A Hundred Bad Days

#MondayLetters

Sometimes, I wonder.

How does it feel to be so sure of something this minute and be so unsure of the same in the next couple of minutes?

Everybody needs something. Everybody wants something. And so, they go after it, guarding it jealousy and tightly when they get it.

We all want to get what we deserve (and maybe even what we don’t), if and however we can. This hustle, isn’t it what we live for?

What happens when we don’t get what we deserve? More still, what happens when we lose all the ones we had struggled to get?

Nobody wants to be there, and so, sometimes I wonder.

In the morning hours of Sunday, last week, I lost three things I’d always guarded with my life.

Apparently, we (me and the rest of my family) had received a call from my younger brother, who was the only one at home that morning, saying there was a serious fire in the compound. The rest of us were in church; it was a beautiful and cold Sunday morning.

I rushed home almost immediately I got the news, and as I approached my street, I met the largest crowd I’d seen in that area. There were thick clouds of smoke coming from my building, and there, in that moment, I lost the first thing — I lost hope.

I can’t remember the exact details, they are kind of blurry now, but I remember rushing into the smoke-filled compound and seeing everything on fire. I remember looking up and thinking I could just rush in there and save some stuff...stuff I worked for. It burned for a rather too long while, and every single attempt to quench the fire completely was futile.

There, in front of that fire, I lost everything I owned. We all did, and that was the second thing I lost.

I found a place to sit, and when the fire service came, it was already too late. I tried to think about the whole situation, tried everything possible to convince myself I was in a long out-of-control dream, and all I needed to do was wake up and wash my face. I closed my eyes and could still hear the shouts of people around. I could still feel the smoke and dust bite through my chest. I opened my eyes, and realized I'd lost something else. I lost the ability to see a future for myself. Whenever I tried to think, darkness, fire, and smoke, were all I would see. I couldn't get past them. This was the third thing I lost.

I remember my mother crying and being surrounded by other women around. She had gotten even there before my brother and I arrived. I remember my dad staring for long into the building, lost in his thoughts. I saw him make and receive a series of phone calls. I could never imagine the magnitude of what my parents lost that day.

But,

I'm not really here to talk about what I lost, because even though I lost all those things that day, I gained something far greater. I gained family. Even though I slept that night in a strange, empty room, wishing I would wake up to something else and getting disappointed by reality, I saw people around me. It struck late though, but it struck... that I wasn't alone.

I had a lot of people, good people around me. At some point, I wondered if these people were in any way obligated to help me. I never understood why they would go out of their way to lend a hand, even when a lot of them had just that one hand.

Maybe I will get to understand better later, as I'm learning a lot of things lately.

However, if you're like me, still wondering how possible it is for one to start almost afresh and get to the top, then let me be your case study.

I always hear the words of one of my favorite bands, AJR, whenever I experience a bad day:

“A hundred bad days make a hundred good stories, and a hundred good stories make me interesting at parties.”

— Dee.