During the last few weeks, I have suffered a period of pity-parties. In the past, I’d just don a white bathrobe and sit around moping until I got restless or until I got my confidence back, then it was out with the white robe and in with the fabulous renewal and the “get off my sac” attitude. Pretty potent stuff. It got to a point where I almost looked forward to my next pity-party because I knew what was coming afterward.
Part of this—lets call it a stage—part of this stage is due to the difficulty I had letting go. Just as I knew it would, there are prickles of guilt… passing whispers reminding me that when the going got tough, I ran for the hills, echoes in my mind saying I can’t do this, I can’t possibly continue and asking what I have now, to offer. Also very potent.
I recognize this as the aftershocks of lingering too long in places I shouldn’t have. There comes a point in every relationship, be it work, friendship, love or otherwise where you are influenced by what others see. You begin to accept what they know to be true in spite of what YOU know to be true. All of a sudden, ‘you can’t, you’re not capable, you aren’t able to, you need help, you’re not ready’. All of a sudden, there are limitations, boundaries and you discover, rather forcefully, that you are boxed in – enclosed in parameters that you did not set.
There’s no shame involved, because really, it happens to even the most vigilant of us, even those of us who are most protective of our personalities, who never stray far from their own true source. You move forward encased by these new limits in the belief that this is who you are. In the mirror, you see through the filtered walls of that box and begin to accept your NEW limitations one by one.
I did it or rather, it happened to me and I let it. I woke up every morning looking in the mirror and knowing and feeling powerless, trapped by circumstance, overwhelmed.
I’d like to say it was an ephiphany, a moment of crystalline thought pure as untouched snow that saved me, or that I mustered the energy and determination to break out on my own, but that would be false. It was anger; good old fashioned rage and later resentment that turned my insides cold as ice and my outsides vengeful and (figuratively) bloodthirsty. When I made my decision and finally walked away I felt calm(er) and I knew I’d made the right choice.
Now, how do I explain what happened next? I tried to move on too soon and opportunity poured through the holes in my confidence like water through a sieve and it didn’t help matters. I moved too soon. I tried to keep going but it was hard and I was tired, so I simply stopped. I shut down for weeks.
Sloth is addictive in an insidious way. I never actually saw it coming. Shut down, go out as little as possible, talk as little as possible, eat, sleep, wake up, do nothing. Its like a tunnel with no beginning and no end, just a numb abyss and for those few weeks, it was divine. I realized I was tired of feeling, doubting, still operating in those parameters put around me, existing like a caged wild animal that doesn’t know it’s free.
Yesterday, somewhere within my haze, there was a shadow of a thought, a sentiment that once I focused on it seemed to grow increasingly louder, stronger. And then doubt again, fear of failure again. The sentiment that grew into a thought became smaller, more distant and it went like that for a full 24 hours, I even dreamt of it – crashing on the beach of my consciousness like a wave upon the shore and slipping away again before I could scoop up even a cup full.
I woke up this morning and took a drive. Deji was still sleeping, curled up like child who’s been allowed to slumber on his parents bed 'just-this-once' after a week of sleeping on his own; innocent and untroubled by waking thoughts or the worries of tomorrow.
The drive did little to clear my head but I did return with one solid idea amidst the fuzz. Enough is enough, if it requires drastic measures, be unafraid to take them – and so, from today, I am. I’m curious to see how this pans out.
Most often, we believe that what happens to us is who we are, what we're worth. I'm betting my life on the belief that this isn't true.
Stay tuned.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Precipice
Its been ages. Too long.
Since I last signed on, I gained a few people and lost a few people (thankfully). I’ve also gained a few pounds that refuse to leave, but alas, such is living.
Its March 24th 2011. I’m sitting in a small dusty library in the Faculty of Arts on the campus of the University of Ibadan. I’m waiting for my e-textbook to load. As I watch that green line grow closer and ever so slightly closer to the end, I can’t help but examine the parallels in my life. Waiting. Waiting on things beyond my control, out of my grasp and how that waiting has spiraled into the uncanny acceptance of do-nothingness. It’s affecting me.
