risen, pressing on to greater glory higher than my own.

This is a gift...this spinster business... what else could nine years of finding yourself be?

So at the end of it all, on this the twilight of a new day in my journey, I salute the spinster in me, who has helped me to define me.

I walk away from this place whole and into a marriage whole. I am whole on my own. Even in my darkest hour. I am happy on my own. Even in my moments of utter despair. I find my own joy. It lies within when all beauties fade.

I have grown. Leaps and bounds. Ask anyone who truly knows me. But how? Because I have lived in every moment-good and bad and allowed them to take me places hitherto unreachable. In doing so, I discovered my biggest revelation of all time. Grace.

I give thanks.

Self-confrontation

There is a lot that I have not said over the past month (after all, a month ago today I arrived in my Jamaica and forgot everything about blogsphere). But writing for me has become a part of my existence, and while I can put it off for more pressing commitments, I must get back to it for personal release.

I miss the words. The sound of the keys as I strike them in unconsious and semi-conscious dexterity... expressing not only what I know to be so, but also what I didn't even realise was true.

This is my most honest space, so much so that I would rather not say anything than fluff over what is real. And this is why it is anonymous. My identity is only revealed to a select few, even though this blog is published publicly.

I am not sure I know what exactly I feel like blogging about. I dont feel like talking about the experience in Jamaica, though it was a spiritually and "moodically" uplifting one.

I think I am in a very strange phase... I am trying to tap into some deep level personal growth during a time of abject loneliness and isolation.

I think more than ever (if ever that was possible)... but I am left to my thoughts quite a bit so I have no choice. I am reading like I did when I was studying literature, only this time I get to make my own required reading list. I write more than ever... and I think even my photography expresses more than ever.

I am also dreaming more and my deja vu has even returned! I am getting closer to the real me.

I guess what I have been trying to do then is to dig channels within and without to connect more meaningfully to myself and the world with which I relate.

Life is for living... and living is a choice.

Even though I have been presented with a wonderful opportunity to share my life in a relationship with one whom I call "friend" in addition to "partner", I feel also a distinct desire to maintain my separateness even in our collectiveness.

I guess this is the essence of my current struggle. It has been a while since I have had any relationship and even longer since I embraced a healthy one. I know that my responsibilty lies to myself in ensuring that it remains healthy and in addition, allows both of us to reach greater heights of spritual growth.

I have been learning about myself, and understanding myself more deeply, questioning my motivations and my relations with the external. As a result, I am slowly, finding my footing and getting closer to my own truth.

I think, for the very first time, I can really honestly say that I have become a woman. It's kinda strange... I know... but neither natural nor societal law dictate when one truly steps into adulthood. I have acted like an adult for a long time, and firstborns ususally grow up fast. In the process, I lost a significant part of my childhood and had to retrace the steps to catch up.

I no longer want to be more than I am. I no longer want to be older than I am. I am happy to be as I am, knowing that my growth with continue as my life experiences allow.

I have my human struggles and almost daily I fight a valiant war against the depressiveness of this isolated existence, and I slowly find peace in the midst of lonleliness.

I am not lonely because I am unloved. To the contrary, I am lonely because I am very loved, and miss the free two-way expression of this love with my biological and spiritual families and friends. But I am learning to embrace this loneliness, not as evil, but good.

It is the vehicle for which I can explore the depths of who I truly am and what I truly want out of this life.

Call it a spritual hermitage if you wish, and me a student of life.