Diary of a
Philophobe.
Part I: Childhood
The concept of
‘growing up’ is one you begin to familiarize yourself with once you blink in
the lights at the delivery room. As a child, you are told to grow up and
abandon certain toddler like mannerisms e.g. sucking your thumb, pooping your
pants, throwing unnecessary tantrums etc.
For some real
life begins at a very early age when born with the misfortune of having
questionable guardians, parents that are never there, while for most life truly
begins when they become aware of the harsh realities of life in their teenage
years. They begin to navigate the giant maze called life when they start to
make their own decisions; decisions that alter the course of their lives,
decisions that make them realize where they fit in the grand scheme of things.
But what
happens when you start to actually grow up later than your fellow counterparts?
What does it
feel like when you begin to ‘grow up’ at 23 in this present 21st
century. This my friends is where my story begins:
As a little
child I was rambunctious, lived to play, always happy, completely contented
with the world as a little child should be. In primary school, I was the
ringleader of the little group of girls in my class, completely at ease with
calling the shots, controlling the affairs of the classroom and a tad bit
comfortable with been mean to someone I didn’t like (Lol not too mean though
and totally wasn’t a bully either, just that you couldn’t win an argument
against me and go scot free). I was a happy go lucky child with big dreams of
becoming a lawyer, banker, automobile engineer, aeronautic engineer but never a
doctor though. The world was my oyster and I was more than ready to pry it open
with my sharp sword.
But actually
thinking about it more now, I wasn’t always the lucky little girl I thought I
was. At age nine, I think I suffered a bout of depression.
I know I know
it sounds funny, I mean why would a nine year old that had everything I needed
to be happy suffer from depression?
I had nice clothes,
shoes, I always ate to my satisfaction, I had a wonderful family and wasn’t
going through any sort of abuse, and I was cared for and had all a kid could
ask for. But still, once school was over and I’d said goodbye to my friends
that sadness would just crashing over me once I left the school’s grey gate
behind. It was weird because during school hours I was always perfectly happy,
but for some unexplainable reason, that happiness would just disappear whenever
I crossed that grey gate. It was like the sadness always waited for me right
outside to embrace me in its arms like a close friend.
Another funny
thing that happened to me at that age was the hatred I had for two particular
songs that had my name in the chorus. Whenever the song came on or was been
sung by someone around me or on the school’s assembly ground, I would
immediately feel this immense sadness and anger in my heart that would more
often than not bring tears to my wide eyes. You know that feeling you get when
you deliberately scrap yours nails across a blackboard or against a concrete
surface?
Yeah that
exact feeling was the feeling I got whenever I heard that song back then. Well
truthfully till now I still feel some kind of way about that song but not the
weird ass emotions it evoked in me when
I was much younger.
I was a kid
that absolutely hated silence; the worst was coming home to an empty home after
school
because others weren’t back yet. I always wondered back then,
“Why do I only
feel sad when I get home?”’
“Why can’t I
shake this sadness off, why can’t I take this awfully heavy load off my heart?”
As I grew
older though, I finally found the answer to my questions: I wasn’t sad only
when I was at home instead the truth was that the sadness was actually a
permanent visitor in my heart, always lurking in the dark crevices of my mind,
dulled only by noise of school and my wonderful family. The noise was a welcome
distraction that acted as a special Band-Aid over my heart. The Band-Aid that
was ripped open and left behind at the school gate at closing hours and taped
back on arrival the next morning. Now that I’m older I figured out, I
absolutely hated silence because the presence of silence only made the sadness
in my heart even louder.
Luckily for me
though, I grew out of this weird ass phase of my life once I got into secondary
school. On my entry into junior secondary school, I returned to the truly
cheerful girl I was. I remember been referred to as something along the lines
of ‘Never Bothered, Always smiling girl’. I can’t recall the exact term right
now, but if you went to a boarding school you would be familiar with this term
(Lol I don’t know about day schools cos I never went there). Funny thing is
that even till now; the people closest to me still think I never get affected
by any sort of negativity.