I filed for a fiancé visa for my brand spanking new fiancé in October of 2010. Up until now, I’ve heard nothing. The optimist in me keeps checking for updates the pessimist rejoices sadistically when I see “Initial Review” – no change in status for the last 5 months. And here I am, waiting.
I quit my job which at the time felt like severing my legs. It wasn’t that I enjoyed it immensely, it wasn’t that I felt it was a worthy cause that I must continue and it wasn’t because I felt like I couldn’t or wouldn’t do the work… it, the whole thing just wasn’t working. I was tired, run down, fed up and frustrated. It was like I treadmill I couldn’t vacate. Even when I left the office at night, I had something akin to that uncomfortable tingling sensation, that nagging feeling that I was still running on a faux tarred road, powered by electricity. I’d actually known for a long time that I’d wanted to leave, but I have such a hard time letting go.
At the time also, I had a friend, an advisor of sorts who became much more and much less. I listened and I believed where I shouldn’t have because in truth, it was one of those relationships that you know will end before it starts. I liked letting myself be talked into things, and I hated letting go even though I wanted to. Eventually, letting go became no problem at all and with that realization came that feeling of lightness, a burden being lifted.
It’s like trying to swim to the surface of the ocean while dragging a ton of bricks with you in a sack. You don’t particularly want or need the sack or its contents, but there’s a nagging sense that if you let it go, you’d have failed in some small irrevocable way--that will gnaw at you long after you're safe on dry land-- maybe forever. So, you claw and claw until you’re so tired you don’t know if you’ll make it and it doesn’t immediately occur to you let the sack go—but then, you have to make a choice. You break the surface and draw in air, or die trying to save yourself and the sack.
Well, I let it go and swam to the surface without looking back to see where it sank.
But here I am now, again, on the edge of a precipice, a beginning and there is nothing to do but glide into the sky or free fall. I look out toward our future and pray every step of the way. Mostly though, I’m excited. I can be now, whoever I want, wherever I want and so can he. My fiancé and I have the opportunity to pick and choose where we live and who we will become once we get there. It’s an exciting time to be us and to a time to choose carefully, wisely.
Also, I’ve done something I’ve always wanted to – started a business (hopefully, the first of many). I’m eager to learn and live. I’m eager to see what happens next.
Since I last signed on, I gained a few people and lost a few people (thankfully). I’ve also gained a few pounds that refuse to leave, but alas, such is living.
Its March 24th 2011. I’m sitting in a small dusty library in the Faculty of Arts on the campus of the University of Ibadan. I’m waiting for my e-textbook to load. As I watch that green line grow closer and ever so slightly closer to the end, I can’t help but examine the parallels in my life. Waiting. Waiting on things beyond my control, out of my grasp and how that waiting has spiraled into the uncanny acceptance of do-nothingness. It’s affecting me.
I filed for a fiancé visa for my brand spanking new fiancé in October of 2010. Up until now, I’ve heard nothing. The optimist in me keeps checking for updates the pessimist rejoices sadistically when I see “Initial Review” – no change in status for the last 5 months. And here I am, waiting.
I quit my job which at the time felt like severing my legs. It wasn’t that I enjoyed it immensely, it wasn’t that I felt it was a worthy cause that I must continue and it wasn’t because I felt like I couldn’t or wouldn’t do the work… it, the whole thing just wasn’t working. I was tired, run down, fed up and frustrated. It was like I treadmill I couldn’t vacate. Even when I left the office at night, I had something akin to that uncomfortable tingling sensation, that nagging feeling that I was still running on a faux tarred road, powered by electricity. I’d actually known for a long time that I’d wanted to leave, but I have such a hard time letting go.
At the time also, I had a friend, an advisor of sorts who became much more and much less. I listened and I believed where I shouldn’t have because in truth, it was one of those relationships that you know will end before it starts. I liked letting myself be talked into things, and I hated letting go even though I wanted to. Eventually, letting go became no problem at all and with that realization came that feeling of lightness, a burden being lifted.
