In the shadows

In the shadows,

You can see she is a beautiful woman.
You can tell she is intelligent.
You can hear of her travels.

She has cried buckets and lost a lot of weight.
Her hair has thinned out, it actually doesn't look like it belongs to her. Same to that weave that has over stayed its welcome.It rarely looks like it's in place or that she is aware of it.

She wears clothes she wore while pregnant, yet her child is now four years.
She tells everyone she is battling with baby weight yet her child is now in Standard 6.
She wears the black trouser turned now grey due to the numerous washes and years it has had.
And that torn blouse. You mean she didn't see the hole?

When you talk to her, she will tell you how good the day is. How great her life is. And if by chance a photo in a moment is captured and accentuates a good side, it goes up on every social site- IG, twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp. How will they know I am okay? I must be okay.

Deep down she knows it's all a show. Things are not and have not been well. Actually she is falling apart. When she looks in the mirror, a stranger looks back. A stranger with lines of worry, heart break, disappointment and regret on her face. She knows she ought to do something but seems stuck to take the first step. Of course the thing that worries her the most is "What will people say? ".

And the charade goes on. Sometimes for years. Sometimes the damage is irreversible. Sometimes it ends in death.

The thing is, she never accepted that circumstances changed and that she ought to have changed with them. Like the tree that found itself immersed in water. It had to hold on and shed all its leaves. It adapted to its prevailing conditions.

We need to accept that the permanent thing in life is change and to survive it, we have to change . If you find yourself in a hole the first thing to do is stop digging.

Sojourner.