Aloneness

I rode home today thinking about beginnings and endings. I crossed 3^rd 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.

It wasn’t until I returned to Nigeria and then took a trip to Ghana that I learned the reason why Aloneness was here to stay, and should indeed be welcomed. (And I owe that to Lil' sis, without her the trip would never had happened and become the experience it became).

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.