Randomness & This is Not-So-Me On A Public Holiday

To put this straight, I have no idea what I would be writing in this piece, because today just should not have been today.

I had woken up today with a low energy and no zeal to do anything. Firstly, it was waking up some minutes past 6 which could only mean I missed Fajr* in congregation. Secondly, it was returning from the mosque and feeling unnecessarily anxious.

Of course, it is not something new, feeling anxious, but I had not envisaged it to happen on the morning of a public holiday which I had reserved to tick off some of the tasks that were unrelated to work. Things like laundry, personal projects, volunteering works, and some gigs I had promised deadlines.

As someone who dwells in the present, those tasks are not what to be achieved in a day, but Malik is living in a time far from the present, a time where he thinks he has superpower to say, “Be”, and everything will be. And maybe — just maybe — that was the cause of me being unnecessarily anxious.

But no, it was not. It was not even supposed to be in the first place because the only existence where I thrive is in “Organized Chaos”. So, Malik having too many on his plate should not amount to feeling anxious.

The previous day, I had left Mulliner Towers at some minutes to 7pm. I had let my backpack sludged on my shoulder and waited in front of the elevator door, gaping at the counter above it, as the elevator ascended to the 7th floor. But there was this chasm left in me, vast, that I only remembered I didn’t return the greeting of the security man until I had descended to the ground floor.

Poor me! The old man would think I was being arrogant.

As I walked out of the building, I plugged my Airpods Pro to my left ear and let Passenger’s “Let Her Go” be on repeat. I had listened to the song 1001 times in last few days that I could, without murdering the lyrics, sing it along with Passenger.

Plus the realization that the next day would be a public holiday, I wanted to be wild with the song. So, I plugged the second Airpods to the right, and put the volume at the highest. People get high on coke or drugs, Malik gets high on insignificant thing like this.

I have had bad remarks about Lagos. I mean, these remarks that fly on Twitter about Lagos being an insane city. About spending like half of the day in traffic commuting to work and the other half to fight fellow road users, chewing and spewing cuss words at one another.

But the Lagos I had experienced hasn’t been any of those wildness. I could leave my apartment by 8:15am and still get to work before 9:00am, and there has not been any world war to fight for bus. I have had a complete stranger paid for my drink at a canteen and had another complete stranger helped me settle down at work. So, where is this insanity people say Lagos has is?

For context, I live in Yaba and work at Ikoyi and it has been 2 weeks that I moved in to Lagos.

So, this morning of the Public holiday that I woke up to feeling anxious. I had mistakenly opened my archived messages on WhatsApp and saw 97 messages from one single person and another 35 messages from another. Did that perhaps trigger the feeling of anxiousness the more? I couldn’t tell and I couldn’t open the messages either. I will always think of it to be the BCs people send even though it could have some personal messages I should have replied.

Still groped in that feeling of anxiousness, I had my thoughts running wild like how it did the previous night. To start with, I had thought about the conversation with one of my closest friends on how things have changed between us. On how we either have to accept this new change or stay in that delusion that things could go back to what it used to be between us.

Then I had thought about building a Software that I wanted to sell for $10million when I could not even write a single line of code. I had also thought about someone infecting everyone onboard of the train going to Lagos, turning everyone, except me, to Zombie, because I went to use the restroom at the time the person released the gas.

And about the Zombie, it’s a wild thought that only happens in movies. I know, but I could not help thinking about it.

As if I could wipe away my existence from WhatsApp, I deleted all of my statuses that may indicate that I was online today. I did that in a bid to runaway from this feeling of anxiousness. Moving on, I slid into my girlfriend’s DM to tell her I may not really be present on WhatsApp today, made quick replies to some messages, logged out and sleep again.

Maybe, what I needed to let this feeling of anxiousness fade away was to start the day afresh by sleeping and waking up again. But did that work out?

Some minutes to 11:00am, I woke up hastily in order to switch on my PC for a Google meet session. I should not have used “woke up hastily” because all of the time I thought I slept, my brain was busy processing one design feature or the other, it was already writing this piece at the detriment of its own peace. So, I didn’t sleep and that only meant I felt more anxious than I had two hours earlier.

Have I reached that stage where I need dopamine or serotonin?

Malik has to stop overthinking and exaggerating minute mood change cases. I had told myself still groping for the pillow to use to blind my sight against the sun rays sneaking into the room. One moment, the darkness was enthralling, another moment, the old woman’s grinding machine across the street brought me back to reality. And it became a jostle of being here and there until past 12pm when a good Samaritan entered my room because he had not seen my face and it’s mid-day already.

As much as I love living alone and having to wander the house all by myself, I always dread a day like this when what I need to snap out of the mood is someone interfering with the process. Back at home in Ibadan, it was always my mum doing this interruption, but in this no man’s land, I have this humane brother to always come to the rescue.

3:30pm, done with the laundry. I was supposed to be staring at my HP Elite 8740p but Lagos had already happened. The Laptop was stolen a week before along with all files I could think I have on it; the throwbacks of friends, the documents, and some other things I don’t have in the cloud.

I know I should take back my words of “where is this insanity that they say Lagos has?”. But the theft is what could have happened even if it is not Lagos. So, instead I stared at the HP Envy x360 while melting some candy bars in my mouth and trying to make out the introductory note of this piece.

About 5 hours after, I am concluding this piece not feeling any better. Rather, as I have always done, rely on vibes and hope that time will heal whatever that do bring this feeling of anxiousness.

Glossary: Fajr* — the prayer Muslims say at dawn.