How much misery can I take?
In the wake of what seemed like a creeping feel of acedia I was experiencing, partly, but not entirely due to the many failures and rejections life was dishing to me like a hot pot of Jollof rice, which included my lack of a proper/any job or money, so to speak. A friend recommended I fill the open front desk officer position at the law firm she was working at which was not entirely a bad idea considering I had left school and completed my mandatory service year with blustering confidence, thinking I could win at life, (after all, I have worked and applied myself better than at least seventy percent of my peers) only to find the web of illusion I had weaved for myself had me considering taking a job which paid a meager sum of twenty seven thousand naira, offered no challenge or growth and gave me bits of suicidal thoughts.
It was evident that a front desk officer offered me more promise; plus the pay was going to be at least three times more than the drab job I was considering taking. So I sent her my CV and when on that hot Friday afternoon, she called me in for an interview, my ever present self doubt creeped up to my throat and I said to my brother, (who without knowing had been my much needed motivator. The absent “of course you can do it/get it/ deserve it’’ voice I had seemed to misplace since I was failing child).
“I don’t think I’ll get it, I don’t even have any front desk experience” while I thought to myself, “I don’t think I’ll get it, I’m ugly and fat, receptionists are meant to be skinny and light skinned”
“what are you talking about? you just concluded a customer service training, you’ll do great”. For the first time in years, his motivation didn’t seem to do the trick.
At night, while I researched for my interview, I stumbled on articles on articles on the job description and likely interview questions which contained images of white women, although I understood that I didn’t find any image of plus sized black women because Search Engine Optimization was a bitch, it did not stop me from curling up at the end of my bed and poking myself in the dark with my face buried in the pillow to cushion the tears and noise my sobs would create.
Now, I realize I was mourning, even before it happened, the death of another possible success. My screams, like a dirge
self doubt is an elixir for the over confidence I sometimes experience.
If I say to myself “I’ll get that book deal- I’ve worked hard, put my heart and soul into it, I’ve avoided repeating the same mistakes I made with the last one”, a teeny tiny voice says to me - have you though? aren’t there people who have done better? Who have sacrificed more? What makes you think you’re better than them then?
I lose my bolster immediately and cry in anticipation of the rejection and realization that I’m not there yet, because once again, my best wasn’t enough. And on the rare, I say rare because I can literally count the number of “I wanted it, I got it” moments I’ve had. In those eureka moments, I react with shock and my mouth forms an excited “O” and the achievement all of a sudden feels alien to me, like someone else did all the work, like I did not spend hours, days, months and years tearing myself apart for it.
She called a week after my interview, after days of me circling between hanging by the seams, tearing my hair from it’s root and nights of raving in a club and grinding on well established men.
I did not get the job.
P.S: The mechanics of life never made sense to me- you want something, but you fail so much at getting it that you waste ample time trying and failing trying and failing and when, for that one time you actually succeed, the adrenaline pumps for seconds and stops, so you realize you’ve been chasing clouds, that it wasn’t the ultimate achievement or that the rest of the world has moved on to something else. So you find something else you want, and rinse/repeat until you die.
success is like meth, failure, the tired nurses in rehab and we, the league of “trying to leave a mark in this world” kind of humans are the struggling and unrepentant addicts stuck in rehab. We’ll never stop to think of the madness of trying to be something until we’re old and the entire arrangement seems pointless if we’re going to die like everyone else. Ordinary, with nothing! Not even the precious stone we bought in Mozambique, the one with a carved heart our children now wear around their necks from, not even our Rolex or Hublot, not even our favorite “I love my parents” tea cup or pant.
What a waste!
