defeat

“You’re very self-invalidating; you give up very easily. You feel defeated all the time,” said my former therapist.

He’s right, you know. But maybe that’s why I don’t go to his office anymore.

He’s right, and I feel defeated right now.

Right now all I have is this jumble of feelings in my throat that keep me staring at the wall. I get so ahead of myself that I look back at my own body, as if my soul has already escaped. I gotta run to catch up to it, make sure my body doesn’t just fall lifeless in place.

Like the end of a sentence.

I get so ahead of myself that all I can think of is the words which clack from my fingertips. It’s all that can bring me ease. I mean, I keep saying writing when I mean prayer. I don’t know, man.

I only came on here to avoid writing. I’m writing to avoid writing. I’m avoiding writing the real writing. This is a waste of my time, and I hope it’s not a waste of yours, too. Now that people have subscribed to the list, I have to be mindful of what I write. I guess that’s why I avoided making the sign-up list for so long – because that would mean I knew people were reading. I prefer to be in obscurity. That way I can say what I want without fear of people reading it. A writer who fears being read. A man who fears being seen. 

I’ve been most seen by therapists, but therapists are too harsh to deal with. I want to decrease my suffering, but I don’t want to have to suffer to get there. I want a cessation of pain. But in this life, there is no such thing.

What I’m really thinking about right now is the pages littering my bedroom floor. This stupid refugee camp story is killing me. I don’t want to write it, revise it, edit it, expand it, none of it. I just want to be rid of it. I’m so tired of repeating the words of this story and not knowing how I feel about it. A story, in retelling, loses so much power. It becomes hollow, empty. The words become devoid of ink. I am feeling defeated and isolated and alone and I know that in this time in the world, everyone else feels that way, too.

I guess now the world understands how I’ve felt my whole life. The world is scared, and I’m about the same as I’ve always been. I’m missing being able to drink coffee in cafes. And I miss sitting down with friends, though I rarely did that. I guess what I miss most of all is the idea of socializing. Now it’s blocked off. Now I’m here, avoiding writing.

I know you don’t want to read this. And I don’t know why I’m writing it. I guess some part of me feels that it’s a good use of time. I’ve been avoiding this story for all my life, what makes me think I can just snap my fingers and write it now? 

Ugh, you don’t get it. Here, let me show you:

Picture this: it’s mid-afternoon, Mogadishu, Somalia, 1991. This is the day everything went to hell. After eating breakfast that morning, my father made his way to my uncle’s house. A few of my mother’s brothers were officers in the national army, so they lived in designated government housing on the other side of town. My mom got a phone call at mid-afternoon, in Mogadishu, in 1991, right around the time of the first shots.

“Safia, listen to me: war has broken out. I want you to wait until the early morning hours, before the pre-dawn prayer, and I want you to come to where I am, at your brother’s house. It’s too dangerous for men to walk outside, but women and children aren’t being bothered,” he said. 

My mom hung up the phone and turned to us. It was her, me, and my grandmother. I was about 2 years old at the time. My grandmother was born in the 1920s or 30s, so she would have been about 60 or 70 at the time. My own mother was probably in her late 20s. We waited until morning, but things were hectic. The gunfire rang out in a way that Mogadishu had never heard before. Arguably, those gunshots haven’t stopped to this day. I wonder what can make a people break on such a fundamental level that peace is never in their personal realm of possibility again.

When I interviewed my mom for this story, she told me that the gunshots made her sick to her stomach. I told her that’s a normal human response; fear for your life can produce extreme anxiety, and anxiety can bring you to your knees, holding your stomach. My mother told me that she didn’t feel relief until the day we left Mogadishu. All the while, gun shots rang out like the sky was falling. Like our living room was thunder.

Early the next morning, my mother did as my father instructed. She strapped me to her back with half a diracor baati, the traditional dresses worn by Somali women that are light enough to be torn apart and repurposed. She grabbed my grandmother by the hand. She left everything we owned in that house, hoping that things would settle down between the warring factions and we could return in a few days’ time. Hope can be a dangerous thing in war, because hope can paralyze one into inaction. I wonder how many people died in Mogadishu, hoping that things would get better, hoping to ride out the storm, dying with hope still in their heart. 

As my mom tip toed through the dark Mogadishu streets, I wonder what she felt. I wonder what my grandmother felt. Most of all, I wonder what I felt. My earliest memories of this world are gunshots and terror. I wonder why I don’t think of that more often. I wonder why I’m surprised that anxiety often overwhelms me, brings me to my knees, unable to breathe.

Look down; there’s blood on that sand.

See? Do you see why it’s so hard for me to write this story? How can I do it? Why should I do it? I already hurt so much, and already feel so defeated, what is the point of writing this damn story?

Yes, it hurt, and we nearly died, and there was unimaginable pain, but now we’re here. So what good does it do to retell the story over and over? Who benefits from that? Don’t give me that “you need to tell your story” crap. I’m sick of the voyeurism. No, I don’t need to tell my story. I’m hurt and broken and can barely get through this life without breaking down every single day. Why would I add more pain onto my already overloaded pallet?

The people I care about most in this world are finding ways to survive and cling to hope and I’m sitting here trying to write about painful memories from three decades ago that I would rather forget. But they happened, and I can’t forget. I guess it could be worse. I guess I could remember. Wait, I don’t remember. I guess I could forget. But I can’t forget.

Look, there’s blood on that sand. Can you see me?