On: My Sadness —My Comfort
This article is best enjoyed whilst listening to the song “The Last Words” by Frances - https://youtu.be/V4K-iKotpA4
It’s the little things for me. And I don’t mean this in a good way. It’s how sometimes you open your Twitter app and the first thing you see is how your country is an irredeemable mess, of which you remain unfortunately trapped. And almost in the next instance, you are confronted by the abnormality that is your fellow human being’s hatred for another because of their perceive amorality. You then choose to put your phone away only to open your laptop to see that you may have missed a work deadline. You realize that this possibly happened because, on that day, you were at the bank, under the scorching West African sun for 6 hours, queuing to get inside just for a chance to withdraw the money that you spent all month working tirelessly for.
But then again, it’s not even about the little things really. It’s about how the seemingly little things aren’t so little. How they all add up to be this one big monster that trolls my every waking sense. It’s how life seems to pass me by no matter how much I scream into the void of my subconscious that “HEY, YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE!”. It’s how I know that time ebbs away and I can almost slowly feel the decline of the cells in my body. It’s how even with that realization, I have no choice but to remain tethered to the struggle that is the proverbial rat race.
It’s how I never truly am able to find that peace I need because I never truly know if I need peace or just a bit more money in my account. It’s how even the brightest, warmest, kindest gesture can rub me off in the wrong way. It’s how I can perceive goodness as cynical. It’s the way my ill-gotten premonitory senses in this regard, have made me see anything that seems remotely good as a smoke screen that is usually accompanied by a sneak trick of misfortune.
It’s how the best days of my life never feel like they are ahead. It’s how the future turns out to not be that bright shining light of hope I envisioned since my eyes can’t even be bothered to look up from my downtrodden, blister-ridden feet of uncertainty —the same feet that have continued to carry me through each day of this perilous journey. It’s the fact that when I wake up on some mornings, I feel like maybe some mornings it would have been best if I possessed the ability to hibernate —to stay still in the silence of nothingness, just for a little while until someone —something, anything— whispers to let me know that it’s safer in my thoughts now.
It’s the little and the big things for me. It’s the fact that no moment feels truly like mine until the familiarity of sadness descends. This is how sadness feels to me —almost every day. And somehow, I seek to find a way to cope with it. To find pockets of un-sadness that can sometimes mimic the simulation of happiness. It’s chaotic. It’s numbing. It’s draining. It’s occasionally unfathomable. It’s sometimes weirdly comforting. It’s my life; my sadness. And on days when I can’t embrace anyone or anything else, I turn around to its familiar thorn of warmth and I embrace it.
Safe to say, this is one such day.