Growing Pains

I’ve been meaning to type this post out for a while now

Having just completed my final exams as an undergraduate, I think now would be a great time to share and re-cap on my growth ever since I set foot on the lawns of The University of The Witwatersrand.

2014-2016

These three years have shaped who I am immensely and to a certain extent I owe it to life at a tertiary institution. Let me tell you something about UNIVERSITY , it tests you on everything. While you’re there it feels like it’s just academics but believe me , at some point I came to realise that it really wasn’t.

We’ll start in first year, 2014, when I was lost literally and figuratively. I never attended my lectures on the first day because I couldn’t find the lecture venue, what's more ,it was just my luck that the three lectures that I had scheduled for that Monday were all in the same venue (SH6 I’ll never forget). I also didn’t really know a lot of people at that point. I was one of less than 10 from my high school at Wits (also just my luck that we were all in different faculties), while everyone else seemed to have moved over from high school with their friends. I’ll spare everyone the boring details but in all honesty, I was lonely in my first year. This was weird for me considering that I had it all planned out in my head that "I’m confident and I’m awesome so I’ll just get to Wits and I’ll make a lot of cool friends and it will all be okay". But it wasn’t okay

Firstly , when you get to university the uniformity of school falls away and you can actually feel the distinction between you and Peter next to you , so when you’re unsure of who you are and your capabilities, my friend, you become prey. This was me.

At this point , I was competing with a thousand other students , for what? I cannot tell you up to this day. I was unsure of myself and my purpose. Varsity became an intimidating space, everybody was smart – using words I had never heard of in my entire existence. I tried to keep up, with the academic jargon, the trends, the Kardashians, the activities – everything. Academia was heavy but I passed though and that was all that mattered (at that point).

In other words, please start your tertiary life, or any other new beginning in your life properly, don’t get lost.

Second year.

I came back with a new plan of action and a sense of positivity, I mean, for a whole year I was reminded of how many people drop out and - “look to your left, look to your right – two of you won’t be here next year”. For me this was no problem because I sat alone in class anyway. I had a good group of friends now (we’re still friends by the way) and I cut my hair because a girl who cuts their hair is about to change their life for the better, right? Wrong, because my life took a left and a relationship ended. I told myself that I was okay, and these things happen , you just need to get on with your life.

That wasn’t a good idea. In fact, it was like drinking coke to soothe your burning tongue when eating spicy food.

After first semester with suppressed feelings, triple major and a blog on the side. , loneliness and old memories of spending that time of the year with my granny crept up, there were also other events which I cannot share here ( because I’m ‘mysterious’). I cracked for the first time. I also started isolating myself .Ironically I found myself constantly sitting outside the same venue I couldn’t find in first year – Senate House 6. In my spare time I sat outside the venue on what I’ll just call a storage space. It was here that I actually started trying to find myself , the wi-fi was great so I just sat there in my free time listening to new music, downloading pictures and reading- so much reading.

A side note though, I don’t mean that you will find yourself in a location you couldn’t previously find or outside Senate House 6 (that space is closed anyhow). Spending time there meant speaking to strangers and sharing experiences, speaking to some of the ground staff who encouraged me to keep going no matter what- because I was representing them as their child too. It also meant re-directing other lost people to SHB5 which was one floor down and “realizing things” like Kylie Jenner in 2016. coming to the realization through writing, reading and speaking. Deep down, I was still hurting because I never dealt with a lot of my feelings. I cracked and academics put pressure on me , but I didn’t break and I still passed right? (which at the end of the day was still all that mattered to me).

2016 (I know a lot of people just silently shook their heads or maybe just the one person reading this) So let’s not jump into it right now because I forgot to mention #feesMustfall2015. It’s important that I bring this up because this was a turning point. The movement changed my life.

