Lives Between Walls

I remember as a child I used to be very anxious. My mind would automatically gravitate towards worst case scenario thinking. “Making mountains out of molehills,” was what the psychologist would call it. I was only thirteen when I saw my first psychologist. My mother had admitted me, having heard from the teachers about my anti-social behaviour. I would seldom interact with the other kids, neither did I want to engage in school sports activities, nor did I want to go to excursions and school trips. I had initially kept mum about it to mom – no pun intended – but unfortunately for me, Mrs. Holsworth couldn’t keep her big mouth shut and spilled the beans. “What is wrong with you Jamie?! Why are you being anti-social?!” My mom was genuinely concerned about me when she found out. This word ‘anti-social;’ people have really misunderstood it. Anti-social is a man who moves in with your mom and abuses her, anti-social is someone who belittles you and makes you feel small, someone who steals your mom’s money to feed his drug addiction, and has sex with other women in your mom’s house, while you are asleep in the room next door – and I know all about it, and who better than my mom to know that? Thank God he is gone now. So, I define anti-social, as someone who is an enemy of societal progress. As for me, someone who just minds their own business, how was I anti-social? “Jamie! Are you even listening to me?” My mom grabbed me by the collar of my uniform and shook me back and forth throwing me onto the bed – blissfully unaware that she was shouting at a mirror image of herself. How was she not aware of her contribution to what I was. It was her fault I was this way. After the saga with her boyfriend Lawrence she had become unhealthily over protective of me. I used to be a happy child once, but as time went on, my mother’s anxiety rubbed off on me. Every time I would go out to go play she would say things like, “Hey Jamie, be very careful. I heard they are kidnapping children these days so don’t talk to strangers,” or “Jamie, I heard they broke into Kim’s parent’s house, there’s alot of thieves in the area these days.” While it was good that your child be aware of these things, but there’s a difference between that and instilling a fear conscience. My mom would even go as far to tell me which friends to hang out with and who I had to stay away from. Boys of course were out of the question. I remember the day she told me to stay away from Eric, I had snapped back in a fit of rage, “Mom! Eric is not Lawrence!” She slapped me so hard, I saw a flash of white light – God and his angels nearly took me home that day. “You watch how you talk to your mother, understand?!” Following these things, I started to become more fearful, and thus more isolated. I would fear making new friends, because whose to say if they were really for me. I would fear going out to events, because whose to say the Uber driver might kidnap me and harvest my body for parts. Lungi was probably the only friend who understood me, and that’s probably why we are friends to this day.

Fast forward to today, at 22 years old – my anxiety has gone through the roof. “It’s the randomness of life that really scares me,” I told my psychologist as I sat back onto the leather couch. Mrs. Khuli mused for a moment as she considered what I said, “The randomness of life, please elaborate on that Jamie.”

“I mean just the other week, I was jogging and I saw these men, and one of them tried to hit on me. Then some time later in the news, a girl gets killed, and these same guys that I jogged passed, where the ones that did it. I mean how do you explain that?”

“Umm…” Mrs. Khuli seemed confused, “Well Jamie, you were just lucky I guess.”

“So it’s just luck? What if next time I’m not so lucky?”

“Well Jamie, it sounds to me like you want some sort of guarantee of your safety in this world, yes?”

“Well, I don’t know…”

“Jamie, life is not promised. Think about it, there’s a hundred people in this building right now with free will. If one of those people decides to run in here with a firearm and start shooting everyone, what’s to stop them from walking into this room and, you know – “

“Blowing our brains out after sexually abusing us repeatedly?”

“Okay well, wasn’t gonna be that graphic, but you get the idea. See freewill is probably what scares you the most. That anyone has the ability to do anything they want, there is no fence that restrains man from doing anything their imagination prompts them to do. Well I suppose the only restraint is their conscience, but it’s not even that reliable because some have numbed it.”

“So you mean to tell me that right now, anything can happen – this building can just collapse on us right now because the guy who built it didn’t use enough cement or something.”

“Goodness, we hope not, but yes, there’s nothing that says it shouldn’t happen.”

“Then you wonder why I am so anxious! How are you at peace with the fact that death is always a breath away?”

Mrs. Khuli sighed, “Look Jamie, I think to an extent, everyone worries about this, but for the most part they tend to forget, because life still has to go on. Our responsibilities cause us to not focus on it that much, we are only reminded when we have that near accident, or we watch the news and hear about death. I mean, while it’s true that anything can happen, we function at our best when we are positive and believe the best. So yes, while it’s possible that this building could collapse, it is also possible that it could not. So which one do I choose to believe? Obviously the positive one.”

“That’s like walking into crocodile infested waters with a blindfold on.”

Mrs. Khuli could not restrain a heartfelt laugh, revealing her cute pearl white buck teeth.

“Mrs. Khuli, what’s the worst thing that ever happened to you?”

