Turning Table

Part 108

*** It runs in the Family ***

🌹Nompumelelo🌹

I cried so much till I could not cry anymore, the strong fearless girl I knew I was, was gone all I was left with was an empty shell, I had no fight in me no strength and I have given up hope of finding myself,

All along in my meltdown Veli held me and hushed me in her arms,  strange enough her arms gave me that warmness, that feeling of hope that foreign feeling of home I just did not know how to hide anymore or did not have to, not to pretend anymore,

When all emotions settled down I laid on my bed looking down, the shame of showing my emotions, feeling vulnerable took over me, making me wish I was all alone
Me: I'm sorry about that " I said to her
Her:don't do that "
I slowly looked at her
Her: act as if you ok, when you know you are not!"
Me: I will be fine "
Her: Mpume!...My experience of being human is that it's messy and difficult angazike if wena you are an alien?"
I side smile and looked at her
Her: you know mom used to say that, There's no shame in showing your tears. So why hide a part of you that actually makes you stronger? Why hide your tears? It takes a lot of courage to show your pain and your vulnerability. But just as sure as the morning, you'll emerge from it tougher and better. So I encourage you to move past these stereotypes and notions of I'm strong and I don't break... Bullshit and let yourself face the music of life and dance with your tears "

Me:funny because I thought my tears has long dried out..."
She just looked at me
Me: a lot has happened in my life Veli...I don't even know who I am anymore? "
Her: You’re going through a transitional stage in your life, sometimes that can happen without even knowing it...especially when you had numerous traumatic experiences that you have decided to brush off and not face or find self-healing,  You might see yourself as a stranger because something isn’t aligned. Keep moving forward, you’ll get reconnected soon enough, Keep walking until the winds that torment your mind cease. Keep growing until the mess that has consumed your soul blossoms into the unkempt garden that it was destined to become.

Just keep going, because I promise you that one day you will wake up and all you will feel for yourself will be an intense fulfillment, I promise you that the road to contentment is  always supposed to be riddled with uncertainty"
Me: keep going? where do I go now? where do I start? the woman that raised me hates me, wish death upon me, I almost killed the only man I ever love because of my stupidity, I have four children that I never mothered, I sit on the sidelines in the shadows and look at them being raised by other women, I wish I was never born...because life never loved me,  from the date I took my first breath, I was kidnapped by the same women who killed my father, I have no identity... Or what so ever, and throughout my life, I have been so desperate in finding me that I ended up destroying the only reflection I ever had of me..."
She just looked at me and did not respond as my tears ran down my face like a waterfall

Me: everything is going wrong in my life, I have suffered more pain than happiness,  I  have physical ailments, I'm deeply distressed and my life seems to be going nowhere.  I Look at my share troubled and I begin to wonder, what did I do to deserve this?  Is it karma? Is God mad at me? Am I cursed? "
Her: God molded you and put you inside your mother's womb,  before we start pointing a finger at him let's look at the egg and seed that was infused to make you "
Me: uuuuh "
Her: I believe some of us are destined for certain life paths regardless... I  understand the irrational anger you feel towards people because I have felt it!  You want to open up and let people into your head and heart, but you decide it is unfair towards them to reveal those dark, undesirable places, you became bitter about the fact that they will never understand what you went through because it did not happen to them. Most likely, this bitterness triggered a wave of guilt, resentment, and anger that threatened to drown you, because, in a way, you indirectly wished that kind of pain on someone else, just so you could feel less lonely.

I understand that it is all very exhausting. I am familiar with the threat you feel when the noise of your overpowering emotions, starts bouncing around in your head, becomes too loud. I know that you want to turn it all off and become numb."
I looked at her...
Her: I have six failed suicide attempts because at some point in my life I wish I was never born at all too"
She stood up and wiped her tears
Her:Mpume I know your pain and I feel it and trust me when I say, there nothing more vexatious in life than repeating history" she faked a laugh
Me: " so it's a Msimango thing?" I said looking at
Her: sithi isintu amacala abazali awela ezinganeni...looks like you and I are paying the price"

I looked at her and felt the sadness in her voice, she sounded different now, broken shattered, it's like my tears took her to a dark realm only she and I existed.

Her:for a long time I  always wondered how everyone on my mother's side and our father's side of the family didn’t get along. How every gathering turned into an argument and fistfight... the Msimango family and the Ncube family showed more hate and Tension to one another and that in the long run, it became a more dangerous force than any feud known to man...

Even though I was young I witnessed How jealousy and resentment ran rampant amongst the different age groups in our family. It wasn’t until I was thirteen few days before my mother died the first year in high school that I realized that both families had similar issues. On the train ride from school, I asked my mother why she no longer visit her parent's house

She responded and said "We all have two parents, whether they are around or not, their crap becomes our crap until we stop and say NO...Promise me you will fight this curse... " By then I did not know what she was talking about but I promised her, it was only after she died that I realized that The Ncube and Msimango family were animals.

When our mother died I was left in the care of my uncle our father's little brother, he was a few years older than me so I called him Bhuti...Bhuti Musa..."

She cried and roughly wiped away her tears,
" I told my grandmother from my mother's side when it first started ...that uncle is hurting me, and I want to come back to Lundi to live with them, she said, she does not have money to feed another mouth and I must do what Musa wants to survive... I was made wife to my uncle at the age of thirteen, to give him sex in exchange for a plate of food, clothes on my back, and shelter... "
I held my mouth in shock

Her: our mother knew this was going to happen, our existence, how we were conceived it was an act of shame and disgust! so you say you are cursed...you are right you are... It creeps into the tiny door it finds.  It takes root.  Then it starts to disintegrate generation after generation.  It deteriorates your advancement, your happiness, and long before you know it, your entire future.  It’s happening to you… it happened to your mother… and grandmother and great-grandmother and as far as we can go.  It latches on your name.  And we can’t neglect its potency.  It won’t stop until it finds the next victim.

I look into Nyembezi's eyes every day and cry because she is  the result of this curse, conceived by the same
Maternal and Paternal blood that runs in our veins,  I ask my self is she next in the cycle?"
Me: No not my kids?"
She turned around and looked at me with her face red and wet with tears, I'm a crying mass my self realizing my origin and reality of being a Msimangu woman.

The door swung open and my mother walked in she looked at Veli and back at me,
She held her chest and stepped back...

"ooh, Nkosi Yami!" She said as tears ran down her face.