God, it hurts 😭💔

As the saying goes, when life gives you lemons, you should make lemonade…or another lighthearted one that goes try to find someone whose life has given them vodka, and have a party.” But how about when one has no capacity to make the lemonade? Do you swallow the bitter pill and throw in the towel? Independence is a word that commonly leaves every young person’s tongue from time to time. It is the state of being free from reliance on, or control of one’s own affairs without interference. Persons characterised as perfectionists tend to have this trait. Their things arranged in a specific way and place, clothes washed and hanged in a certain manner, lateness or time unconsciousness is never taken lightly among others. What will be your reaction when one day you couldn’t perform even the simplest of tasks on your own?
“Moving forward you will need someone to help you with your day to day routine!” the doctors words hit like a tornado. They sounded like an echo from a deep tunnel. Indeed life was never going to be the same again. Ever since I learnt how to perform responsibilities, no one was allowed to come close to any of my items. Being an early riser, I ensured all house chores were complete by 8am. How will the transition to this new way of living be? The thought of this worried me a lot.
Who is going to take care of me better than myself? My privacy and independence had just been breached. Counselling was not something I was ready to go through. What new information would they be bringing apart from reminding me of what had befallen me? That I couldn’t move? I needed someone to constantly be in my space?
I am by nature an introvert so what I became was closeted; unwelcoming and very defensive of my space.
I felt vulnerable yet ashamed!
The initial days were tough and dark. When anyone offered to help, I would dismiss them and say I’m fine. Sometimes I would prefer to go hungry for days than have one feed me. Whenever my things were being arranged, I insisted on being present to instruct them how and where everything needed to be. (this really came in handy though when everyone forgot where something was placed as my memory was as sharp as always)

Reality dawned that I needed a constant caregiver. Where do we start from? The sleepless nights I saw mum spend back in Kenyatta National Hospital sunk me in deep thoughts. This was a new phase in everyone’s life. Some days, I slept and wished I wouldn’t see the next sun rise‼ I denounced God and perceived prayers as a waste of time – on this, I truly wish I could meet Job to understand how he hacked. “Why doesn’t God prepare us for certain life experiences and why does He even allow them to happen in the first place?” The greatest yet painful joke to me is when one tells me that they understand how I feel. How would you understand yet I myself don’t even get it? How?
A lot of the caregivers would come and go leaving me not able to distinguish east from west. Some ran off while no one was around, no advance notice, no communication. I wake up to pin drop silence only to realise I’m all alone. I became a subject to those assisting me. Indifference was the order of the day! Did I have an option? Of course not, I’m the one at the receiving end so I had to learn to take it all… To what extent though? My health was worse and my small heart bottled a lot of pain and hurt. This is not to refute the fact that I sometimes had kind souls who poured their heart out to me.
Mercy is a good example. She momentarily made me feel normal. She took up the role when I was so fragile and delicate and the joy she expressed when performing her duties was so heart warming. Others followed with a fair share of their good and bad. One thing that stood out was when they realised that you could not do without them, then you needed to abide by their terms and play to their tune.
It deeply hurts to be on the receiving end and always BEG people to try and be humane!
It hurts to be dependent on people each day as you wake up and lie down!
It hurts having people intruding into your space and privacy!
It hurts more that it hurts and you have no control of anything including your routine, movement, time or your own body.
In all these, my bargain with mother nature and God is; make the situation better, bring my way more understanding, empathetic and kind souls or restore my independence. 😭

A piece of music I felt comes close to bringing out what this feels like is https://youtu.be/Z25aDKQ7Ojw … for being human has its days.