I haven’t been able to say these words for the past nine years – this sounds like a very long time, but it certainly doesn’t feel like it…
But then again, it does feel like it. Truth is I’ve been living such a paradoxical experience 🙃
Nine years ago I had a life-changing event that I’ve been trying to understand, accept and embrace. This is the same experience I discuss in My Testimony – if you haven’t yet, do have a read so everything that follows this will make perfect sense 👌🏾
Alright, fast-forward to nine years later and my mind and body finally don’t feel foreign to me. I’ve been perplexed by the idea that an accident that occurred in less than 10minutes has the power to effect the rest of my life 🤯
As a result of the injuries I suffered from the accident, there are a number of things I haven’t been able to do like before. This is an extensive list, but the three things that I really missed doing is singing, dancing and drawing 🎭
Singing
Growing up, I always wanted to be a Singing Fashion Designer. My childhood friends and I actually used to practice both together…
On certain days we held rehearsals for our girl-group called the Colour Stars – where my stage name was Baby Blue (my favourite colour, of course) and we wrote songs and made up their choreographies 👯♀️
And on other days, we’d gather our old clothes together and sew alterations to them that made them look brand new and model them Fashion Parade style on the streets of eSikhawini Township (North of KwaZulu-Natal) 👠
Dancing
As a result of my love for music, dancing along to it makes perfect sense, right? Thank goodness I have rhythm – meaning I could actually do so with confidence 💃🏾
My earliest dancing memories was with the Colour Stars, and the later in my teenage years I was part of a Hip Hop dance group at the Teenager’s Ministry at church 👊🏾
Drawing
I’ve always enjoyed drawing, but have always been highly critical of my work. My earliest memory of this was in 1999 when my Grade R class and I had to draw pictures of ourselves to be printed onto our T-shirts 🎨
The criticism came in when this was turned into a competition – where the best picture was to be used as our teacher’s picture (S/O to Ms Topan 😘)…
This love of mine was a livened when I was preparing for my application for the National School of Arts, where I auditioned for both Music and Art. I was accepted for the latter and haven’t looked back from there 👩🏾🎨
You know before the accident I believed that we HAVE to pick and pursue only one of our gifts/talents. After my experience of not being able to practice even one of them I am now convinced that we shouldn’t limit ourselves to only one experience of life ❤️🔥
This also reminds me of this potent Bible scripture in the Parable of the Three Servants:
Even though I am not the exact same person I was before the accident – and probably never will be – I feel closer than ever before to being my true self 🥰
Not being able to do the things I could do before warped my self-image and belief, but this has now been restored – thank God 🙌🏾
Yours – but mine first,
Aphsie ♡
P.S. Thanks for having a read & I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this topic below…