I Can’t Just Decide Not To Shower: Personal Essay.
Just like breathing, taking a bathe is routine. I can’t just want out!
“We all have free will” they say?
I say, ”Freewill my black arse.”
It’s on a Thursday. My mom is lying on the couch minding her own business, I’m sitting on our (my sister and I’s) bed.
I feel tired and everything hurts. My entire body hurts. I wonder why. Also, I have this nagging feeling that I’m either sick or I’m about to die. I don’t know which one’s worse.
Moments later, I suspect it’s my period but then, it’s day three, the last day blood ceases to flow out of my vagina. So I rule that out.
If it was day one, my suspicion would have been correct. Since all hell breaks loose due to the immense and intense pain I usually feel from everything. Right from cramping, chronic diarrhea, lower back pains, weak joints down to migraines. You name it.
An experience I quickly realized_since age thirteen when I first experienced the horror_makes me a bit delusional by distorting my sense of reality. Who knew period pains could have such mind controlling and witchy powers? I certainly din't. Until I did.
So what’s happening, why am feeling like life’s about to leave my body any second?... I continue pondering.
"Wait. Wait a minute... have I showered today?
"You’ve got to be kidding me. That’s why!…
That's why I've been feeling like a corpse!" I can't believe this.
I admit it makes sense. Since I’ve been in such a predicament before and after I showered, I felt better.
But I’m still not convinced of this theory. I desperately wanted to prove it wrong. I mean, can’t a girl not shower? Even for a day? God!
Let me be clear: I’m not showering because I want too, I barely have the strength to stand. I’m doing it because I wanted to run a test. A test that will prove that free will, even in a trivial thing such as me deciding not to shower exists. That it’s a choice that I_heck everyone, has at any one point or day.
So. I crawl out of bed and somehow, I manage to pour cold water from a black Jerry can into a green bucket_our designated shower bucket_ then I strip and wrap myself in a blue towel_my sister’s towel. But since she’s not around, it’s safe to say it’s mine. She’d say the same.
Our relationship is a weird one. Not to us, but to people observing us. We treat each other as if we are couples; madly in love kind of couples, till death do us part kind of couples, you are my ride or die kind of couples not forgetting the famous, you are my soulmate kind of couples.
We share almost every-thing. As in toothbrushes and panties kind of everything. Some people think_mostly our mom_ that it’s gross and unhygienic. But we don’t mind. Because they (including her) don’t understand us. We are sisters for crying out loud. We’re literally all that’s important and meaningful that we’ve got in this world_each other. Ever since we can remember, we’re all we’ve ever known. Really, truly known. Inside out. Nobody else.
Note: If my sister’s boyfriend reads this I bet he’ll be so triggered. But it’s true. He doesn’t know her like I do. He probably never will.
After stripping, I hold up my braids in a bun and then wrap them with my mom’s red bandana.
Soon after, I carry the soap dish in one hand and the half filled shower bucket in the other and head out for the bathroom.
Yeah, you heard me right. Our bathroom is detached from our house. It’s actually behind it. So you know, it's quite a journey down there and remember?...I’m not feeling well and stuff.
“I hate this” I say to myself, clenching my teeth.
Moments later, I make it to the bathroom. Its kinda dark since the sun is almost setting. But the huge hole near the roof, is allowing some light inside.
I place the bucket on well spread tiny rocks, which are meant to act as cement or tiles on a floor. Did I mention I hate this? Well, I hate this! I hate everything about our rented single room house, this mediocre imitation of a bathroom, the gut wrenching monthly periods I get, my sister being away, being jobless, broke, having writer’s block as an aspiring author drafting my first book’s manuscript but more disappointing, the realization that free will might be a myth after all. "I’m yet to find out." I think to myself while scrubbing my then wet body with a soapy white piece of cloth.
Say, maybe ten minutes later, I’m done showering. So I head back to the house. Gradually, as I dry myself, apply oil on my skin and dress in my sleeping clothes, I start feeling better. Not-sick-after-all kind of better. You-were-just-tired-and-dirty kind of thing.
There it was, the results to my free will test.
My conclusion:
I can’t just decide not to shower. It’s routine. And just like breathing, I can’t just want out!
Plus...”Everyone has free will.” They say?
I say, “Free will my black arse!”
Thanks for reading this far.
Plus…I hope you enjoyed reading this piece half as much as I enjoyed writing it.
