Young Adult Troubles Part 1

The tears streaming down my face mixed with the tension I was experiencing in an effort to express the confusion I was feeling inside. I was a young adult of twenty four years of age. It had been four months, three weeks and five days since I graduated from college but it seemed like I was still walking down a foggy path with no hope of clarity or direction in sight. 

“I feel so confused. What am I even doing with my life? What am I doing here right now? Why does my chest feel so tight? Why am I even crying? It’s not like anyone hit me or broke my heart… so why this pain? Why all these?” 

I clutched the buttons on my shirt as though I was scared that letting go of them would mean I was forfeiting my life. It seemed to be all my troubled mind could manage to process at the moment. I felt a sharp pang of pain in the middle of my chest and clutched harder. I needed the anguish to stop but I couldn’t think of any way to accomplish that.

Scared without any valid reason and feeling helplessly hopeless, I searched my mind for some kind of validation. I needed something – anything – to make me feel like I had some worth to my life. I thought deep and wide about what I had done with my life in the past five years of my being at the university.  I needed to find something deep within to reassure myself that I had not wasted those five years. Unfortunately, none was forthcoming.

Image source: unsplash.com

I took very careful steps towards the ottoman in the living room of my uncle’s house and sat down very quietly. I was thinking… I needed to think. It had been months since I had to use my brain for any serious activity since I finished working on my final year project. I looked out the window towards my aunt’s clothing line and tried to envision the past five years playing out on my window screen as I had often seen in movies. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll find it easier to remember now that I have a screen to look at.”

I furrowed my brows together and twitched my nose as if in anticipation of all the dirty laundry that was about to be thrown in my face. Nothing scared me more than my past because it had been one hell of a journey into being a mature young adult. I had had to deal with heartbreaks, various scary illnesses, intense peer pressure, hunger, fear and academic tension. I remembered these much and began to rethink my decision to go down memory lane. The journey suddenly appeared way too rough and difficult to embark on, but I had no other choice. I knew from the start that it was going to take a lot for me to put myself in order. I wasn’t about to fall back.

Like a soldier scarred from brutal training in preparation for war, I charged into the battlefield that was my mind, seeking to find something, seeking to find redemption. I couldn’t explain why, but there was this intense desire to gain a hold on my current state of being, and again, I couldn’t explain why, but it felt like to accomplish that I would have to first get a firm rein on my past so as to not repeat history in the future.

Right when I was about to launch into my charge, I heard the doorbell ring. I decided to ignore it. I wasn’t in the mood for visitors. Another ring. “Who the hell knows that I’m here? ‘Cause I doubt anyone would come to visit my uncle by this time of the day when they know he ought to be at work.” I let out an exaggerated hiss and reclined into the sofa that I had switched to when I decided to embark on my mental journey into the past. I was just about to get started when I first felt the vibration of my phone beneath my bum.

The phone continued to ring incessantly, it was almost as if there was an emergency. After successfully extracting it from beneath me, I hurriedly ran my eyes through the phone to ensure there were no cracks. My uncle had just given me the phone the night before as a birthday present (part of the reason why I decided to visit him, I knew he would get me a phone for my birthday.) 

Image source: unsplash.com

“No cracks. Good. I’m not ready for any kind of explanation tonight abeg. Let me even see who has been disturbing my bloody peace with their useless calls. Oh wow… It’s Fiona.” I hurriedly picked the call before the last ring and greeted her sheepishly, my face still very flushed from embarrassment as I had just insulted her a few seconds earlier. I cradled the phone in both my palms and humbly whispered into the mouthpiece. “Hey baby girl, what’s up? You’re in front of the gate?… You’ve been knocking?… Oh wow, I’m coming to get you… sorry about that.”

I jumped into my PJs and shoved my feet into my flip flops. (Don’t ask why I was naked. Everyone knows girls always like to stay naked when they are alone.) After making a sprint to the gate, I instructed the security guard to open the gate for her. He knew his job quite well for refusing her entrance into the compound until he had heard me speak with her, even though she was my childhood friend.

Musa was definitely more efficient than Abubakar who opened our house gate to anyone that knew the name of any member of our household, including the helps. We had corrected him many times but it had always proved abortive. He would reply in his broken English that sometimes confused even my parents who were professors in English and Linguistics. 

When corrected, he would go all “Every time, every time, I telling me ‘Abubakar don’t open gate to strangers. Abubakar don’t open gate to strangers’. Me answer you, ‘but oga madam, they no be strangers. They talk say they no Chioma the cooker. They no be strangers again na.’ Every time every time, I telling Abubakar the same thing. Abubakar don tire for insults. I get Pibe pikin for Niger, I no be small boy.”

