The Tales of a Single Gal

We live in a world where it seems time is running out.

Like you could blink and a whole era of your life is gone.

Did you live it?

Did you experience it?

Did you spend it?

Did you drink it?

Did you spend it on you.

Whenever I say YOLO (you only live once)

My mother corrects me.

“You only die once, you live everyday.”

Life is a gift, that’s why it’s present.

Silly humans always thinking there is more time…

But who’s to say we’re wrong.

Every tomorrow is a chance.

So we do get chances,

Chances to smile again, to love again, to laugh loudly.

What did you do with your last ten years?

What do you want to do with the next…

Lately, being in my peculiar situation, I’ve been asking myself.

“What have you learnt”

Trying things now that I should have tried earlier….

But is that true?

The simple fact is those things weren’t a priority at that time,

As important as they may be.

Even if I want to feel like I somehow betrayed myself and neglected a window of opportunity or simply that:

I knew better…

I simply didn’t, I didn’t know better. Not really not in practicality.

I couldn’t have hungered for what I didn’t see as important.

The mind doesn’t work that way.

And me punishing myself for not seeing what didn’t exist won’t make a difference to the fact that I want these things now and yet they seem harder to achieve somehow.

I just gotta do what I’ve always done.

Which is to Do what I want to Do.

Sounds easy enough, but it’s not, is it?

Could it be?

Could it be as simple as chances…

What is a chance, is it to do whatever it is you really wanna do?

What if you wanna fall in love again,

Make more money, build a business, spend time with family, travel, change your identity, change your wardrobe, learn a skill, get new training, pivot your career, have a child, change your diet, grow your hair, eat something new, make more memories, take more pictures, read more books, create new hobbies, make a best friend, work through your bullshit…

Wouldn’t the key requirement of that be ultimately, another day…

Hi, my name is Nobody.

Calmly strolling by, looking up at the sky.

Standing in line wondering “why the hell is this so slow”.

The person you flipped off because I forgot to put on my blinkers 5 seconds early.

Failing…maybe, struggling definitely.

But nobody gets it.

It’s just too complicated at times.

Nobody understands me, nobody sees me, nobody listens.

Nobody sees the progress, the process.

Sleepless nights, joyful mornings…

The lady bug that decided to land daintily into my warm chai.

Nobody looks on, gives a small smile.

Everybody needs a small smile.

Everybody deserves a change to be comfortable.

Everybody changes.

Everybody fails you in the end and nobody knows why.

Because nobody gets it, nobody cares.

Everybody and nobody existing at once,

Sort of balancing each other.

Everybody wants to be seen, heard, loved in its own way.

Nobody knows.

Everybody tries.

Nobody cares.

I’ve never quite known stillness.

True stillness.

Not the staring at trees, river, flowers, kids playing…

I’m an expert at il dolce far niente.

So no.

I’m speaking to “staying”…

Toughing it out, I’m more the OUT than the toughing.

Where would I be if I was a stayer crosses my mind from time to time.

If I stayed in my first relationship?

Would I have met some wonderful and awful people?

If I stayed in my first corporate job…

Would I be more successful now? More confident in my skills? More secure and stable?

But would I have learned so many industries, travelled to train, expanded my knowledge base? Met wonderful people along the way…

I don’t regret, I feel it a dishonor to the lesson.

A shame to the version of myself who suffered a small kind of death for me to learn.

But what is contentment anyways?

Is any of us, human beings, homosapiens, capable?

To be truly content, still.

No urge to move, to grow, to acquire, to learn.

Or is it simply an acceptance.

This is it and I accept it as is.

I use to want to be happy.

Now as I’ve grown up I realize I want to be content.

No chase no race.

Wants yeah! But understanding I am enough and what I have is enough. And to be sad and be okay be angry and be okay be joyful and be okay.

I wonder though…

How is it you find the peace of constant contentment.

If you don’t know how to be still…

Maybe I’ll be still when the foolishness stops.

When I stop having bad lovers and complicated unfair and mind numbing anxiety riddled jobs.

