I am bored as hell. I am despising work more and more. And giving less fucks each and everyday. I don't know what the answer to all of this is. I want this to work -- me living in FL -- but this isn't the life I imagined for myself.
I miss the city. I miss my friends. I miss being a bus ride away from my family. But I don't want to give up just yet. I've met some cool people here and that's what's keeping me a little sane. But if I were to somehow get transplanted back to Philadelphia and continued my post-college life there, I would not protest much. C'est la vie, Melbourne.
Yet, I don't want to give up just yet. I have this huge hope that there's something that I was supposed to gain here. This big understanding. An enlightenment. Just a few more months of driving lazily up and down the coast, across the river, eating lunches in the car, halfhearted tugs on a purple and yellow exercise machine, grimacing and fake giggling to my sunburned coworkers, going to happy hours and forcing small talk with cute girls and nerdy guys in Hawaiian shirts, going to church, and laying in bed as it thunderstorms once again in Space Coast, FL. Just a few more months of this and I will be well-adjusted. I feel like I'm living a never-ending, hazy vacation without the excitement of enjoying it with the people you love.
It has been a morose week. I went home last weekend for my graduation party. I turned 22 with some of my friends from both college and high school. I drank too much, spent too much on Uber, and I had a decent night in some club in D.C. It was supposed to be one of the best ones in D.C. I don't know. It was cool, I guess. But I feel like I can barely remember it. That was the early mornings of my birthday and then my graduation party happened later in the night. It was so stressful seeing my mom and dad run up and down trying to get prepared for it that I did not enjoy it to its full extent. The hall was beautifully decorated though and SO many people came and that made me overjoyed. My feet hurt so badly at the end of the night from all the dancing and my dress was soaked at the bottoms from people's sweat because it was so damn hot.
I went back to Florida on Sunday afternoon and got picked up by a guy from church. Mrs. Martha was supposed to pick me up but she and her husband went all the way to Tennessee because Mr. B's brother was sick. She sent a text but I deleted it when I wiped my phone because I dropped it on Saturday night and then it kept telling me that it was overheating. My phone wouldn't let me charge it, wouldn't let me use any apps. I bought Gone Girl at the airport in North Carolina (or was it Georgia?) and it was so good that I haven't picked it up to finish because I suck.
I got a new phone on Monday last week, I believe. I decided to get a Samsung S8 and it's great except for when it won't let me send messages to people. So now I have to go back to Best Buy one of these days to get it checked out. But it's clear that it's an S8 thing because the same thing keeps happening to my mom who also has an S8. You live and you learn.
I continue going to work. I do some half-hearted research and between clicks of the same damn Github pages, I scroll on the #BB20 tag on Twitter. Refreshing it and refreshing it. Who is HOH? Who is getting evicted? Who won the veto? I can't stop thinking abut Big Brother. It's ridiculous. I blame Mrs. Martha for this calamity on my mental health. And now I have dreams about being on the show and fucking Brett underneath the sheets. What a mess, I tell you.
On Thursday, my youngest brother called me at 5pm. I remember my initial reaction. Why tf is he calling? He knows I'm at work. His birthday was on the 21st (it was the 23rd) and I thought it was going to be about his birthday money. I declined his call and texted him that I'll call him back. He then sends me a text that says, "It's serious". My heart raced as I texted him back maniacally. "What's wrong? Please tell me what's wrong?" I ended up just calling him back right there in my cubicle.
I remember thinking this was it. This was going to be the worst phone call of my life. The phone call I have tried to prepare for when I let my mind wrap around the thought at the latest hours of the night. My brother was so cruel. He told me he was leaving to drop off a phone charger for my sister (I thought there was something wrong with her and I was going to freak out) but then he said that's when he heard our grandmother screaming downstairs (so then I thought something happened to her because she had been sick when I last saw her) and then he finally got to it. My grandfather died. I walked out of cubicle, my heart racing thinking that I would just talk to my brother briefly outside. And then I decided I would just go home. It was 30 minutes before the time I had to leave and I was leaving.
