The Unknowing Addict.

Today I feel a bit emotional compared to the rest of this month of August 2019. I try to keep track of my emotional well-being and state. Whenever I have relapse, I like to take timeout and observe it. I do this so I can identify my weaknesses and strengths. Each time I come across a huddle, I try to learn as much as possible from it. The lessons are more psychological than physical. Some of these lessons seem insignificant, but together they bear great rewards.

One of the questions I get asked frequently is how far am I in my healing journey? It’s a bit hard to say for sure because I don’t have a point of reference, except for the two and a half years that I’ve survived without Mbu.

I am no different to a recovering addict really, our journeys are more similar than people realise. Each day I strive to make it without falling apart. We battle with being “without’ and ‘refraining’ from. I am going on without Mbu and refraining from wanting him present in my life. 

It’s meant to make life psychologically healthy I suppose – learning to survive and cope without our former comforts. Mbu was my comfort, never a remedy but a definite comfort. Now I’m looking unto Jesus as my remedy because this pain is far too great for me.

I dissect each day into twenty four categories. Each category represents each hour of the day. I strive to pull through each hour, until it’s time to fall asleep. That’s my favourite time of the whole twenty four hours, because for those 8 to 9 hours I get to not participate in the ultimate game of survival but still keep my earned victory from the previous rounds. This wasn’t always the case though. Regular sleep was one of the ordeals I had to go through immediately after Mbu passed on and it dragged on for months; but now with the help of my medication, I certainly sleep better.

PEACE.

One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned from dealing with anxiety and depression is that only ‘peace’ is the real cure; not shopping or any other distraction. ‘Peace’ isn’t the absence of problems, hurt, guilt or shame; but it is the soothing reassurance that it’s not the end of the world. No matter how bad it is, it’s not the end of the world.

Whenever I get anxious, I search for 'peace' like it’s my last breath, From my personal experience, it’s the reason I haven’t been rushed to hospital because of an anxiety attack. I pull out completely from interaction until my soul locks on ‘peace’.

I have lived and battled anxiety attacks from childhood. It was actually in 2017, while dealing with the grief of losing my husband that I labelled these uncomfortable heart racing episodes as anxiety attacks. Wow, I know. So I guess, my coping strategy has been working – thank God!

What I want to highlight also, is the importance of 'peace'. Being at ‘peace’ leads to a peaceful life, a life of little regrets.

It is Jesus who said He has left us with a spirit of peace – peace that surpasses all understanding. In some situations, understanding won’t be enough and seeking it, might actually be harmful.

Take the passing of my husband for instance. He was young and the kind of cancer he battled with, mostly affected the elderly. To add to the confusion, he was never a smoker.

So in terms of understating, it didn’t make sense, yet it was happening. It was after his passing that I found soothing solace in being at 'peace' and being still. Whenever my mood would switch to questioning and even blaming him for dying on me, I felt mental loss creeping in, not to mention unbearable heart racing palpitations.

Two years (January 2015) before my husband’s passing, I lost my grandfather. The grief was so bad, the doctor told me I’ll join my grandfather if I don’t make peace with his passing. And he was right. With my late husband’s support, I recovered and quickly after making peace with my grandfather’s passing. Exactly two years later (January 2017) I lost again, so somehow I knew I had to be careful not to slip into grief. Exactly how do you even do that? Well. You pray! You let yourself feel and then you mediate on the good. Which is why I blog so much about my beloved late husband. I focus on the good and on the bad, I take only the lessons.

In the end it is only ‘peace’ I want to be left with.

Accepting Life As Uncertain.

Last night I had a dream about my late husband. It’s amazing how I still remember his voice and the way he carried himself. It was a beautiful dream this time. For the first time, I actually woke up happy from this dream. I don’t want to share much, but I remember saying in my dream “…I am so glad I held on to my faith…”

Holding on to faith is hard, especially when something has been declared dead. My husband wasn’t the thing that was declared dead when he passed on. My future was declared too. I had built a life with my late husband, and both our efforts, as individualised as they were; they were very much interlinked. We needed the other in order to survive as a couple and also as human beings.

God often uses dreams to get my attention. The first dreams I had of Mbu always left me torn. In those dreams Mbu would tell me that we’re over and that we can’t reconcile. I would wake up with a broken heart. It always felt so real. These particular dreams happened a lot during the time I struggled with letting of Mbu. Maybe God was shaking me to leave the chapter of denial. Yes, I was very much in denial. Acceptance seemed impossible and torturous. There was also the guilt. Believe it or not, I felt guilty about moving on without Mbu. It was at the end of April 2019, that I took a leap of faith and detached everything that was holding me stagnant and in denial. Mbu’s Facebook account and my ring were the first to go. It was hard. I relapsed badly. For the first time in years, I felt suicidal. I called on friends to carry me, especially in prayer.