It’s like trying to swim to the surface of the ocean while dragging a ton of bricks with you in a sack. You don’t particularly want or need the sack or its contents, but there’s a nagging sense that if you let it go, you’d have failed in some small irrevocable way--that will gnaw at you long after you're safe on dry land-- maybe forever. So, you claw and claw until you’re so tired you don’t know if you’ll make it and it doesn’t immediately occur to you let the sack go—but then, you have to make a choice. You break the surface and draw in air, or die trying to save yourself and the sack.
Well, I let it go and swam to the surface without looking back to see where it sank.
But here I am now, again, on the edge of a precipice, a beginning and there is nothing to do but glide into the sky or free fall. I look out toward our future and pray every step of the way. Mostly though, I’m excited. I can be now, whoever I want, wherever I want and so can he. My fiancé and I have the opportunity to pick and choose where we live and who we will become once we get there. It’s an exciting time to be us and to a time to choose carefully, wisely.
Also, I’ve done something I’ve always wanted to – started a business (hopefully, the first of many). I’m eager to learn and live. I’m eager to see what happens next.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Aloneness
I rode home today thinking about beginnings and endings. I crossed 3rd mainland bride staring at the full moon, tracing its curves and shadows with my eyes. It shone down over the day-blue water from behind transient clouds. It made the non-menacing day-blue water completely black and slick like shimmering obsidian, like you could walk across it if you tried.
Full Moon, transient clouds passing each other like strangers in a mist, pulling their trench coats tighter about themselves, protective and clutching. Even in a Cloud crowd, the Moon is alone. Magnificent, luminous, big and round, but alone.
I didn’t realize that I actually began my aloneness about two months ago, when I left Nigeria on a sort-of vacation (read: desperately needed break). I went to London and stayed in Someone’s house, but I was alone. I went out every day and learned new things. I discovered new-to-me places and bought too expensive lotions and a very pretty bra. And for the most part, I talked to myself and I enjoyed the conversation. The discussion mostly ended in Why? It was a question I couldn’t face yet. But I did enjoy the city of London where the cleaning and aloneness started.
I thought about endings and how many I’ve had over the past year. Too many endings, so many instances where I had to say goodbye whether or not I was ready. Endings that trapped unfinished sentences in their finality, shutting out Words that were supposed to be in.
Now, the Words that were supposed to be in are trapped outside and crowded in a jumble together with no place to go. So I had to start cleaning. A place for everything and everything in its place.
Then I went home. I got to the airport and realized I had forgotten to keep some dollars in my multi-currency wallet. I used my credit card for a trolley to carry my luggage but I had no phone. I borrowed 75 never-returned cents from a German man and called home and I waited. After seeing my beloved brother and little sister and through precious moments being part of a unit again, a link in a chain- a swinging metallic and happy and connected chain, the aloneness waited. I was afraid.
I spent so much of my home time with the Aloneness that by then had grown from an infant to a full grown adult being capable of occupying space and consuming time. Some saw melancholic when they searched my face, others observed a deep calm, and still others saw simple shiftlessness. But no one saw Aloneness.
When it was time to return, I think I grew anxious, overwrought. I was able to coexist peacefully with Aloneness with the understanding that soon enough, it would only be me again, free to be with other people, free to leave goodbyes behind and finally free to clear out the Words. But Aloneness didn’t pack any suitcases or make moves toward leaving.
Aloneness was really my only opportunity to clear out the clutter of Words from abrupt (and some not-so-abrupt) goodbyes that were shut out when they should have been in. So, one by one, I picked up sentences, never expressed feelings, thoughts, actions, assoc. Words and I cleared them out. Some were tucked into safe places and others were burned because Time had made them obsolete. I’m still clearing, but the clutter has lessened to a great extent and so has the burden that had begun to close in on me like walls in a too small room. Aloneness saved me from being crushed when I hadn’t even noticed my space was getting small, smaller, and unbearably tiny.
In short, Aloneness let me be me again. Just me. Intelligent, funny, silly, crazy, Intense, Inquisitive, Passionate Me. Me without the worry of displaced Words, crowding my space like refugees.
