PARALYZED: Us Against The World

-Two

School, the institute that gives us the freedom to socialize, learn, grow into our own skin and find identity.

Identity? Lets dwell a bit on that. What does it even mean? Is it something we get to be over time? Or something we grow into over the course of our lives? Maybe it actually is something we find as life pushes us around?

Moving was one thing, school was another, and then the things that came alongside it had to also be another thing.

What was it? What was what? What was that thing that came alongside it? It definitely wasn't learning but rather fitting in; finding identity.

How do you fit in? These feelings, the feeling of longing to be like everyone else. How can I though? Everything about me made me different. Every detail, both physically and socially.

We lived in a small but nice three bedroom apartment in Surulere. I loved the place, wished we stayed there like forever. Moving down here to Ikoyi, we were not just only changing location, our entire lives too was gonna change, that for sure I knew.

"Just start, and well, figure it out later".
                                          ~Kariza.

🍂

I've gotten use to seeing the world from my window back at Surulere, I'd literally forgotten they was another world out here. I'd gotten use to watching the world from a screen, so use to it that home schooling was actually the real deal for me.

I honestly preferred home schooling, you know. The thoughts of the stares, the sympathy; I hate those. The stares alone was enough to bring back the memory of the entire ordeal.

Sometimes, I see myself as a moth, one that has only known the world to be the walls of her jar right from her days as a pupa and then to the days of her caterpillar and even now as the moth she's been destined to be. I see the light from above but then I wonder what the world out there would treat someone like me. The light alone terrifies me.

The light, the bright light beyond the jar is terrifying. I wonder if in a world where everyone is a beautiful butterfly be willing to accept a moth?

🦋

I remember that one time after my first few weeks after recovering I was almost reintroduced into the world but then, the stares brought back the feeling, the trauma reemerged. I actually haven't seen myself going beyond that but maybe, just maybe one day, the story would be different.

Maybe I'm above that now. Am I? I doubt. Even now, on this day of our enrollment, I still have that feeling, that unexplainable nervous feeling.

———

I'm on a path to self discovery. I'm the only one who can help myself at this point. That's the self driven conviction I've managed to pull up, just something to push myself through all this.

***

The whole house was excited except for me. I didn't see the biggie behind the whole thing

"Smart people find it easy to blend in..." My step dad said some days back during one of our small talks.

Honestly want to take in these words of his and pretend as though everything's okay but then yet again, it's hard you know, knowing he doesn't know how you feel.

***

I went with mom and Marcus to what seemed to be our new school to commence our admission process. The stares from everyone around, both from staffs and students reminded me that I was different. The further we went the more I could feel the intense pressure. I was literally the only crippled person in the school.