I thought I was a big girl
An independent daughter of two loving parents who had steadily released me from the nest
I thought I was a big girl
Until I hopped on a plane and flew 13000km away
To a place that rekindled my childhood longing
For mommy’s care and daddy’s assurance
I thought I was a pretty big girl
Until I couldn’t control the tears that negated my “I will be strong” messages
Until the tears resisted all my protestations and caressed my cheeks in solidarity with all the familiarity I left at home
I mourned…
The loss of conversations in languages I mastered,
The loss of the normalcy of my being
I mourned…
The loss of commonness about my being
That was never reduced to “exoticness”, “strangeness” and “otherness”
Oh, how I longed for the moments where people asked me “where do you live” as opposed to “where do you come from”
How I long for the lengthy conversations in the Gautrain with people I barely knew instead of the long stares from people who found me quite – curious.
I thought I was a big girl
Until I moved into my student accommodation
And cried the entire night because I felt so alone
I cried for the absence of my family’s thoughtfulness and for my sister who tempered the flares, when the stress of the move was unbearable and the amount of possessions I owned was unfathomable
I thought I was a big girl..
Until I locked myself in a room for three days, unable to come to terms with the with all that I had temporarily lost
Because in that moment,
My reality undid all the “big girl-i-ness” that I had accumulated over the years
Reducing me to an emotional foreigner, who just realised how amazing home was
is
and
will be…
So maybe perhaps I am a big girl…
Who is in a process of becoming…
And perhaps the only way that I can speak life into this process
Is by writing to my being.
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