Peace

My peace.

I build walls so delicately,

To keep the peace inside. 

Like a fortress to my world, 

I have hand woven an escape,

My space. 

I've taught myself how to be invisible, 

To keep my mouth shut. 

I've taught my heart to forget,

To forget the things that upset me,

The things I long for but cannot control. 

Then Peace.

Surrounded by the walls I built so delicately, 

Invisible, 

Silent, 

Forgotten,

The fortress in my world,

My hand woven escape. 

The Space. 

xoxo

Chido Dziva Chikwari 

This piece was inspired by how I deal with conflict and the things that upset me. 

1) Silence. When something really upsets me and I don't know what to do with my hurt or anger the place I always fall to is within. I'm quiet and more often than not this brings me peace. An inner peace and also an external peace where a situation that could have blown up simply diffuses itself. 

2) Remove that thing from my space and then work at forgetting. I create some distance. This is a solution that I know will not bring me healing but it has given me peace. I work hard to remove those emotional triggers that drain my energy and which in many instances I have no power to control. I block them out and build subtle walls around me to keep them out and to protect my space. 

I work so hard for my peace. The two mechanisms I've listed are by no means solutions to the internal and external conflicts I've faced but sometimes when it's quiet (peaceful) it also gives me room to work through my heart and figure things out. I like my peace. 

2 Thessalonians 3:16

Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times and in every way.

Finding Our Feet

Everyone talks about your teens and how that is a confusing and difficult time.

But no one tells you about the twenties,

When you’re finding your feet!

Adulting…

By 25 you are done with school (hopefully)…

Or still stuck in school trying to ‘further your education’.

You’re not a child anymore but may still be in school,

Looking to mom and dad for support, financial support!

But also dying to stand on your own feet.

They also want you to!

If you’re done with school you’re working your first real job (hopefully)…

Or still looking for a job and trying to start paying your way.

Feeling inadequate when you get those rejection letters!

It’s amazing how many they can be.

You had dreams of how by 25 you’d have your own car,

Slaying at being a career man/woman,

Staying in your own apartment and making your own way.

But sometimes it doesn’t work like that.

Sometimes you’re still staying with the parents

Or if you’re lucky getting rent money from them.

You don’t want this.

If you are working at 25 it may not be that ideal job you always dreamed of,

And you’re seeing it as a stepping stone.

Working so hard for recognition,

Doing the donkey work and putting in the hours.

Frustrated

But…

Trying to make it work!

If you’re in a relationship (One of the lucky ones),

You’re thinking is he/she the one?

Am I ready to settle down?

Feeling like now is not the time for time wasters.

Trying to make it work!

If you’re not in a relationship…

Presumably you start to feel that apparent biological clock ticking,

Or you’re just counting the years.

When is Prince Charming going to show up?

And of course the Aunties and Grandmothers keep asking,

When are you going to introduce us to your man?

If you’re searching it may be that you’re feeling there isn’t much out there,

Lonely,

Seeking companionship.

It is nature’s way I’m told.  

You’re stuck in the middle.

Not a child anymore but not quite feeling like an adult.

You’re working at it.

Stuck in the middle.

You’re finding your feet.

Trying to make it work!

Adulting…

xoxo

Chido Dziva Chikwari

This piece was inspired by a conversation with one of my cousins who actually said to me, “This quarter life crisis just won't end. I still don't know what I am doing with my life.” I immediately got what he was saying and in a way it really tied together so many conversations I had been having with my friends during the past few weeks. Most of them are 25 like myself and while we may have a general direction for our lives we’re still finding our feet and trying to make it. We are the lucky ones. Some of us are still trying to figure out exactly where we are going, our ideals have been mish-mashed by ‘life’ and now what we have are mostly just questions, “Where is my life going?”

Career and Finances

At 25 you are right at the start, if you have started. For some of us we are still in the process of getting our masters degrees and for others we have just completed them or didn’t do the masters thing and started working/looking for work straight after the first degree. Some of us may even be sitting at home looking for these opportunities. We are entry level and maybe not even in the field we desire. Undoubtedly we are earning way less than we would hope for. We are working hard but aren’t quite there right now. It’s frustrating. It’s frustrating because even though we would like to now be standing on our own two feet a lot of us are still looking to the bank of mom and dad to sometimes step in and help us out. We don’t like this. We are ambitious. We want to do better. We know our potential and right now are still seeking for those opportunities to come to us. For most of us we had a plan and are feeling the pressure of maybe not achieving what we set out to achieve by 30. We are hungry.