I shook my head softly after reminiscing about the event. It was my first encounter with him after returning home during the second-semester break of my 300 level in uni. He easily made a very strong first impression on me by taking me off guard with both his broken English and his blatant declaration of fatherhood, even though he looked like my youngest brother’s age mate. 

Musa opened the gate and welcomed my frustrated guest into the house. “She must have stood outside for long. I’ll need to make up for that with really nice refreshments. Prolly order Domino’s Pizza and Cold Stone ice cream. I’m pretty sure she will forgive me after that kinda treat.” 

I welcomed her into my uncle’s house and apologized furiously for the inconvenience we must have put her through. After getting her order, I placed our orders online and sorted everything out for home delivery, and after ensuring that the entire atmosphere was comfortable, I settled down to entertain her with my own company.

“So… what you been up to? And how did you know I was here? I don’t recall ever telling you I would visit my uncle. And why didn’t you tell me you were coming over today? I would have told Musa to expect you and he would have let you in without all that drama that you were put through.” I expected her to be pissed at the very least, knowing she wouldn’t shout at me as she had always been the quiet and understanding type. Unlike me. I would have blasted her ears with insults the moment my eyes locked hers if I were in her shoes. 

Image source: unsplash.com

She only smiled back at me and shook her head tenderly. “It’s fine. He was only doing his job. In fact, if he had let me in without due protocol, I would have advised you guys to fire him. I’m not pissed. Although, I am sorry for not informing you before coming. I only wanted to surprise you. It was supposed to be yesterday, but I had to go respond to a paper company that had just hired me to work as one of their editors. I’m still interning though, but they said I would get a permanent contract if they were pleased with my work at the end of the year. I’m starting on Monday, gosh I’m so excited.”

I was just about to respond when her eyes flashed a bit before she spoke again. “Oh, and concerning how I knew you were here… I saw your birthday pictures on Tessy’s stats yesterday night. I knew you were here when I saw the interior of the house you celebrated in. Now it’s my turn to interrogate. Why didn’t you tell me you were in town? I would have come over after my interview yesterday.” After a brief pause, she added, “you didn’t want me over, did you?” 

She looked like she wanted an answer but I wasn’t interested in giving her any. Actually, I didn’t have any reason. I wasn’t feeling the birthday and I just wanted to be alone. It was hard enough having to deal with all the energy my uncle and his family were putting into celebrating the birthday, but I didn’t want to be ungrateful either so I smiled along with everyone, danced happily even though I felt like crying on the inside and added a bit of acting to indicate immense surprise when my uncle gifted me the iPhone XR. I actually half expected it already but I still had to act surprised so everyone could feel good. I felt sick.

I looked back at Fiona who was still expecting an answer to her question. I was honestly really happy for her, but I’ll be honest with myself by admitting that the news she came bearing was a huge stinger for me. We were age mates and course mates if anything, I was smarter than her, and we had the grades to prove it. Yet, someway, somehow, she had managed to land herself a job as an editor in what? Less than four months? It was enough to make any human angry if not jealous. “I guess this is why they say that in life, it’s not about what you know, but about who you know.” 

I looked at my rival from my preschool up until now as young adults and even though it seemed like I had been getting the upper hand till my university days, fate had decided to do me dirty by giving her the first win in our adult stage in life. Still, I looked at her and I couldn’t bring myself to be jealous or hate her. I knew I was still finding it hard to make sense of my life as a graduate, but I also knew that it would be foolish to hate when I know how hard she had been working all these years, especially to build connections in university, while I was busy living like an island because I felt that I had my parents to back me up after graduating. I was wrong. I was very wrong.

Upon graduation, my parents skyped me and had a very long discussion which they felt had addressed the subject of life as a graduate. I kept waiting for them to talk about job appointments and their connects, only for me to hear my dad say, “well, we have helped you the way it is expected of parents to help their children. We sponsored your education from preschool to tertiary institution. It is now time for you to forge your own path and take care of yourself. We wish you all the very best in life and remember Flora, we are always rooting for you.” He then burst into a  huge bout of laughter, asking my mom repeatedly if she got the joke. Of course, I did. My dad was always cracking these kinda dry jokes. “I mean really? Flora and rooting? Lame, dad.”

I was still feeling very confused and I still felt like I needed to talk about it with someone. “Who better to talk to than Fiona? We’ve known each other since our preschool days. We’d have been calling each other sisters if we hadn’t been seeing ourselves as rivals.” I could either choose to open up and probably get help or stay silent and probably think about overdosing again in my room. I looked at Fiona not sure if I was ready to appear weak by letting down my pride to ask for her help. She was still my rival after all…