I think everyone has their season and their time to dwell with their own Aloneness. There’s always a reason. I was afraid at first, and that’s natural. But if ever Aloneness and I meet again, I should be extremely happy to receive my old friend, my own personal rescuer.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Caught in the Crossfire
~ The Beatles, Let it Be
Last Friday, I was driving down a main street in a medium sized, relatively populated town. A huge market spans out on either side of this main street and it’s never empty.
The first thing I saw was a few people running. Their body language told me they were afraid and desperate to get away. Next, I saw cars turning, the sort of u-turns you see in action films and know the stunt double is performing. Immediately I became tense and on edge. Fight or Flight.
Then I saw it. A police vehicle was being high jacked; driven backwards and in a zigzag pattern. I told my driver to turn the car around -- luckily we were just by a break in the median. Old and not prone to common sense or critical thinking under pressure (or not under pressure), he failed to respond.
I saw men fighting to gain control of fire arms, pulling and wrenching. I saw others fighting to gain control of the vehicle. Before I could scream at my driver again, I heard a shot. I hit the floor of the car immediately and hoped that my little sister had the presence of mind to do the same. I saw her folded over in her seat and thanked God for that.
I stayed down and heard more gun fire, a spraying of bullets. Once I heard a break in the fire I knew either someone had gone down or one side had won. Who or what didn’t interest me, as I tentatively raised my head and realized to my utter dismay that my car had not moved and the skirmish was still in effect only six feet from us.
I screamed continuously “Turn and move the car! MOVE THE CAR!” at my dumbstruck but still breathing driver. It seemed everything happened in slow motion and then suddenly, the car was moving at a pace more so to my liking. I didn’t look back as we put more and more distance between ourselves and the scene, but I did stay low in my seat until we turned a corner where bullets could not follow. After all, Mama didn’t raise no fool.
I think I saw the bullet hole in the windshield earlier but I had not examined it or its full implication until we were at a safe distance. A hole the size of a quarter with circular cracks and then angry zigzag cracks extended up from the rounded ones.
All I could do was stare in disbelief and pray and say “Thank You”. All of us in my car were a few inches or a weaker glass away from a shallow grave and mourning relatives. Even thank you seemed inadequate.
We got out of the car and took pictures then. We laughed shakily with glistening eyes and called them “Happy to Be Alive” photos. And indeed we were.
Later while clearing out the shattered glass, I found the shell. Long and bronzed and thick enough to obliterate any human flesh in its trajectory, thank goodness for big-bodied vehicles.
After an experience like that, I expected to feel… new, affected, and insatiably positive. I just feel happy to still be breathing. None of my issues were magically solved. No instant resolutions to my internal changes, my emotions. I have been given a second chance and still don’t really know what to do with it.
I am a victim or an active seeker of over thinking. Always thinking, my minds gears never stop. I often find myself waking to a continuous train of cognizant thought, punctuated with a “thank you for waking me up today.” Sometimes I have trouble keeping up and I sound scattered. Sometimes I simply hold a thought in a queue and address it when I find a gap. This phenom presents itself as a delayed reaction to the outside world, and I guess it is.
I make things harder than they should be, all the time. So I have resolved at least one thing. I know from experience that a leopard cannot change its spots, but the way those spots are perceived can make a world of difference. I have decided to let it be. “It” being things, that used to stress me, set me on edge, occupy my mind without my express consent. Keep praying, don’t run or artfully dodge. Face down life as it comes, but let it be.
Change
“The winds of change are blowing wild and free. You ain’t see nothin’ like me yet…”
~Adele, Make You Feel My Love
I feel nothing like the person I was, or used to be. I’m darker inwardly. My insides feel like a hulled coconut, all the water drunk and all the fruit carved out in jagged chunks.
