First thing first, I am what you would call a Sanguine-Melancholic; meaning that I am mostly extroverted and jolly however, I go through episodes of solitude and hibernate in my introverted cocoon. My sanguine nature makes me a people’s person, on the other hand, my melancholic trait is often portrayed in my perfectionist nature and ability to be deeply empathic. I hate rejections and I absolutely detest doing wrong by others. Now that you know me, my story will make more sense to you!
January
On the 14th at roughly half past 5 in the evening, I was deep in my work finishing up on a report and planning to pull yet again a late one that day. My HR manager called me to the boardroom. From her body language, I knew something was up, something serious and I thought that maybe one of my assistants had done something. So I ask her what was the issue and who’s in trouble then she half-smiled, that’s her tell by the way, and she goes ahead to tell me that I shouldn’t report the following day as I was let go and then hands me an envelope with the termination letter. I asked her what criteria were used to determine who goes and who’s left and she didn’t have a straight answer.
Look, I get that they needed to lay off people to cut costs and all, but the criteria used to let myself and my other colleague go that day was questionable and had office politics written all over it. At that point I felt like my time there was never valued at all and unappreciated and what pissed me the most, was that after four years of my time sweat, and blood, I was ‘chased off’ as an intruder would. So I gave her, the HR, my piece about everything before leaving the room. I called my assistant and handed over ‘the department’ to her and they came over the next morning to clear and get my cheque. And after all that I still had to chase after them for 7 months for them to completely pay my dues. Sigh… I wish them well still.
On the morning of the 16th, My mum calls me sounding distraught to tell me that my aunt, my dad’s younger sister, was in the hospital fighting for her life after she was attacked with a machete by one of her neighbors. The news threw me off completely and broke me even further. Had not even told my parents that I was let go from work and figure I won’t be telling them still. My dad was on the verge of losing another younger sibling of his and my mum, well my mum always worries more than ‘normal’ and I hate seeing her like that. Funny enough even when I came around to tell them, I spoke to my dad alone first and we immediately agreed that we are not telling mum until we figure out the ‘best’ time too. Back to my aunt, we were able to sort for treatment for her and she pulled through eventually it was all God’s doing, to be honest. The guy was eventually found after being in hiding for a while, prosecuted, and jailed thank God!
February
I teamed up with two of my friends to set up a service business. We identified a space, sourced for a supplier even had staff ready on call and everything was going well, till we started having some challenges, first, it was cash related, then the premise that we had booked was repossessed (long story) and eventually, the deal fell off, and it was down south from there on! (sorry I can’t get into details on this)
March
Towards the end of 2019, I had done some investment in a promising tech start-up and it was a good bet from the word go. Towards the end of March when things got thick with Covid-19 and the global markets were particularly hit hard. The big techs in the sorta bullied the rest out of business thus I got burned and pulled out. I decided to use some of the cash to add a few farm animals to add to my herd.
As you can imagine everything was moving fast around me with curve balls thrown my way from all directions. I decided to go back home to my mum’s for a two-week‘ breather’ as I check on a farming project I had back home. While still at my mom’s the movement cessation was announced and I was locked out of the capital.
April,
Come April, my girlfriend and I broke up after 4 years of being together. She got an opportunity to study abroad and since then we have been relating long distance. I will tell you for free Long-distance relationships are hard, and communication is always hit the hardest especially with different time zones. Unfortunately, that April we reached the end of our story and we mutually broke up but that still hurt massively! This is 4 years of loving this one person and them being a vital part of your life and then poof! It’s all gone in an instant. And so that hit me hard
Life at home while unemployed was a huge challenge, in lots of ways. I was applying for jobs constantly since February, an average of 5 applications per day or thereabouts and nothing was coming my way, not even a reject mail except for the three interviews I had between February and March and they all said that they will review and advise once the Corona situation is done with. I was eating into whatever savings I had to cater for bills that were piling up, Buy my medication monthly, as well as serving two loans I had… Self-doubt and family pressure to deal with, a heartbreak to nurse, and the frustrations of seeing other people still going on with life while mine was retrogressing,
As if all that wasn’t cruel enough, tragedy struck again! There was an outbreak of some mysterious illness that we never figured out what it was. It left my poor four piglets and three puppies dead. This was after one of my mother goats had died 2 days after it had a stillbirth back in late March. More heartbreaks and bad luck to add to my misery! I wept a little that day when I buried the last of the piglets. After this, I stopped tending to any farm animals for a while cause, well bad luck. The good thing though is we caught the outbreak in time and called in our veterinarian before the rest of the farm animals were badly affected.
Depression
By now I was already falling into depression without even realizing it. The wakeup call for me was when one day, for the FIRST TIME EVER IN MY LIFE, I had an angry outburst at my mum this was in mid-June of 2020, I was in a foul mood that day, and around mid-morning my dad asks me to help him finish up a chicken shed that we had been working on. So he asked me to take all the tools we needed from the store down to the site as he takes his porridge. I wasn’t feeling it but I did it anyway and my mum read into it and went ahead to ask me if I was okay in front of my dad which I felt like some sort of a setup. I replied that I was and continued walking past them, she asks again this time insisting and I lost it! I threw down the toolbox and power saw I had in my hands and screamed back at her “Stop insisting I said I was okay cant’ you just listen!”
Boy did my dad get riled up! He gave me the look and before I could process what just happened, he was all over my face ready to fight me hard for disrespecting his wife well and his tools too (His words). I snapped out of it and fled out of there. I immediately felt a combination of shame, disappointment, regret, anger towards myself, cause this is me who has never raised my voice against my folks let alone cause a tantrum.
