Love don't love me

One starless, cloudy night I had a male companion do me the kindness of ensuring that I got home safe and sound after a relaxed dessert date with a mutual friend. In the dying moments of our evening, we found ourselves engaging in the polite chit chat that precedes impending goodbyes.

It is worth establishing that this was no stranger but, in fact, someone I often saw around and conversed with occasionally. So on this particular night as we stood out there, I was having one of my very emotionally complex moments (I blame it on the PMS) and I started to tell some warped tale about a relational glitch I was currently experiencing with him and my even more warped idea of a solution to this glitch.

You gotta understand something here. I am that girl, I've come to realise, who overthinks everything; fails to laugh at a joke until it actually makes intellectual sense to me; and require an explanation for, well, EVERYTHING. My friends say I'm slow. But that's just how the world looks to me: one giant riddle I wanna break down and figure out. I like to fancy it ... being interested. I love being this way. Most other folk like things simple, and I get that. Even I, in many ways, like things to remain as simplified as possible but to me simple is not a lack of thought; it is a thorough and effective communication of it.

My general experience is that I am either having a superficial, surface conversation; or I'm giving somebody real grief cuz I'm busy complicating their life! Keeping it surface is always my go to move unless the other person prompts more than small talk and pleasantries. But on this night, my companion was a little deeper and probing than the usual suspects and, frankly, I was not in the mood to play shallow so I just spoke my heart as it is. It was then that something radical happened. He looked back at me without exasperation, tension or heaviness and said simply, "We can still walk."

I know those words out of context are completely meaningless but bear with me a moment. The amazing thing to me here was that this person actually heard me, understood all the gibberish that was coming out of my mouth, and addressed the issue. Ever have that out of body experience when all the countless stars in your universe just align and click into place?? When you least expect it some one sees you as you are and; without a dictionary, concordance, index or glossary of terms; they just get it!!

No more walking was actually done and this person subsequently reverted back to acquaintance status; but I walked away with something precious that night. Apparently, I am not as obscure as I think I am. The last person to have heard me is not the last person to have heard me at all. This is definitely something I have agonised over and I want to believe that God, who makes all things work together for my good, may have taken me to this time and place just to remind me that His capacity to meet my needs, surprise me, GET me - is unparalleled and unfathomable.

I learnt to rest in the knowledge that God knows me. Better than anybody could. He knows everything I want and everything I need and when some things don't seem to be coming together in my life or I seem to be "lacking" something it isn't because He is unable to make it happen or provide it but rather that He is my SOURCE. He is my source. Of everything I desire and everything I need; all the voids that have bored themselves into my soul over time - He has filled.

I am hungry for Christ all over again.

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,  but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” John 4:13-15

P.S. A special thanks to my momentary knight for reminding me to believe that love can find me again. And in a twisted way; that it already has.

P.P.S. Team #pinkypromise #norandoms :D ;)

Eyes off the Toe Ring

This morning when I walked out of the house on my way to campus, I looked down at my hands and felt excessively ... bejeweled. All I have on are two rubber wristbands and a silver ring; but it's still a lot more than usual. I am not much of a jewelery person. So I remembered that there was a time many years ago when I used to wear toe rings, occasionally. I suppose I was going through some things because I can't figure out now why I ever did it. So why is it that now the idea of wearing a toe ring seems so preposterous; so not... me? Clearly, at some point in my life it was cool but now I realise that if I was around people, and I had one on, they would most likely see it and draw conclusions about my personality or character. And then I would have to spend an excessive amount of time tryna undo those conclusions and subtly explain myself, apologising for a toe ring I should never have been wearing in the first place!

I don't really think that the whole toe ring thing is a thing. But it is the seemingly irrelevant and miniscule things that add up to the sum total of how you express yourself and ultimately, how people will see you. Yeah we all wanna act like we don't really care what people think of us but the truth is life is one big marketplace and you attract the customers you're after by the way you present your brand. Creating a brand is something I suspect real market players invest a lot of time and thought into. For me; it's just a feeling. Sorta like an epiphany. I tend to sorta wake up on an alien side of the bed and decide that something no longer defines my brand. And so it is with the case of the toe ring. I could have one lying around on my dresser and feel pressure to wear it because, I don't know, it's hot; im gonna be wearing sandals and the poor thing has been neglected for years. But is it really worth the hassle of having to punctuate all of my interactions and my body language with an apology for how much i have misrepresented my brand today?? I don't think so.

For you maybe it's not a toe ring. Perhaps it's a phrase you say a lot; a lifestyle; a decision; or a habit. It can be anything really. It certainly isn't just the toe ring for me. If there's one thing I hate it is being obscure, misleading and misunderstood. I hate having to explain myself for something clearly visible to everybody when I can just eliminate it and save everybody the broken telephone - a frustrating state of affairs for both the communicator as well as their audience. I believe in branding yourself not just according to how you want others to perceive you but, more ESSENTIALLY, according to how you really are. In order to be real you have to do more than just say and do whatever you feel and think; you have to stop the stuff that doesn't effectively, closely and truly represent who you are.