A Celestial's Memoir II

DEPRESSED...

Life's the frame work of mysteries. It is subjective and has never been comprehensively defined, because it can't.

At a time it's soo beautiful; you never expect when suddenly, like a thunderbolt, it becomes a bitter place , then with that same element of surprise it gets back to being the most exciting experience.

I had soo many questions. They all began the same way, "why".

I was not the same person as I am today, who understands that life has a constant. A constant that is Change, And that is inevitable.

Today, I know that everything happens for a reason and even though it's a mystery to me now, it won't always be. Before today though , before I manifested into this being, I was a broken vessel, dejected, wounded, joyless, sad...

I felt so many negative things.

I oozed of defeat, my existence felt futile. I was unmotivated, a dimension of low self esteem with a blurry vision of my bleak future .

I was spiritless.

Every day and night since my arrival here was nonexistent, it was void and filled with blankness. I would occasionally cry and stare into space, wondering what was responsible for such misfortune and why, then I would cry some more.

A catastrophic cycle. I was depressed.

I remember moping at the balcony one day, during this era of distress; it was a cold morning, the wind was blowing and It was piercing. My hands and feet were benumbed with cold. My ears were as cold as ice, chilled to the marrow. My legs became stiff and cold, still I was comfortable. Maybe because i already felt enough discomfort inside of me.

Not a bird chirped. They all laid cuddled together in their nests.

To my right, there was a tall mango tree at a distance. It's dead leaves fell and littered the ground beneath it.

I hadn't noticed some boys under it's shed, sitting and forming a semi circle ; bantering with each other. I was only drawn to their presence when one of them lamented...

"My guy!, I'm tired . This hustle for more money is getting me frustrated and tired of life..."

They were loud but their voices had grown softer until it could no longer be heard, receded into silence. I didn't care until now.

They all looked young, younger than I was. Three of them had lit cigarettes on their lips and they all shared a bottle of cafe rum.

I felt mocked. I was equally disgusted. I thought- "More Money? How can frustration and loss of happiness be based on something soo trivial?

How could he disrespect my feelings by thinking he had the right to be as depressed as I was?

How could he be soo insensitive and ungrateful?"

I cringe most times when I think about that day. I get embarrassed. I was childish and selfish. I wanted the world revolving around just me. All because I was in a predicament.

Just like him, I didn't care that many others have it worse, that some people were facing much more life threatening situations. I hated the boy instantly for the same sin I was guilty of. That was who I was becoming.

"You have to see an oncologist urgently...". I woke up to these words on my mind every morning. It was like waking up from a nightmare.

I wasn't in control of my mind anymore. Something else was, some things actually.

I was like a zombie; only that my virus was fear. It was beginning to kill me and I knew I shouldn't let it , but I didn't know how to start or what to even do.

It felt like those nightmares you struggle to wake up from, where you struggle to move but you can't. Terrifying.

I lost my will and I couldn't fight, But I had to take a step soon and I knew it.

"Will you accompany me to see the Oncologist on Monday?" I was asking George and I knew he wouldn't decline.

Knowing George was one of the things I had failed to be grateful for. Indeed, God knows all things, so he made preparations. He made George an essential part of this chapter of my life. Without his role, it definitely would have been worse.

Good people would easily be characterized with qualities like trust, honesty, compassion, understanding, forgiveness, respect, courage and a whole lot of other virtues; He wasn't all of it but he didn't need to be.

He was himself, showing me kindness and even if he didn't completely understand, he did in his little way. Truth is, no one could ever comprehend how I felt except they wore the same pair of shoes.

At this Point, George made the most impact in my life. He influenced the belief that everything was going to be alright and even though I saw the fear in his eyes, he never expressed it.

With him there were days were I could at least pretend to be happy. He was funny and we would laugh at things he said or did. There was a River bank, we would go in the evenings some days and stare , throw stones and watch the ripples like it was our invention, listen to music and talk if we needed to.

Other days we would fight over trivial issues that could simply be overlooked or even laughed at, but everything was all soo intense and negative emotions heightened. It was difficult for him to control, being so young and getting entangled in such a situation.

The dilemma of whether or not to detangle himself from this web of tragedy, the burden of not being able to talk to anyone about it and showing up strong for me. He didn't have to, but he did. All of that and I didn't make it any easier.

I only understand now, that his eyes did not just show his fears but also his anger and frustration. He was angry at why it had to be me, to be us, angry at himself for not having a solution, frustrated, for not having a means to make it all go away...

The Hospital....It looked like a garbage clinic with low income individuals and families. It sat on the first floor of a large building. They were several doors on that floor. The environment looked safe and dangerous, life-saving as well as traumatizing. It evoked the full range of human emotions. Time moved differently, slow and fast at the same time, like the minutes are still but the hours evaporate.

