The price of crossing the sea

How do you start a blog post when your mind seems completely blank?

I imagine that the words would flow effortlessly from keyboard to screen, that this post will resonate with someone, somewhere far away and make them sit up suddenly and say “oh my gosh, she’s amazing”

I am amazing this much I know but I feel like I lack the ways and means to make others realise it.

Life has been a plethora of experiences I’ve been able to look back on to confidently say I am where I am today because of them. But I’m also well trained in holding myself back from achievement.

Of late I’ve recognised that in subtle ways I’m more honest and less inclined to hide my truth with the people I love. Feeling like the proverbial black sheep all my life hasn’t been easy. Overthinking, wanting to say what I think and then saying nothing at all, biding expectations to avoid the critical eye of failure.

No one has ever really known the true me…

In 2010 I left South Africa for good to live in England. I had met my insanely handsome and wonderful husband a few months prior to that and in a whirlwind we got married and had our first daughter.

There’s a stigma attached to people who leave home for other countries, especially when the other country is 1st world compared to the 3rd you left behind.

But no one thinks that the struggles endure. Yes I had more stability and that meant I could do things I wouldn’t have been able to if I had chosen to stay in South Africa. My daughters’ future was safer, more secure. Opportunity was readily available if you wanted it bad enough and life was slightly more affordable on the grand scale.

But for all of you who think I abandoned the people I love…I’m over your ignorance. You never called, never wrote, never celebrated the important moments with me because you thought that I considered you to be smaller than me.

You never took the time to understand, just kept beating that dead horse hoping to prove it was very much alive. You never helped when it was needed, taking for granted my status as an expat with that supposedly larger than average bank account, and making yourselves feel better because who could possibly be worse than me for not wanting to help the people I say I love but treat like fools.

Me sat on my own in a country that supposedly had it all except that said country denied me the right to my own family but you didn’t know that either so I don't blame you.

You didn’t know that my choices to boomerang my family were not my own but a sanction of my “rich existence” in my new country.

You thought I was being selfish when I visited a new country instead of martyrizing myself to avoid criticism.

You didn’t know that my heart was broken or how guilt consumed me every waking moment. You didn’t know because you never asked. 

Your losses were mine and at those times you had family to hold you, family to share the memories with. I cried in silence and on my own for the ones we loved together but you didn’t know, you didn’t think that I mattered because when I chose to cross the sea I denied you in preference of a rich life and this meant I surely didn’t care so wasn't worth checking on

But, for all you have and have not done and for all the care you’ve taken or left I am grateful. One day I will knock and we will remember that we are part of the same and that my experience is your experience. 

One day you will ask and I might tell.

For now my memories of us as we were are what keeps me smiling and at the same time remembering that the burden of loving and living is not easy. 

I will never turn my back, I never have. I have loved from afar no matter the reception. I have placed myself at your celebrations and applauded you at your successes, I have held you close at funerals and felt your pain. I love your children and invite them to live life majestically and I hear that they are but I will wish them more always

I will never not love and not only you because everyone is worthy. I will endeavour to show my humanness and my ability to see you when you’re at your most vulnerable. You must know that I am here. My pockets may not be deep like you think they are but I will strive to do all I can to ensure that each time you’re thought about you feel loved, understood and accepted.

Am I angry? Sometimes. Do I feel left out? Only when there's so much happiness that I remember I have no part in. Am I envious? Well just in healthy doses.

But I'm proud and happy nonetheless to be the black sheep I get to love you from afar.

And yes, I have moved country again, It's not as easy this time but I'm happy because God has given me another opportunity to grow and I've accepted that have to live with some additional bumps in the road because of it.

But I imagine the best future and I imagine you there and I imagine your smiles and the happiness we'll all feel and share and we'll do it all because I imagine it will all be possible.

I realise my intro has nothing to do with the rest of the post but I’m grateful the words have flowed.

I love you