Ek wil eerder vlieg as val

My first ever post on this blog was a year ago, in March. I talked about the Tsunami in Japan and how it affected the people who lived there. I talked about the kinds of emotions they must be feeling and how things like that cannot be contained. I expressed the desire to help the more unfortunate and to not take everything for granted anymore.

And a year on? Maybe I've helped a little bit.

I never posted again on this blog after June last year because I fell into that dark place again. I fell, again, and however much I'd love to say I hated every moment, I can't because that would not be the truth. Well. Yes, it would, but not in the sense I mean. If I had not fallen once again, I would not have reacted in the way I always used to react. And if I had not reacted in that way, I would not have sparked something in my mother to get me to change that reaction. And if my mother had not done what she did, I would never have had the best month of my entire life so far.

I hurt really badly pre-summer last year. And at the same time as feeling terrible and having no answers, I constantly reminded myself that I had absolutely no reason to feel that way. That somewhere in the world, someone else was suffering far, far worse than I ever would. And after listening to what my mother had to say and upon realising exactly this, I set out on a journey I will never forget.

No, I did not refer myself to some celebrity-ridden and clinical rehab centre in the middle of the English countryside. Although, you could call the place I went to just that - minus the celebrities and minus the frustratingly robotic professional therapists. No.

I was shipped off to Africa. Namibia to be precise. And it is there where I learnt to fly again.

You may think that all this sentimental shizzle is overrated and equally dumb but I cannot imagine my life without spending those precious four weeks in Africa. It was life-changing and I know that many, many people say that, but it was. And not just because I came home a different person - I did - but that's not the point. The point is that I didn't just change my own life; I changed other people's.

And the occasional animal's.

Four weeks it took. Four weeks for me to find my wings again. As I have always said throughout the duration of my short-lived life, the one thing that gives people the most important courage to transfer from one moment to the next, is love. I cannot stress that enough. And from my trip to Africa, I came home with so much of the damn thing, that I had no idea where to place it all. Where to pour it so I felt full for as long as I possibly could. But I needn't have worried about that because the people I met and the animals I befriended just splashed it all over me, throwing caution to the wind and drowning me in it. Drowning me in love.

I didn't think it was possible to drown in love.

It is.

I met people in Africa. I fell in love. And as I have stated before on this little blog that really is just one yellow taxi amongst the ocean of them in New York City, my dream is to fall in love. I think that once I have, I will be halfway towards the success that I personally wish to achieve. And, I guess, I have. I have made it halfway there.

But there is so much more to go.

There was this girl in Africa. Actually, there were several girls and they are all incredibly special and they all taught me so many different things. But there is one who stands out. Because there is one who just saw me without even having to look. She didn't even need to look past the bad because she didn't even see it. She just saw the good and told me she didn't even know about the bad. When I told her about the darkness I had been surrounded by for nearly three years, she was shocked. Most people nod their heads in understanding because they can see my pain or they have been through it too; they have their own darkness in which they are trying to escape. But with this girl? She was genuinely shocked. She kept saying how can someone with the biggest smile and most majestic eyes want to do the things to themselves that they have done?

And she put it so simply. Because yes, I was my own worst enemy. I was standing in the way of myself for the whole three years of darkness, and even though there were things that I felt out of control of, it was always me that was letting them be that way. And I didn't see that until she said it to me straight out.

Everyone always likes to think that when they meet someone, however hard you try and paint on this fake smile and forced laughter to convince them you are perfectly okay, that they see right through you and naturally understand that it is all an act. Because underneath it all, when everything is stripped back and taken away, it is only yourself who you are trying to convince.

And I've spent three years trying to convince myself I'm okay. And that's what the darkness was.Or maybe still is a little bit.

I've always told myself and everyone else that its okay not to be okay. And I still stand by that. It is. We cannot be consistently strong forever. But being lost in the darkness and being lost in yourself are two totally different things. And I think that we mix them up too easily.

I met this girl, and she taught me how to fly again. She taught me how to love (even though I still have absolutely no idea) and she taught me how to laugh properly again. How to emit a real laugh. And now I see that you do only live once. Why waste it? Live like there's no tomorrow, anything's possible and all those life philosophies that get thrown about so easily to us!

N/aan Ku Se Wildlife Sanctuary was this place where all the people I met and myself could live again. We could breathe. We could escape these lives that had somehow got lost along the way and we could bring ourselves back to ourselves. It was like one big collision with myself and I cannot change that for anything.

I'm still not better. I'm still not happy.

But I'm okay. And for now, that's more than enough.