The greatest tragedies...

Mental health awareness month

Lie by Giveon playing in my head

When I get drunk, I call my friends.

When I get drunk, I call my friends.

Particularly the friends who I feel are in tragedy.

Tragedy you say?

Yes...tragedy.

I just finished Chinua Achebe's book; No longer at ease.

One of the characters argues that tragedy is not monumental.

He says that tragedy is small and silent.

Obi refers to the greatest tragedies as those that happen silently in a corner.

Silently, as everything else goes on.

These tragedies are never quite resolved.

They go on...most times hopelessly and silently.

Lost in the deafening music that is the world around us.

Much like how a cancer grows.

Right in the middle of a laugh or a class or a kiss.

It grows in stillness.

The soft sound of sinking...

The car accident that killed my mutual friend is not the real tragedy.

The real tragedy is in the smallness of it.

How the pain of the bereaved shrinks before the rest of the world.

How they die in a corner every night, as the world continues to come to life.

How it hurt us on the first day,

But haunts them every day.

My mum always wondered how the birds could sing when she lost her best friend.

How small her tragedy seemed, yet how big it felt.

Perhaps you know what I mean.

I think you do.

Past a certain age, we begin to experience deeply personal things.

Things that can't be supported or comforted.

You know what I mean?

I hope you don't.

So when I get drunk,

I call my friends,

I know that they are in their corners of tragedies.

Perhaps well on their journey of hope or the sought after healing.

But always to remind them that in their small corners, they are seen and loved.

The month is May, mental health awareness month.

For most of the month, my mind has been ailing from a little tragedy.

I'm grateful that I'm coming out of the woods.

But now, I feel more aware of the billions of people in the woods.

Trying their best every day.

Not to get swallowed by the greatness of their tragedies.

You are doing a good job.

If nothing else.

Be grateful for that.

I am with you, always

Isaiah 41:10

#mentalhealthawarenessmonth