.
fave shoes
Ladies
Peace in my mess. (Untangling the earphones of life)
Wow! Life is so complicated.
***
I am about to contradict my whole blog. If that’s what it takes to find the necessary life-balance that I’ve been so ignorant of, then so be it. I won’t hesitate.
I started journaling on August 20th 2011. I was 12 years old. I didn’t know that I was equipping myself with a survival tool at the time – a day when I was going to a wedding with my mum and sister, and my mum was taking ages to get ready. To this day I can’t say why my response to this delay was writing about it in a diary. At first I wrote general recounts of my days, and noted how people made me feel, and what I thought of them. It was funny, and eventful in my own context. I wrote about my friends, family, my crushes, my stresses… They all mattered to me then, but now I see that I had a big storm coming.
As I grew up (I’m still growing) I became disillusioned with life. I developed base feelings of emptiness, loneliness, and sadness (Malibu & Lemonade). I was going through so much emotional turmoil and it was all inside me. Today I realise just how traumatic it was. I cried so much when I was alone, and no one knew because I kept it to myself. There were only a few times that I cried in front of people after being in my head about my sadness for days. I only let those tears out to them when they asked or when felt like I was about to snap.
Through it all, my diary was my refuge. I didn’t have as much energy to address ‘small dramas’ in my life because my mental state became my drama. I was living with a broken and despaired state of mind and my diary transformed from a place where I collected daily experiences to a home for my extreme emotion. I would (and still do) pour my heart out there in an effort to do something with the overwhelm of feelings I had.
Soon enough, I started doing something with this. Rather than just pouring out my heart, I began asking myself why I felt this way. Even if the answer was that I didn’t know, I would still ask. I started to look back and see if I could find reason, for anything. I became more honest with how I felt about myself and others. I kept on writing until I accepted that my answers had always been inside of me. It gave me freedom and a life-perspective that I found comforting. I learnt how to make myself feel better through writing and figuring myself out.
Two big answers I found when I was roughly 19, were that I did not believe in myself and I was not working as hard as I needed to get to where I aspired in life. The only reason I came to these conclusions is because I had been asking myself why for all these years – it had finally led up to something. I realised that I had to work hard at my craft, whatever it would be at any given point, in order to make myself worth believing in, for myself, not for others – but myself, most importantly. I could not keep hoping that one day I would feel worth something. I just had to make myself worth it, and that philosophy worked for me.
From this sprouts everything I’ve done over the past 5-6 years. My blog, YouTube channel, poetry, journalism, my style, podcast – everything. It’s all been in an effort to be fearless and believe that I can truly do what I want. The only way to know was to do it… to try. Hence, The Art of Trying.
All my posts up to this point have been one long conversation with myself. My tagline, So you can relate, is just a side effect of that. I knew that you would be able to relate to the things I write, so I share it with you.
That’s why realisations mean so much to me. Every post I publish comes from a new realisation, and I can’t express how much freedom it gives me. I erase lies about not being good enough, giving up, having a distorted self-perception, being self-conscious, etc, in all of these posts. It’s all in an effort to be free because truly, I just want to be myself with no fear. This is why somevariables.org means so much to me.
But now I am scared.
Because recent events have shown me the downside to everything I’ve just explained. There is an imbalance in my approach to life. I question myself too much – not necessarily my decisions, but my thoughts. I ask why without any prompting nowadays and it’s driving me out of my own mind.
Now I must teach myself how to relax and let go. I’ve been told to perceive life’s chaos as my order and I don’t know how to do that. I plan and plan and plan and now I can’t deal with life going its own way. Meanwhile I thought I made these plans impartially.
It’s difficult because many realisations about myself are linked to my emotional trauma. And they came about in an effort to reduce the pain I had at the time. As I said, I found so many answers, and they cleaned up for me. But those years that I spent trying to understand myself took place when I was very impressionable, and now they are making it hard for me to be okay with my mess.
I have spent so long doing things to make me look put together, that people actually believe the lie that I am put together! People who don’t know me, anyway. It’s scary when you are completely jaded by life and your current experiences, and someone pierces that bubble of truth with an assumption that you are “put together”. Is that my own fault? I speak about the façades of others from behind the façade I have developed for myself. Now I am scared of myself.
