Run, child, run!

A journey to self-awareness.

“To deny one's own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one's own life. It is no less than a denial of the soul.” - Oscar Wilde.

I am a fairly nostalgic person. It might irk some, because that could mean that I have created an abode for myself in the past. They would be wrong. I have not. I merely believe that the way to understand the puzzles of our present is to revisit the pieces in our past. When we acknowledge that the steps we have taken on this journey of life have been the hands that molded us into what we’ve become, we can say that we have arrived at the cusp of a new beginning. It’s a rebirth. But it starts first, from acknowledging.

Be still. I will tell you of the things I have found out about myself as I untangled the yarn of my past.

I used to be a runner.

I don’t have an athletic bone in my body but I used to run well and fast. Retrospect makes me see that clearly. Let me tell you a story. Wait, make that two stories.

Story 1

It was 2007. I was in primary five or thereabouts. My mum travelled that day and had us stay with a neighbor that lived downstairs. Our neighbors had a pepper milling machine and as a child, nothing was cooler than being bestowed the honor to use the stick that ensured the pepper was mashed well when grinding.

That hot afternoon, we were bored and just walking around trying to amuse ourselves. Finally, something of note happened which was someone coming to grind pepper. She came, dropped her pepper and left. The tradition was that one of the older children would’ve helped her carry it home. I was so eager to assist in grinding that day, but I think there is something common to older kids - they seem to have a diploma in disappointing their younger ones. I was refused. *inserts eye roll*. Maybe I should blame that disappointment for how things turned out that day. Or maybe I should take responsibility. *side eye*.

When they were done blending the pepper, they poured it in a bowl, covered it with a loose-fitting plastic and left it. The one who was supposed to take it to the owner’s home went inside to attend to other things. Till date, I don’t know what possessed me. Let’s blame it on the exuberance of a bored child who needed something to do. Nobody was outside with the pepper, so I decided to “help” them by being the one to carry it. To make matters worse, I also believed that the best way to carry it was on my head. Again, there was nobody outside to help me lift it. The bowl of pepper was halfway to my head when almost half of it poured on my shirt.

I wanted the ground to swallow me. Trouble with a capital T. My neighbor is a very strict woman, so I really wanted to die. Who sent me errand? Who gave me the job to do? It is in moments like this one wishes they had powers of time travel. Alas, I was just a 7 year old ordinary girl. No powers.

My focus here is on my response. I didn’t wait by my mess to suffer the consequences or inform my neighbors about what happened. I fled. I ran upstairs, locked myself in the toilet, pulled off my shirt and washed the pepper away. As though that would wash away the evidence of my guilt. I was determined to not come out of the toilet until everything had been resolved. Somewhere deep inside, I was praying for the impossible; that they wouldn’t notice anything was amiss.

That prayer was obviously wasted. My neighbors figured out easily that I was at fault. They came upstairs to find me, but I insisted that I couldn’t come out of the toilet yet. I waited until they went to get more pepper to blend for the customer, waited until someone else took it home for the customer, waited until everything had quieted down and everyone had gone back indoors. I was present in the toilet, but in my mind; I had run far, far away where I wouldn’t be confronted by my actions nor feel ashamed.

At long last, I had to return downstairs. It was only a tongue-lashing I received, but that’s not the point in this. The point is ‘I ran’. This might seem like a normal response from a kid. But I assure you it isn’t. Kids that act this way have been taught to; by their environments or something else. If this was an isolated event, we wouldn’t have an article on this topic today.

So, here’s story two.

Story 2

My family faced a loss in 2017. It was a loss so deep, it almost drove us apart. I tried to be strong for my junior ones. But somehow, I kept on doing the wrong things. I could’ve taken some steps that would’ve helped us heal faster (trust me, I was the one in the position to take those steps), but I didn’t. I wanted to hide from the problems and pretend they weren’t happening. I couldn’t do that when each day, I woke up to the reality of it all.

I wanted to be selfish. But there was nowhere to run. It felt like I was a bird in a cage. I needed to leave to tune out everything. Still, where to?

The news that my university had resumed was my saving grace. Usually, I used to stay back at home for a week or two before resuming, but this time, I could not wait to go. It didn’t take me long to pack my bags and leave home. It wasn’t only my home I took leave of, I left my siblings alone in a war zone too. If you know me now, why this is important will make sense to you. I am “Mama Bear”, fiercely defensive of my siblings. But then, I valued myself more. I ran to school and hardly called home. I was hoping that by the time I rematerialized, everything would’ve been sorted. Everyone would’ve healed and things would go back to normal.

The effects of my actions, I cannot talk about in-depth. I can only imagine how abandoned my family members must’ve felt. I am a strong force in my home; there was no way my absence was not noticed.

It was a subconscious choice, but it was a choice nonetheless. I ran.

---

I have other stories from my past that made me realize this about me. These two that I shared were the lamps that led me on the path to self-discovery, though. Every time my fight-or-flight response was triggered, I chose flight. And that was very unhealthy.

Hear me. Everyone has a response to trauma. I am saying that if you always choose to run, it is damaging. There were battles I needed to face, troubles I couldn’t hide from. First, I had to acknowledge this phenomenon in myself and then, work towards adjusting those responses.

I have done quite a good job, if I do say so myself. Now, I am unafraid to stare down challenges. I am not afraid to fall in my bid to fight. I already have won, because I chose to stay and not run. The truth is every piece of my life that falls or crumbles will be useful later. I pick up these bits of my past to make sense of my present. Like I said earlier, “the way to understand the puzzles of our present is to revisit the pieces in our past”.

It took a lot of resolve, and sometimes, I still want to run. But work has been done on my mind. I am aware in those fight-or-flight moments that I am presented with a choice. I could’ve frolicked along in life without knowing or acknowledging this. It would’ve been a half-life; because it wouldn’t have been my life.

You are living a real, full life only when you acknowledge that you have choices, and take full responsibility for the consequences of each choice you make. To live without this knowledge is to live deprived. You are being cheated by whatever formed your ideologies or habits.

We have come to the end.

I'm starting to realize that I write best when I write of my memories; my experiences and the files of data that life has gifted me with. It is one of the reasons I treasure the times of solitude and silence I have. I love to visualize the future, but I also really enjoy visiting the past.

You should take the time to do that too. Your journey to being self-aware doesn’t flow from the present. It begins with a visit to the past. Follow the current to your present, and then, you will truly know YOU.