After Despair, Look For Rays Of Light

This afternoon, I took a pillow which was on my bed, put it to my face and screamed as loud as I could.

In the previous month, I watched a TV show called “Fleishman Is In Trouble”. In it, Claire Danes plays a character who is overworked, has just divorced her husband and is going through a small nervous breakdown. (The screaming starts at 1:30 and ends at 1:33👇🏽)

She is at a retreat where someone tells her about “Yelling Therapy”. You have to yell out your frustrations.

At first she feels silly. Then she belts a small scream. And then a much louder one. The scream encompasses all her frustrations including her divorce with her husband, her work, her kids and life itself.

I only screamed into my pillow for about three seconds. But I feel like I need an eternity to yell.

On Monday evening, I drove my dad to the hospital. We were going to the morgue. My uncle who had been feeling unwell had been pronounced dead and his body was on his way to be deposited (I hate that word “deposited”)

So instead of laying in bed, finishing up online articles and planning on how to get new clients for my startup, I drove my father to the hospital to receive the deceased body of my uncle.

I did not go inside the morgue to see the body but my dad did.

It was a quiet ride to the hospital. This was my second uncle (my dad’sbrother) who had passed away in less than two years. I have only one remaining uncle on my father’s side.

In the ride, I thought about my own father’s mortality. Over the years, he’s had his own health issues ranging from eye sight issues to blood pressure. I feel like I have to contend with the eventual passing of the man I have known for 35 years. The person I have taken most of my morality and thinking from.

My uncle’s passing is one of life’s reminders about death. It can be sudden or it can be swift.

The hospital visits over the last couple of months to see my uncle did not give me hope. The man who was once upright, walking and talking, was suddenly reduced to a hospital bed with IVs attached.

The weight loss made it sadder. The boatload of medications by his bedside made me want to cry and curse out a God who put him there.

But that anger would probably be misplaced.

In my head, his passing reminds me that he is no longer in pain. But the ramifications in the physical world are going to be felt till we read him his final rites at his funeral.

Today, I got into a car accident. The images play over and over in my head. The car in the middle lane abruptly stopping and swerving with its side into my lane. The shattered windscreen of the his car. My sound of my car horn blaring loudly as I reacted quickly to break to prevent a bad collision.

The adrenaline rush from the incident made my hands shaky and unaware of the other cars who were passing by, looking at the small incident in the left lane of the road.

But it’s starting to feel like a blur now.

In some ways, it feels like nothing. I keep telling myself it could be worse. But a voice in my head says this could have been the end. The end I had dreamed about. The end where I finally leave the Earth as a result of a car accident in a city that I hate.

But this was not the day.

I’m still here. In one piece thankfully. Writing out my thoughts and feelings because I need an outlet.

But I feel like I’m finally about to break. Under my own pressure. Because of my overthinking. Because of the imaginary weight I place on my shoulders which I know no one else could possibly handle.

But I haven’t broken yet. The cracks are still there.

I used to be able to plan for everything. But for the first time ever: I’m going to let whatever happens happen.

But how long can I do this? I can only hold on for so long. I might need to intervene sooner than later.