On the road between Ibadan and Lagos again, I appreciate the scenery that has become so familiar to me. The road is treacherous, full of pot holes the size of craters, tractor trailers that see it as normal to park on the road and block traffic and some of the most lush, dense and untouched green forests I’ve ever seen, lining either side
It is comforting to view the land like this, and imagine that it has been this way since the beginning of time. Changing so slowly that no human being can tell the difference until years later as he or she recalls the landscape of their youth.
So much has changed in me since the last time I passed this way, yet, physically, everything has remained the same. I can still ride along staring tirelessly at a sky the color of slate and muted periwinkle. The clouds block the stars tonight, but usually, the darkness plays host to a majesty of dancing lights. The air is fresh, smells like undisturbed earth.
My emotions for the most part come in waves, all or nothing at all and then, when the last of the tide has ebbed, I’m left with the still silence of a vacant beach.
I know this signals what it always does, that I am not at peace. My spirit is in a state of unrest.
For the first time ever, maybe, being here, where I decided to make my home for a while, I feel completely alone. Of course, I still have my friends, which I thank God for everyday, but then, everything else is in a state of flux. I am beginning to see the reason behind the statement “Nothing in life ever really falls apart, it only changes” but those changes sometimes feel like the foundations of the world are about to shift.
K tells me to stop running, which I admit is hard to do when it comes to things I feel that are painful. Much easier to put them in a box and focus on climbing higher, leaving them behind. It seems I habitually forget that even a mountain climber must descend at some point, and what I left in that box, I will eventually see again.
Feel the emotions, handle them, know them so that you can do away with the ones holding you back, she says.
K, to me has always been a warrior woman. When I think of her essence, a tall, armored and very fierce warrior maiden comes to mind with long flowing hair, a contagious laugh and a very big sword. Beautiful to behold but a formidable opponent even on her worst day.
K says that God shakes things up in a major way to give us an opportunity to refocus, not run.
I agree.
~Adele, Make You Feel My Love
I feel nothing like the person I was, or used to be. I’m darker inwardly. My insides feel like a hulled coconut, all the water drunk and all the fruit carved out in jagged chunks.
On the road between Ibadan and Lagos again, I appreciate the scenery that has become so familiar to me. The road is treacherous, full of pot holes the size of craters, tractor trailers that see it as normal to park on the road and block traffic and some of the most lush, dense and untouched green forests I’ve ever seen, lining either side
It is comforting to view the land like this, and imagine that it has been this way since the beginning of time. Changing so slowly that no human being can tell the difference until years later as he or she recalls the landscape of their youth.
So much has changed in me since the last time I passed this way, yet, physically, everything has remained the same. I can still ride along staring tirelessly at a sky the color of slate and muted periwinkle. The clouds block the stars tonight, but usually, the darkness plays host to a majesty of dancing lights. The air is fresh, smells like undisturbed earth.
My emotions for the most part come in waves, all or nothing at all and then, when the last of the tide has ebbed, I’m left with the still silence of a vacant beach.
I know this signals what it always does, that I am not at peace. My spirit is in a state of unrest.
For the first time ever, maybe, being here, where I decided to make my home for a while, I feel completely alone. Of course, I still have my friends, which I thank God for everyday, but then, everything else is in a state of flux. I am beginning to see the reason behind the statement “Nothing in life ever really falls apart, it only changes” but those changes sometimes feel like the foundations of the world are about to shift.
K tells me to stop running, which I admit is hard to do when it comes to things I feel that are painful. Much easier to put them in a box and focus on climbing higher, leaving them behind. It seems I habitually forget that even a mountain climber must descend at some point, and what I left in that box, I will eventually see again.
Feel the emotions, handle them, know them so that you can do away with the ones holding you back, she says.
K, to me has always been a warrior woman. When I think of her essence, a tall, armored and very fierce warrior maiden comes to mind with long flowing hair, a contagious laugh and a very big sword. Beautiful to behold but a formidable opponent even on her worst day.
K says that God shakes things up in a major way to give us an opportunity to refocus, not run.
I agree.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Reasons
When you have no one to blame but yourself in a bad situation, it makes everything just a little bit worse.
