I Don't Want To Smile Anymore

In 2017, I got sick of ASUU strikes so I applied for a full-ride scholarship in London. I worked so hard on that application. It literally took eleven months, between September 2017 and July 2018. I did everything. I talked to alumni, I talked to students. I talked to the person who had won the scholarship the previous year. I was ready. I literally thought, “I got this in the bag. Bye. Period. Thank you”. The only thing I could even think about was what my life was going to be like once I made that move.

In the middle of July 2018, I got the mail from the scholarship committee and they told me… I didn't get in. Half of my third undergrad year was gone, my grades were in a bad spot because I had been completely distracted, and I had no idea where to go from there. I spent the rest of the year trying to get back on track, so I genuinely thought 2019 was going to go easy on me.

2019 was the year that I applied to approximately 40 opportunities; fellowships, programs, events, you know, the works. I got turned down by all of them -except two. Two, what a lucky number. To be clear, this is not a don’t-give-up story. The only reason I even got to 40 in the first place was that I wasn't counting. I just kept going throughout the year and then my birthday came. My birthday is in December, a week before Christmas. Everything is pretty much in wrap-up mode by then so I usually like to take account of my year. I was doing that in December 2019, and slowly the numbers began to add up until I thought, Wait a second. Did I really apply to 40 places and get turned down by 38? What?!

You know, when people come on the internet to share success/motivation quotes, they (almost) always bring up Thomas Edison. He tried to make the light bulb ten thousand times and when he finally did, he (supposedly) said, Oh, I only found 9,999 ways it won't work. Usually, you’d think, “Oh, sure, that's great but there is no way I am ever doing that.” At least that’s what I always said. Then, I realized I had become that guy.

2020 came in, and for the first two (and a half) months, some semblance of normalcy resumed in my life. Some might even call it progress. My grades weren’t tottering on the brink of destruction anymore, and by all estimations, I was going to graduate in November and set off for a nice future. Then came COVID, and I ended up rattling along for the next ten months like a coin in a milk can. School came to a halt and all thoughts of getting a decent job were hanging by a thread, right next to my sanity. By some ironic twist of fate, I stumbled into a fairly successful freelancing career. Still, it felt devoid of meaning, like everything was moving too fast and I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. A light had gone off somewhere while I wasn’t looking, and I was trying to gingerly pick my way through the dark without upsetting anything.

This was when I discovered the New Age-The Secret, The Laws of the Universe, how to reclaim your life and be in control of your purpose, all that nice stuff.

Armed with new determination, 2021 started for me on a high note. I had more money than I had ever made. I moved into a new place, where for the first time in my life, I would be living on my own. I started a podcast too, something I had always wanted to do. I was going to change my life and honestly, I felt good, great even.

By the middle of that year, I was broke. I moved out of the apartment because I couldn’t afford it anymore, and I put the podcast on hold because I didn’t know when next I would have my own roof over my head. This is usually the part I should say I had an epiphany and somehow turned everything around.? As a matter of fact, I did. The money came in again. I got another place. I started a newsletter instead of a podcast. This time, I said, this time, it will all work.

End of 2021. I am broke and homeless again. On New Year’s Day 2022, I had a 2-figure bank balance of $35 and I was -$200 in debt. I had no job, had to move back home, and I was selling something that nobody seemed to want. In March, my phone stopped working-went off in my hands right in the middle of a text, and never came back on. I took that as a sign, a sign that I had to go within and find new answers, a sign that I was being tested by the universe and I had to prove I had learned all the lessons.

It is now the beginning of August, and I have come to a sudden, abrupt realization. I want to stop.