Love and Relationships

I speak from the girl’s perspective so yes we are 25. We have reached that age where some of us are getting married, great! We have also reached the stage where some of us are in serious long standing relationships where the question that hovers over us day in and day out is so what next? And for some of us, despite this, we just aren’t ready to take the plunge. We may still be questioning if settling down right now is a good idea. If he/she is the one. We may also be questioning the finances, paying lobola, sustaining a family. We have also reached that stage where some of us are very single and those hama who like to push are pushing. Asking Questions. Some of us may even be pushing ourselves. We had ideals of being settled down and married by 27 but 26 is here and there isn’t even a single suitor in sight.  We have also reached that age where we realize that love and romance aren’t what we have always pictured as we were growing up. Most of us have been hurt and heartbroken. We are healing and trying to heal. We are seeking companionship while also trying to build our lives (see career above). We are finding ourselves; our grown up selves. We are trying to juggle romance and reality. Maybe the idea I had in mind about my prince charming just isn’t realistic? We are questioning and we are growing all at the same time.

We are quite literally finding our feet and learning to/trying to adult. It’s a whole new world. An entirely new ball game. It’s different to anything we have every experienced and it is also quite REAL. All of a sudden we aren’t sheltered from the harshness of ‘life’. It’s tough and it’s also a narration that we previously we haven’t heard much of. We’re still finding our feet.

Distant Places

I have traveled to distant places,

Untouched to my world and my being.

  It was in those places that I saw more,

More of who I am and more of who I am not,

More of where I have come from and more of what I know.

It was in these distant places that I saw clearer my world and my being.

It was as if being away opened my eyes.

I have traveled to distant places.

 And it was there where I learnt more,

More about my world and more about my being.

xoxo

Chido Dziva Chikwari

This post was inspired by a recent vacation and while it was inspired by physically being somewhere else I have drawn a little more from it than that. My family and I traveled to the USA and spent 3 amazing weeks there. We went to 5 States and literally saw as much as was possible for us given the time. It was an amazing experience. Although we have traveled to many other places together as a family and separately for most of us this was the first trip to the US. It was an entirely new experience and for me personally it was unlike any of the other countries and continents I had been to before. We were awestruck by the massive infrastructure, the roads and the buildings. We were amused by the different accents and names for stuff and inspired by the  numerous varieties of food. It was a lot!

However, being there also made clearer to me a lot about home, Zimbabwe, about myself and the things that both define and matter to me. This was not so much a new lesson but a lesson reinforced. I have never felt more Zimbabwean than I did 7 years ago when left my beloved home and family for University in the UK. Before that I had never wanted for a Zimbabwe Flag or harbored cravings for a plate of sadza with beef and vegetable stew. I had never yearned to speak nor hear my mother tongue, Shona, spoken. It was there, away from home, that I for the first time truly ‘felt’ Zimbabwean. It was there that I acknowledged more than ever before where I came from and had to ascertain that I was Chido. It was then, outside of my comfort zone, that I firmly defined for myself who I was and what believed in.

There is a quote by Clint Borgen which says, “When overseas you learn more about your own country, than you do the place you're visiting.” Just like that university experience this trip illuminated a lot of things about my country Zimbabwe and my country as in Chido. It showed me where Zimbabwe could be; that we have the potential to also ‘be’ great like this. That we at present fell so far short of what was normal for others, be it roadwork or infrastructure. That while others, who were already so far ahead of us, where busy building and developing we for decades had stagnated. While I already knew this, as do so many other Zimbabweans at home and abroad do too, it was a different thing to actually see it. It was heart-breaking to see that while we appeared to be different we were not that different. For me personally it reminded me of the things I am passionate about. About why I came back home. In that distant place I was reminded of ‘the dream’ and why it was/is so important to me. In that place that I did not know and had never been before I found a big part of myself again. 

The moral of this blog post and I hope you can see it as well is this - To know something else can help you understand in different ways what you have always known. To see an alternate reality can help you see better or understand a current or past reality. Go to Distant Places: Be it Physically, Emotionally or Spiritually. Explore those untouched worlds. It may be in those places that you find yourself.  This has certainly been my experience.

Keep Shining!