Who Am I?
For many years I’ve been struggling with this question. To be completely honest I still am. All I know is that I’ve been questioning and doubting myself for many years now. A few months ago I started asking family members specific questions about who we are, where we come from and our geneology. Some of them gave answers and some not. All of it was so vague.
It was as if I asked the wrong questions and then there’s also the question of why now? Why do you want to know or what happened that your so curious all of a sudden. Did something happen? I listened to their questions and that in itself made me want to dig even more and deeper. Why not now? And, why shouldn’t I ask questions?
Don’t I have the right to ask these simple questions. Yes, I know what my name is, where I was born. Who my parents and rest of my family is but there’s still a massive gap that needs to be filled. And, I want and need answers. I need to know why I’m so different from the rest of my family.
You see, a few months ago I finally realized just how different from the rest of my family I am. Don’t get me wrong, I just want to know. I want to know why I’m struggling with the most basic things that seems to come naturally to them. Why is my interests, hobbies and…well just everything about me seem so complicated.
They say I’m wired differently but when I ask they can’t answer me or maybe they don’t think that I’ll be able to handle the truth. As far as I remember, I’m aneamic, have learning difficulties and slow in understanding certain things. I have thyroid and weight problems all of my life and I was told that it would change when I got older. Older when? When will all of it end?
I’m way over fifty and I’m still sitting with the same health issues. I’m still under weight for my age according to doctors that have been treating and monitoring my so-called abnormal conditions. When exactly will there be answers for all the questions that keeps on popping up.
This is the kind of frustrations that I’ve been sitting with all my life or at least until now. Look, I get it, I really get it. For once I would just like a straight answer to all my questions.
I’m an introvert and for some reason people have this idea that I’m an extravert, which of course I am not. They saw how I thrive at social events and in sales and automatically assume that. What they can’t understand is that, it is exhausting for me even just to talk in front of people.
I am able to do and talk around people, colleagues because of the environment that I’m in, because I need to provide for myself and family. Not because that is who I am. As an introvert it is exhausting for me to put myself out there. The mere fact that I’m writing is also exhausting, but I’m still doing it. At least this way I don’t have to talk a lot.
I am so grateful that my daughter suggested this method of communication because it has opened up so many avenues where I can still communicate, thrive and earn a living. I’m not keen on being seen but, yes I’m here now and I don’t have the extra stress of worrying about traveling from one place to the next.
Anyhow, this is just me venting away for a little bit.
Who I was before the death of my son and four year old granddaughter.
Here are some things and interest you don’t know:
I will start with my late teens. I was seventeen years old when I started working. A few months after that I left home due to a stupid argument. Things were said and I had enough. I didn’t move that far from home and my gran phoned every morning and sent my lunch with a family member because we worked together.
On weekends I still went to church and Sundays at the beach where I helped and did First and Boogie-boarding usually happened after our shifts was finished. That is something I miss doing. As you already noticed, I love nature and love hiking. We used to do a lot of that early hours on a Sunday morning. We’d leave the Saturday evening, sleep in one of the caves and start heading down just before sunrise. Then head back to the Clubhouse,changed and kayaked to the biggest rock where we caught our fish for the breakfast and whatever was left over had it for lunch.
Afterwards, we would be back on duty serving the community and families streaming in from all over and make sure that everything was safe, waterwise. Luckily there was never any shark incidents back then. That is what my life was like. Oh, I completely forgot about my dancing career that ended with a back injury during a very important session. I couldn’t participate because my dance partner dropped me during one of sessions. I was told that I would not be able to be ready by the scheduled date of the competition. I could have klapped that guy for being so clumsy.
Anyhow, I suppose it serves me right because I used to run away to practise in secret because I was forbidden to take part in any dancing. My grandma was very strict when it came to that. But, as most kids are, I continued after recovering without anyone’s knowledge and excelled in it. I even taught most of my male cousins how to dance.
Moving forward
I fell pregnant which back then was a great disappointment to my family and they wanted me to get married, which I point blank refused. I never had any intention of getting married to anyone. That was something I spoke over myself when I was still in Primary school. All I wanted was two kids and that’s it. Obviously that was a big shame on the family but that was me. I had my reasons and I saw what marriage was like for a lot of the woman in my family. I just didn’t want the same thing to happen to me.
However, I got quite a few marriage proposals which I declined with good reasons. I just wasn’t interested. I got married a month before my 30th birthday and it lasted for seventeen years, and I’m including broken services. I’m sure you all understand what that means. He taught me a lot of things and vice versa. It ended horribly but I’m sure he’s happier now and wished him the best.
Now, in between all of that… in 2008 I joined a casting agency but sadly didn’t get any shoots. In 2009, I received an message from my agent to check my availability for the upcoming months. This was my very first one and up until today I still regret going there all dressed up. They needed as many people as possible and asked everyone if they had friends who would be interested in earning something for the day. Obviously, I took my son with me that day. For the first few hours it was fun but running on heels and in formal clothing was exhausting and not fun at all.
I regretted saying yes but we had to stay there until everything was finished. WE were exhausted. That was it for me, I knew that I didn’t like anything about that kind of life. A few months after that I found out that it was for the 2010 World Cup and I thought okay, that was cool. So, I did my part.
After that, nothing happened. Just silence, and then in 2012 they asked me to come in for an updated photo shoot. I explained to them that I looked like crap and had no intention of fixing my hair because I just got back from the beach and was heading to town with a friend. They sent me the location and my friend dropped me because he had things to sort out while I was busy.
I got there and they were happy to see me and that confused me a bit because I only had that one shoot two years prior to that. Anyhow, Susan (not real name) asked me why I didn’t come for an update in 2011. After she finished she explained how having a natural look impacts the amount of work you get. Turns out being authentic in all aspects helps in getting more work. So, you can just imagine how good that made me feel.
Gees, the shlep of getting all dressed up for nothing and doing your hair according to how you think they want it is all jus t lies we tell ourselves. It’s amazing to think that my hair played such a big role in getting so many shoots. I must admit it was a relief to find out that i would never have to worry about hair issues. I was so busy after that as a background extra and it was fun but also exhausting.
I know for some you it might sound like I am ungrateful but I’m not. I already had two jobs at that time, going through my divorce and trying to heal and cope at the same time while my life was falling apart. But, it actually saved me from going insane because I was always busy and on the go. It was an eye opener for me to see how God opened doors for me while I was going through a very rough patch. Or maybe it wasn’t God. I don’t know. I’m still figuring things out, even now.
But it kept me sane and for awhile free from unwanted relationships. I’ll tell you some more about that part of my life at a later date.
Here are some old pictures of certain shoots that was taken by other background extras. Oh, I WAS JUST a BACKGROUND extra. Before you guys start thinking that I should follow a career like this. That is just MADNESS.
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