Houdini intenso ,  A Maskil

It’s so quiet I can hear a millipede shuffling on the ground. Wow, the wanderlust of creation! But it’s in the gray hours of the day, when everything else but machine and master are awake that one becomes most honest with themselves. I hate that I have thought of you more now than when you were alive. It feels pretentious, this regret like pain. If it were 8 pm, I would not think of all this, I would likely be on Instagram sharing reels, posting memes…

But does it really? I’m probably Houdini in his prime. A veteran escape artist, who won’t face the truth of exactly what I’m running from. Grief is my biggest trick not gonna lie. It’s not that I didn’t love my people or that it’s not painful. It’s that every time I have to face exactly what it is that I need to face, grief is the easy door to substitute that with. It’s no different than the satisfaction from lacerating your skin, nothing but a distraction. I just laughed at the way I said the last statement, if you’re paying attention you will see that its a riddle, a riddle only I know the answer to and there lies the beauty of this existence which is in that you can be with and still not have, you can wear a mask and fool the whole world, but yourself and God not so much. You will always know the truth. I imagine the pain in the father’s eyes when he sees all this suffering. The frustration in his eyes as I houdini my way out of every uncomfortable conversation I need to have with myself, every truth I need to accept, every box I need to unpack. Especially when with arms wide open he is saying

““Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭11‬:‭28‬ ‭NIV‬‬

I used to listen to NF a lot, we simply have a lot in common, he has an album titled “Mansion”. The concept is simple he put everything he didn’t like to process or think about in a metaphorical mansion and locked the door, Every time something happens he would make a new room for that, from heartbreak, despair, anger, shame, etc. I related to him in that instead of a mansion I have always loved boxes. I first listened to Mansion when I was 17…already then I had my boxes. A big library in my brain, very close to my subconscious ..full of all the traumas of my life. The irony is that I’m 26 now and I literally work in a box manufacturing setup. God has a sense of humour, will give him that and more (my life). The concept is that you put something in a box and once that box is full you tape it up and store it. Never to be opened. The problem is that boxes have finite space and once they are full they tend to spill over which becomes problematic quick fast because the illusion of control becomes more apparent. The futility of life, the fragility of existence announces itself like an unwanted pregnancy. All this to say …does life really go on? Or I’m just postponing the inevitable, which is more like spending all your life trying to find the elixir of life…only to realize at the end that immortality is a fallacy. A bedtime story meant to cushion us against the woes of life because if you could live forever then surely at some point you would get everything you have ever wanted, you would find a solution to every problem, travel across the globe, eat all you want and can; an equation based on a fantasy. Two wrongs only make a right in maths, elsewhere… excuse my french but fuck around and find out, though it would be prudent if you didn’t. 

I think the worst thing about all this for me and my relationships is that I have waited all my life for someone to save me, looking at someone/something else to be my light and salvation. A part of me has waited and looked for a crutch, maybe it’s because I have always felt that I was doing this whole thing alone. It complicates things, I would do everything/anything under the sun to give as much as I can because a part of me is hoping that people would do the same for me. But Billie’s brother was right, nobody is coming to save me….no one knows any better anyway. If not Jesus then that’s it. I’m the one who has to repair my breach, you are the one who has to repair your breach and through it all, you hope that whatever relationships and love you have will sustain you enough to build on that and live healthily. Which is why I won’t be loving someone like that in a while, I don’t know how to love without it emptying me, and I don’t know how to stop pouring. Even when I’m empty I still pour. I don’t know how to stop holding on to a rope that’s cutting me. Next time I love someone like that, it has to be different, it has to be nurturing, something like what Vee would say, a love like the dying embers of a star. My life has meaning outside of loving someone, outside of the serotonin that comes from showing up always and whoever that person will be, they deserve healthy love, not my savior type of complex…but that’s just me

Lately, my body has been demanding attention, it’s been asking me why we have had to suffer for all these years if the solution was simple. Which is to open the boxes and process. Easier said than done like getting to work on time every day. Which is why I never reposted any #releasetheEpsteinfiles memes, I knew I had my own files to set free. Lady Gaga said, “We don’t know how to run but damn we try”. It’s true and I’m tired of running, I need to do the needful and yes there are so many things to focus on(career, finances, marriage, more income, health, black tax, politics, etc). But Hi I’m boy and I’m tired of trying to fill that void, something’s got to give and that something is me. I have to be brave enough to face my fears. One of them being, if I let go of my boxes then who do I become? I have held on to them for so long that they are etched into my DNA. My first and only instinct is to find a distraction, to do something else except what I’m supposed to do…however noble it is. My other fear is what if you experience the real me and decide that maybe you prefer the box keeper or what if even after emptying these boxes you never feel like you imagined. It doesn’t get better. My sister once asked me “Tonde, what if I lose this love that I have found”, I told her …fear is natural and normal, I went on to ask her if she would stop driving because people get in accidents on the road. Today my words are biting me right on the mouth. But as they bite me, I ask you fellow sojourner…do you stop living because people die every day? There is no knowing the outcome until you try, often at times we learn and grow so much during the walk than when we arrive. The beauty has always been in the journey. Every time I think about the fact that I’m a chemical engineer. I don’t think about graduation day, I think about all the effort we put in during, the 500-page dissertation (yuhhp wrote a whole 500-page thingy with my friends), the long lectures, hard exams…the friends we made along the way. 

My point is that there is no knowing the outcome until you try, there is only doing. Doing it consistently with all your might and strength. Embracing the journey, appreciating the doldrums, and asking for help when you need to. Being intentional, falling and getting up, every day. I don’t know what you aren’t facing/what you’re escaping from/what you’re afraid to do but if you are like me and there is something…friend you need only try, life is for the living. The world has always been someone’s oyster, it could be yours, it could be mine ..but only if we try. If you aren’t like us, I’m sorry you have wasted your time reading this.

In conclusion, this is my Scouts’ pledge that I’m going to start opening every box. I’m going to put in even more work than I have ever. I’m going to lock in and feel better, be better. I’m going to do it scared, as you should too.

Stay Dandy!