I came to a standstill and realised things will not change themselves in my life. Change will not come until the one that sees the need for change does something. And in this case, it was I seeing the need for change. I had to be the inventor of that change.

President Barack Obama said: “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we have been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”

He was so spot on. I came to realise that also. That unless I wake up and do something, my life will always be bitter and hopeless. I decided then, that as an ordinary person, I needed to do extraordinary things. Since I can’t change people, let me change myself. Change my perception of what is happening in my life and my attitude towards life.

I needed nothing more than courage. Courage to stand firm on my decision of becoming an inventor of change. I needed change in my family. But then it was not going to happen unless every member sees the need and is willing. Then I said to myself, my focus should be on myself. Nothing more, nothing less.

By not dealing with issues thoroughly and accepting people as they are, I was bringing more harm to myself than everyone else. I needed to find a way of not letting the bad uttered against me affect me negatively. I was to choose to either be made strong or broken. I needed time to heal and think. But did I get it? No. I found myself having to find peace in the midst of storms. Having to deal with what happened at the same time with what was happening and what was going to happen. Very exhausting.

Life got more hectic. It was time for me to pick up the pieces and move on. I could not let words uttered or curses released hold me back. I was told I was going to amount to nothing. I had to prove that I was born for such a time as this. That God is able to turn a zero into a hero. That I was purposefully born. Words released against you can bind you if they are not destroyed or reversed. Though I made a decision to prove people wrong, I spent time fighting against negative things that were uttered against me. Things took a spin for the worst. I missed exams, lost funding and started having ghost illnesses.

I missed exams not because I wanted to but because I did not have a mere R100 to go sit in and write. I lost funding also not because I wanted to but because they would demand documents I did not have. I then gave up. Not on school but on NSFAS. I decided to go job hunting and settle my own tuition fees. I did not find that job.

I volunteered as a lay counsellor and with my stipend struggled to take myself back to school. They say half a cup is better than nothing. So I said to myself, only if I can manage to register two modules per semester that will be better than nothing and it will make them four per year if I pass them all. I registered once in a while and struggled to buy books. Tough was my life. Nothing seemed to be going right for me.

On the other hand, one is sick yet they must study hard to pass. Have you ever seen R2000 settle tuition fees, providing also food, clothing and shelter? Impossible right? But I had to force it to cover all that for me. Even the medical costs because I was in and out of hospital. I did not know what was eating me and neither did the medical doctors and surgeons. Tests were done and nothing was found to be wrong.

Everything seemed to be spiritual than physical. Or maybe they were psychological. Maybe as a pillar having fallen I thought I was still standing. Who knows? Maybe it was the results of too much pain bottled up. Maybe it was a psychological problem manifesting throughout the body. Who knows? Neither I nor doctors knew what was the problem. But then the truth is I was sick and seriously sick.

I was referred to a psychologist for psychological assessment but I refused. According to me, I was coping. I did not have any psychological problems. I was referred to one because I was sick with a sickness without diagnosis. They believed it was somatic. They had done all they could. At least that’s what they said. They did not even know what to prescribe for me. In my eyes, they were not doing enough. The ghost illnesses I had was killing me. Not that I was afraid of death. No.

Seneca the Roman philosopher said, “There is nothing scary about death at all, except the thing that comes before it…the fear of it.”

But on the contrary, I did not fear death at all. I wholeheartedly wanted and desired it instead. And the more I wanted it, the more it drifted away from me. But then sometimes when the thought of death visited me, I would think of the people I treasure, those that saw me as a pillar in their lives. I couldn’t afford to die now. What will happen to them when I’m gone? Who will bring correction in their lives when I’m gone?

Not that I thought I was irreplaceable. No. I knew that life goes on, no matter what. And after all those questions, if the pains happened to be unbearable again, I would go back to square one. Desire death again. And knowing that life is never on pause and that nobody’s life is tied to someone else, gave me some sense of inner peace. I knew that if I happened to pass away, most of them will manage to take care of themselves the best way I taught them how. And might even find another sister and friend. Though whoever they were going to find was going to be nothing like me, their lives were going to continue and that was all that mattered.

‘The things we go through or think’. This statement kept me going. It gave me strength to stand against what life threw at me. It gave me reason to stand from my every fall. For months on end, I refused to talk to a therapist. And that did not make me feel any better. I would have Bradycardia with a distended and cramping stomach and drowsiness on top, sometimes with sore and swollen feet and numb joints, plus sleepless nights included. My life was a living hell.

All these conditions interfered with my daily activities. One cannot do anything if their heart is beating slowly and they are running out of breath. Sometimes I would even find myself talking to my own heart, saying to it, “If you want to pump, pump normally or stop altogether because I can’t tolerate your nonsense.”

To me, it was full of nonsense. It is not funny to have a moment where you feel like you are losing your life every day. This minute you are losing your life and the next, you are OK. And people who did not know how it felt called me names. It did not sit well with me. If it were possible, I could have had them have a taste of what I was going through. Sometimes your pain becomes other people’s reason to laugh.

Imagine passing through the corridors at work, overhearing people talk about you and when they see you, they laugh. How would you feel? Painful, isn’t it? But it is well. Perhaps they thought it was all an act or maybe they enjoyed seeing me suffer. Maybe it was just my imagination running away with me. Maybe it is true and maybe it is not. Who knows? What I did not have was time to play along and try to explain the feeling. I did not want them to stop laughing.

Perhaps it made them feel good. And maybe that was the only moment they could really laugh. But then what I did was to make them aware that I knew what their laugh was about. And their response was unbelievable. They said sorry and laughed again. Was that an apology? I didn’t think so. An apology must be remorseful. That was just a way of saying to me, we care not whether you know or not. Not too close to being an apology. But then I didn’t demand one. I was just letting them know that I was aware of what they were doing. And that was it.

But then there is no point in saying sorry when you don’t mean it. You say sorry with your mouth and in your heart you are saying screw you. I wanted them to mean it though it was not what I wanted them to say and neither was it what I wanted them to do. I can’t say their laughter did not get to me. It did get on my nerves but I managed to let it slide. Life is never on pause. It is forever on play. I could not let everything that was happening become a stumbling block. Life had to go on and of course I proceeded. Life went on as normal.

I told myself that I was not going to allow anything to stand in my way. Not even poverty or health issues. I, with a smile on my face, once again treaded the soil from which I was created trying hard to make a living for myself. I smiled even when my tummy was big and cramping, fitting not in my clothes. Even with a very slow or hyper dynamic heartbeat, still I smiled. I could not possibly let anything hold me back. In spite of everything, life had to go on. I had to smile because I could not cry. It mattered not whether the smile was real or just an act. What mattered was the smile.

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Tell us: Have you ever pretended you were okay, by hiding your pain with a smile?