-------

Some weeks ago, I was doom-scrolling on LinkedIn and I saw a post about someone’s new project, the product of random inspiration that struck months before. Now, that thing exists. In the last days, weeks, months, and maybe as far back as years of my own life, all I have done is dream. I have pages upon pages of dreams, the things I am raring to do when I get the chance, when I get the sign, when I get the break. Now before you judge me let me tell you something. I am not lazy. I know I am a genius. I know I am smart. I know I can get random inspiration and create something in months. I could choose to feel sorry for myself and say I don’t have the same connections, the same resources, the same privilege, but I don’t believe in that. The question I have been addressing to the whole universe but probably more to myself is, “Why have I been waiting? Why do some reap their fruits before the seed is barely in the ground and the only thing others get is a tightly-leashed dream, a bridge with the first step missing?”

In the last seven months, I have turned to everything I know of for signs and answers, for a miracle. I have joined early morning prayers. I have flipped through Bible verses. I have chanted the Quran. I have racked up hundreds of YouTube watch hours, binging videos on full moon cycles and tarot card reading. I have been scanning the heavens and planting my feet in the ground, gearing up and waiting for the next call to be the one that changes everything. I have done everything they say you are supposed to do when you are in your ‘harvest’ season, when you have sown the seeds and you are waiting for it to be your time, the divine time. I have traveled through myself and now, I think I have reached the end.

The thing is my most recent history has been a very long record of near-hits. I have applied and been turned down by publishers. I almost got gigs, then didn’t. I have submitted resumes, done interviews, and never heard back. Every single time, I get up and try. Every single time, the answer remains no. If faith requires action to work, I have done what I had to, so much that now all that is left for me to believe in is a miracle, a blessing, a gift.

I saw Encanto a few months ago, and I have rewatched it many times since. My favorite scene is when Mirabel gets her own door knob and finally opens the casita for her whole family. I always catch myself thinking, I want to do that, yet I feel even I might be waiting for a gift that I was never supposed to get. That thought terrifies me, that all this time-this year, last year, the last five years- I could have been waiting for a ship that already sailed. I am scared that another five years could pass and I could still be here with my pages of dreams, waiting for a vague possibility of something becoming different.

I am a dangerous optimist. I never let the glass go down. I always look for the sunny side, almost automatically. The first time I tried to get into The University of Lagos, I failed. The second time, I topped the list. Nothing has ever been unfixable in my books, yet for the first time in my life, I find myself doubting, asking if ‘tomorrow’ is ever going to come. If it does, when? How much time is enough for the universe to deliver what we ask for? Will it take our whole lives? Are we cast to carry the burden of expectation forever? I have never allowed myself to lose hope before, but now I’m wondering if this hope is all I am entitled to.

I am reminded of Asa’s song, Jailer, where she sings about dreams her captor will never know. I feel myself faltering under the weight of my own vision, the one in my head that often threatens to suffocate me. Nobody ever tells you how ambition can be an undoing, a slow unraveling of consciousness and sanity. When my phone rings these days, and someone on the other end wants to know how I am doing, I don’t know how to say that I feel like I am floating, gliding in the air, and unsure of where I might land. I don’t know how to say that I can’t remember the last time I did not have something to expect, something to pray for, something to wait for. I don’t know how to say tomorrow just feels like a mirror of yesterday and every day is beginning to look the same; boring, fruitless, mundane.

Yesterday, I was talking to a new friend. We went to the same school for 6 years but never said more than a few words to each other until the night we graduated. I told her I always found her intimidating and she said she thought I was crazy, mad actually. I resorted to my usual response, what I always say to everyone who finds my personality different from what they anticipated. I told her, “I have a resting b*tch face and I often smile so people know it’s safe to approach me.” I smile at strangers so they don’t think I’m mean and never talk to me. I smile when I talk to take the edge off my words. I smile when I visualize a beautiful future even though my present looks the exact opposite. I smile when I get rejection emails, when I reach out to people and they are cold to me, when tomorrow arrives and things are still the same way they were yesterday. I smile to remind myself that it could be worse, that I have to stay positive no matter what.

Now, I’m just tired. I don’t want to smile anymore.