Keeping this post to myself would be the maintenance of my facade. People don’t need to know my business but this feels like a freedom path.
I say I am trying to untangle these earphones of life. I have to pay attention, stop walking, and use both hands to figure this mess out. And I must find peace in it.
But really, I must find ultimate peace in the fact that I will never fully untangle them.
I will not invalidate my past experiences, but figuring them out was so much simpler and easier than what I am faced with today. Life is so complicated and I must come to the terms with the fact that I can’t fix things anymore – no longer can I question until I find out my truth. Sometimes there is no truth to find.
Currently I’m dealing with apathy towards my faith and everything it pertains to. I am so worried that I will stop believing in God. I am dealing with broken heartedness and hurt. I am experiencing endings and aloneness (not loneliness) which is an enigma in itself. But I am also dealing with overwhelming gratitude (yet, guilt) for the good things happening in my life. These earphones are truly tangled and I don’t know what to do. For the first time in forever I have to be okay with that. Here, I don’t have a solution.
Thinking has become circular. Lately there has been no way out and I’m certain I don’t even need to be in a maze of thought all the time. I am trying to leave the maze. That’s what I mean by letting go. To stop trying to do the right thing as a result of my conclusions and ‘solutions’. Trying to do the right thing and avoid further emotional trauma has just led me to a new kind of pain, a kind that I have no cure for. Perhaps that explains why I feel so hurt by life. I knew it was spiteful but this is a sinister spite.
I began this post with saying I will contradict my blog because it is all about self-actualisation and self-belief etc – to some degree minimising the mess that life is and seeing clearer. But now, I am letting go. I don’t care about much anymore because I am slowing down my sprint away from the mess that I am. Denial is on its way out the door, and I can’t believe it was here for so long.
I pray to God (all I have left) that this leads to the balance that I need. I thought so hard in one direction and now I need to make my way to the middle. I just need to release and truly go where the wind blows me. For a long time I’ve been claiming that that’s what I am doing but now it’s time to mean it. For haven’t I grown tired?
To be known
I don’t want to be realised
I want to be known from the beginning,
Fully understood and accepted
By those who want what’s beneath the surface
Seasons change
Kinda like a light shined down and showed me how to move on; that was then, and this is now.”
Why are you here?
“So many things are changing, I’m in a world that’s breaking my heart.”
***
I couldn’t have spoken sooner when I confirmed that I’m always in my feelings. I’ve been deeply affected by my recent experiences. Circumstance-altering things happened in the space of a few weeks and of course, I didn’t know what to do about it. I had to tell myself to try and deal with them one at a time. Though that was difficult as well – because they all seemed to affect each other, even though they occurred in independently of each other.
I’ll tell a story.
The Recipe – SiR
Things were going well for her. It seemed, for the first time in a long time, that she was truly happy. From the bottom up. She endeavoured to be as descriptive as possible when people asked her what was going so well. She wasn’t good at that but she tried nonetheless.
Someone had crept in and was warming up her heart, slowly. They really had crept in. Bliss was new to her. The reciprocity she had always spoken about seemed to be knocking on her door. So she allowed herself to hope after a month or so. Not to close her eyes, but to squint them every now and then, to turn reality into the potential to be happy with someone for any given time. She had already spent so much time being happy by herself – she figured it was okay to leave space for someone else.
Late night conversations took away her me-time but that was okay because this was new. It was nice.
She knew she found it hard to express emotion even though she felt a lot of it. I can write it down and I can say it to myself. She would say. But when it comes to expressing it to people, I stumble over my words. I feel self-conscious and embarrassed to be honest.
She told him that vulnerability and intimacy were mountains she was still climbing. She recognised that it was one thing to be vulnerable around yourself and God. And it was another to do it around someone who you’d like to hide your flaws from. But shouldn’t it have been easier around someone who said you could take as long as you needed to do it?
When she felt her heart telling her to be brave, she expressed herself to him. And that’s when she learnt that reciprocity doesn’t mean anything. She didn’t know it was fleeting until it was over.
That Was Then – Lalah Hathaway
What was happening anyway? She would spend the next month wondering if her words cut so deep, and if her admittance of struggling to be open made them heavier than she intended. Could she travel to the past and convince herself against bravery?
