About a year ago today..

So, I am sitting in my very cold room in Abu Dhabi (yeah..you heard me right.. the temperatures here has been in the low twenties since I got here). I am sipping on a hot cup of tea with my Pashmina scarf wrapped around my neck. I definitely don’t want to leave here with an ailment acquired from constant exposure to cold weather. Apartments here don’t even come with heating! All you get is a centralized air conditioning system which is bent on making you freeze your ass off. The hotel manager is apologizing to me saying that they have never experienced such cold temperatures ever in the UAE. Like that one is part of my business.. (hisses in disgust).. Something else comes to mind right now.. Global warming truly does get around.

I am kind of feeling low at the moment. The past 5 days has been very trying.. I have been sleeping no more than 4hrs a day and it’s all starting to get to me both physically and mentally. I wrote 3 exams yesterday and spent half of today being absent minded and dozing off in class cos I was just so tired. I wonder what is going to happen to me when I have to write the exam for today’s lectures next week. I still have to study for an exam tomorrow. I am tired jare! I don’t even feel any motivation to study anything. My brain is about as impenetrable as an igneous rock formation right now. I feel a bit low. I miss home (wherever that is) I normally get these depressive thoughts when I feel tired and stressed out and I don’t have control over my situation.

Why am I so low? ( I dare not use the world ‘depressed’ before my mother visits this page) Everyone thinks I am enjoying.. I am not saying that I am suffering either but I just want folks to understand that a sister has had to give up a lot of things, been through a lot of shit to be here and being here isn’t as smooth as everyone thinks. So much has happened in a short space of time. I remember exactly a year ago today I was not even contemplating applying for this Job. I was still in Manchester (UK), struggling with the cold, our new house had just been robbed (I think there are bits and bobs of the story here), I was preparing for my final year group project which was hell, I was working part-time 16hrs a week at a Barclays bank call centre and also pulling full time at uni. My third/fourth hand car was playing up, I’d spent so much money to get it fixed (all on the credit card) and I was struggling to keep Uni and work going. Those were really dark days I tell you. Me and my hustling mate Thandi were sipping on cheap liquor and eating cheap ASDA chicken over the weekends. We were broke and things were tight. The only thing that got me going was the fact that I knew nothing else in this world was permanent except for changes. I knew my situation would change.. but I sure wasn’t thinking of it on this frequency. Ok.. enough of the manic depressive.. Talking about my part time job with the bank has just reminded me of a gist I want to give you guys. I will gist you about my darling Thandi in another post.

Here goes the gist.. During this time when I was going through a rough time with work and uni, I’d been staying at the university labs until around 3-4am in the morning all in the name of the final year group project. Then I would come home for a quick nap, be back at uni for the 9am meeting and be on my way to the bank’s call centre to start work at 12 noon or thereabouts. On this fateful morning, I was driving to Uni at around 8.30am after staying up till around 5am. I was so friggin tired. I mean, it even hurt to blink cos my eyes were so heavy. Then for some funny reason, I just closed my eyes while at the wheel for like 3 seconds too long. I wasn’t even aware that I was doing this but I can tell you that I remember that the feeling was a very good one. The next thing I know, I felt my car veering towards the left and I opened my eyes in time to avert the car swerving onto the pavement with a young girl standing at the bus stop with a buggy.( You know how underage girls in Manchester love to have babies) OMG! I was so shaken that I didn’t even know when tears started to come out of my eyes. I had come this close to almost killing someone and possibly myself. I quickly pulled up on the side of the road and at that point, all my pent up anger and stress came up like an overwhelming flood and I just started weeping in the car. I could barley drive myself to Uni that morning and even had to do the usually hustle for a free parking spot.

I got to Uni, did my business and then went to work. When I got to work, I quickly went to my boss’s boss and told her of what happened to me. I can sometimes feign the dramatic diva who can almost pull anything off, I put in some waterworks for full effect. I explained to her that I feel as though I was going to loose my mind and that this morning’s occurrence is going to break me. You know the kind of tears I am talking about? The ones where you got mucous coming out of your nose and mixing with the tears streaming down your face.. now thats what am talking about. You know that UK people don’t like to hear you are having a mental thing going on with you especially when its work related.. lol The woman gave me a month off work to sort myself out. I have never even thought of how close I came that day until now while I am typing my story in Microsoft word. Thinking about this suddenly makes me feel good. The lord surely has a purpose for me.. (Not that I am a spiritual person but I do feel so spiritual right now). Taking this job offer, going to India, I’m sure that I will one day refer back to this post when it all starts to fall into place. I feel good right now.. I’d better go and study some more presentation slides so that I don’t go and gbaburu (mess up) the exam tomorrow. My ass isn’t ready to be kicked out yet!

PS: For anyone reading this post, I would like to implore you not to fear for my sanity. I do go through these episodes once in a while but trust yours truly to pull herself back together. This is another epistle like post.. God of Africa! My life is in your hands!