I’m alive. I’m present. I really am awake and this realization is giving me so much joy. It sounds silly but it’s a pretty legit feeling. For a long time now I have been living everywhere except where I needed to be. I have been living in the past, holding on to memories. To what once was. Like driving while looking at the rear-view mirror. I know, it’s insane. Then, when I realized that I’m unable to touch the past and make it materialize, I tried to find myself in the future. I made up a reality that didn’t quite exist yet in my head and worked extremely hard to convince myself that it exists. Basically like having a really great dream and refusing to wake up. That offered a few hours of bliss everyday until it started stealing from me.
About a month ago, I met a guy (I won’t say where or how because we’re not even supposed to be meeting people in the first place – stay safe!) The guy is a great conversationalist. Has a great personality and I have to admit that he was also very handsome. Dark chocolate and also well built. Based on our interaction, I could also tell that he had a personal relationship with God. The energy between us we intense. So much that I agreed to go to the petrol station with him where he bought a P.S. (the chocolate) with the words “Be My Bae” on it. Yes, that was pretty cheesy but I also found it to be really cute. So I figured, “Hey, what do I have to lose?” and I agreed. And just like that, I had a boyfriend…I think.
A week into the relationship, guy ghosted me for three days. Okay, so before we agreed to go into our “little venture”, I told him I have a daughter and that didn’t put him off at all. I did, however, omit some information about my baby’s father. Like who he was, where he stayed and worked. Word travels fast around here, someone spotted my boyfriend of a week and I and did not waste time in plugging him with information (ladies, I genuinely wish we had each other’s backs like men do). He found out that Mbali’s dad was a friend’s colleague and a potential client and ghosted me as a result. Sad situation, I know. Okay, fine he came back and we gave it another go. But one day when we were supposed to go grocery shopping together, I bumped into another ex and I basically canceled grocery shopping date with bae so I could catch up with an old flame. Talk about self-sabotage. Because I’m a very honest person, I told him why I canceled our date and needless to say, our young flame died.
Every single person that comes into your life comes to serve a specific purpose. In a way, I feel like my week-long relationship helped me realize that I have been living everywhere else except in the present, and passing up opportunities in search of “something better”. The worst part is that I’m not even sure what that “something better” is. What I know is that I needed to wake up and stay awake.
Since the beginning of the month, I have been committing an hour a day to meditate to try and unite my mind, body and spirit. I call it the “31 Days of Trying to Stay Awake” challenge. It has only been seven days but I’m already starting to feel and see the difference. My concentration levels were poor before I began, now I’m able to finish reading three chapters of a book in a day. I’m also in the middle of a seven day fast to reset my being. I can actually hear myself pray now. I’m sharing this with you guys so you can hold me accountable and hopefully inspire some of you to join me on this journey. I’m excited to see what the present holds.
Feature photo taken by me 🙂 on the 17th of August 2019. It was a month just after found out I was pregnant. I took a solo trip to Graskop to
find myself but I actually ended up finding reasons to stay awake at this moment when the sun rose to meet me. God definitely lives in that town.