A depressing hallway led to the windowless office of the consultant. It was a rather small and dark office. In addition to the two desks and chairs, there were other chairs a book case and piled folders of patients and a hospital bed at the opposite end of the room. The walls were painted pale blue with no attempt to brighten up the room. I didn't look surprised , I didn't feel so.

"You'll have to have a mastectomy, you'll have to remove the breast; the two of them even..."

The Doctor said it soo casually, it got me irritated. Had it come to that? So quickly? Did he know what he was talking about?

He kept on talking but I had spaced out, wondering if I was at the right place, if coming here was a mistake.

I said, " If it comes to cutting off the breasts, I'll just do it" we were out of the office and I was talking to George, he didn't reply and I could understand why.

I too didn't know what I had said, neither did i think about it. It just sounded like an easy way out and I wanted an escape soo badly but deep down, I was flooded with fear.

We returned home, holding hands and consoling ourselves with no words. It was strange but it felt good. In my fear, there was relief. I don't know how.

We stopped by the mall, shopped for things we wanted. Most of them were irrelevant but we had been through a lot to bother about discipline. So, we got all we needed to make us feel better, even though slightly.

From then on, we never spoke about it, we tried to live our normal lives; my problem became our problem and we buried it deep down in our hearts where it waited to rise again, and we knew it would. We just chose to let it be for a while. We chose to forget.

From then on, my mind made conscious efforts to be happy. It wasn't pure happiness but it was good. We faced other challenges too.

I remember waking up before 6 am to the caretaker of the house banging on our door. He always knew we were in, so he wouldn't stop.

We owed rent for that year. George had spent the rent on us and I wasn't aware until I noticed the meeting he had with the caretaker the previous week. It was strange, so I asked to know what it was about.

"We needed to relax and be happy, and I spent it on us. I don't regret it. I'm only sorry I didn't tell you ; I knew you would not have let me" George said. He was right, no matter how bad we needed to unwind, I would have never been in support of using the rent. I was pretty upset, but it was done and it was our problem now, the main issue was how to fix it. Terrible times.

The caretaker kept bugging, with the same routine. Banging on the Iron door before 6am every four or five days. We would get so furious. He could have made it weekly at least. The embarrassment and humiliation. Those kind of things weren't supposed to happen to us. It wasn't a niche in our kind of problems Or so I thought. George didn't handle it well, he didn't know how to. If you think about a person who despised confrontations and mortifying situations, you would think George. He would lash out, spend hours outside the house; like I was the cause of the problem. But realistically, he was just scared that he looked incompetent and not capable. I understood it, I understood him.

After months, we sorted it out. Together.

Even in that period before we got rid of the caretaker, I noticed a new lump had begun to grow at the same site as my previous biopsy.

I couldn't tell George. I cried quietly whenever I got in the bathroom every morning, but never when I was out of it.

I was determined to lie to myself, to believe it was nothing.

Not thinking about cancer was great, it gave room for other things . For instance, spending time with friends ; Ugochukwu, Olu and Champion . George's friends became mine.

I was terrible at Meeting people. I had a default wiring of moving solo and I didn't see any need to change that at the time. So the crew became my crew. Ugo had a heart of gold, he was selfless and kind. Olu was disciplined, more practical. He was the father figure. Champion was playful and funny. He loved to enjoy life. He loved women too.

They were individually imperfect as any human could be. They had their flaws, but together they were perfect for me. I learned a lot about togetherness from them. They made me laugh a lot. There were moments when the energy would be down, moments where we all faced life issues. On those days it wasn't as fun. We either spoke about it or just shared each other's company and expelled our worries. In all , it was great being amongst them. I was grateful for the opportunity to know them.

In between all off this I was struggling still. My soul was frightened and being in my body felt like living in a haunted house. Cringing at each creak of my diagnosis on the old warped stairs of my mind, but it didn't sway my determination to make it to the bedroom every day. My bedroom where hope was. Halfway up I would see flickering shadows of fear at the corner of my vision. I'll freeze in moments, a shiver would curl through the hairs on the back of my neck then cascade down my backbone. It was how I had to feel to not hurl myself back down the stairs to the front door; to that well of depression.

I noticed I would randomly bump into stories online of people who had died of cancers, I would decide to watch a movie and suddenly , there was a lady crying about a mastectomy in it. Home videos and foreign movies... it made me cringe. Worst of all, George fell in love with a series "The Good Doctor". I hated it, not because it wasn't an awesome series but because it was all about Hospitals, Doctors, terminal illnesses and cancer!

I would never watch it with him again after the first few episodes kept on reminding me of my diagnosis. I would scream at him to reduce the volume so i wouldn't hear. It tormented me but he never understood, he didn't know the lump was growing again. He didn't understand how I felt.

It seemed like my predicament haunted me. Like someone somewhere programmed all of this for the purpose of torturing me.

Now when I think about it, I have a different understanding. I feel like the universe was only communicating with me. Telling me that it was time to take a step. To do something before it became too late.

To get out of my imaginary multiverse.

To wake up!