Mrs. Khuli thought about it for a moment, “It has to be when I lost my son two years ago.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. It’s okay if you’d rather not talk about it.” I was taken aback that it was so recent. She didn’t seem like someone who was mourning.”

“Oh no it’s okay,” she replied as she wiped a lone tear from her chubby cheek, “talking about it helps. I was driving back from home from the shops, and as I came into the township, there were young kids doing donuts on the street in BMW cars. As fate would have it, one of them lost control and came sliding into the side of my Kia, the side where the baby seat was, and – ” Mrs. Khuli sighed.

“Now, I don’t mean to be insensitive, but tell me, whose to say it won’t happen again to another child of yours?” I immediately regretted saying that as I saw her face drop. “Hypothetically I mean.”

“It could. But I’m more cautious now behind the wheel, so its less likely. But then again, no matter how cautious I am, there might be a nutcase on the road.”

“Exactly. It’s not in your control.”

“Look I can only do so much to protect myself, if it’s destined to happen again, it will happen again – I can’t stop it.”

“We’re right back were we started now, ‘the randomness of life.’ See, this is just not good enough for me. When I go for a jog this afternoon, I need assurance that I will be okay. And I can’t imagine how it feels for you as a mother, hoping that your child will be okay when they go out to play with their friends. Without that assurance, I think I would go crazy!”

“Well then, how do you suggest I get that assurance Jamie?”

Later that day, I reflected on the conversation with my psychologist as I jogged passed the chapel gardens. This life really required faith, especially because we are finite beings who don’t know the future. Because of this, life will always blindside us. We can only do so much to protect ourselves, we can put up the electric fences, and lock our doors, we can make sure we drive cautiously on the road, and avoid youths in BMW’s. But where does it stop? Do I need to invest in a gun? But then again, there are so many ways to die, that the best way to be safe is to just lock ourselves in a room and hide from the world – even then that won’t save you from an earthquake. And I’m sure that is not what the Creator expects of us. “Hey beautiful,” a few guys suddenly called out to me, with a chorus of whistles accompanying it. My heart pounded as I recalled the incident last time with those other guys who turned out to be killers. A wave of anxiety washed over me, as I managed a weak smile while steadily increasing my pace and jogging right past them. We can’t live like this, I thought to myself. I refuse to believe in a Creator who would be content with us living this way.

I ran along the sidewalk of Ouma’s cafe. I waved at her as I turned the corner, “Hello Ouma!” She was serving customers behind the till so she didn’t hear me. I usually come there to do my writing and meditation in the mornings and so she knew me quite well. As I jogged down the street, I saw a man walking with a Pitbull coming my way. “Oh great,” I thought to myself. I hated dogs, because I was scared of them. I couldn’t cross the road, as traffic was buzzing around that time. The man on the leash was well built, looking just as ferocious as his dog. The dog was snarling at me, and trying to lunge toward me. If that dog got off the leash, it would surely tear me apart. The man sniggered at me when he saw the dread on my face, “It’s okay, I got him. He won’t harm you.” His words gave me a bit of relief, “Thank you I called out as I ran passed the danger.” My heart was still beating in my throat. When I was at least a block away from them, I gradually came to a stop to catch my breath – chest heaving and hands on my knees. After a few minutes of regaining my composure, I slowly began to make my way home. I thought about that leash, and the owner of the dog who had been holding it tightly. Surely all these atrocities that we see in the world, these anti-social people, are the Creator’s dogs – ferocious like that Pitbull. Surely the Creator is responsible enough to have a leash on his pets. I had been fearful when I saw the dog coming, but I didn’t need to be because the owner had the dog on the leash. So I had wasted my energy being fearful and afraid, when that dog would never have been able to hurt me from the beginning. I just had to trust that the owner would not let go – even though I did not know him. We live in anxiety, because we do not trust that the Creator won’t let go of the leash that holds the dog. We hear stories in the media, about people who were attacked, and bitten by the dog, so we begin to doubt that he really loves us. And so we end up being plagued by perpetual anxiety – sabotaging our own lives.

That evening I slept over at my friend Lungi’s house, and we had a heated chat about this. “The only thing that keeps me sane Lungi, is believing that there is an invisible fence around me,” I told her, “And that every bad thing, every threat to my life, is on the Creator’s leash.” Lungi frowned, “So what about all the people who go through bad stuff in life? Are you saying there was no fence around them? What makes you so special Jamie?” Lungi always played devils advocate when I started talking about such things. “I don’t know Lungi. I can only speak for myself. I think the fence is enforced by what we believe. For me personally, I try not to listen to the news too much these days, because all that negative information begins to create holes of doubt in my fence – for these bad things to come in – through the lack of trust in my Creator.”

Lungi rolled her eyes, and threw one of her pink continental pillows at me, “There you go again Jamie, with your existentialist mumbo jumbo!” And that always meant, end of conversation.