I named this phase of my transition The Big Let Go because it was a big kind of let go. I wasn’t just letting go of Mbu the husband, but I was letting go of our dreams and plans together, accepting that I have to start afresh with new ones; alone. Also because letting go and accepting our end meant I was accepting life as uncertain. I didn’t want to face uncertainty. Thank God I pulled through.

Gradually I noticed the soothing comfort of being ok with what life has dealt me with. So the dream I had last night came like a confirmation from God, as to say, ‘See? Nothing is impossible with me, if you trust me to see you through.’

The Essence Of Life.

I miss those days when life was more smooth than bumpy. It was the prime of my marriage to Mbu. The feeling of not needing anything and just being content was life. It was brief, but it nurtured parts of my soul that had been neglected due to focusing on surviving in the previous years. Just being was once a dream. The thought of an unbothered mind and harmonious spirit was a goal that was so far to reach.

I spent years praying for it and then one day I got to live it. It was during this season of bliss that I had the opportunity to define life and its worth. Life’s worth became even greater when I faced the possibility of widowhood.

As my husband and I spent our last moments together – we wanted for nothing but each other’s love. He was on his deathbed, when he would take a deep breath and say “…kunzima mfazi wam.” I would, with a great effort to keep the tears from rolling down my eyes and smile. He would then continue to say “…ndiyakuthanda…”

His ‘I love you’ still carried the same value as the day we met. He had always told me he loved me. It wasn’t because he was suddenly facing death.

I admired his kindness. He knew, understood and accepted what was to happen, but here he was telling me that he loved me. I just wonder what my thoughts would have been if the roles were switched.

My husband was depressed before his passing. I was surprised to hear this from his oncologist. She told me this in order for me to understand what I was dealing with. I found it weird that my husband was depressed. He was the most optimistic person I knew and mostly because he kept telling me that he was going to beat the cancer and survive. Those were his words to me.

The oncologist probably told me this because maybe, she saw how much my husband tried to protect me from the trauma I was facing, but with the end approaching closer and closer; I had to be prepared.

She mentioned how difficult it was for her and her team to treat my husband because of medical knowledge – they couldn’t give him false hope or sugar coat things.

I truly applaud that medical team. I watched them frantically trying to help my husband, calling in other specialists to come try their techniques or suggest other equipment. It was all in vain. They too were scarred by seeing their colleague slip right out of their very experienced hands.

That for me was the limit of human kind. They had so much knowledge, my husband included, but it was null and void. This was the next level of the game. Where only the chosen ones go up into it. The late. Those of us who are below this level can’t dictate or manipulate further than where we are. 

That’s the essence of life; that we are not God. We can love, care and hold people and things tight to our hearts, but they aren’t ours. Not our own breath is ours. It all belongs to God.

Unignorable Reminders!

I am emotional in this piece and I am writing about it because I just want to vent and be frustrated. I am overwhelmed by the readjusting I have to make in order to adapt to my now living standards.

It’s not even about the difference in the incomes but it's about the reality that what was once a single trip, now includes several stops, walks and inconveniences.

I was meant to join my friends in Limpopo for our staycation to celebrate a friend’s birthday, but the reality is that it’s not as simple as it would have been three years ago. I now have to plan every single detail of the trip and its routes. Who’s picking me up where? What time are they dropping me off at the taxi rank? Will I be safe to get home when I get off the taxis? And if these don’t give me answers satisfactory answers, it may mean I’m not joining the trip.

I am currently frustrated because I have no choice but to cancel this girl’s trip. I want to be upset, but what would it help? This is just another sad reminder of what I’ve lost and it easily leads to depression. It’s not that I’ll be missing the trip; it’s the reminder that I’ve lost my husband (primary trauma) and along the comfort of our income and living standards (secondary trauma).

This is one of the many emotional huddles I face and never talk about. Some even say “…just move on with your life…”, but in honesty it’s not so simple. To survive each day is real work that requires both the psychological and emotional spheres of my being to collaborate. My mind and heart have to pull together, in one perfect sync to achieve a harmonious ‘move on’.

This is why each time I reach a set milestone in my journey I celebrate it with sheer undiluted joy. I’m constantly working to achieve a life of peace, acceptance and realistic growth – but such reminders are inevitable, which is why I monitor my mental health because it is such moments (insignificant to others maybe) that can easily push one over edge; regardless of the great strides that one has made to pick up the pieces. It’s the small, insignificant and unworthy, but consistent disappointments and challenges that add up and lead to one feeling helpless and overwhelmed.

