Maame

by Jessica George

I was raised to keep family matters private.

apart. I realized then that our friendships were not based on loyalty or love but convenience and proximity. I went from a close group of seven to one. Nia.

I almost tell her that fun doesn’t equate to happiness; at the very least, it lends you happiness and I want to know how to keep it. I’ve googled “How to be happy”; I’ve taken walks in the park and written long gratitude lists; I’m consuming more fruits and vegetables and going to bed early; I’ve given out compliments and practiced mindful breathing. I have tried to fix myself.

I can’t comprehend living to work, but then I’m afraid of working just to live.

For some reason, at night, when you’re meant to be sleeping, your brain wants answers to everything.

It’s isolating when no one I know here is reading the Black authors I am or watching the same TV shows.

Still, that doesn’t change the fact that although I didn’t think I’d be rich, I expected to be happy and the failure to do so has left me gasping for air most of the day.

They speak about Christianity in the era of social media and increasing peer pressure; they speak about being the love in a world often shown to be full of hate; they find ways to make the Bible relatable and I don’t leave feeling like I’m not enough of a Christian to call myself one.

“Queen Vashti was about people-pleasing, Mordecai about surrounding yourself with people who are loyal and honest, and Esther about having faith in the scariest of times.”

Only loose women get drunk.

I knew to keep family matters private from outsiders but never considered the secrets we were possibly keeping from one another.

“You’re Christian, Shu. Do you always believe in God?” “Yeah, course. Got to.” “Why?” “Because,” she says, “I can’t carry on living believing human beings are as good as it gets.” She looks at me. “We’re the worst.”

Which is trust, commitment, empathy, and respect. It means really giving a shit about the other person.”

“But how do you measure that? How do you know if you’re genuinely happy or if you’re just mostly all right, with sprinkles of laughter and occasional shit storms of sadness? Maybe I’ve only ever been all right.”

Which means I actually haven’t been okay for a while and it’s scary having to think so far back. It means I’ve been slowly falling apart for a very long time and it might take even longer to piece me back together.

I cry, not because I agree, but because it hurts that I don’t. Because I wish that I did. Instead, I wake up every day and I smile when I need to and talk when I have to, but I am in constant pain, and I have been for too long.

To the uneducated, bi-erasure is prevalent and bisexuality is just a pit stop. Gay is the green light and I’ve stopped at yellow.”

Note to self: Google “bi-erasure.”

Be warned, all great comebacks start like this, with a cocky opponent.”

I used to have big dreams when I was a kid, or maybe they just seemed big because I was so small.

I think a lot of us prioritize money and appearances and instant gratification. And in the process, genuine happiness became undervalued.

“you were stuck in a microaggressive, passive-aggressive, emotionally trying job, and then were unceremoniously fired. There’s a reason.”

“Comparison is no friend of mental health,”

“What you go through and how it affects you is just as valid as someone dealing with their own situation.

TBC: to be confirmed.

Google: Symptoms of depression Unhappiness Hopelessness Crying Anxiety Exhaustion yet difficulty sleeping Suicidal thoughts Appetite changes

What if you’re going through a series of “hard times”? You’ll be waiting for the storm to pass until you’re dead. Depression varies from person to person.

I’m well aware of the importance of names in our culture. In many ways, they’re given to us in an attempt to speak to our future. Growing up, I had many friends named Glory, Patience, Wisdom, Comfort. It seems there is a link between our names and our supposed destiny.

A person’s troubles are not measured by the size of those troubles, but by how much they weigh on the individual carrying them.

process. It’s not your job to make your colleagues feel comfortable all of the time. That in itself is a burden too heavy to carry when grieving. I imagine your instinct to put others first, even if detrimental to yourself, also plays a part in your personal life.”

“It made me grow up,” I answer. “It made me grow up when I should have had more time. It made my dad overlook me when I was a child, my mum leave me behind, and my brother get away with doing the bare minimum. It made me lonely and it made me sad. It made me responsible and guilty. It made me someone, if given the choice, I wouldn’t want to be.”

“I believe in two dominant introvert types. Those who have always enjoyed their own company and those who have grown to prefer it because they weren’t given much of a choice. Which do you think you fit into?”

“Maybe you talk to yourself because then you don’t have to factor in another person’s reaction. Or even, you enjoy engaging in conversations where you can be completely open and honest, but maybe you feel the only way to do this safely is when alone.

Our matters are private, remember? You tell one person, they tell another, and the next thing you know, important people are asking all sorts of questions.

“But you cannot hope to understand an end without starting at the beginning.”

your uncertainty may stem from a lack of convention, of the typical. How someone shows you they love you has less to do with you and all to do with them. There are healthy and unhealthy expressions of love and not all of them should be accepted.”

I used to believe that if someone loved you, they had to say it, otherwise it wasn’t real, it wasn’t known, but I understand now that’s not the case.

“Many assume love is straightforward,” Angelina continues, “when really it is the most complicated of things. There is a right way, a preferred way, for each individual, to love and be loved by someone—but there isn’t only one way. I believe the difficulty of life has much to do with understanding and then navigating how the people you love both express and receive love themselves. It cannot be your responsibility, your burden, to reshape people into someone you’d like them to be.

Ultimately, you must either accept a person for who they are, how they behave, how they express themselves emotionally, and find a healthy way to live with them, or let them go entirely. Either way, you must release yourself from that responsibility.”

“Comparing yourself to others and deeming yourself better off is no remedy for mental illness. The remedy is internal work—lots of it. But acknowledging the issue at hand must come first. You are suffering from depression,

The dead are more prompt than the living, as the living are currently deciding which cars to go in.

… Sometimes I think of love as pieces of one heart. When I love someone, I break off a piece and give it to them. There are not so many because that way each piece is substantial, but without a doubt, my dad has one of the biggest pieces I have and will ever give. It cannot be replaced.

I didn’t like the idea of strangers—Godless strangers most likely—directing you. I hoped you’d find your answers in God, but maybe this will help you seek Him, for answers to the bigger questions. Therapy can help the smaller things. I don’t want you to struggle with … mental problems, so if this opportunity means you won’t, then you should take it.”

But I’m sorry that on some days the guilt melts away and I feel relieved about not having to worry about you so much.

Google: Stages of grief Shock—denial—anger—bargaining—depression—acceptance

Your craving of it is reflected in your tendency to people-please, even at the cost of your mental health. Would you agree?”

it’s easy to conflate being well-liked with being well-loved. There’s often a misconception that to be well-loved, the love has to come from multiple sources, when truthfully, one or two people can love you with the strength of ten. Do you have people in your life who love you with the strength of many?”

It will serve you well to remember this, especially at times when certain sources of love fail to deliver.”

“Because it described the love we all want but likely won’t have. Love that’s raw and wonderfully painful and all-consuming; intrinsically becoming a part of another person; the subtlety and quietness of their codependence. We won’t admit it, but maybe that’s what a lot of us want.

Love is so watered down now, tied to peer pressure and proximity and self-esteem, I think readers enjoyed having it concentrated. It’s a thrill imagining yourself with that capability, with the capacity to hold that almost unbearable weight of love for someone else, and the possibility of someone out there feeling exactly the same for you. It’s a heady, envy-inducing thought.”