The day was Friday. The month was October in the year 1995. I pondered over my life in the last one year. I could barely recognize myself. So much had changed – my looks, my thoughts, my dreams, the things I had become concerned about. I could not have imagined all the change that had occurred within just one year. Some were obviously subtle and perhaps organic; for the most part, many were drastic. The dividends of my actions lay bare before me like an open book – one that I clearly did not want to read.

Isn’t that the way it works? The laws of denial often birth only guilt, shame and reproach. I wasn’t having any of that anymore. I was done hiding – hiding from me, hiding from others. “Shadows only lurk around in the dark; they disappear in the presence of brilliant light”, I thought to myself. Thing is, at other times, the intensity of light doesn’t even matter, for darkness cannot comprehend light. It is that simple. Whether it be a beam, a ray, a sparkle, a twinkle, or even a flicker, it is important to shine.

Finding the things that will feed the flame and chewing on them was oh so important. Something had to give. It was imperative for me to find me once more. I had found my “flame-feeders”. Then again, perhaps found is the not the word but that I had discovered what had been there all along – the support of a loving family that I had taken for granted and the word of God that is able to make me whole.

As I came to realize that, hope was reborn. I was encouraged to get on with life; with living. I took a bath and decided to walk a considerable distance to buy a loaf of bread. Yes! Bread! I had a lot of goals to accomplish, but I had to break them down into little achievable and less frightening steps. Taking a 600 metres walk to buy an item that I did not need at the time was my way of facing the shame and humiliation that had characterized my life in the past one year. I needed to take a first step. I bumped into naysayers and nags; ran into gossips and many of those who had wagged their chins at me like a dog wags its tail. I stood strong; I stood tall. I did not have it all, but some of my confidence was restored. I was on my yellow brick road; on my long route to healing and wholesomeness.

Summarily, I was reborn.