I am not my hair,,,,,or Am I?

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Beautiful, freedom in me-ness, inspiration, light, love, me

somedays you just want to end it all and pull it out

Sometimes I brush my hair and sometimes I don’t. Maybe like the beautiful India Arie , I am not my hair. But maybe like the strong Samson , my hair is where my strength is at. Either way my hair always tells a story brushed or not brushed. In a world where most things are decided for me , either by superiors or by fate, my hair is the one thing I wont leave to chance.
Growing up mama never wanted me to cut my hair so it was left to grow quite long. From when it was just short then being stretched and straightened with a hot stone. After the stone era came the heavy iron comb that had to be placed on hot coals before being used to comb through my poor wild mane. Then when I was a little bit grown I graduated to a relaxing cream. Oh how I always looked forward to the weekend when I’d undo the tight cornrows only to find myself pinned between mama’s thighs on a Sunday night as I had them plaited back in . I grew so attached to this hair that when mama finally decided to hack it all off after I had made her mad , I was nothing short of devastated. For days I walked around as if it had been my head that had been cut off. I think at that time I felt indeed like Samson. Despondent, weak and torn apart. Fast forward a couple of years . I have realised that although I love my hair, it is only hair. It never stops growing until a few minutes after we die. If it’s cut , it’ll still grow back.

And now rather than it being my strength, my hair is my freedom and I let it be my inspiration. The way my hair looks does not say much in the way of what I am like as a person. It is merely an expression of the mood I happen to be in at that particular moment. Moods might change as they will but the person I am will not. If a person liking or accepting me depends on the way my hair looks, then they might miss out on this beautiful personality because of spikes or nappy hair. I colour it , cut it ,bond it with foreign hair sometimes. Anything that makes me happy. I’m sure hair is not meant to define us but rather to bring us all together in the world-wide fight against dandruff and receding hairlines. Also to showcase our individuality and in my case my peculiarity. At the end of the day it’s not about how so and so feel about my particular hairstyle. It’s about how I feel about the style I’m rocking, how much its inspiring my days to be better. After all life is way too short to have boring hair.

you are beautiful

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You are beautiful still

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Beautiful, galz, Girl, joy, lady, light, love, sistaz, sunshine, women

You are beautiful still

It takes you a whole lot more than the next girl to get dressed because you can never find something that sits well on you. Well like how the magazine says it should look. And you are constantly wondering why no one has yet discovered the secret to making clothes that are ideal for your body shape. Here’s to learning that this is a sentiment shared by most females big and small. Filling our bra cups with chicken fillets so we look like a natural DD. Dancing in the mirror. Singing in the shower. Claiming all the hot single rock stars as husbands and boycotting their CDs when they get married. Here’s to shaving off our hair coz it’s the new thing only to wake up the following morning and long Brazilian wave is in. Here’s to veering wildly off our rails just to catch the hot guy’s attention only to realise that the stunt put him off more than turned him on. And then the struggle of finding the right foundation for your skin tone after years of prancing around ghost like. Don’t stress others just learnt to wing it and by so doing look like they’ve mastered the art of self-confidence.
Here’s to that first sip of the good stuff that signified coolness. The light headedness that followed. The sista who held your hair back as you almost hurled your gut out in the dingy toilet stall as the queue grew longer outside. The countless mileage on your walk-of-shameter . Countless on the road Saturday breakfasts in Friday night’s outfit. Here’s to anxiously waiting for that time of the month because you were naughty and the sighs of relief that went with its arrival. Here’s to maintaining a healthy lifestyle by exercising regularly. Countless nights spent dreaming whilst wide awake. Choosing the stairs when you could easily get on the escalator and constructively use the time to scroll down your Facebook. Watching your calories all week because you saving the count for that de-virgined daiquiri come Friday night. Here’s to persevering with the yoga class even when all we’ve mastered is bringing our hands to heart centre for namaste and then catching up with some girlfriends over chocolate cake after class. Catching the cute guy checking you out. And thanks to that guy who breaks a heart because he’s given us an excuse to come together and binge on ice cream and all things nice. And that guy whose love you thought you’d die without. He gone, you here, we see you!

