Help Is Not Plastic.
I can’t tell you how many times I left everything just for a cry or something close to being scared. It feels real & now I know there is nothing bad about it. As humans, failing at things we do or repeatedly try to achieve brings us close to the perfection we desire. It’s like an amateur painter’s first lush of colour on a canvas; the drape, the hue & haggard tints all rock themselves into something that calls forth hope in the beautiful sense fractured nearly halfway. I still don’t know what the sound of being successful is because each day, I waggle myself into the house with a number of hopes flung behind Lagos dusty cars. Sometimes, these hopes return in the shape of a man, other times, they just juggle in & out of my willingness to be better at anything I am left with. I don’t intend to bore you with an epistle of how tough life has been — we all have a waterloo somewhere close & trying to disagree with this might further prove that we are already in the slum, tirelessly calling for help.
For we live in the threads of every other person’s willingness to live — physically, financially, spiritually, academically, socially & etc. We do not overblow our wars in every conversation, what we mostly do is build a house everywhere we find ourselves while we keep searching for newer homes internally. We let every detail mix up & too soon, we are drunk with too many worries about how, when, what, where & why we are in the pit we find ourselves. This is no speculation of any sort, life tires us differently & never should we demand the same from life. Our fingerprints tell us the closest truth, “some animals are more equal than others”; but here, equality stretches beyond the skin, it is a war won from within.
I have taken time through my break from writing to ask myself the slimmest question ever — why on earth do I live? It’s been easy to say, I live for purpose, I live for others, I live for God & everything that makes the world a happy place. But it remains a deep-seated struggle telling myself I live for myself because I have never lived such a life. From childhood to teenage years, life was all around those I cared about. Still on the train through my twenties, it actually seems as though I already lost my life living for others. I shared this not to publish a lie about how much faith I have lost in some dreams I always had as a child. This is just another open space for thoughts that never sleep inside me. I hope that when you read this, you will not judge me like I already did or throw some withered sermons at me to encourage discouragement. Life is a heavy drop of hell when living loses grip on purpose gradually. I need help, I mean, everyone like me needs help to see through this raging storm that soon will past.
We are interconnected on all sides still; we must learn to individually fight our wars alone. We must learn to teach ourselves to love who we are & what we have become or might be if there is still any chance of being such. Dreams die as men do — what doesn’t die is the willingness to see through our convictions that we did be better than when we made the decision to be better. I have always dreamt that someday, maybe today, maybe tomorrow & maybe never, I too will be celebrated not for the glamour of what I am able to possess but for the trinity of truth I have been able to uproot within myself — that is, that I deserve to love myself, I deserve to love others & I deserve to be loved too. My faith in God has grown in leaps, spare me the bounds, I am still on a journey of discovery. I, each day, well into depth & depth of thoughts- harmful, harmless, & even one-offs. & in all these, there is always a hope standing close. I have seen it a couple of times, particularly those moments it all goes down to being blank & outrightly comical. Those bitter-good memories when the why questions are thrown at me & I sincerely have nothing to say on such. Or those gun-wrecking situations that target my wholeness & reality of being down even when I constantly do everything to be back on my feet. I will leave out jokes, movies & conversations — words too.
Hmm. I have learnt so far that there is really no need giving answers to questions you haven’t been able to figure out. Enough of trying to be, just be. It definitely will take you many ‘downs’ to be up & if you stay too long being down, please pick up the shades & make a home for yourself therein. Love yourself, love others speeding out of such downs & receive their love when they share with you. It really doesn’t matter if they don’t see through your scars or pimpled-free face- when light shines, darkness flees. Hold on, like me, please hold on & keep believing as you wake up each day that you have got this life because the breakthrough is closer than the wait. Keep loving yourself through hope & continuous share of happiness with yourself, people around you & God.