I hope this piece has highlighted some of the otherwise overlooked facts in the life of those picking up the pieces.

The Lover Within!

My late husband used to say “…sometimes I wish you could record the things you say and listen to them when you’ve calmed down and tell me if it’s what you really meant…”

Needless to say that I took so much offense to it but he was right. Sometimes in the hype of pride we tend to think we’re incapable of being wrong and inconsiderate. This is one of the many things that I appreciate so much about my late husband. He was able to call me into order without being unloving.

This is partly why I’ve become reluctant to date again. I am honestly scared that I might not have it as I did before. I am, of course praying that God gives me better than ever, but I am realistic that it’s not in any man.

Yes, Mbu had his weaknesses but I truly admire how he managed to love me despite any conflicting emotions he might have experienced in our relationship towards me. The goal was always the same – to be a good husband every single day of our lives together. There were seriously trying times, when both of us would be in tears because of whatever challenge we were faced with due to conflict. Now my concern as a human being, is to marry a man that can offer me that kind of security and comfort. One might say it’s unlikely, but I have this crazy faith that God can bless me with such a man and more.

With all that I have mentioned about Mbu being a heaven sent (and returned), it doesn’t take away the fact that each one of us played our roles to our best abilities during our marriage. Whenever he called me out, I would have to sit and really evaluate my behaviour. Maybe his manner of approach also contributed to that, because it was very honest, direct and non-humiliating; and that made it impossible for me to attack him.

As much as I miss my husband, nothing can take away the essence of our marriage. We were truly blessed. When I married Mbu, I had an idea of the kind of marriage I wanted – which was a total opposite of my first marriage. I went into my marriage with Mbu a bit naïve. I was expecting him to be the giver. The romantic man. The perfect man, boy was I in for a surprise. My beloved Mbu was human. Would you believe it? He insisted on mutual commitment; that went as far as our finances, yup the doctor wanted me to be financially accountable. Suddenly the dream I had created of a perfect life, was erased and recreated by actual work. Phew. I remember him asking me for my payslip and I told him that it was sent to me electronically. He said “print it, and bring it home tomorrow!”

I was pissed off. In my first marriage my money was my business, but here it was our business. The adjusting wasn’t easy. We were still building trust. After all, I came with points of reference from my previous marriage into this marriage with Mbu. I was very much on the lookout. This caused a lot of frustrations for Mbu, because somehow he constantly had to prove himself; and today I realise how unfair that was on him.

As the years went on, this picture he’d been trying to paint started to take form. Slowly, I learned how to let down my guard and let him be him and not react to him as though he was my first husband.

And this is why I am here. I am happy with just being single. I am studying both my marriages in order to define who I am as a lover and possible wife. I am not getting into a third marriage before I achieve this. My marriage to Mbu taught me to love me so deeply that I can pour that into my lover. And how I value myself as a human being is directly translated in how I treat others.

The many battles I harboured and feared facing; became warzones in our marriage and Mbu wouldn’t take cover, but rather, he would sit me down and highlight these areas and ask me to work on them. I married a peace lover. Not just peace with others, but peace with and within himself.

Hail The Younger Version Of Me!

It’s finally the month of August and we’ll be singing praises to the women in our lives, which is all good but today I’d like to challenge you to celebrate the You that got you here. Yup, the younger version of you who went against all odds in order to achieve the goals and milestones you’re proud of today.

For most of us, we have braved and fought against stereotypes in our families and societies. When life dictated our potential because of the circumstances we were born and raised under – the younger version of ourselves believed for more and a better life. Even though we had only seen it on television.

Nothing is as challenging as paving the way for others, because every challenge laid in that chosen route will be first discovered by you and so will the way around it. This is why I wear my hashtag #IBeg2Differ with absolute pride, because indeed the younger version of me went right through the norms and stereotypes; and there was plenty of judgement, but because the goal was clear, she fought to stay on track.

Her goal was to go across the borders of comfort and stagnation, to reach the other side. The side where her peers were freely chasing their dreams, with excitement and thrill and without the distractions of those who’ve been swallowed up by the stereotypes of society.

One of lessons she taught me, that I still cherish and put into practice is the power of silence. To believe in myself so much that I shut out everything that threatens to feed me doubt in a bid to contaminate the fragile stage of my dream. Going against odds goes hand in hand with good mental strength. Strategy is often how one gets to the finish line; not physical strength.

And what I love most about mental strength is that it’s not visible to the eye. I may look worn out and defeated but it’s all orchestrated as a tool of attack. So if you use it well, you’re likely to succeed just like the younger version of me.