A Disenchanted Life

I've always lived amongst life's golden children. In South Africa, I find myself in the midst of Africa's elite - kids of every color, but one single creed. Here status buys you respect, and not much else. At one point in my life, I ran with the bulls. I had the house, three car garage, fountains in the backyard, good kinda life. At the time though, I was totally unaware of its significance. I was a child, and my family was falling apart. Money wasn't a priority. Now, six years later, I look back at that time in resentment. Why didn't I appreciate it more? Because this second, I resent all of these poor little rich kids. I used to think that life was harder when you came from nothing. Hood kids, runaways - life's hand-me-downs. But now, I think it's harder to always have to pretend to have when you clearly do not. Behind the wall of my gated community, my so-called "charmed life" I struggle. My family struggles. So much time is spent trying to keep up that we can barely keep our lives together. I ran away to the other side of the world so as not to have to deal with all. When opulence surrounds, its hard to make do with the mediocre. Don't get me wrong - I have been blessed. I have travelled back and forth from the United States to Africa since I was seven years old - something that I know is no small feat. My concern is, when do you the draw the line between making appearances and actually SHOWING UP. I'm exhausted, from watching my family try to copy and paste its persona into this bubble that they call the "Northern Suburbs." WE DON'T FIT.

My brother denies "black music"
Too much untamed
And yet his unchained
Melody
rides around in a death cab.

My sister is the new Hilton.
All she wants is to be like them.
In her desperation to be "like new"
to be "like you"
she forgot she was one of us

Maybe I'm just tired. Maybe I miss New York. Or maybe, just maybe, I'm suddenly forced to confront the fact that in actual fact, we're broke. We don't live the enchanted life of most of our friends. We make do, and try to keep our heads up, in our old t-shirts and too-small-shoes. I don't know when I became afraid to say that I don't have. I just know for the longest time, I have been terrified to say that I am not the princess, in my ivory tower. I am the princess behind an almost-finished wall, in an almost-finished bedroom living an almost-finished life.

AND I AM FUCKING GOOD ENOUGH.