Drifting Within

By Rehema

Over time, I have learned one thing about power and control. It is with the topmost brick.

“When you start having them in layers, you understand every shape and form of each brick to the extent of identifying the faulty ones just by a glance.”

These words from a previous conversation with Nicu, in a totally different context, skitter around at the edge of my consciousness, maybe not for their depth but just for their literal meaning. And as I try to type this message in my email, the words come out with grammatical bloopers mainly because I want to find an equivalence between them in writing, so I backspace, delete, until it seems to render the real impression of my mood. Actually, it’s something simple that I have to write, and as soon as I manage to reach midway, I pause. The pause takes on the size of immortality. Perhaps I am agonizing over the difficulty of completing it because somehow, to put an end to it, would mean to abandon hope. It would mean that I intentionally let an opportunity slide, and now, before I click send, I am forced to orbit the edge of this decision. I pick at its crux and peripheries, but still it throbs, infecting any semblance of a meaningful judgment.

But this is the thing that happens when you have to make a choice between two similar yet different alternatives. And as it is, every decision made is an investment that harbors some kind of risk, and there is an error whose degree we cannot imagine. Unfortunately, clicking send is the only way because my soul behoves me to and my mind and heart are all in sync. However, when I tap send, the calmness that I thought would find me was not necessarily great or savage, but the suffering that ensued had undertones of terror so far surpassing what I had earlier envisioned, and for a moment, my entire world becomes enmeshed with the silence of nothingness up until my phone chimes with a message from Jess. She asks how the interview went, and I tell her that I was taken, but I turned it down, and as if that does not suffice, she probes why, and I tell her that there was something off about the job; it just didn’t feel right.

I cannot tell how she read my text. Maybe she read it as humorous, melancholic, laughable, or quixotic; how you look at it, dear reader, depends on how you internalize it, because in the end it will unnerve you nonetheless, pulling you slowly until you are left with nothing but the ghosts of the words you have just read. Look, it irks me too, and yes, I’ve been here long enough to affirm that acceptance on this voyage indeed comes in short bursts, but you and I know that however alluring something may seem, the bottom line remains: that if at all it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck, and in this whole gamut of language, this is the only explanation that could quite answer your question. Thus, bloated and frail as it may be in its abstractness, I hope you partake of it. 

So I keep on texting, narrating to her this swollen metaphor, and she listens. She does not interrupt, and when she does reply, she says she understands me but then goes ahead to expound on her inferences, saying,

“The reason you are having a conflict of emotions right now is because you are used to saying yes, and this time, because you moved out of the familiar, everything comes down to you as a betrayal of yourself, or perhaps not. Perhaps the reason you feel the way you do is because this time around you are the one behind the keyboard, yet you know how terrible it feels to be on the receiving end, but I am here to tell you the company gives less fucks about it. You just did the best you could based on what you knew at that very moment. So hurting over it does not negate your decision as a vice; grieve if you must, but don’t let it bug you that much.”

I wipe away a tear that had already found its way to my cheeks because Jess has seen me at my worst. She has practically time and again slowed down her world to serve my axis. Each time I succumb to anxiety, she has listened to me send huge voice notes like mp3s, breaking as though I were afraid of my own words, and we have sat each other up until midnight holding conversations that are fragile, raw, and full of a vulnerability that’s hard to put into words, but I daresay, between the two of us, she is the one with the most dexterity. For in all storms, however marred she may as well be, she would still allow me to borrow her strength, and should there be a sudden fall, her hands have always been ready to receive me, and to date, she is the only one who understands just how much of a toll it takes on my body, heart, emotions, and mind to show up every morning, surrendered.

Why? Because Jess and I have long been essentially bound together by love and a shared project of sorrow, we both understand the perks that comes with this season of our lives. Hence, we know how to tread it by always keeping each other buoyant.

But be that as it may, that was not the answer I wanted to hear. However soothing it may be, it still startled the remnant of me that is buried inside. Somehow I like to think I needed a reply that could override my reason for having done this to myself. I anticipated reprimands—a scolding maybe, if not just anything that would make me feel bad, and that too one that would add salt to the injury and make me feel bad about feeling bad. But then again, there is no experience that imbues a full state of utopia because, in reality, that kind of harmony is unattainable. The inevitable is always suffering, and it’s the entire highway. Even when you are not supposed to be in pain, you are still in pain about something else. And some days, especially one of the soul like this I know that nothing I do will alleviate the anguish sitting in my chest. So that my bones begin to break quietly. Then the ache mutilates me. I want to scream. Instead, I am living next to a flat, and that would mean people coming to my door and forcing it open.

Hence, I opt for the bathroom, where my voice will be muffled by the showers. I trip and twist my ankle; it hurts. I put on the shower, but seemingly the instant water heater valve ain’t working, and I start crying, wondering why bad things happen to good people like me, and I sob some more when the cold water hits the folds of my skin with so much amplitude, making the shiver come out as pure pain. Then suddenly I begin to wheeze, first slowly then rapidly. It’s an asthma attack brought on by the cold. I dash, worming myself naked out to my room, then I pawn the bedside drawer for an inhaler, but it’s expired, and my tears and my breathing are now coming out heavily. I am going to die because the second canister I find is empty, but there is the third one. I press one, two, and three puffs.

It does not get any better. In fact, I become all the more overwhelmed because, around me, my phone vibrates nonstop with a string of messages and email notifications. Then there is the whirring sound of the fridge from the kitchen.

As if that is not enough noise pollution, my mind also decides to remind me of an unending checklist that needs my attention. Oh, how fast we age, and how life is fine, pushing us to the final frontier—a stage of our existence where we are forced to shed off our carefree nature because it’s a phase that is nothing but a bucket of responsibilities; one being emptied and another coming down to be filled, but as of now, the worst of my state is the TV, which is playing Muhandos’s song. “Stoooop!”  I let out a defiant scream, and not to jinx anything, but the power goes off. Then there is total silence except for my loud breathing. I put on my pajamas, still with tears in my eyes; my chest hurts; adulthood hurts; everything hurts; and off I fall on my bed and burrow myself in the blanket.

I do not know for how long I have slept. However, waking up, with my eyes trying to adjust to the light and still feeling watery boogers on my cheeks, my heart beating, and my breathing now steady, I cannot help but realize that all these things that are coming naturally are a reminder that I am still alive and that life never stops for anyone to grieve. It runs its course fully with or without you on board; whether you complain or whimper, it still moves on. And with this in mind, I will myself to do life again, in all its damaged glory, but then, as if on cue, I reach for my phone, only to see it pop up with a message that radiates the kindness of an old friend who has just arrived to comfort me. The message as it were, reads,

‘Happy Women’s Day, honey; I adore you so much ♥️…’

But even so, I still turn the phone topsy-turvy to ascertain that it’s indeed my phone, for which this message has been intended. Then suddenly I get the feeling that today I have not been the good person I say I am; I am on the other side of it all and, frankly, I am quite a mess, but heaven knows that I so much needed to cry, even if it’s for no reason at all, because some kinds of sadness are seemingly inherited and just come from the mere fact of living and dying. And as I look back at my phone, I want to weep quietly, but instead I smile, for in all my spectacular messes, this one would still cash his ticket and bet on me even before merit calls my name. And his message, right away after my breakdown, whispers, 

“If you ever find yourself alone in the middle of confusion, from the depths of my heart, know that my love for you echoes throughout all dimensions, and you can always feel it even in my absence.” 

©️Rehema ( PS.shoot me a dm in any of my socials if you unable to comment on the bottom part of this page ♥️)

*To read my previous story, click the link below*👇🏿

Shortlived