Not necessarily the movement but the people I met and the person I became during the protests. At first, I was just a bystander, I just observed, because I thought I couldn’t relate. I was also alone, again. This was until the friday when the workers downed tools and joined in. I saw the same people who had only been kind to me when doing a job that would make any one of us unhappy, pause their lives and possibly the lives of their families to take part in something that they could’ve simply overlooked. I remembered how on three separate occasions while at Wits I had been referred to by these very individuals as their child, and just like that, I learned something about holding hands and showing solidarity.

In those moments I stopped competing , I stopped trying to keep up, I started understanding this politics I had been learning about for two years. My subjects were no longer just subjects- they came to life through the people I spoke to, laughed with, sang with and cried with for those two and a half weeks. They showed me a different side to consciousness, made me question my identity, made me question my actual purpose, why I perceived the world the way I did, why I liked the things I did , what I believed in. Long story short, the road to understanding Kayleen manifested during the protests, a time of struggle for students across the nation and a time of struggle for me as an individual.

When I actually think about it I realize that the road to understanding Kayleen actually started in first year when I didn’t know that I was actually competing with myself and then again when I cracked for the first time because I thought 'love' wasn’t on my cards , and when I finally broke down in this year , coming face to face with depression because of years and years of suppressed feelings. I lost my uncle in this year, the only father figure I'd known and when I thought I’d sweep this one under the carpet too because ‘these things happen you know’ , the universe laughed and this time around I broke. I should’ve also expected the biggest “wooooh shem!” that the universe served me with when I finally almost came face to face with failure , IMAGINE in my final year the universe decides to pull this stunt, I mean Hello?? I’m trying to get out of varsity because it’s destroying my life. I even lost interest in furthering my studies. May I add that the reason I came to Wits was for the honours programme.

But you see,it wasn’t varsity that was the problem.For the longest time all that mattered was that I passed. I blamed so many things that I went through on my academics, on the other students, on lecturers, on Wits. Not for one moment did I think that the blame game I kept playing was a cover-up for conversations I meant to have with myself. During times of inner turmoil, my academics slacked, but not once did I turn around and say perhaps I am falling academically because I’m not taking care of myself mentally, or because I was not okay ,and this was all because I was still “passing right? And that’s all that mattered” Wrong again!

#FeesMustFall returned and saved me academically to a certain extent, it also gave me the opportunity to not only work through my feelings, but also feel what I needed to feel. In that time, after scrapping the idea of furthering my studies, Wits extended the application period.

I can’t say that I’ll be this lucky again. But if anything, tertiary taught me that you have to take care of yourself. Some people lose themselves in varsity and fall off, some of us are given the opportunity to fall and find ourselves in varsity. My mental health is so much more important to me now, but I’d prefer if the person reading this actually took care of their mental space and not have to struggle with severe depression before realising how important mental health is. I’d also prefer if there were more positive conversations circulating concerning mental health . It was amongst other people that I started looking for myself, but it was because of me that I am now on the path of self-love.

Self-love is daily soul food, it’s not as easy as quotes or hash tags make it seem. You have to let yourself feel the things that you need to feel as they happen -not days ,weeks, months or years after they happen. We need to learn how to practice mindfulness so that we can think better about ourselves and the situations we are in and actually learn to be present and not just act as if we are.

In 2016 I introduced you to some individuals and one group. These creatives have kept me going., they helped me develop positivity in my own life through what they do.There’s something amazing about being able to share, there’s something warm about solidarity. I suggest that you speak to yourself , and if you are not ready to speak to yourself then my door is open and you can speak to me in the meantime.

May I also just add that 2016 allowed me to break down one last time a couple of weeks ago in public, when I got the call that I’ve been offered a space to go forth and do my Honours in Journalism at the very University that I thought destroyed my life, but also initially enrolled at for this very programme. The Universe, God, taught me many lessons during undergrad , but also made me realise that if something is meant for you it will materialize.

I am thankful and in this moment extremely happy.

#growingpains #DiarySession #university #life #hardship #perseverence #mentalhealth #depression #Selflove