The ride home was so long. I had my brother on speaker as I tried to make my way home. It was cloudy and dark. I just remember how yellow-tinted everything looked. There was so much traffic because of the 5PM rush hour. I never left work earlier than 5:30pm except when Mrs. Martha picked me up to drop me off at the airport at 4:30pm. At some point of the drive, I cried in the car. And that was all the tears I shed for Grandpa. I hate the fact that I only get to know who Grandpa was through stories. He was already suffering from severe dementia when I got to first meet him. When he lived in the U.S., he tried to teach us Igbo and he would always pick me up from the bus stop but my dumb, middle school self did not appreciate that enough. I thought he was moody and had odd quirks, like sewing pockets into all of his clothes and hiding food in his room. Not knowing this was all part of the disease. Everyday after school, I would help him call home to Nigeria. Almost every single day. And I resented it.
I really don't want to remember him from my middle school memories. I want to remember him by his pictures. His lit up face and eyes and smile. The stories my mom told us about his generosity, intelligence, and diligence. I really hope that I will be able to go to his wake in Nigeria in December. It is sad that my reason for going home for the first time in over 15 years will be such a sad affair but now I feel obligated to and that's more of a reason than nothing. My brain still hasn't yet processed what Grandpa's death means for me but I think of him a lot and sadness fills me.
Sometimes, my mood darkens suddenly and I cannot decipher what's wrong. Yesterday, I was watching Big Brother and eating soup and crackers and I didn't feel right. I felt like I had been triggered by something but I couldn't figure out what it was. And then after work, I went to sleep and woke up at 10pm and I got inexplicably annoyed with myself. Then, the sadness rushed over me.
I'm fine now. But shit like that concerns me because sometimes I worry that the feeling will last longer and I won't be able to snap out of it. I feel like I'm stronger than that but who fucking knows.
I'm going to leave this post where it is right now. I don't know when I'll be back but I have much to tell. It's almost 3am and I have to wake up at 6am for another day of a job I'm beginning to despise. Can't wait for the weekend...
I miss the city. I miss my friends. I miss being a bus ride away from my family. But I don't want to give up just yet. I've met some cool people here and that's what's keeping me a little sane. But if I were to somehow get transplanted back to Philadelphia and continued my post-college life there, I would not protest much. C'est la vie, Melbourne.
Yet, I don't want to give up just yet. I have this huge hope that there's something that I was supposed to gain here. This big understanding. An enlightenment. Just a few more months of driving lazily up and down the coast, across the river, eating lunches in the car, halfhearted tugs on a purple and yellow exercise machine, grimacing and fake giggling to my sunburned coworkers, going to happy hours and forcing small talk with cute girls and nerdy guys in Hawaiian shirts, going to church, and laying in bed as it thunderstorms once again in Space Coast, FL. Just a few more months of this and I will be well-adjusted. I feel like I'm living a never-ending, hazy vacation without the excitement of enjoying it with the people you love.
It has been a morose week. I went home last weekend for my graduation party. I turned 22 with some of my friends from both college and high school. I drank too much, spent too much on Uber, and I had a decent night in some club in D.C. It was supposed to be one of the best ones in D.C. I don't know. It was cool, I guess. But I feel like I can barely remember it. That was the early mornings of my birthday and then my graduation party happened later in the night. It was so stressful seeing my mom and dad run up and down trying to get prepared for it that I did not enjoy it to its full extent. The hall was beautifully decorated though and SO many people came and that made me overjoyed. My feet hurt so badly at the end of the night from all the dancing and my dress was soaked at the bottoms from people's sweat because it was so damn hot.
I went back to Florida on Sunday afternoon and got picked up by a guy from church. Mrs. Martha was supposed to pick me up but she and her husband went all the way to Tennessee because Mr. B's brother was sick. She sent a text but I deleted it when I wiped my phone because I dropped it on Saturday night and then it kept telling me that it was overheating. My phone wouldn't let me charge it, wouldn't let me use any apps. I bought Gone Girl at the airport in North Carolina (or was it Georgia?) and it was so good that I haven't picked it up to finish because I suck.