Meanwhile, she was moved from one store to another, making the same things every day, speaking to the same people, and wondering if this was worth it for what she was getting paid. There was a job offer waiting in her inbox and she didn’t know what to do about it. Was she ready to face the real world? She knew her occupation was a result of running. So was this God telling her to stop being so scared?
The other store was good. She wished she had been there all along. But finally, she was told to accept the new job offer and she was happy for the advice because more than anything, she needed someone to tell her what to do. She didn’t know anymore. She worked there for three days.
And on the last day, a Thursday, she locked up. She played her music loud and allowed herself to get stuck in wondering again – was what she said that bad? Why was their last conversation so dismissive? Hurt. That word rang through her head every day. Was she that bad?
She closed the store at 6 o’clock. And she remembered how she’d done the same thing exactly two years ago in the same spot, as life pulled her in different directions then too. Was God telling her this was the last time, for real, this time? He prompted her to wonder exactly why she was there. Was fear ever a good excuse? It felt so circular, so symbolic.
She walked by the Thames and found a bench. Shortly after she shed tears, Just Like Water, Victory, Mr Intentional, I Gotta Find Peace of Mind, That Was Then. They played from her heart. She wrote Hoax and went home feeling lighter yet more realised – now there was even more to think about, and she didn’t have the strength for it. She was meant to start her new job next week.
On Sunday she walked from Angel to Moorgate. She had been aiming for London Bridge. She boarded a bus when her feet grew tired and cried at the top, at the front, just like she did when she was in school. So many tears came from an overwhelming feeling of stagnancy. Are you telling me nothing has changed? She thought to herself. Five years later… more tears fell. It was overwhelm at the thought of everything. In the background she heard, …please help me forget about him. He takes all my energy, trapped in my memories, constantly holding me, constantly holding me. I need to tell you all the pain he’s caused...
She believes in life. And she believes that what you believe in can hurt you. Yet she couldn’t get past the fact that someone had hurt her. People never really hurt her. How did he get through? She told herself that she’d never let herself down again.
Now she is writing poems that no one will ever see. It’s too vulnerable for me. Shame holds her back as she tries to convince herself that feeling hurt is nothing to be ashamed of. So she keeps on wondering how she is so affected by it all.
On Your Own – Lalah Hathaway
At her new desk she writes thoughts and lines and verses. She looks out of windows wondering how life is allowed to move so fast. She aims to be patient with herself every time he slips into her mind. She begs her memories to let her go, ease her pain.
The rollercoaster that life is will not let her off, yet she is comforted by the fact that her friends and family are on it with her, albeit screaming because of their own fears.
She heard things will look up and she wants to believe this, despite knowing the clocks went backwards today and this is only autumn.
The season is changing, and so is she. It’s a painful change but she appreciates that change is never bliss. She’ll hold on.
I’m anxious about sharing this But I would like to be more open in my own right. I hope you understood.
Hoax
Through tears I persist to envision this beautiful world
While holding onto lyrics for dear life
and wondering why it’s taken so long for me to cry
I’m the straw that broke my own back.
I always knew strength was a hoax
though weakness isn’t desirable either
Now I don’t know what I see
for mediocrity
is proving to be
the death of me
Wax poetic
I won’t stop myself from writing about you,
even if it’s just for me.
To wax poetic is the last thing
I’ll let you take from me
I’ll explore this.
I’m open to opening up again
but only when it’s time
Next time I won’t underestimate myself
I’ll keep guard of my heart
and never let it down
I’ll never let myself down.
But thanks for showing me
there is some warmth I hold inside,
A fuzzy excitement when my phone rings
after I finally save your number
Or a good morning text
that I never hoped to see until now
A how was your day
as we share mundane details
You’ve shown me I can want it again
Though I wish it could be between us
I see for the best, it shouldn’t be
And that’s okay with me.
This boundary is for the good of us both.
Access denied to Mr Unintentional,
thanks for your company.
You asked me twice if I love myself
To which I replied yes
So you should’ve expected me to say
let’s not do this again
And if you didn’t
I guess you were never really listening,
it was one of my reservations after all.