In retrospect, the signs were evidently visible! I just was so caught up with the whirlwind that had become my life that I forgot to take good care of myself. I once heard my baby sister jokingly tell my mom “Your son looks depressed” and I did not think anything of it. Worse still, I lacked the tools and skill set necessary to deal with the enormous setbacks I was facing then. I was irritable, angry, frequent migraine attacks, for the first time in my life I felt like the biggest loser and believed it, always feeling uneasy/uncomfortable, my faith in anything really dwindling, loss of appetite some days, stress eating in others, and the continued feeling of loneliness. I went into self-isolation from my family at some point and the fact that I had wronged my mum made things worse as my conscience was on my case 24/7. I had to always be on my own because I was always irritated for the smallest of reasons and this made things way worse to a point where I shed tears for no particular reason, I literally felt actual pain in my entire body.
At this point, I had given up with chasing after anything really and I desperately needed a change of environment, change in my luck thus far, just something different. I remember a certain Tuesday mid-morning in June I got an email notification saying I didn’t make the cut in a Marketing job I had applied for and that was the best highlight of that week! Pathetic right! So I figured that I needed to come to terms with the situation and work my behind off of it.
Mid-July and things started looking up a little bit! One day a brother of mine, S.M.M, calls me and tells me that he came across an opportunity that will suit us both, he had already applied for the same and wanted me to apply too. We got shortlisted and four interviews later we both ended up getting the jobs at the said company. My perspective starts to shift for the best, at this point, I am telling myself that if I aced four interviews and got a job in the middle of a pandemic while fighting my own demons? then I still got it within me.
I was smiling and laughing with people but still knee-deep into depression and the change of environment from upcountry to the ever-busy and chaotic city life tremendously boosted my chances. Got busy with work, had a support system in my friends and with every opportunity I got, I told people about my depression including a very close aunt of mine who instantaneously started sourcing for a wife for me and the whole fiasco just made me laugh always which was amazing for me. Things were looking up for me and pit was only the beginning!
I had a few setbacks and knockdowns for sure. In the last quarter of 2020, two of my friends lost a parent each to different illnesses, a best friend got hospitalized, another one lost a very close aunt to cancer and a cousin to a mugging gone bad… another very close friend’s dad was diagnosed with cancer, etc. You know, I would often catch myself my downsizing my depression and misery by comparing it to other people’s losses/setbacks and this led to a whole vicious cycle of sadness. I felt their pain and did all I could to help!
A spillover to the first week of January, my mum calls me to let me know that she & my brother just dropped my baby sister at her place and were traveling back home. 20 or so minutes later my dad calls me to tell me that they were in a road accident and didn’t give me many details and I didn’t ask. I was confused and tried to call them both but could not reach either, I thought I lost them, never been so horrified in my life! Took an Uber picked up my sister and headed for the hospital all this time listening to Bedshaped by Keane full volume and on repeat. Miraculously they only got minor physical injuries considering the car flipped and was almost totaled.
On the flip side, there were lots of positive highlights too over the same period that really did well to dilute the hits from all the knockdowns. I mean I got a job in the middle of a pandemic! My man SMM finally did his Ruracio (traditional wedding) and was officially ‘given’ a gorgeous lady to marry, Two of my close friends got married to each other, Another close friend of mine got engaged, had her Ruracio done in November and we are now waiting and planning for the church wedding this year, We got to do a get together with a bunch of friends of mine that I have known for 11 years now and that was so refreshing considering we had never met that whole year… I have met some amazing humans who have become friends over the period as well amongst other small wins and positives.
Coping
The good thing about me is that I have made lots of friends over the years and I have good taste in music! So, whenever I had the energy, I would call up random friends and talk about different stuff. The fact that I got genuine souls around me who keep looking out for me and with conversations that are always filled with laughter is refreshing and a big boost. The beauty about it is that the conversations don’t have to be daily or anything but whenever it happens it illuminates your week!
I am big on Self-awareness and the importance of truly understanding who you are as a person, something I always preach to anyone I can. It was at this period though that I really used my knowledge on this subject to a T. Being able to identify triggers from both within and without helped me a lot and has been a big tool that has helped me throughout the last eight or so years.
Music has been a big part of my life, as a listener of course, and I always was with my headphones on listening to the four thousand eight hundred forty-nine songs I have on my phone. Look I have always been a massive fan of both Sia and P!nk,, I know their stories inside out. But during this whole period, while listening to their music I swear, I connected with both of their music the most and on a whole different, deeper, emotional, level. I guess it’s because of their backstories about their struggles with mental health and addictions which they have both expressed in their music. I literally lived the lyrics of their songs and it felt so comforting and elevating at the same time. Every time I listen to music I always drift away to some beautiful place inside my head, and there were certain songs amongst the four thousand that are my favorites and were on repeat almost always.
I am fond of watching documentaries especially those related to nature, sports, and crime/investigative, there are also Sports, Comedy Tv Shows, occasionally reading a funny book, puns, and dark humor. Outside film and books, I have also embarked on regular travels and hiking expeditions, all to be happy and heal.
Some small things and aspects of my life that I would normally take for granted actually plaid and continue to play major roles in keeping me sane, and most of all Prayer. I still am discovering other ways from the different people I interact with. I am not completely out of the woods but I’m getting there for sure!
Yes indeed, that was my 2020 in a nutshell!
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