I got a new phone on Monday last week, I believe. I decided to get a Samsung S8 and it's great except for when it won't let me send messages to people. So now I have to go back to Best Buy one of these days to get it checked out. But it's clear that it's an S8 thing because the same thing keeps happening to my mom who also has an S8. You live and you learn.
I continue going to work. I do some half-hearted research and between clicks of the same damn Github pages, I scroll on the #BB20 tag on Twitter. Refreshing it and refreshing it. Who is HOH? Who is getting evicted? Who won the veto? I can't stop thinking abut Big Brother. It's ridiculous. I blame Mrs. Martha for this calamity on my mental health. And now I have dreams about being on the show and fucking Brett underneath the sheets. What a mess, I tell you.
On Thursday, my youngest brother called me at 5pm. I remember my initial reaction. Why tf is he calling? He knows I'm at work. His birthday was on the 21st (it was the 23rd) and I thought it was going to be about his birthday money. I declined his call and texted him that I'll call him back. He then sends me a text that says, "It's serious". My heart raced as I texted him back maniacally. "What's wrong? Please tell me what's wrong?" I ended up just calling him back right there in my cubicle.
I remember thinking this was it. This was going to be the worst phone call of my life. The phone call I have tried to prepare for when I let my mind wrap around the thought at the latest hours of the night. My brother was so cruel. He told me he was leaving to drop off a phone charger for my sister (I thought there was something wrong with her and I was going to freak out) but then he said that's when he heard our grandmother screaming downstairs (so then I thought something happened to her because she had been sick when I last saw her) and then he finally got to it. My grandfather died. I walked out of cubicle, my heart racing thinking that I would just talk to my brother briefly outside. And then I decided I would just go home. It was 30 minutes before the time I had to leave and I was leaving.
The ride home was so long. I had my brother on speaker as I tried to make my way home. It was cloudy and dark. I just remember how yellow-tinted everything looked. There was so much traffic because of the 5PM rush hour. I never left work earlier than 5:30pm except when Mrs. Martha picked me up to drop me off at the airport at 4:30pm. At some point of the drive, I cried in the car. And that was all the tears I shed for Grandpa. I hate the fact that I only get to know who Grandpa was through stories. He was already suffering from severe dementia when I got to first meet him. When he lived in the U.S., he tried to teach us Igbo and he would always pick me up from the bus stop but my dumb, middle school self did not appreciate that enough. I thought he was moody and had odd quirks, like sewing pockets into all of his clothes and hiding food in his room. Not knowing this was all part of the disease. Everyday after school, I would help him call home to Nigeria. Almost every single day. And I resented it.
I really don't want to remember him from my middle school memories. I want to remember him by his pictures. His lit up face and eyes and smile. The stories my mom told us about his generosity, intelligence, and diligence. I really hope that I will be able to go to his wake in Nigeria in December. It is sad that my reason for going home for the first time in over 15 years will be such a sad affair but now I feel obligated to and that's more of a reason than nothing. My brain still hasn't yet processed what Grandpa's death means for me but I think of him a lot and sadness fills me.
Sometimes, my mood darkens suddenly and I cannot decipher what's wrong. Yesterday, I was watching Big Brother and eating soup and crackers and I didn't feel right. I felt like I had been triggered by something but I couldn't figure out what it was. And then after work, I went to sleep and woke up at 10pm and I got inexplicably annoyed with myself. Then, the sadness rushed over me.
I'm fine now. But shit like that concerns me because sometimes I worry that the feeling will last longer and I won't be able to snap out of it. I feel like I'm stronger than that but who fucking knows.
I'm going to leave this post where it is right now. I don't know when I'll be back but I have much to tell. It's almost 3am and I have to wake up at 6am for another day of a job I'm beginning to despise. Can't wait for the weekend...
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