Here’s to cherishing that you are a creator of life. You bear the scars and sport a pouch of belly fat to show for it. Here’s to watching him sleep, who knew this could be fun. Here’s to that first worry line, well no need to worry, we don’t want to encourage more lines. You are beautiful still. You can actually do what you spend the greater part of your life doubting you could. You have been bestowed the responsibility of a little person. To the love that spills over and out. Here’s to giving, giving and giving even when you think there’s nothing left to give. Realising that as you mature your priorities and desires change. That it’s okay to love and let love. That vulnerability isn’t always a weakness, where you are vulnerable is where your strength dwells. Discovering that gravity actually exists, of course you needed confirmation from your breasts. And shame on that bastard who tried his hand at boxing matches with you. Though he broke your nose he strengthened your resolve and courage. Here’s to the day you realised that you can walk away and maintain your dignity. For realising that sometimes it takes much more courage and wisdom to walk away than to stay. And learning that walking away is closing a chapter so that a new one can commence. For love is like a rainbow, it’s always there after the storm. Finding yourself. Coming into your own. Falling in love with you, the girl you are not who they want you to be. Even though you are older you are beautiful still, perhaps a lot more. Learning that you can never truly love another without loving yourself. And can you believe that in that place of self-doubt and regret now resides self-love and hope. Where there was once fear lies courage now. Here’s to learning that there is a fine line between being humble and lacking self-esteem. Realising that being humble keeps you grounded and lacking self-esteem prevents you from soaring. Here’s to accepting that you are different. Acknowledging and accepting that you can only be the best you and that is enough. Here’s to being knocked down countless times and getting back up just as much coz there’s only a few things that you can take lying on your back *wink*.

Good Weather Lottery

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capetown, faith, hope, inspiration, joy, light, love, sunshine, thebigstorysa

When I think of the most prolific and relevant life lessons, I always refer to the story of David and the Giant Goliath which is my favourite story out of the good book. God knows I love a classic tale of the proverbial underdog coming to kick some big dog behind.

There is that, and, you know how people say “there is light at the other end of the tunnel” whenever you are going through a rough patch and they can’t quite figure out the correct way of expressing their sympathy. Yeah, it’s a cliché alright; one that I have since realised is really true, well most of the time anyway.

Here’s how I figured it out;

It was some time ago but not too long. This was to be my first time of flying on an aeroplane. Yes I was excited, nervous and maybe a wee bit scared. Nerves aside I woke up, from a restless slumber never the less, to a nippy, wet day. Murphy’s Law, on the day I was to fly on a real aeroplane the universe decided to hand me a hand of miserable weather. I had lost out on the good weather lottery. Despite the moody weather, I decided, yes consciously decided to be in a great mood. There was no way I was about to fly on an aeroplane for the first time in a foul mood. Helloooo! Come on now! I was going to be in the air, if anything, ‘God forbid’ were to happen I wanted to ‘go’ happy! So eventually, armed with a borrowed copy of ‘Long Walk To Freedom’ I got to the airport, checked in, boarded, figured out how to work the seat belt all by myself and then settled in for the 2 hour flight. The whole time I was thinking it would have been jolly good fun if it wasn’t raining so that I could maybe catch a glimpse of my house from the air! And then it was, Take off!

So as I’m sitting there in my seat trying to stop myself from looking around the whole time, one cannot begin to imagine the delight I felt when I looked out of the window. Was it sunshine, yes it was sunshine dancing cheerily on the large blobs of floating cotton candy. It must have been only three minutes into the flight but I tell you I sat there wondering if we were out of Cape Town already, ‘Geez, planes are really fast’ I sat there thinking to myself. Then I started trying to apply what I had learnt in all my past Geography lessons, ok I knew where rain came from, how it was formed but I ashamedly always imagined it coming from somewhere higher up above the clouds. So with the sun shining and me pleased as punch, I proceeded to shove my borrowed copy of ‘The long walk to freedom’ under the seat in front of me and unrelentlessly stared out of my tiny window for the rest of my flight. The sun was out!

In hindsight, I applauded myself for bringing a thick book to read in case of boredom. I realise I saved myself a whole lot of worrying. Just like with most things that take up worry space in our lives. We start worrying long before the actual worrying stuff begins. We occupy ourselves with so much worry that it leaves us unable to focus and deal with the real issues that cause that same worry. We forget that there is indeed light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. When things go wrong as they sometimes do, productivity is then at its lowest because we lose hope and faith in ourselves and all seems dark and gloomy. It’s as if someone switched off the lights when they know I’m afraid of the dark.  No matter how dire the situation gets, when we take time to break it down, categorically prepare and then have the stamina and diligence to hang on through the seemingly trying times always working hard, fighting through works like a bomb to make things infinitely better.

Some clever person once said, “successful people know the difference between patience and procrastination”. You do know that worrying is a form of procrastination, right? And it never hurt anyone’s chances to have a bit of inspiration or a support system on call. When things are going not so good and it is dark in my tunnel, me being claustrophobic and afraid of the dark, I light little candles along my tunnel wall by remembering previous triumphant experiences.