*scoff*
*laughs in a
thousand tears shed in the dark corner of the room*
If and only if
they know the amount of worries and pain that has settled like dust over my heart. If and only
if they know how familiar I am with heartbreaks and fear.
Hear I go
again waxing poetic *laughs self-deprecatingly* before I jump over the correct
timeline, let me stick to the chronological (is that even the correct term?)
order of life and age.
Are you still
with me? I hope you are my dear reader.
As a teenager,
I wasn’t the problematic or rebellious type. I remained a cute little button
who had taken to been in the background, a complete 360 degrees turn from who I
used to be as a little child. I
appreciated the anonymity been in the background gave me. Though back then I
didn’t realize what I was doing to my self-esteem. I would rather seat at the
farthest corner of the class.
Heaven forbid
I sit in front.
Really it
wasn’t my fault though, because the teachers we had in my junior class were honestly
not the best in that they only deigned the ‘intelligent students’ sat at the
front of the class their undivided holy attention.
Now don’t get
me wrong, I am in no way a dullard. In fact I’m pretty intelligent if I do say
so myself. I’m the type of student that just never fancied sitting in front of
the class because not only did it call unnecessary attention but also because I
have the attention span of a housefly. I just don’t have the ability or should
I say endurance to listen to whatever a teacher has to say for a long time
without getting distracted or my mind flying off on its own into the lands of
the wildest imaginations. I mean its exactly when the teacher is explaining the
intricate workings of dy/dx my mind would decide to conjure up magical wings of
its own, transporting me into another world where horses are flying and birds
are swimming.
Hmm what would
it be like if I suddenly entered into high school musical, what if I was one of
the kids from sound of music? I most probably should be able to break ten
cement blocks if I trained Jet li right?
Whatever is a
girl to do?
Something
these teachers failed to understand was that I grabbed things faster when I’m
distracted and they also failed to understand that not all troublesome kids sit
at the back of the class, some of us just don’t like being in the spotlight to
avoid being asked questions.
Getting
attention was just never my forte because…. did I mention I’m a middle child.
Not middle middle exactly, more middle towards the last born. Ah yeah… a
crucial part of the story of my life I left out in the beginning. As a middle
child you learn to live with less attention from the family because you don’t
necessarily hold an important position in the family. You’re neither the first
or second or last. So really you just grow to be a fiercely independent,
mediator kind of person. Now don’t get me wrong I don’t come from a bad family
or anything. In fact I have wonderful parents and wonderful siblings I would
die for in a heartbeat. Lol so don’t go think I grew up in a bad environment or
anything.
So yeah that’s
that.
Junior secondary
school was a pretty smooth period of time in my life as I lived everyday
majorly happy, except for those days when the devil decides to visit you from
the fieriest parts of hell. Those days when you get in trouble with a senior
student due to personal reasons, or for not doing your ‘hostel duties’ properly
or when your fellow big mouthed classmate decides to put the entire class in
trouble, or the glorious days when your house decides to come last in the
hostel weekly inspection. Or maybe those days when one wicked senior that wants
to be unfortunate in life catches you with contraband and then you start
thinking ‘who did I offend in this life’? while sweating profusely under the
sun doing frog jumps around a lawn as wide as quarter of a soccer field or lying
face down on the hard ground under the blazing sun. You begin to blame your
parents and the universe for putting you in a boarding school while
simultaneously plotting your revenge on the senior punishing you, thinking
whether to add spirogyra water to her drinking water or mixing sand in her
food. Sorry o day students if you can’t relate, it’s not my fault you haven’t
experienced life.
Asides those
days I had pretty nice and easy pre-teen years.
Senior
secondary school was when the drama in my life started. Even though I thought I
was finally growing up, I couldn’t be more wrong.
I was still merely a fetus.
To be
continued…..
Author’s note:
Thanks for
coming onboard this journey with me.
Feel free to
send me your thoughts.
Ciaoxx
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