The Dam inside of Me is About to Break
On Thursday, I watched Marvel’s Doctor Strange for the 12th time. Yes 12. And it still felt like I was watching it for the first time. I still cringed when Strange’s Mercedes skidded off the bend — an accident that ultimately ruined his life and then, saved him.
For every single time I have watched this movie, I anticipated every scene, like it was a first, awaiting the next move and being shocked when they do happen — even when I knew they would, even when I was reciting the words alongside the characters.
I tell myself that it is because this is how my mind works, I like this — this knowing what life is bringing, knowing that by 5.00, the religious institutions beside my home will wake me up with their mind grating calls for prayer. Like knowing that the weekends I go to visit my parents, we would eat Pounded Yam after Church on Sundays, because that’s what we’ve done since I was born.
This is what also makes me a good lover. I assume. And I base this assumption on this — that although I have kissed my lover several times in the last hour, the next kiss still feels like a first. He touches me times without number and it still manages to feel new. And when I think about this, I agree with that girl in University who called me Ruth Abokoku, after the Biblical Ruth. When she did call me that, it was in jest, but this is me. I like the familiar.
Why then have I begun to feel incomplete in recent times? Why then has the familiar suddenly become so infuriatingly boring? My life has been the same for the past 4 years and although I changed jobs, the job is the same — creating and curating content. I am supposed to be safe in this, this familiarity, but why do I feel severely lacking?
Initially, I pegged this down to being newly single but I am in fact enjoying it. Singleness is a full time experience on its own — Getting to know myself, loving and showering attention on myself, meeting people, going on multiple dates because, frogs and then that lucky prince. Oh, wait. I think I might have found this prince, but no digression. Not today Satan.
It just feels like there’s a dam inside me that’s about to break. The other day, I found myself crying for no reason. No absolute reason. I thought then that my Dam had finally broken, but it was a drizzle — the kind of drizzle the god of rain first sends down before a real thunderstorm.
I am waiting for the thunderstorm. When it happens, and the clouds clear, I hope that this fuzziness that is threatening to swallow me whole dissipates along with the clouds. That the way forward for me comes to light and that when it does, I have the strength to leave this lackluster familiar life of mine and take charge of the new. An adventurous and more wholesome new.
While I wait, can anyone introduce me to Benedict Cumberbatch? I just want to talk.