When I have the right everything….

See… I’m still not getting it. Not quite there

What if I tell myself it’s all okay.

What if I step into a state of delusion.

Will I be considered mentally unwell?

What im considering delusion is really what should be the norm.

Being in love with one’s own life should be the norm.

We’ve created a miserable lil rock for ourselves haven’t we?

Now,

If the key to gratitude is a lil delusion

Then surely the key to peace is a lot of contentment.

What’s the pathway? To getting these things in place?

Purpose?

Well purpose could be the destination, surely purpose could not be the pathway for the don’t even know what that is. Everyone is searching for that one. Slippery little sucker that purpose is.

So no purpose is not the pathway.

Purpose is our destination. Peace and Gratitude are our engines. Thus the pathway must be…

Faith.

We’re getting somewhere here!!!

What will fuel us tho?

Delusion and contentment for sure as they form the bases for our engine.

We need something stronger… something powerful, unending.

Like HOPE.

Hope, not desire. But Hope.

It lasts in despair, it exists in lows and highs. Hardly ever corruptible.

How to make the first move…

Love

Of self

Of others

Of experiences

Of the journey

God gives us strength.

Im hitting rock bottom and the feeling is unfamiliar.

Not the place, I’m been broke before, I’ve been alone before…

But this, this has been a steady process of losing.

The process, the sudden changes, the disease, I wonder.

It’s not longer a steady decline.

But in the speed there is hope.

The acceleration makes me wonder, make me sure even.

I’ll ricochet.

For who truly loses their love, job and home in such a short space of time.

Too fast too early,

Now back at point one to undo.

Sometimes I wonder if I missed my turn somewhere.

I know for sure I sped through the red light.

I saw the truck coming, the lights were blinding.

I didn’t want to break up to be honest.

I just wanted the relief of not pressing gas anymore.

So I welcomed it, I let my right foot rest.

I placed it firmly on the mat.

Will the lights be my danger or my saviour.

Will my motion stop it or will it stop me?

All in all, it’s interesting to fall, horizontally.

Will there be a ricochet?

Could I finally steer this thing in the right direction?

Or maybe it’s time to let someone else drive.

He needs me here, somehow.

He wants me to do something, what.

He is presenting a pause, why.

U kissed me like u wanted me.

Touched me like u needed me.

But none of it was true.

You chased me like you hated me.

Bedded me and mated me.

But never did you rest.

Sun up to sun down,

You had no intention of keeping me around.

So you lied and smiled.

Sweated and plotted.

You remembered to forget.

Now here lies your death

And even that if unreal.

For you do not know:

Must I also explain the bottom of the ocean to you?

Somehow we’ve made a big circle.

So large I cannot see you pass 100 degrees.

Time moves rather slowly lately, does it not.

I have much to put in it yet the day is night.

Then the wind comes as it must.

Hastily and out of breath, excited to whisper words I cannot comprehend.

The hills are green, the sky is blue, the clouds are white.

Maybe I’ll get some sleep tonight, if time would have me.

By her side, wrap her arms around me, hold me tight…

If she doesn’t put up a fight.

If she’s in a good mood we could have an intimacy.

Fall into her over her within her; I can almost taste her weight atop me.

I cannot tell you how I feel, I don’t feel anymore.

No I do not think u dead.

I will think of you from time to time.

But I now see love in a new way, the same way as the olden days.

Longing for affection and open minded to such.

Loving on myself and on my ways.

Valuing my perception of value itself.

Finding some kind of peace,

At last.

Finding some kind of peace.

Men are a waste of time.

Waste of space,

I respect all they do I really do,

But yet again, they are so few.

Since dating men I’m wondering if I’m male centred or maybe I’m just gay.

They’re a lot to deal with,

Their actions get in their way.

Maybe it’s me and maybe I can’t pick right.

For now at least, I respectfully bow out of the fight.

It’s too much crazy and too much lazy.

So if you are gonna send one, send him to my door.

It’s getting tedious, this thing we do.