I’ve come to discover that extending outward, one purposeful, blaming finger through which all your frustration, annoyance and wrath are channeled alleviates the pressure some. With that one appendage, you are able to advertise to others, and more importantly, to yourself, that the current situation happened TO or UPON you.
An index finger is the difference between being a victim, worthy of empathy and comfort and being the catalyst, the gasoline parading proudly amongst flames and worthy of a long eye-roll and ridicule, or worse, pity.
Of course, it’s only natural to point the finger at others first. Cry, scream, throw some spectacular tantrums, and manufacture situations (consciously or not) that separate you from others you care about, or who care about you. Smolder with hatred at other people’s ability to move on and find their happiness, while it seems yours has engaged you in a game of hide-and-go-seek.
It’s easiest to light the match, toss it on dry newspaper and simply turn your back. Not so easy to actively search for the matchbox and all the reasons, feelings, frustrations that led to the match-lighting in the first place.
In the midst of the confusion, the anger and the sadness, there lingers a nagging question. One that is swept under the rug at every time it rears its hideously earnest face, because maybe, just maybe you don’t want to know. That unbearably honest question is Why? or in its milder form, How?
And I ponder, somewhat reluctantly, the answers to both.
Reasons seem to be a running theme for me at the moment. All I want is a reason.
Sometimes the most painful thing to accept or acknowledge is that you are not meant to benefit from every relationship or association that you enter into. Sometimes, you are meant to BE the lesson. End of story. And, sometimes, there is no reason.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Returning...
“like a child passing through, never knowing the reason. I am home, I know the way. I am home, feeling oh, so far away.”
I slept non-stop through the flight from Newark to London. This was partially because I refused to sleep the night before, opting instead to fiddle with minute details at the last moment. I also washed, dried and curled my hair and spoke to Rico* via phone and webcam.
Rico was an easy choice as a final conversation. He’s easy to talk to and happens to be in my same position. Talking to Rico also meant I didn’t have to talk to my friends whom I was lamentably sorry to bid adieu. Rico meant I didn’t have to hear my best friends voice only a short ride away for the last time in a long time, or explain to my other bfbf why I’d been so unbearably distant lately.
Sleep is like my own personal morphine. In the comfort of one’s own personal abyss, sadness doesn’t exist except in dreams and even then it doesn’t seem real, but detached and floating. The night before, I always forcefully ensure I can achieve a blissfully unaware state of relaxation. On the first leg of any journey that I am apprehensive about, sleep is my security blanket, blotting out the anxiety, the dread and the uncertainty.
In the airport at Newark, while I passed my passport to the ticketing agent, my mother walked up behind me and placed a hand on my shoulder and another hand on my dad’s shoulder.
“Don’t look now,” she whispered, “But Phylicia Rashad is standing right there about to check in.”
Unfortunately, as soon as we heard ‘don’t look now’ my dad and I proceeded to crane our necks in her general direction. Sure enough, in a red sweater and blue jeans standing about 5’5”, there she was. Her face was paler than I remembered and surrounded by fluffy black hair. She smiled. She knew and so did we.
As I stood there, the ticketing agent next to me beckoned to her. There I was thinking about how quickly I could self-administer my sleep-morphine with Madame Rashad standing right next to me. Claire Huxtable would be so disappointed with my particular brand of cowardice.
Once I landed at Heathrow airport, (I awoke during the final descent and became cognizant just in time to hear the plane’s wheels hit the tarmac) I became expectant. Usually, at this point and juncture I get happy. Duty-free window-shopping is my last and final retail binge. Its’ a shameless free-for-all. This time I stock up on pharmacy lotion and liquid eyeliner. I also claw my way through the crowd to reach the much-sought-after Starbucks counter and order my last caramel macchiato (skim) and it was good. Fantastic.
What I did not expect to feel rolling over my tongue along with the espresso and caramel syrup was the same apprehension I nursed while placing my bags on the scale at the check in counter at Newark. Something about this trip was not like the others. I had a sense of excitement before, a constantly occurring new beginning, my chance to start over.
