I've always liked the song "A Long December" by Counting Crows. The line 'maybe this year will be better than the last' is sung several times, looking ahead to a better tomorrow, a better year to come.
2010 was a memorable year for me. I moved to the UK - twice, saw a lot of family, was an extra in a movie, traveled across the Atlantic six times, and ended the year a wiser person. I wish 2010 never happened.
The year began by me going on leave from my job, moving to Oxford. This was my first move to the UK. The second was the move from the US to Edinburgh in late August. In both cases, I felt like a complete outsider, a lonely man in a lonely place, with no sense of belonging. I still feel that way, several months after moving to Edinburgh. I've moved a lot in my life, but these moves have been among toughest for me (moving from Nigeria to the US as a 12 year old was tougher).
I saw a lot of family over the past year, but how I wish the circumstances were different. With my mother passing away in March and having funerals in the US and in Ghana, I interacted with more family in 2010 than in any other year of my life. Unfortunately, most if this interaction was filled with sadness for the small, powerful, and well-respected, woman my mother was, to everyone in our extended family.
I was happy to be cast as an extra in a movie only a few weeks after my mother died. It was a distraction from the pain I was going through and took up many hours of my day, for a week. The thought of seeing myself on screen, even for a movie so bad I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, pepped me up a little. The movie ran out of money and was never finished; the money I was owed for a week of being an extra never came to me. My chance to be in the big screen vanished.
I traveled a lot in 2010, but not by choice. Between moving, my mother's passing, Lauren graduating, and my mother's Ghana funeral, I racked up more air miles than I have in any other year. I also contracted the chickenpox in the midst of one of these trips. I now have permanent scars on my body, and still don't feel like the person I see in the mirror is me.
All this travel not only led to illness, but bad travel experiences. Two of my six transatlantic flights were canceled, leaving me in a tough spot to get to where I was trying to go.
I was talking to someone a few years ago, shortly after their mother had died. They said that they felt like a wiser person after the passing of their mother. I didn't get it at the time, but now I do. When my mother died people tried to compare what I was going through to them losing a grandparent; those two things are not at all similar, and I felt somewhat insulted when someone tried to use that to relate to what I was going through.
With my mother's passing, I've lost that protector that mothers are - the mother bear protecting her cub. Even though I'm an adult, I now feel like I have to fend for myself more, pick up some of the wiseness that only a mother has. I feel like I've become a wiser person.
I'm looking ahead to 2011, not because I have anything great on the horizon, but because, to paraphrase my dad from a conversation we had in mid-December, 2011 couldn't possibly be any worse than 2010. That's something to look forward to, I guess.
I want to end this blog by hoping that 'maybe this year will be better than the last' and wrap up my last 2010 blog post with something I wrote shortly after my 34th birthday, looking ahead to, what I thought, would be a better future...
"It didn't immediately occur to me on my birthday that it was my birthday. I had to get from Edinburgh to Towson over the next 30 hours, so more pressing things were on my mind. When it did occur to me, at some point along the trip, I was tired and wanted to get home, which in this instance was Towson. Even though I was tired when my birthday crossed my mind, I was happy; 33 was over. The year that took me from the job I loved and took the person I loved more than earth from me. The year where I never felt settled was over. I looked ahead to the new life that lay ahead of me. The life without my mother, the life where I would keep trying, for my mother's sake, to be the best person I could be."
2010 was a memorable year for me. I moved to the UK - twice, saw a lot of family, was an extra in a movie, traveled across the Atlantic six times, and ended the year a wiser person. I wish 2010 never happened.
The year began by me going on leave from my job, moving to Oxford. This was my first move to the UK. The second was the move from the US to Edinburgh in late August. In both cases, I felt like a complete outsider, a lonely man in a lonely place, with no sense of belonging. I still feel that way, several months after moving to Edinburgh. I've moved a lot in my life, but these moves have been among toughest for me (moving from Nigeria to the US as a 12 year old was tougher).
I saw a lot of family over the past year, but how I wish the circumstances were different. With my mother passing away in March and having funerals in the US and in Ghana, I interacted with more family in 2010 than in any other year of my life. Unfortunately, most if this interaction was filled with sadness for the small, powerful, and well-respected, woman my mother was, to everyone in our extended family.
I was happy to be cast as an extra in a movie only a few weeks after my mother died. It was a distraction from the pain I was going through and took up many hours of my day, for a week. The thought of seeing myself on screen, even for a movie so bad I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, pepped me up a little. The movie ran out of money and was never finished; the money I was owed for a week of being an extra never came to me. My chance to be in the big screen vanished.
I traveled a lot in 2010, but not by choice. Between moving, my mother's passing, Lauren graduating, and my mother's Ghana funeral, I racked up more air miles than I have in any other year. I also contracted the chickenpox in the midst of one of these trips. I now have permanent scars on my body, and still don't feel like the person I see in the mirror is me.
All this travel not only led to illness, but bad travel experiences. Two of my six transatlantic flights were canceled, leaving me in a tough spot to get to where I was trying to go.
I was talking to someone a few years ago, shortly after their mother had died. They said that they felt like a wiser person after the passing of their mother. I didn't get it at the time, but now I do. When my mother died people tried to compare what I was going through to them losing a grandparent; those two things are not at all similar, and I felt somewhat insulted when someone tried to use that to relate to what I was going through.
With my mother's passing, I've lost that protector that mothers are - the mother bear protecting her cub. Even though I'm an adult, I now feel like I have to fend for myself more, pick up some of the wiseness that only a mother has. I feel like I've become a wiser person.
I'm looking ahead to 2011, not because I have anything great on the horizon, but because, to paraphrase my dad from a conversation we had in mid-December, 2011 couldn't possibly be any worse than 2010. That's something to look forward to, I guess.
I want to end this blog by hoping that 'maybe this year will be better than the last' and wrap up my last 2010 blog post with something I wrote shortly after my 34th birthday, looking ahead to, what I thought, would be a better future...
"It didn't immediately occur to me on my birthday that it was my birthday. I had to get from Edinburgh to Towson over the next 30 hours, so more pressing things were on my mind. When it did occur to me, at some point along the trip, I was tired and wanted to get home, which in this instance was Towson. Even though I was tired when my birthday crossed my mind, I was happy; 33 was over. The year that took me from the job I loved and took the person I loved more than earth from me. The year where I never felt settled was over. I looked ahead to the new life that lay ahead of me. The life without my mother, the life where I would keep trying, for my mother's sake, to be the best person I could be."
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