how are you?
something else.
I told myself that I wouldn’t write anymore. Well, apart from assignments at work. I kinda fell out of love with it. Writing is thinking, and thinking is exhausting work. Arranging my words and correcting grammatical errors gets so tiresome, you know? Do you want to know a secret? I can never figure out where the damn semicolons are supposed to go. But, here I am, typing at my keyboard with fingers wrapped in white tape. By the time you’re reading this, it’d be on my Medium page. I am here because even though it drains me, and I feel that my life is some kind of content source and I don’t want to put my trauma and pain and suffering out here, it is the only way I know how to make sense of things. And I really need to make sense of things.
I really hate it when people ask “how are you?” these days. It’s not their fault, it’s just that every single time I hear that question, I am taken aback by the amount of weight three words with a punctuation mark behind them have. How are you? I don’t know. How should I be? I don’t know. Okay, I lied, I know how I am. I am tired. Recently, I have been trying to induce tears because people on Twitter said crying relieves stress. Still waiting for my eyes to get the memo.
I looked through the academic profile on my school portal recently and it struck me for real that I have an extra year. I always knew, and I talk about it all the time because I don’t think it’s something to be ashamed about. There’s some stigma around it that shouldn’t be there. School sucks anyway, and it sucks that it sucked for you more than others, but it’s just an extra year, not ebola. Yeah, all that is true. But, seeing my classmates in signout shirts discussing the next stage of their lives made me hurt a bit. I am man enough to admit that. I’ll also admit that I believe I’ll be feeling this hurt for a while after this. Like every single thing in my life, I have used humour to mask the way I feel about this, instead of just addressing it. That’s work for my therapist, I guess. Mm, I started therapy this month. That’s how I am. I guess it’s cool, but sitting and talking about everything bothering me isn’t my idea of a fun time. I’d rather just say I’m cool and throw gang signs.
How are you? Tired. At the core of my being, soul, spirit, whatever. I just want rest. If I could go to bed tonight and not wake up, I’d be so grateful. I don’t know if my ghost/whatever I turn to will be sentient enough to feel gratitude but you get my point. I have thought about death so often in these past few weeks, it scared me a bit. My friends say “how can we help?” and my first thought is “kill me.”
How are you? Tired. I don't like being sad. Sometimes, I feel like my friends - and even you, dear reader - get tired of the constant switches in my mood. I'm always a downer. It must be excruciating to hear complaints all the time. I said I'd stop, but honestly, that means stop talking in total. Joy has left my house, there is no space for her because sorrow is plopped down on the sofa, manspreading.
How are you? Confused. Why? I don't know how to express myself. Aren't you a writer? Well, yes, but- my vocabulary for interpersonal conversations sticks to a familiar list; fine, nice, cool, no, nah, sad, yah, yurr, yeah, okay, alright. the real me is in the writings. I think it's because my audience is not physically present. Sure, people I know will read it and take out the parts for them. But the real person I'm writing for isn't here.
How are you? Scared. The next year of my life is going to be hard. Especially as regards money. I became self-reliant this year and it's been so tough. Between me and you, I sometimes wish my dad was a pastor who sold fake prophecies, or collected offerings twelve times a day. Maybe we'd have had money. Thinking of monthly medication, rent, skincare, transportation and feeding is killing me. And the extra year? The thought of going to school alone, without my friends is eating me up inside. I feel like we'll drift apart. Or maybe I will? Idk.
How are you? I am something else. That’s how someone described me recently. She read my work and thought to herself “Oluchukwu Nwabuikwu is something else.” That is probably the best compliment I have received. I don’t know what the point of that is, I don’t know what the point of this entire piece is. But it’s here and I’m writing it and you’re reading it, and I don’t know. But I am something else, don’t forget that. I’d like to come back to this in a few months and say wow, I am better. Imela Chineke. But I honestly doubt it. I don’t even know what ‘better’ looks like. I think it looks like death. Lol haha.
How are you? I have been thinking about the quote in the picture above. I know I said thinking was tiring but it’s also relentless, you can’t get a break from it. I don’t even know if success is something on my horizon because I don’t even have anything I am interested in enough to succeed at. Nothing excites me, nobody inspires me, nobody feels like a reason to do anything. Like, you know how you want to make your girlfriend/sugar mummy proud, so you put in the effort? Yeah, I don’t feel that way. Fuck your girlfriend and your sugar mummy smh.
How are you? My answers to that tweet were 1, 0, 0, 4, 2. That’s how I am.
Cheers till next time.
Oluchukwu,
Something Else.
