Carry Me.....

You know that you are doing an absolutely fantastic job as an adult when you and a two year old baby are crying together right?

That's a joke. But it is the first thing that comes to my mind when I find myself crying in her kitchen while her two-year-old baby screams her lungs off too. It's almost comical, I think.

The worst part is that this cannot be said to be my most embarrassing meltdown this year. In fact this is actually mild compared the others.

Remember the one poetry show where I could not remember my lines and ran offstage to bawl my eyes out in the arms of a friend? No...well it happened THIS YEAR! And let's not forget the missed-bus incident and so many other emotional meltdowns I had this year. Safe to say by the time December came around I was exhausted. So much so that at one point when life was caving in on me again, I remember just taking deep breaths and mentally asking God if this is how Joseph Solomon (Google him)  and so many others lost their faith? Because I truly had no energy left in me to fight whatever this was. I just wanted to go home and sleep.

December 2023 was supposed to be peaceful, calm and restful. Initially I was supposed to be living it up in my mother's house in Joburg but when that plan fell through, I simply adapted my plans and told myself , "Hey! Maybe this will be a nice opportunity to rest and reconnect with God". And I was truly looking forward to it, some quality time with My Father after a hectic year where it feels as though i struggled to hear him.. 

Until I found myself bursting into tears in a dear Sister-in-Christ's kitchen while their two-year-old looked on in bewilderment before bursting into tears of her own (for totally different reasons of course :).  So here I am, confronted with the reality that there is more work to be done in me than I would like to admit and confused with this notion of " emotional baggage" that this very nice lady is talking to me about. 

As much as I want to meet her halfway. I can't help but think back to when I used to go for counseling, and I was so eager to do the work that I met my counsellor halfway all the time. All I wanted was a wholeness that , for the first time, seemed not so far out of reach and I knew that if I just showed up every Thursday, if I sat on that couch and let her speak, I'd get there. I would have that wholeness. 

But life is a funny thing, in the way that sad things are funny. Because it took more than 6weeks to get to the end of my counseling journey, and the result wasn't really what I would call "wholeness". But healing is a process right? So I wrapped that up and kept it moving. Confident that one day my emotional "togetherness" would catch up with me along the way.

But as this very anointed woman speaks and something in me is desperately wishing I had the energy to believe the way she does, I can only feel the tiredness in my heart. All I am is tired of everything. December was supposed to be for resting, not for resurrecting mother wounds and crying in people's kitchens...again. (yes...this is not the first time I've done this.)

Getting into this healing journey business, dealing with baggage sounds to me like work, like the beginning of unmet expectations and maybe even new wounds. I honestly do not want to do it. I want to take this pain trauma and stuff it back into the compartment it slipped out of, apologize to this nice lady for wasting her time and come back another day.

But all I do is go outside with her crying two her old and count the "baby chickens" and listen to her repeat every word I say to her.

"Are we opening a crying club out here?" , I ask her, wiping both our tears.

She nods and I laugh a little because even though I know she has no idea what I just said, it's still funny how earnestly she responds. It's also funny. In a twisted kind of way, that a 25year old woman and a 2year old girl are crying together.

The fresh air out here feels so good and the mini orchard is quite a beautiful view. Quite possibly the best place to have a good cry, second only to the desk in my bedroom.

When we go back inside the nice lady prays for me and the part of my heart that wants to please her, to be a success story sinks because deep down I do not believe that this is that kind of story. I know that I have wished for and desired healing in this area for a while now, but some things, like this one, have always seemed above me. 

The pain of this wound is a bit too real and the task of facing it too overwhelming, but I agree with her in prayer because who knows, maybe her faith can be enough for the both of us?

It is when I stand up to leave that I see it. She stands up to see me out, and her two year old (who has fully recovered from her crying btw! What a joy it is to be a child!) stretches her arms out and asks her mother to carry her. At the time I laugh at the fact that she said "carry you" instead of "carry me" and I do not think much of it.

But when I get home and read the scripture Isaiah 46:4 and reflect on how this December, I'd promised to stop fighting. To lay everything down, to stop trying to make myself into something and just allow God to work on the mess that is. I realise that maybe this wasn't such an inopportune time for God to bring up the need for healing after all. Because this is not time for me to call "Corporate Siboe" back to the office and start working on me. Maybe it is good that this was brought up during my resting season, because maybe, just maybe I should take cues from my two-year-old crying buddy and just lift up my arms to my parent so I can be carried. It is after all what He promises in the scripture and so, as I walk this journey to healing (the second time around🙄), I refuse to take it upon myself to heal me. Neither will I pretend to have any of it under control because I do not. I am just here, lifting my arms and asking my dad to carry me because I cannot do it for myself.

"even to your old age I am he,

and to gray hairs I will carry you.

I have made, and I will bear;

I will carry and will save."

Isaiah 46:4

Ps: Big S/o to the head of my church's youth department, the very anointed woman of God who allows me to traumatized her two-year-old with my emotional meltdown. I do not know what I would do without you sis❤️

Love, Light

Siboe🤎