Today was hard because I wanted to hear & see you
But deprived of that,
I see what I do need;
a firm separation from you.
I rushed that.
Let’s just say,
I pray for strength ‘when’ you call me again
may my memory never fade
and my self-certainty remain
and remind me to never give you another chance
no matter what my heart says
My Care Playlist
ONE THING ABOUT ME… IMMA LISTEN TO MUSIC.
***
I want to get as close as I can to understanding why I’m endlessly touched by some things I hear. So here is my care playlist, and why I love the songs so much.
Deeper – Israel Houghton
Lord I reach for you, lead me to Your heart // Close enough to feel the cadence of Your heart // Break my heart with the things that break Your heart.
Most mornings, I wake up with the first line in my head. Sometimes I reach my arms up, as if I’m about to be lifted out of bed. I feel peace when I hear the instruments at the beginning. To feel the cadence of God’s heart represents closeness to me.
I often lose sight of what is important and must remind myself of the importance of focusing on God. I pray to see things the way He sees them – to have an undoubtedly better perspective of life; one that causes little harm and leaves as much space for grace and love as possible. This song is spirit-filled. When I feel frantic, the intro is enough to calm me and bring me peace. It was on my On Repeat playlist for seven months!
Be Still – Travis Greene
Chasing your ambition, try your best to be the next star. But if it’s the attention that you really want, then I already know who you are, and I love you that way.
I would be in denial if I said I don’t seek validation from people. I like hearing that I’m doing well, especially if I already believed that about myself. But sometimes I end up chasing perceptions of myself rather than being content in who really am. And adhering to these perceptions often feels like a form of attention-seeking, for I believe it’s possible to focus on my race in an effort to have people notice this focus and admire me, even from afar. This is something I would like to grow out of.
This song reminds me that the only thing I should aspire towards is God – trusting in and loving him, as to chase my ambitions is often to lose sight of the beauty of my present – which is full of things that I prayed for. I end up asking myself where my gratitude is.
While trying my best to be the next ‘star’, God is by my side, where He has always been, telling me that He already knows who I am! If I have that validation, I shouldn’t be seeking any more anywhere else. God is all I need. I remind myself that I am enough, no matter what stage I am in life.
Sometimes I need to be still and appreciate now, with God, who loves my good and bad, rather than carving out a life that exists only to please others and be a star in their eyes.
Alright – Ledisi
It’s alright.
I have to say to myself; calm down Adefela, it’s alright! You may notice that as a running theme in my posts. Aside from reassuring anyone reading, I am reassuring myself. I always forget that things will be okay. This song reminds me. Its magic lies in the fact that every time I play it, the words feel brand new. That’s what I need to hear.
Most of the lines in the verses end with ‘…but it’s alright.’ and I feel to apply that to my own life. After airing out my fears and frustrations, I pray to end with ‘but it’s alright’. Because that is true.
As I always say, it was fine, it is fine, and it will always be fine. I strive to caveat my assessments of life with the fact that it’s alright.
Babe Truth – Gaby Duran
I’d be damned if I let these nerves get the best of me // All timing is divinely in alignment and all I could do is my best // Those nerves can’t get to you, unless you let them in, babe don’t let it outweigh. Don’t wait for the remedy, you got everything, you don’t need anything… don’t overcomplicate it.
There’s a balance for me to find between relying on God and showing up for/relying on myself. The Horse, The Man & The Son by Chief Ebenezer Obey says: do your best and leave the rest. What I focus on here is doing my best. It’s my responsibility to work to the max, pushing as hard as I can and leaving the rest to powers above me. But I have to do my best. I just have to.
This song gives me strength when I am anxious about something that’s requiring a lot of me. When I question whether I’ll be strong enough to get through something, I remember that I shouldn’t let those nerves in, and I shouldn’t let them control me. I have everything I need inside of me; my own abilities and God. That will always be enough.
I misheard babe don’t let it outweigh and for a while thought it said they don’t light our way. I like both versions. Don’t let the nerves outweigh the peace, and don’t let them light your path. Instead, l should let hope light my way, not anxiety. For if it were anxiety, I would be scared to move forward. If it were hope, all I’d want to do is move forward. So, I will move forward.
