The Bottle of Stella Is Done
The bottle of Stella I have with me is done. I had to actually take off the bangles on my wrists to be able to type without feeling bothered and annoyed by the clanking of the brass and copper on the pad—the place where the base of my palm rests when I type.
I am a bit tipsy. Not the happy "I wanna shout and shake my ass" kind. It's the "I find myself reflecting on a question as old as time" kind. Clearly I am sober enough to have cooked a whole ass meal, and YES the kitchen was clean by the time I was done. The bottle of Stella is done and I sit in the living area for the first time in weeks. Wondering… brain wandering.
What is the point of all this?
Why do we do all we do?
I am thinking that… well… when I get to Ghana in a few weeks, I will divine on:
whether or not I need to move out of my apartment, and
if I have the greenlight to quit a group of people I held close to my heart.
I have been talking to a friend—an acquaintance, something in between—and already I pick up a sense of them foregrounding themselves and their progress. They will do whatever they need to do to thrive. I am not mad. But it also means that I need to remember this when I engage. Thinking of my relationship with a chosen-sister-not-friend: I can see how it can easily turn into a repetitive cycle of drawing in when convenient for her and ideal. But any relationship is real when it is co-created and co-curated.
Right now I am typing and I am not stopping, because to stop means I am thinking about what I am typing about, and this app—this very app that I use to get me out of my head—will definitely throw everything away.
What are some mistakes I have made which I may not have identified?
My heart is my superpower, but is it also not exhausting to live like I do? Knowing that in most cases—if not all—you give the best of yourself but are never sure if it will translate as such. To think that you are valued, yet not knowing if you are. But what is life if not a space for us to make the mistakes of trying to love and trying again?
Are we not here to exist in a way that makes life easier for others? And if the efforts are being made, are we not inclined to see? Why do we not see? Many of us… why can we not see past ourselves?
Is it really human nature to foreground oneself first?
It makes sense though. It truly does.
And I am not mad at that.
So how do we then co-exist in a world that keeps throwing contradictory messages at us? We are all products of our environments and we do not ever create, curate, or present in isolation. Everything comes from somewhere. Every step is calculated—if not by us, then by the broader hands that hold the brushes that determine the colors, texture, and configuration of our lives.
What is it all for? Is it all worth it at all? Why do we do the things we do? Why and how are we the way we are?
What if we all went quiet—in this world—for a moment and just sat with the reasons we do what we do? What if we did not have to worry about survival, about the safety of ourselves or our loved ones? How could we, or how would we, exist in this world? But is that even possible at all?
For time immemorial, it has always been an instance of predation. A predator and the predated. The pursuing and the pursued. A cycle of death to create birth that moves towards death. If this is the norm—the cadence, the cycle that we are supposed to be in—then why do we complain about the state of affairs? Do we really get a choice in how things go?
I do not mean the small things we control, like our behaviors and attitudes towards ourselves and others or other living and non-living things. No. If that was the case, everyone who smoked should have died from lung cancer. Everyone who ate junk food should have been obese. If the scales are not the same for everyone, why do we think we actually have control?
Cover Photo by Gerard Nartey
