Deeds and Consequences

The smallest of actions is always
better than the noblest of
intentions ." - Robin Sharma

This post has nothing to do with the quote above. I just saw it and liked it.

n/b: This is a melodramatic post. Approach with caution.

I finally flipped. I sat in the car and decided I'm going to quit my job, cancel my accounts ,sell my car and disappear for a little while. Just a little while to go think over my life. Think about what and who I was. The month had been filled with crap filled weeks and there was no light at the end of the tunnel. I wanted to go and be someone else for a little while. With new people and have new experiences. I wanted to just disappear. The weight of my decision stayed with me as I stared at the plain garage wall, it was with me as I went to work that morning in a traffic filled road, it was with me as I picked up call after call and dealt with one client after another.

I just needed to finish designing this project, I just needed to see that other project through, I just had to fulfil that promise. Then I would disappear for a while. Not go on leave. Just go. Go decide who I was. Work on some water project with some women in some county council somewhere, lie on an empty beach far away, bunjee off the Zambezi with strangers and forget everything and everyone for a while. I felt that a month ago and again last Monday and today for a little while in the morning. I dreamt of a place and time that this would not be my life any more. This routine, this bland days, this place, this wrong decisions. A point when none of these would define me.

I have thought long and hard about the decisions I have made in the past. The wrong ones seem to linger the most. Be the most clear. Their consequences seem the sharpest. The scars they leave behind seem the deepest. I have made alot of decisions over the past month. Too many I'm not proud of. Some almost sank my business, others almost sank me, most crushed me. I can only think of 1 or 2 that I look back at and smile. So it was not without a second thought that I wanted to run away and fester in the consequences of my decisions. Run away from everything and forget it all.

But there was life, outside the garage. Waiting for me to fix my mistakes, waiting for me to run around and try put together all the broken pieces. All the wrong decisions. Spring clean my mess. There were people who loved me (I hoped) here that I couldn't just leave behind. I knew if I was to go, I would have to leave things prim and proper. Clean, folded. Laundered and ironed. The worst thing would have been to walk out and leave behind problems for other people to clean. Then it would be harder to return.

So at some point, I went and cleaned out my accounts to put out another fire that I had unwittingly lit. I started doing the clean up. I started fixing and mending. I was living on barely a prayer. I was sweating in cold weather. I was screaming at workers and colleagues in a manner that was unlike me and when I started talking I babbled on and on like an insane woman. I was scary to myself and I think to others. I knew I needed to get up, dirt off my shoulder and scream "sh*t happens" and walk away with my head held high. Act like it didn't hurt or matter. Act like disappointing myself again was just another one of those routines. But that was the point, disappointments were becoming part of my CV and I didn't feel safe any more to make my own decisions.

I didn't care enough. I wanted to lay in the dirt. Just a while longer. I wanted someone else to figure out my life for me. I wanted someone to tell me that it was alright. That I could get up from the dirt now. I needed a hero. But I needed to redeem myself to and for myself. I needed to show myself that I was worth fighting for. That I was going to be my own hero. I needed to show that I could do more than barely survive.

Life happens to all of us. It's just that it has happened to me unexpectedly and I'm struggling to rise to the surface. You sink or you swim. There's not much more choice that you have. It's just that sometimes I just find it easier to sink just for abit. But I know that eventually I have to swim and find solid ground.

PS: RIP Prof Wangari Maathai....you were an inspiration to many.