Inspire 2019

Growing up I heard people talk about how they fought with demons and I could never fathom what that must be like for them. In my small mind demons were this huge imaginary things that beat you down and there was literally no control of them! I never would imagine that my demons would grow as I grow and perhaps even try to take over me! Little did I know that they were fast growing and real! My demons grew and as fate would have it they grew beyond me! I was helpless and at their mercy! Perhaps I’d given up the fight and completely surrenders to them! Maybe like all grown ups I’d watched them grow and even nurtured them! An ugly side of me that I could never have imagined began to emerge! I allowed that I wasn’t strong enough and allowed them to rule over! They care out strong and ugly. I lost a huge chunk of me as much as the huge part of people I cared about the most as I allowed them to shine! The God in me disappeared and the devil in me came out strong! I tried...

Do you ever look back and wonder why you wasted so much time? All the things you stressed and worried about! All the things that you wondered if you’d survive without? Isn’t it weird that just a few months from then, you’re doing great on your own! You didn’t even need those people and things after all! Life has bent and twisted me into the realization that nothing or no one in this entire universe is worth my tears, lack of sleep or peace of mind! While you cry over spilled milk, other opportunities pass you by! As you pull covers over your head in the dark, your soulmate slips through your hands! Things come and go and so do people. The ones who let everything go easily fight no battles in the night alone as they struggle to sleep! The ones who hold on tightly smother their peace of mind and take away so much joy! Holding on is suffering! So much strength and freedom comes from letting go of all the shackles that hold you back! You deserve a life like an ocean wav...

I've never known love because I've never truly loved myself! I found that I always settled for people that were not even half of what I was! I let people who were not even half of me have a piece of me! I unconsciously always discarded the better choice for what was exciting; Almost every single time like clock work! I never carried myself the way I should have! Because I didn't truly understand what I was or what I deserved! I sold myself short for sweet words from unsuitable strangers! Because I'd not discovered who are I truly was! I was looking at love in all the wrong places; That I forgot to nurture it where it should have really been blossoming to begin with! I never have loved myself the way I should! Otherwise I wouldn't have been settling for all the things I did! I grew up with so much love but I forgot it so easily Just for the cheap thrills of temporary lust and bliss! I never truly loved because I'm just starting to love ...

Life can feel like your leg has been tied tightly to an anchor; and you're drowning deep down to the bottom of the ocean :- never to breathe or be seen again! Life can also feel like you're riding a magical unicorn with glistening colorful wings ; on a rainbow. While eating cotton candy clouds and wearing a crown of humming birds:- singing ever so slightly how life is but a dream! Life is a beautiful disaster that brings you bloody red roses with thorns of steel! The beauty is magnificent; bringing in so much joy but the thorns will send you to an early grave! Life presents you a brightly burning candle full of hope; but that same beacon of light will die out even before the night is out! Leaving you in darkness until the sun finally comes out; and the rays caress your melancholic cheeks. Life is not something to pass through despite all this bittersweet love-hate relationship nevertheless! Life is here for you to live it as the most powerful and intelligent bei...

"I'll be happy when I'm rich!" I remember saying this out loud and my father smiled. Embarrassed and annoyed, I turned and stared at him sharply! I was angry with him for insinuating that I'd perhaps never be rich! I stormed out of the family living room filled with resentment! I turned and turned in bed at 16 years old that night wondering what the meaning of all this was! I was high on hormones and my idea of happiness was finding a rich prince at 21 who would kiss me and we would ride into the sunset together and live in our big castle; happily ever after! Little did I know that my idea of love and richness would be distorted once I turned 21 and three times more ones I was over 25. I was a romantic with the typical idea of life like that in the fairy tales! If Cinderella could do it and she was a maid, how about me who grew up with much more privilege! I binged on the idea of love and richness being my ultimate source of happiness! In m...

As a woman I've learned so much in my 1/4 century that I've been in this complicated yet beautiful world! You start from being this sweet little girl that dreams of being a pretty little princess clad in purple or pink tutus accented with a huge a Cinderella bow and topped up by a diamond tiara. You are obsessed with tea parties, fairies and everything is sunshine and rain bows. Life is at its finest, until enter puberty! All you think about now is how dreamy the boy is in the romantic novel. How you can't wait to have your real first kiss! Everything is oh-so-lala- land fantasy until your first love breaks your heart and then something changes. The romantic fairytale your mother warned you would burn you when you're a teenager, comes crumbling down! Enter 21 and you're probably long wide eyed from experiences of barely any heartbreaks but enough! You're healed and ready to go again. Love, hurt, heal repeat is the motto. Then comes more comp...

"No one's really that valuable. It's just a societal construct to give an illusion of grandeur about someone you are attached to" My friend said this to my face and at first I was shocked, then disappointed then it slowly begun to sip in. He had had enough of me talking about my disappointments with people and everything else in my life and he had distanced himself a bit. "Hope you take life too seriously" he casually joked when we had conversations. Steve had become a friend of mine in an unlikely environment. I used to tuck myself in a little corner in a restaurant listening to meditation music and loud reggae music from the bar in what seemed like utter seclusion every evening since the year begun. I was constantly overwhelmed from everything going on and being there by myself every evening felt good. I didn't know anyone and no one seemed to know me at first. Then one day I met Steve. He said he saw me sit alone every evening for ...