Bismillah. I have at least 7 different projects on my plate and their combined weight is pushing down on my chest. Who put this plate on my chest? I can’t breathe, can’t breathe. The price of seeking success is that one must always juggle more than one can handle. The stress in my life is unbelievable, but Allah is All-Powerful. Lately, my anxiety has been shifting forms and popping up in novel ways. I don’t know, man. I just wish it were easier. I wish I didn’t think about the future so much, wish I didn’t worry so much… but I’ve been primed to worry all my life, to wait for the other shoe to drop, to expect disaster, waiting for it, primed like a tripwire, never letting up, always on edge, always. What a life I lead. But that’s what happens when you’re born in a war zone and then raised on the run, fleeing certain death. But death was not assured. I wish that my life was easier, that things made more sense when I ponder my place in the world and realize how hopelessly outnumbered by the odds I am. I wish the cops didn’t come to a slow crawl whenever they saw me, or someone like me, someone with this skin, with this face.
As it stands, wishes don’t fill wells; only water does. Pennies don’t make palaces, only millions do. Broke men don’t get married, only those who’ve made it do. Marriage. Yuck. I’m still stuck worried about that. Forget marriage, I’m over here struggling with how in the world I’ll come up with 6,000 dollars for a decent car. The problem is, I don’t believe in needing a new(ish) car, not in this country. My current car works just fine. Why would I invest in staying here any longer than I have to? I think that’s a slippery slope. I know that if I buy the car, then the house will want to be bought, too. I don’t believe in buying houses, I believe in building them. I have to keep marriage off my mind, because I’m not financially prepared, and yet, I’m so desperately alone, so sick of being by myself, that I wish I could “just” get married… but my time has yet to come. And so I wait.
And David Foster Wallace once said in an essay on Kafka that our only real home is found in our endless journey to find a home. There is no such thing as settling; home is on the road. I give up, I give up, I’m fed up. Why did I agree to teach Somali kids how to write creatively? Why did I agree to write up a mission statement for a business based on a video from their website? Why did I agree to review submissions for a literary magazine that I’ve admired for (quite) some time? Why did I agree to write an article about the struggles faced by Somali elders as they try to retain a sense of home in an unfamiliar American landscape, cooped up in high-rise, low-income apartment complexes? Why did I volunteer to tie in the bit about real estate sharks creeping in on these public housing properties, ostensibly to develop them for the high-end condo marketplace and kicking those elders to the curb?
Why do I do these things, set myself up to fail so miserably, and when I do, treat myself so harshly? Rome wasn’t built in one day, son, but if it were, it would have no doubt collapsed from the pressure. I feel the pressure. I feel like collapsing. I feel like a single-celled organism attempting to split in two, but unable — mitosis deferred. I’m stuck in the middle, pulled by two opposing forces, trying to keep my head above water. I’m trying not to drown, but I never learned how to swim. My own ambition has thrown me in the deep end. “Never mind if you flounder in the water, you got dreams to catch,” said Ambition as she tossed me from the sheer cliff face and into the waiting ocean. There is a common myth that all sharks must swim to breathe – to keep oxygen-rich water flowing over their gills. The truth is that some sharks are able to pass water through their respiratory system by a pumping motion of the pharynx. This means that they can breathe without swimming, which means they can rest on the seafloor and not die. Just because a shark has sunk does not mean that it didn’t want to. Sometimes they just need to rest. This is me resting.
Malcolm Gladwell hasn’t produced a new episode of his storytelling podcast for many, many weeks now and I’ve been feeling withdrawal. It’s my favorite podcast to fall asleep to; everything else is whack in comparison. In Somalia, I mean Somaliland (or whatever), I used to fall asleep to the BBC. I knew that most of their programming was colonialist propaganda, that they framed all their stories in a way which was favorable to their interests, which is to say that of the Zionist occupation of Palestinian land, but it was the only thing I had to listen to, so I listened. There was no internet at our house. My phone was woefully outdated. All I had was the BBC. At least it was English, and at least there were some good shows from time to time. I ended up memorizing the weekly schedule so that I knew which nights my preferred shows would be on. ‘Outlook’ was my favorite show because the stories were always unique and original. But that was Somalia, and now I’m here in America, wishing to God I wasn’t. But. This is what I signed up for. I assumed my life in America would be easy on the second approach, having reformed my old ways of thinking. I couldn’t have been more wrong. 4 years in Africa made me forget just how utterly depressing a condition it is to live with black skin in this hellish land. What fresh hell, black man; what fresh hell.
So, none of my projects are any closer to being done, and I still have no way out. My anxiety continues to build the longer I ignore all of it. I need to go for a run, a run, run away. Take me away from all this, somebody, anybody. Take me back to Borama during the rainy season, camped out at my guy Maidhane’s house, playing FIFA on a laptop and two controllers. Take me back to sitting on the side-stoop of Hotel London (Ontario, not England), leaching the free Wi-Fi so as to download mp3s one at a time and update my Facebook status. Take me back to closing my eyelids 70% of the way when the wind kicked whirling sand tornadoes up into my face, eyes straining to see my phone screen. Like a camel in the Sahara, a Somali from America, trapped in Africa, trying to connect. But of course, I realize that all these words I’ve written are a clever way of avoiding writing the things I should be writing. Yeah, yeah. I know. I’m a fraud, just ask my constant inner dialogue: “You ain’t no real writer, bruv. They need to toss your ass to the curb.” You right, dawg. To the curb I go. Toss me out like Uncle Phil did Jazz. Now roll credits.