I've been a shadow for the most part of my life. A soul less being that merely existed, a carbon copy of everyone else. To be frank and sincere, I haven't been Me. There's a simple reason for that, I haven't been me because I didn't even know me.
I have an interesting background. Most would pin a fancy title to it, 'multicultural' they would call it, making my life sound the harmonious beautiful sort of living that's it never been. I have another word for it: Confusing. I would use stronger, more eloquent terms to express my sheer frustration, but as I'm sure you don't want to read them, and it would hardly do me any good to tell them, this smiley will have to suffice...
. Something tells me i really should have used the 'cursing' one but hey, on with what i was saying.
I was born in the USA and so I am American. A large part of me was brought up American. The freedom and equality for all spirit runs through my veins. However, a great part of me is not American. It's African. My ancestors are Africans and it is in Africa, land of sun and rain (and famine and disease) that I was raised. While the American spirit runs through my veins, African blood courses through my arteries (I'm well aware that the same blood that runs through a person's veins also runs through their arteries; any particular biologists must excuse, I'm trying to sound poetic here).
I'll admit it, at times, it's pretty fun. No American could quite grasp the African culture as i do, and no African could understand the American. If anything, I should count myself lucky. And i do...or, i used to.
It's just so hard to live in a world that will only have one or the other. you're either this or that. African or American. You really can't be both.
So what do you do if you are?
Who are you supposed to be if you're the African child, waking up to the bright shining sun in the savannah on one day (metaphorically speaking) and the next you're the 21st Century girl, proudly spouting radical ideas, unafraid to speak my mind to the world?
A person caught in between two worlds as I am has no choice but to disappear. With no one on either side to understand you, you fade into the background, you lose your voice, you become deaf to your own thoughts and blindly stumble along with the world, whichever direction they may be heading.
I lost myself in the vacuum between two worlds. I forgot who i was, or rather, I didn't bother to remember. I wasn't made to operate that way (if you could even call it 'operating'). I was silently and slowly dying.
Finally, I died.
Don't worry, that's not the end of the story.
In the midst of my 'death' I was strong enough to pick up a few books. I read a couple of great stories. And surprisingly enough, i found some people out there with stories like mine. People stuck between to worlds, like me. But unlike me, they were alive. They were Alive!
They didn't care what the world thought, who could or couldn't understand them. The fact that they would always wear the label 'weird' or 'out of place' in this lifetime. They didn't care! They just lived their lives, happy as ever, glad to be doing what they did best. And the thing was, as they moved on in spite of other people's opinions, sooner or later, the world stopped questioning their odd existence and began appreciating it. Gone was the 'weird' label, now they were the 'great'.
It was enough to resurrect me. To motivate me. To breathe life back into my lifeless, soul less body.
And now, gone is me, the shadow. Here am I, the person. African, American, modern, traditional, outgoing, withdrawn...just me.
If you can't comprehend me, that's fine. Half the time, neither can I.
The only difference is, I don't care.
I hardly have to the time to worry about such trivial matters, when I'm too bust being myself, living my life--and, for the first time in a long time, loving it.