The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill – Ms. Lauryn Hill
Deep in my heart, the answer it was in me. And I made up my mind to define my own destiny.
I try to focus on the value of what’s inside of me. This includes what I was born with, and what I learn and nurture daily. My love for this song is self-explanatory; perhaps I shouldn’t rely on anyone but myself and God, who lives inside of me, (hence my answer being inside) to define my destiny. I shouldn’t let blame take over my mind, shifting responsibility to everything but myself.
My biggest battle with this is to not be overly self-dependent, and to ask for help when need it. That’s a balance I am still finding.
Regardless, strength builds up inside me when listen to this song. When I was unsure of who I was and what I wanted, the answer was inside of me. When I was low and confused and lost, my answers were inside of me. And they still are. All I ever had to do was pay attention to myself and listen to what my heart identified as my truths, both ugly and beautiful. As I wake these answers up, I define my own destiny because I’m learning about who I am and using that knowledge to steer me down the path that was always meant for me. Now I’m understanding what’s mine!
I spoke about this more in a podcast episode, have a listen: https://anchor.fm/soyoucanrelate/episodes/13–Deep-in-my-heart–the-answer-it-was-in-me-er2oks
Strength, Courage and Wisdom – India Arie
It’s time to step out on faith, I gotta show my face // Strength, courage, and wisdom, it’s been inside of me all along.
Intelligence is one of my biggest insecurities. I don’t want people to think I’m dumb. At some point I realised this was more of a projection if anything; I simply didn’t believe that I was smart. Any achievement I had didn’t mean anything to me, nor did affirmations from others. When I had exams this year, my battle with intelligence was tougher than it had ever been. It was close to a certain exam when this song came on shuffle and just like The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, it revealed to me that strength, courage and wisdom are inside of me and have always been. Wisdom has always been inside of me.
The battle to genuinely believe this is scary, and for too long I’ve let this battle tell me that I’m not smart. But instead of cowering away as I have always done, I had faith that I could feel as intelligent as I have always desired, and I showed my face, because it mattered to me. I turned up, I tried, and I fought against the thoughts telling me that what I knew wasn’t enough. I kept listening to this song until I finally believed it. My answers are inside, and so is my wisdom. I got an A in that exam.
God Morning – Natalie Lauren
Today I will show up for myself.
This links to Strength, Courage and Wisdom. Simply put, no one can be relied on to constantly show up for me. But as long as I am living, I have a chance to show up for myself. If I gave someone the responsibility to do something for me and they didn’t do it, I would be sad that they didn’t show up for me. They had one job, why couldn’t they just do it? I realised that if I had the right to be mad at them, I had the responsibility to not do it to myself. Why should I tolerate letting myself down when I don’t tolerate others letting me down? Do I not care about myself and my dreams?
I say, the least you could do is show up for yourself, Adefela. So now, I do. Sometimes doing this is hard because I am human, but it’s still at the back of my mind. Get out of bed when I don’t feel like it: show up. Self-care when I feel sad and need a refresh: show up. Pray when I feel like no one is listening to me: show up. Reply that email because it’s for my own good: show up. Chase my dreams because other people are chasing theirs and it’s not their responsibility to look out for mine: show up.
Victory – Janelle Monae
Today I feel so troubled deep inside, I wish the tears would roll back in my eyes. Will I rise? I’ll keep singing songs until the pain goes.
Expression is special with this song as on this occasion, I was unable to express what I was feeling. But I realised that my heart was singing when I pressed play. This song played out of it, as if each beat was a note. It’s an experience I’d never had before, and I’m glad that I now have access to it. This poem explains it better: When will I cry.
That’s it! My care playlist.
- Deeper – Israel Houghton
- Be Still – Travis Greene
- Alright – Ledisi
- Babe Truth – Gaby Duran
- The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill – Ms. Lauryn Hill
- Strength, Courage and Wisdom – India Arie
- God Morning – Natalie Lauren
- Victory – Janelle Monae
If I’m listening to these songs I’m probably in my feelings, which is most of the time. But that’s okay! These songs bring peace, clarity, solution, stillness, joy and assurance. Of course I listen to them all the time ❤ .
Some Variables 