Imagine...
This article is best enjoyed whilst listening to the song "Never Look Back" by Aurora Ribero. https://youtu.be/qRjFztCUQro
Imagine starting a day with a scowl on your face. You wake up to the heat of the morning sun pouring into your bedroom with angst, forcing beads of sweats to form on your face because there’s no electricity to power the ceiling fan as these PHCN folks have chosen to be unfortunate as always. You’d then pick up your phone and check your emails, hoping for something positive in your inbox –some good news or even the prospect of one– but you get nothing; only newsletters and Wayfair deals that you know you can't afford because you suddenly remember that you have just recently become unemployed.
Now imagine at that moment being reminded once again of your unemployment –the fact that despite giving five years of your life to an organization, they didn't even think twice to toss you to the side as soon as you no longer fit the bill for their long term plans, nay, as soon as they realized that they would much rather get someone who would be at their beck and call rather than stick with someone who was soon to begin serving two masters, regardless of whether the second master was basically you choosing to pursue a master's degree.
Now imagine, recalling the long and tenuous hours you put into working your ass off trying to be as good at the job as you could be. Imagine remembering how many hangouts you missed because the job provided you with a convenient excuse to stay at home and wallow in the blitz of complacency; and how it didn't feel so bad missing those hangouts and outings because you could tell yourself a lie like "gainfully employed people are too busy and never have time for fun stuff…" Or “Lagos traffic is not for me”
Now imagine, sitting up from your bed and heading to the toilet to take a shit and whilst doing that realizing that in a couple of months you might have to move out of your apartment and get somewhere cheaper because, due to the inflation, the little you were able to save up cannot help push you past the next four months, unless you take some austerity measures like...I dunno…like maybe no longer being able to have the luxury of taking a good shit anymore whilst pressing your phone and tweeting about how hard the country is, even though you could not, at that time, relate, thanks to being gainfully employed. But haha, now the jokes on you.
Jokes on you now because at that moment, you would remember how all the "I need a job" tweets you used to like and retweet out of sympathy –or empathy (as you like to believe)– for random strangers on the internet has now become your own reality. Jokes on you because you’d tell yourself, “That will never be me, I'll find another job soon enough" but deep down you’d know the truth. You’d know you are just a couple of months from being one of ‘them’ –soon to be a sympathy and pity case to total strangers.
Jokes on you also because you would manage to crack a smirk at people praying about a breakthrough on your WhatsApp status as part of their morning-status-post ritual and inside of you, you will feel a pinch of pain because your irreligious ass cannot relate even though deep down you’d wish you could believe in a higher power that would make all these make sense. But you know better…or so you choose to tell yourself.
Sadly, you would know that unlike those people with their motivational-esque status on WhatsApp, chances are that things will be way harder before it gets even a tidbit better for you. You would remember how aware you are of how the mind tricks people into relying on the emptiness of hope and despising the glaring truth of reality. You would remember how you used to be one of those people who would be quick to point out this bias and blindness in others, safely tucked away in your own bubble of a good job –a job you were sort of certain would last long enough for you to quit on your own terms because you reckoned that since you survived the pandemic at it's fiercest and did not lose it, it meant you were home free of any fear or uncertainty. But at that moment, you would realize that as much as you were one to criticize people for not facing reality whilst you hid safely in your bubble, you too in your own blindness were just as clingy to the mistress that is hope, as they were. The only difference was that for you, your mind tricked you successfully, making your sense of hope feel more certain and permitting you to call that certainty “being rational”.
Sadly, you would realize that hope can come in different forms and bear a variety of names, but it is anything but rational. And thinking of this, you would remember how you felt a huge prick in your chest when you were told that day that your services would no longer be required at the organization and how you went numb with silence unable to utter a word even when asked if you had anything to say by your superiors. You would remember how you almost considered begging or groveling for a demotion, something –anything– to simply keep you within the workforce and not have to face the dread of starting from scratch with your life when you are only a few weeks to the day you are to turn thirty. You would remember the zoom call ending and you taking a deep breath and then standing up to take a walk to your living room as though walking away from your brightly lit laptop and the bedroom would be tantamount to walking away from the reality of the news you had just received.
You would feel more pain as you got to your living room and then a moment of deep panic, almost gasping for air as you managed to sit down on your couch and ponder on what this new development meant for you. You'd remember your age, once again (turning 30), and how this was supposed to be the milestone age where you could beat your chest and say you were about to get your life back on track. You would remember your parents and how much you were hoping with this job and some plans you had in store, you would be able to move them out of the trenches of their humble impoverishment and onto something more retirement friendly just so they could rest their tired legs and bodies from having carried you and your siblings for so long. But now it was not to be, because you now needed to reset and restart with a plan, and pick yourself up with no help besides the many platitudes of well-meaning friends, acquaintances, and strangers.
And yes, at that moment, you would remember how well-meaning you had also been to others who had been in a similar situation. You'd recall your neighbor who has been unemployed for over two years and how it always hurt your heart when she told you of her struggles and yet the best thing you often could offer her were words and the well-meaning emptiness of half-baked motivational speeches. You would remember how you would often tell her you'd cover some of the bills for her apartment and she was welcome to refund you the cash whenever she had it because you knew she would never want to be seen as a charity case.
You'd remember how, despite her unemployment, she was the first person to get you a cake on your birthday, and how that made you feel good but sad as well. You'd recall how you had once sent her the last 5000 Naira in your account as a gift for valentine when she had complained to you of never receiving an alert in almost two months. You'd remember how you had told yourself that doing that was out of the kindness of your heart but how deep down you knew it was more because of the cockiness of the fact that you knew that even if that was the last 5000 in your account at that moment, the month was ending and that meant another paycheck would come in to offset that expense. You'd remember how from the pedestal of better circumstances, kindness can almost always seem performative and how now that you are no longer on that podium of job security and its privileges, you can now clearly see how sometimes even with the best of intentions, empathy in itself can feel empty.
At that moment a certain dread would spread across your body and you'd decide that maybe it would be best to keep your pain and struggles to yourself, save for telling a few of your friends who just need to know so they don't start questioning your mood when you become more withdrawn with each passing day of your unemployment.
At that moment you would think to yourself "what's the best way forward?" and you'd get nothing from your subconscious but a haunting silence that cripples you more with fear as you stay staring into the emptiness of the television screen in your living room, thinking to yourself and then saying it out as well,
"Mifa, everything is going to be okay."
You would repeat the phrase two more times, both times the words sounding less convincing than the former. But you'd repeat it again a fourth time just as the blaring sound of an alarm would ring out from afar signaling the return of power by those unfortunate PHCN people. You would hiss with disdain but still be thankful as you sit up and head back into the room and back to bed. Back into the cold arms of your ruminations, fears, and imaginations; a scowl on your face as you pick up your phone and begin typing your next newsletter starting with the phrase...
"Imagine starting your day with a scowl on your face..."