Do you know that I wanted to be a star?

It happened in the summer of 2018. I had just left CNBC Africa. I had just joined the BBC. I went to England, London for a week. Life was good, but yet, there was an emptiness, a vacuum I found terrifying. There are very few things worse than nothing.

I expected the Lord to part the clouds and scream to me, “Well done my boy! Come home!” 

He did not. 

Instead, I’d have to begin the less-than-divine struggle for prominence. I thought it beneath me. 

Madness didn’t descend like I thought it would. There were no fireworks. No bomb went boom. No great pane of internal glass shattered. I suppose it’s nearly impossible to know you’re breaking when you break slowly.

Something broken broke properly; the tilted vase fell, shattering glass. Glass on the marble dance floor. Blood pooled at my feet. 

Do you know you can bleed forever? Do you know you can spend a whole lifetime losing liquid life and still have life? 

That one’s a bit of an odd statement to make; a weird question. How very queer of me. 

Whenever I go away I feel the need to explain why, to conjure words where there are no words, to build a story around myself that makes sense. I was ill. I was tired. I was exhausted. I was terribly depressed - stories by a story man, the ramblings of a madman. 

I think I stopped being myself. 

Is that it?

Does that work? 

Am I lying?

Perhaps. 

The Rambling Madman - Afam, sat on a wall.

The Rambling Madman - Afam, suffered a great fall. 

And no priest, no reverend, no shrink, or psychiatrist, could put him back together again. 

Do you know that someone, let’s call him, Aboniga… That’s what we called him at school. He was insufferable then, and he’s insufferable now, tweeting for Africa, misguided thoughts about policy, politics, and power. Always, all the time, as if cursed, his fingers articulate ideas that are mostly stupid. 

I don’t dislike him. I don’t dislike him one bit. In fact, I think I quite like him. He’s interesting, I think. Watching people be themselves is a delightful occupation. Some people say, “Shut up Aboniga you’re an idiot.” 

I say, “Ride on good misguided sir, let’s see how far this takes you; how fat you become.” 

That’s besides the point. 

This sir once told me I was self-absorbed. The words stung. They pierced my un-fleshy breast, nestled in my heart like a festering cancer. A demon of the heart, singing me lies like lullabies. 

A brief aside. I’ve developed a fondness for alliteration. That’s what you do when you string words with the same consonant sound together.

“Lies like lullabies.” - That’s alliteration. 

“Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.” - That’s alliteration. 

“Am I self-absorbed?” 

The thought plagued me like an unpaid prostitute harangues an owing client. 

It was only one of many things people had said about me, painful words that reached my ears, bruised my heart, and crippled my spirit. 

I stopped being myself. 

Healing is as strange as breaking. It doesn’t happen all at once. Deliverance takes a lifetime. Church bells don’t ring. Flying Monkeys don’t swoop in from the sky and shout, “The Wicked Witch of the West has withered to waste.” 

In the great before, during the time of turbulence, the season of pestilence, I would try to explain myself away. Treat myself like I was some Mr. Robot. The Rambling Madman on the journey to greatness, timelines so strict, he couldn’t stop for a drink of water, a meal, a snooze. 

Ah! A fool’s mission. 

There were breakdowns. Big ones. Little ones. Serpentine ones. 

What kind of person journeys without fuel and gets genuinely surprised when the car stops on the road?

What did I think would happen? 

I started this blog in 2012. It is 10 years old. How marvelous, how wonderful, how grand! 

I haven’t written a word on it since 2019. How terrible, how neglectful, how sad!

But also…

And so what? 

What of it? 

Why should I feel bad about it?

We go again. 

It's just like it was in the beginning. No audience. Very little knowledge about what will happen. A boy, a baby man, with some words in his heart, and absolutely no plan. 

Let's see what happens. 

Happy Days,

Afam