It made me bold

                                                

Moments like those were ones that I was used to. But that day, I felt I had had enough. I just came back from visiting some friends in the town next to ours. I didn’t even make my way into the house when my mother began raining all sort of insults on me. This was not the first time. Each time she did, I found a reason to justify her actions but that day, I just could not take it. I was 21 years and having to be laughed at, mocked, teased and disgraced in the presence of my little siblings and all the children in that compound house was really something I could no longer cope with it. It was true that I had to drop out of school because I repeated every year but that didn’t mean I was “good for nothing” like my mother mostly described me. At least, I didn’t quit school to stay idle. I have a carpentry job. My friend who quit out of his own will didn’t even go through quarter of the problems I went through. He was the man of the house not because his father wasn’t around. But because no one treated him like a child. No one challenged when he spoke. More than ever, I wanted to gather my friend’s courage to talk back and talk for myself. He advised that I needed to be “high” for people to mellow when I talked. For what could possibly make me high, I had not the least idea until he took me to a nearby drinking bar one cold evening. He placed bottles of bitters on a table in front of me. I didn’t hesitate at all, but I drank for the first time in my life. I wanted to get over my shyness and timidity so much that, I didn’t think twice about that decision. The next day, I took a full bottle, then two, three until I drank day and night. I gathered a kind of courage when I drank: courage to talk back, then to insult, argue, fight and disturb. That was how high I got. I no more had time to work. By 6am, I will be crawling on the ground to the bar, spending each pesewa on more and more drinks.

When I drank, I put on a new me, one who is not shy, and one who is destructive and disturbing. I didn’t like my new self entirely because it caused me a lot. I could no more work. I lost some of my friends, those I believed were not smart because they could not be bold enough to drink. I lost my mother’s love and care. But anytime I took a second to think about how bold I became to do whatever I wanted to do, I found myself going back to drink again and again.