I stayed awake between London and Lagos. I had run out of sleep-morphine and like any addict going through withdrawl, I broke out in a cold sweat, had chills and forcibly stifled the urge to rock back and forth.
I ordered two glasses of wine during the meal which I did not eat. My father stared at me, his eyes inquiring. I quickly turned from him and up-ended the last of the house white into my mouth. There I held it and contemplated asking for more when I noticed the small old woman sitting beside me staring at my two already emptied glasses. I decided against another but pondered revisiting the first two for those last droplets that settle at the bottom, waiting.
Lagos was exactly how I remembered it, but that ‘home’ feeling was not-so-mysteriously absent. I wondered if it was my attitude, or my feeling toward what and who I’d left behind there, situations changed or dissolved, or if this place simply no longer welcomed me. For the first time since I moved here, I entered this city feeling like a stranger.
I slept non-stop through the flight from Newark to London. This was partially because I refused to sleep the night before, opting instead to fiddle with minute details at the last moment. I also washed, dried and curled my hair and spoke to Rico* via phone and webcam.
Rico was an easy choice as a final conversation. He’s easy to talk to and happens to be in my same position. Talking to Rico also meant I didn’t have to talk to my friends whom I was lamentably sorry to bid adieu. Rico meant I didn’t have to hear my best friends voice only a short ride away for the last time in a long time, or explain to my other bfbf why I’d been so unbearably distant lately.
Sleep is like my own personal morphine. In the comfort of one’s own personal abyss, sadness doesn’t exist except in dreams and even then it doesn’t seem real, but detached and floating. The night before, I always forcefully ensure I can achieve a blissfully unaware state of relaxation. On the first leg of any journey that I am apprehensive about, sleep is my security blanket, blotting out the anxiety, the dread and the uncertainty.
In the airport at Newark, while I passed my passport to the ticketing agent, my mother walked up behind me and placed a hand on my shoulder and another hand on my dad’s shoulder.
“Don’t look now,” she whispered, “But Phylicia Rashad is standing right there about to check in.”
Unfortunately, as soon as we heard ‘don’t look now’ my dad and I proceeded to crane our necks in her general direction. Sure enough, in a red sweater and blue jeans standing about 5’5”, there she was. Her face was paler than I remembered and surrounded by fluffy black hair. She smiled. She knew and so did we.
As I stood there, the ticketing agent next to me beckoned to her. There I was thinking about how quickly I could self-administer my sleep-morphine with Madame Rashad standing right next to me. Claire Huxtable would be so disappointed with my particular brand of cowardice.
Once I landed at Heathrow airport, (I awoke during the final descent and became cognizant just in time to hear the plane’s wheels hit the tarmac) I became expectant. Usually, at this point and juncture I get happy. Duty-free window-shopping is my last and final retail binge. Its’ a shameless free-for-all. This time I stock up on pharmacy lotion and liquid eyeliner. I also claw my way through the crowd to reach the much-sought-after Starbucks counter and order my last caramel macchiato (skim) and it was good. Fantastic.
What I did not expect to feel rolling over my tongue along with the espresso and caramel syrup was the same apprehension I nursed while placing my bags on the scale at the check in counter at Newark. Something about this trip was not like the others. I had a sense of excitement before, a constantly occurring new beginning, my chance to start over.
I stayed awake between London and Lagos. I had run out of sleep-morphine and like any addict going through withdrawl, I broke out in a cold sweat, had chills and forcibly stifled the urge to rock back and forth.
I ordered two glasses of wine during the meal which I did not eat. My father stared at me, his eyes inquiring. I quickly turned from him and up-ended the last of the house white into my mouth. There I held it and contemplated asking for more when I noticed the small old woman sitting beside me staring at my two already emptied glasses. I decided against another but pondered revisiting the first two for those last droplets that settle at the bottom, waiting.
Lagos was exactly how I remembered it, but that ‘home’ feeling was not-so-mysteriously absent. I wondered if it was my attitude, or my feeling toward what and who I’d left behind there, situations changed or dissolved, or if this place simply no longer welcomed me. For the first time since I moved here, I entered this city feeling like a stranger.
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