Peeling back the mask to reveal strength.

Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habits, to have new little hopes. It is rather hard work: there is now no smooth road into the future: but we go round, or scramble over the obstacles. We’ve got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen.

-          D. H. Lawrence

Lady Chatterley’s Lover

Marred with scars, we keep trying to run away from the person in the mirror. The person who stares back, reminding us of our helplessness. The world is too big and vast. We feel small and humbled at its sight because we know that there is nothing we can possibly do about that. There will be bruises on the walk through life. The scars will be there. They are there to stay.

So what do we do?

We start peeling back the layers that we can see; so that we can reveal the layer within. Who we were before we were torn apart and who we are in the aftermath. All through this there is the presence that doesn’t change.  The kingdom of heaven within. The beauty within. The gold that we are told is hidden beneath the sand. That road is narrow and painful. Sometimes you dig so hard, your body will start to ache. Other times you will scratch the surface so hard that you will start to bleed. But you don’t stop. The pain is so fresh and familiar.

You still hold on to the comments they made when you were little. Somebody said your eyes were too big (compared to whose?). They said your nose was too wide, your teeth not white enough or properly arranged. They laughed at your flat chest when everyone’s was fuller and intimidating. You can’t forget the tout who had the guts to say that you were so ugly just because you refused to stand to listen to their nonsense. Then there is your skin color. You don’t think it’s good enough. You think it is not easy on the eye. And not smooth enough. So you dig in deeper.

They reminded you that you are hard to love. Over and over, with this and that and you started hating love but you cant. You desire it with all of you.

Lucky enough, there is a store at the corner of every street that promises to solve your problems. Albeit give you an image that won’t scare you in the mirror. And maybe, for once, you can love you and people would consider you lovable. So you get a plastic surgery, you bleach your skin, you enhance whatever you think is too small. You work so hard to make that package look pleasant and saleable. You tire for it.

At first you will love the results. You will take selfies. You will celebrate. But not for so long. The person within will creep back up on you. The shadow that you can’t really shake off. It will bother you to love it. Love me now, without the mask. Love its scars and flaws that you hid under the new package. Love the crevices, the shame, the pain, the brokenness that makes you who you are. The ones that remind you of your struggles. The ones that made you so opinionated. The inner person that knows to be real and true no matter what.

Before so long, you will start feeling ‘not good enough’. Again. The loneliness will give you sleepless nights. That tattoo you had will start to look funny. The make-up will not be enough to make up. You will start thinking of Botox and maybe some injections to make your menstrual friends appear smaller. Damn it! Don’t they just love to appear at the wrong time right in the middle of your forehead? Not one or two. Just enough to make every Maasai hawker walking around with those concoctions to stop you in pity.

Well, the struggle never ends. We never seem to have it all. Until we have it all. Because what we are looking for is not out there. IT IS DEEP WITHIN.

Until we are comfortable with the person inside. Until we love ourselves unconditionally and accept the fact that we can only be ourselves, nothing we do on the exterior will help. When you love you, nothing you see, nothing you hear, no worldly standard will make you feel unworthy or not good enough. You will stand proud of your ‘being different’ from their standards.

You will smile inside. You will have a friend to wipe your tears when you are alone. You will find peace within yourself. You become independent and unstoppable.

You will have arrived at yourself and you will realize that it was all you needed. To be at home with yourself. To be at home in yourself.

Storms will come. Oh, and they will! There will be moments of self-doubt. Sometimes the wind will blow so hard and you will be afraid that it might just pull out the nails on the casket that you buried. But even then, you will be still within. Why? Because you know that you will survive. You know what you are made of.

My point?

Love starts from within. You will have to shrink and go inwards first. You will have to be silent to listen to your own heartbeat. You will have to move to the rhythm of your own song because no one will sing it better that you do. Even if it’s bad, you, only you, sing it best. You will have to laugh out loud because there is no energy better than the one that comes out of your soul. You will have to breathe slow on other days and fast on other days. Depending on the rhythm.

Whatever you do, everybody on this planet is a visitor on a journey. Don’t let them define you. With their rules on what makes the cut and what doesn’t. On what is good enough and what isn’t. Craft your own path from within and let your spirit rise. Let the multitude of your sin and imperfection be covered within it. It’s only in love that we find perfection, completion and rest.

Come home to yourself and find the love within and it will show you the way.

                        Love always makes a way.

By Mystic Venus & Betty Cherotich.