There comes a time when we wake up from our fantasies, our prolonged affair with daydreaming. Where we fall harder into our reality with tears glued to our eyes - not quite ready to fall because if it does, the floodgates will open, and stay open. A time where the truth is multicolored with one color.
Such moments remind me of how far we have to go to correct the half-baked yet lavishly celebrated ideologies we were born into. Ideologies we are constantly reminded of with or without our permission. And since we cannot change the birth of this narrative, we must change our attitudes toward it. Adapting every single minute, reformulating every hour and recreating each second. This is the price we must pay if we want to dine with our future selves.
I often think to myself: what do I owe this world that sees my skin first and every other thing second or last? All dark and brown skin beauties have asked her/himself this question one way or the other. Moving from country to continent, running from fire to ice, from manufactured love to the raw form of the very word. Staying to fight or jumping on the next plane, heading to some version of acceptance. There is no wrong to any of this, only respect for such vigor.
We all want to belong, it’s a basic human need. Some take their lives because they don’t fit in. Others haunt down “misfits” because they shine too bright - or are too dark for that matter. Let’s be honest. In each story, a kind and form of death bleeds all over it. Some literal, others close to it.
Then I ask myself, why can’t we give each other that pleasure of belonging– freely? Saying I love you, hugging someone just because, giving her that quality time, telling him what he needs to hear. Smiling, because all your emotions are entangled, and the smile just expresses your exact emotion.
How about standing up for that person and that cause because in that split second, when their lives unfortunately weighs less than a penny, your courage to rise and keep standing is what tilts the scale.
Hm.
Life.
There are memories that visit me from time to time. Some from the past and others from the very far future. Either of the visits leaves me in fear, sadness and not enough hope to believe in humanity. Between such visits is where I want to find myself. For that place somehow brings me assurance that all this struggle to be better, kinder, more thoughtful, forgiving, hardworking, intentional with love, radical in change... is worth it. It must be worth it.
Belonging is a human need. Wanting to feel wanted is an unquenchable desire. It is fabricated into our soul as living beings. And we must be loved more for having it and punished less, if at all, for showing and asking for it.
So while you treat life like a laundry day - sorting whites from colored, remember they all end up in the same washer and dryer.
Be Thoughtful. Be Kind. Say Sorry. Carry the hearts of others just as you would yours - with positive intent. We are not dirty clothes, we are, believe it or not, human. And as such, we feel and we remember.
love,
nomtondo