A few days ago I woke up to a fat case of self-doubt. What am I doing here and how’s my being here going to benefit anybody or anything – least of all me? My stomach has bound itself up in a warren of worry, and I’ve started waking myself up in the middle of the night to chastise myself that I am not simply satisfied with having a nice roof over my head. That nagging voice in the back of my head wants to know why I can’t just get on with the business of making babies and bouncing off the walls of my own little world? The last thing Africa needs is another white girl.
It takes a lot of strength to stand up to this tiresome voice. It’s even worse than a nagging mother because it doesn’t stop even when you lock yourself in your bedroom.
I try and give it a fair hearing, just in case it has some reasonable points to make, but it’s hardly the voice of reason. The voice of reason is even-handed and listens to what you have to say first. This one just talks over everything.
I’ve started talking back to it. Telling it that to walk through the world with blinkers who be to not walk through the world at all.
And then I console myself with the fact that the stars have lined up to get me this far.
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