“Only for now”

Navigating disappointment

“Are you okay Shaniya?”

“Yes I’m alright.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah I’ve just received some disappointing news that’s all. Just gimme five.”

“Take all the time you need. I mean it”

The staff room door closes and I immediately go back to crying in great explosive sobs. Globules of salty water blur my vision as I howl in into my lap and condure about a million ways to end it all.

Of course this is all for dramatic effect and I won’t act on any of it. These are remnants of my old way thinking. Beaten out of me by years of relentless CBT. These thoughts are stubborn despite all the training I’ve put my brain through, but the good thing is now I see them as fleeting and I can identify them as irrational. I don’t need to die because I didn’t get a job what the fuck mate. Thoughts create feelings, feelings create behaviours, behaviours reinforce thoughts. If you don’t catch yourself very quickly you’ll end up in a death roll. Tearing yourself limb to limb, drowning in despair over literally nothing.

Well, not quite literally nothing. I prayed about this you see. I don’t pray ever. Not because I don’t think prayer doesn’t work but because mine are never answered. I ask others to pray in my stead. I don’t mind who, Hindu, Jewish,Muslim spiritual Badu baddies, my grandmother, Kayla. Everyone seems to have a direct line to that entity up there. I’m always on hold. Or maybe my number is blocked. Either way I prayed, bordering on begging. I don’t ask for much, I don’t need much but I need this. I am so uncertain about everything and everyone but I am so sure about this. This would be change my entire my life. This would set things into stone,get the ball rolling. So I prayed and I cried and I begged. No one answered though.

When I was in my final year at uni I had another one of these moments. I had no one to talk to. So I walked around my uni town to each church. There were three. I knocked on each hoping to confide in a priest or simply sit in a pew. Each Church door was locked. If not god who else can I turn to?

As I see my tears pool on the floor of the dingy staff room I make a mental note to never ask anything of him again. Usually I would be catatonic over such news but years of mental gymnastics has made me a lot more flexible. I bruise easier but get back up faster. I’m more cognisant of the things that keep me fixated in my own misery. When you have certain expectations of yourself you’re constantly haunted by where you are and where you should be. Even when you do achieve something it is never enough. This is no way to live. You’re not a ghost.

And it’s not that I’ve lowered my expectations of myself. Not by any means. I just don’t need to do “all that.” I don’t need act like the world is ending, self immolate like a candle burned up in its own wax. There’s things I could be doing and there’s things that can be done. The great thing about rock bottom is that it’s a solid foundation. I wipe my face, send an email to one of my favourite professors enquiring about work experience and get on with it.

“You don’t need more of a break?”

“Im fine. I know what I need to do.”

-

(This rambling was inspired by my friend LULU.’s recent single ‘Not there yet.’ I’m forever inspired by my friends so much so I find it difficult to write about them. I spent the rest of my shift listening to this song. “Only for now, the dawn is coming don’t wait around.”)