Feels like forever since I worked on my blog, "adulting" has been taking up so much of my mind, body and soul that for a minute it felt like I lost track of the little, yet important things & people in my everyday life. So, there I was, wishing that my 20's, (the most confusing & challenging years of my life!!!) came with an instruction manual on finances, relationships, career goals, self development and most importantly, maintaining your identity & holding on to what makes you..., YOU, in the madness of building your desired lifestyle, career & love life. After much needed struggles and good lessons learnt in the process of it all, the light bulb started flickering. Feeling liberated, all I think of was "damn, what a time to be alive!" My 20's are the scariest, thrilling, most awkward & exhilarating phase of my life. Kind of feels like i'm on a roller-coaster in a dark tunnel of unknown life lessons where you have no idea when the next dip of disappointment comes, the next high of happiness & liberation or being turned upside down by anxiety & sadness. In a nutshell, my roller coaster ride became quite intense in all areas of my life, ALL AT THE SAME TIME! (Urgh! Murphy's Law). I lost myself & became extremely confused, anxious & worried about how my future will turn out that I completely forgot how to be happy & how to love myself enough not to accept certain things that are lower than the standards I set out for myself since I was a little girl.
Anyway, here's the inside scoop fam..
The Hustle
I am currently working as a Media Assistant and the doom & gloom that comes with the phrase, "Company Restructuring" took on my life! It brought on a kind of stress that I couldn't handle because firstly, I WORKED SO DAMN HARD to get here & secondly, it is so difficult as an experienced, qualified coloured woman to be considered for a second interview because of the stigma that comes with a discriminate picture that society had painted on the faces of all coloured people as a race, stereotypes are real, fam. I refuse to accept the disgraceful identity that society expects MY PEOPLE to have because we are FAR from that. Anyway, back to the hustle.... The cost of living is ridiculous, petrol is a whopping R17 a litre, bills need to get paid and financial responsibilities have become much more challenging than usual. Knowing very well that I am not where I expected to be in my life right now and that the company I currently work for can not get me where I want to be, at the beginning of this year I made the decision to move, I started applying for a gazillion jobs that I either have the qualifications for or experience for the role, every month. Its exactly the 15 October today and I've gotten nothing but those systematic " we regret to inform you" emails. Nonetheless, its life... There was a point where I felt like I am just not good enough and I allowed this job seeking experience to deter my mood and make me hella depressed. Life is full of highs and lows, this low taught me how to pick myself up through prayer and keep trying my best at bettering my career and to never give up applying for those jobs because no matter how long it takes, one amazing door will open and I will reap the good that I've sown. Keep your fingers crossed with me fam, hopefully ill be made a bewildering job offer that will catapult me to where I want to be in my career. Claustrophobic Much? I still stay at home and it feels weird to confess that its working on my nerves... I've been wanting my own space for a while now but haven't had the guts to stop guilt tripping myself about leaving my mom, finally have that talk with her and actually do what I need to do to learn about becoming officially independent with no financial help. I am capable of being on my own at this moment in time and seeing to my own financial, household and personal responsibilities, but I am also scared that its going to be one big flop because at the same time, I feel like I know nothing and that i'm not mentally prepared for this journey. This got me thinking, a big change like this is going to be anew, its not something that you can prepare for mentally as you've never experienced it before, in order for this to happen, the hustle needs to be in place, discipline needs to flow through your bloodstream and you just gotta jump in the deep end, so you can teach yourself how to manage stress and deal with change in a way that you can cope & learn best with. Soon, when all my ducks are in a row (with regards to my new hustle of course), I will be making this jump promptly, when it does happen you will definitely be the first to know about the highs and lows on my experience and expenses about leaving home and creating my own.
Family
I come from a broken home, but that certainly does not mean I am broken in any way, my parents love me unconditionally and quite frankly I am more than okay with having a step mom & step dad. My immediate family is really close and I plan on keeping it that way because I've noticed that I take after my dad in maintaining new experiences, trust, honesty and love with my immediate family as that is the glue to staying together and building a strong foundation for my kids one day. Growing up I've always been very family orientated and grounded, now that I am an adult, looking at my family outside of my immediate one, I can see and understand things in so much more depth than before. I love my family and I desire for us to be as close as we were, but unfortunately, even family drifts apart and its something that I still find really difficult to deal with, because I got my strength & sense of belonging from all of them. Half of my family is Muslim, the other half is Christian, I was born Muslim and I know the doctrine very well, but to date I am recently a new born christian, so you can just imagine the aches and pains that came with religious separation among family. Through it all, I've learnt that you cannot change people, all you can do is let them know you'll always be there and your door is always open to them no matter the circumstances and love them from a distance because ones heart can never heal when being separated from blood due to religious laws. For those experiencing the same, don't hold on and repeat cycles of reopening the wounds of rejection, but let go, empty yourself of disappointments, wish them well and keep lines of communication open in case they decide to reach out and just live your best positive life with those who actually make the effort to be in it.
Boo'd Up
I've been with my Boo for over a year and my oh my... it was challenging. A lot of people described their first year as the most whimsical experience with hardly any arguments in their relationship. Mine on the other hand....... lol... my partner and I bumped heads quite a lot, we skipped the whimsical phase and went straight into dealing with issues about each other that we do not agree with along with finding a love language that works best for both of us. Needless to say, if either of you have doubt in your mind about each other or making a serious commitment, then this method is not for you so stop lying to yourself and wasting your time with this person. Now that all the nitty grittys in ironing out our issues and creating a strong love language between us is complete, we get to experience the whimsical phase for the rest of our time together. I'm not saying that we not going to bump heads because that is a definite, but I am saying that dealing with issues first before exploring the fun side of our relationship gave us a stronger foundation and direction in how to understand one another in times of conflict and communicate in a way that is best for us both. Through this experience we learnt how to face our issues together instead of letting our issues put us against each other, ya feel me? We've known each other since highschool so we had a bit of an advantage in this regard. He has some qualities that I don't have, and I have some qualities that he doesn't have, so we constantly balancing each other out and learning off one another. The perfect balance I reckon...
(Separate blog post to follow on how to achieve the perfect balance in your relationship)
Goal to Glow
Yes, we are all familiar with the term goals yet struggle to implement them in our 20's because of all the noise in and around our lives. I was influenced by all this noise, leaving me confused and feeling out of place as I couldn't reestablish my identity based on what other people thought was the best decisions for my life. That right there almost set me up for the biggest, most unhappiest failure I would have to go through. This made me so confused that I didn't even know what I wanted for myself anymore, I had no idea on which goals to pursue and achieve. Through much needed time soul searching and loving myself, I soon discovered where I see myself in future and did much research on how to get there. I then set a list of mental goals for my emotional, mental and physical well being around my career, family, how I spend my free time, hobbies and love life. I am planning on putting those goals on a dream board in December for the new year, in that way it pushes me to be more disciplined in achieving them so that ultimately, my goals will help make me glow, inside and out. I discovered that, creating this board in my sacred space and having to see them each day will bring it to life. Seeing it everyday will drive my focus towards it, and what you focus on naturally expands. Next December I will reshuffle this board, add new goals and chuck out anything that I feel has served its purpose. How to make a dope dreamboard: https://bit.ly/2FxShHa
Life comes with ups and downs, in this we discover more about ourselves and we can use these ups and downs to help us figure out where we should be heading with ourselves and others around us. If it has no positive impact on your life, don't be a hoarder, throw it away boo, its not worth your peace of mind. xoxo
nees
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