I never thought we would get this far,

1118 level to you.

Time poured in, hours, nights, days.

Car rides with you, adventures in the bed we laid.

At first you were easy so quick to understand.

Now it seems I can never win you over without a clever plan.

So I grow in frustration,

I’ve found torment in my solace.

“They’re making this harder!!!”

The powers that be…

Whatever it is trying to separate you from me.

Sometimes I give in, sometimes easier to flee.

“Try again tomorrow”, I tell myself.

The memory will reset and you’ll be more like yourself.

“I’m just a little tired now, I’ll be more alert tomorrow”

I turn in my sheet feeling small pinches of sorrow.

Maybe if I buy this/that it would be easier.

But do I deserve to win, using a reliever.

“Do I deserve to win”, I ask out loud.

I’ve come this far so I must be allowed.

Free to pass this stage and on to the next.

Am I really as smart as I think; is it all a test.

We racked up this time; what was all of it for?

If I can’t move pass you and play some more.

When I lose I feel as though you hate me,

You’re really not on my side.

“Dem thef e see!”

Then you give me another try.

I love township, I really wouldn’t have it any other way.

In worlds you learn and in worlds you pay. 

I love you when I’m winning and maybe in the losing too,

Tall

Dark

Handsome

We don’t always see eye to eye.

My lover and I.

Trying to take baby steps to figure out the way.

But we aren’t babies and we don’t like delays.

The passion burning within us,

We fight it until.

It burst into confusion and I can’t contain the spill.

…

4 weeks later

…

Fuck that nigga.

“You not coming out the car?”

And just like that my body moved.

Tall, handsome, grey t shirt, my knees weakened

But that didn’t matter for he lifted me in a hug.

His smell was his, not loud perfume not sweat, just him somehow.

I wanted to kiss him but I knew, too soon, all too soon.

But did nature care for principle?

I learnt.

He was extroverted, commanding an entire room with just presence.

He did things I didn’t like things I questioned, things that would come up later.

We spoke we drove

I kept sneaking peeks at him trying not to be creeping yet knowing this could be life.

His lips looked soft, I wondered what they would feel like on me, where would he allow me to put them.

Too much thought too soon…

We eventually came to a stop, and just like that, he kissed me.

His lips indeed soft, his warm tongue, massaging my spaces with intensity.

Generating electricity.

Fireworks, then the apology. “It’s okay, I kissed you too…”

We continued into our night…

It took a few days,

Totally unplanned.

I wanna run away from poverty.

As far as I can, as fast as I can.

I wanna run away.

Away from worrying, away from budgeting.

Away from needing without a way.

Away from sore backs, from checking accounts with anxiety.

Away from payment plans, away from seeking a way, begging, praying for a way.

Away from my hopes and wants being in the power of another person or institutions choice.

Away from the “at this time we are not able to…”

Just away.

But not too far.

Not so far I forget what it feels like to stand on a packed bus.

Or how nice it feels to shower outside in the rain.

How we gather around a candle when there’s no light or the smell of a home sweet home lamp.

Not so far I forget how to shoo goats or how to take a clean bath with just a pale of water.

Never so far I forget a string heals hiccups and the power of an open bible.

Nor that tea is the cure or ironing uniforms on Sunday.

Far! But not too far.

Not too far so if I see it on my journey I can stop and say

“Hi, I’m Sherice, how can I help?”

So if I see it, I know it, I can feel it, I can remember…

Run away, and if it catches up, if somehow it touches me.

I’ll remember and I can know…

Is it wise to be falling for you.

For someone I’ve never met.

To lust for a body you never seen face to face.

But oh that face.

Is it safe or am I just plain old stupid…

Wanting the unfamiliar and the unknown

Is it okay will we be okay?

In my chest, why am I scared of you?

And how did you know I would be.

How did it come so soon?

“I won’t hurt you”

And why didn’t it give the reassurance you meant it to.

We are strange, our whole situation seems like it’s a maze.

Are you just telling me what you think I wanna hear.

Are you trying to make yourself clear.