RIGHT FROM THE START
THE EARLY MAKINGS OF ME
Circa 1996 as a flower girl at a family friend’s wedding after I got given the bridal bouquet for losing mine to a younger flower girl who lost hers and threw a tantrum. I wish I’d known then that, this would be a recurring testament of my life; that things that were stolen from me would abundantly return in due course.
If I could describe my early life in a complete sentence, it would be “a series case of unfortunate events”, because just like the movie, my beginnings were rough, REALLY ROUGH, the kind that is depicted in “rags to riches” movies and leaves you wondering how, anybody could survive such predicaments. Except, there aren’t monetary riches here (yet), just a whole heap of experience, buckets of sarcasm and skills in the school of life. Although my story isn’t an anomaly, it’s unique to me for nobody has ever lived as me nor will anybody ever will so I own it, all of it.
The roughness entails a childhood filled with an excessive exposure to the realities of life which included, knowing that my mother, the only parent I knew would die at any given moment and I was being prepared for it through regular reminders of her plans for my next steps. This meant that, I knew about death before I had any capacity to understand its’ gravitas. I also felt the pain of betrayal created through, the remanent shards of my parents failed marriage that was never laid to rest due to the physical resemblance I share with my father.
My mother’s imminent death at aged 5, triggered a barrage of excessive moves from living with my godmother to then, migrating to New Zealand to be with my father, a parent who was unable to disassociate my likeliness to my mother from his daughter. This produced years of abuse.
By aged 12, I’d shed my self-assured and vibrant nature and morphed into an uncomfortably shy and reserved mute who regularly relied heavily on her sister as a mouthpiece to avoid not being seen and therefore, not living up to peoples expectations of me. This not only was a form of compliance to the abuse (to evade more harm), it also served as a coping mechanism to shield my broken spirit from the chaos of a household filled with unrelenting fear and uncertainty.
I completely shutdown internally, blanketing myself in silence to help tune out the noise and fear that, I could never say anything right as my words would easily be misconstrued as the perfect evidence for more abuse. The gig was, I was guilty no matter what because unbeknownst to me at the time, my resemblance to my mother was my real crime.
I lost myself to trauma which resulted in being constantly on edge, fearful and distrusting of adults, in particular men of which I would not know its full implications until years to come in my early twenties. Although the silence was a mode of survival, it also served as a desperate plea for help, to be seen, understood, loved and protected.
The silence also gave many gifts all of which stemmed from, the countless hours I spent observing my environment. Through it, I learnt to read people and situations to see things and people as they really are, beneath the facades and tales that is often crafted to divert from frightening truths. This meant that, I became good at quickly discerning who was for me and who wasn’t and gravitated towards those who were with full confidence where my intuition was often rewarded with acceptance and love without me having to utter a word. Unbeknownst to them (as I was too afraid to speak of the torments until one day, I’d had enough so I did), they also provided a refuge to rest for my next hurdles.
This one gift in particular, has served me in countless ways from, being attentive and empathetic to the pain of others to, evading the many dramas that is often associated with finding out peoples “true colours” too late that is sometimes, the byproduct of when we ignore or are unable to hear our gut instincts.
Overtime, this well-trained confidence in myself has enabled me to learn to keep choosing my inner still voice in deciding what is best for me over outside noise (irrespective of how loud and well-intended they may be). This means that, I live with very few regrets.
Moments of joy at Mission Bay, Auckland. Circa.1997
These experiences (and more many alike), nurtured a deep need for self-advocacy and to champion the same for others who for whatever reason, are unable to self-advocate or simply need to be believed by someone taking a stand with them. Hence, my friends and I occasionally joke that I probably should’ve been a lawyer.
It also ignited a passion to create safe spaces both within myself and externally for people (including myself) to exist, unpack and reclaim their truest selves.
Most of all, it fuelled the desire and audacity to reclaim what was lost through living the rest of my life in the fullness of joy by being my best and most authentic self simply because, I deserve it. After all, I did not fight so hard to survive EVERYTHING that could’ve and probably should've obliterated me to settle for mediocrity in anything!