Opinion article by Duke of Shomolu, Joseph Edgar
I have lost immortality. The invincibility that comes with youth. The very real prospect that you think you will live forever.
As I move away from 50 and begin to hit the mid 50s, the stark reality that each day takes you closer to the end becomes your template.
The changes in your body become milestones of reminders as you trudge on.
Your glasses are a constant companion without which you can’t read. Your attempt to run fast with your female trainer ends in you at her back staring at her perth dearie since you can’t catch up.
You begin to miss those days when you could go four times non-stop and still jump on the football field and play your life away.
Nowadays? Let’s leave that aside…
The constant reminders are legion. Your doctor reminds you that you have to fight this BP, you have to do an annual check on your vitals, the ass you refuse to release to the gays of San Francisco, you willingly open up to the grease covered gloves of your doctor in search of your prostrate.
The most painful is the morning wood, that comes lazily maybe once a week as against the daily show of power in your 30s.
Today, I went to see my friend. He looked like my grandfather. He is 52 like me but looked all of 70. He was bent and swollen. In an ill-fitting suit, I say to myself this bobo is not aging well.
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My mates are like that. At least most of them. Old, fragile, gray haired and bald. We are not aging well, maybe it’s the stress of still paying school fees at this age and competition with young Turks for the affection of the twenty something year old girls.
Every morning, I wake up and look at myself naked in the mirror. Am I already carrying the bomb of my end in my body.
Which of the vitals will give up first or is it my brain or my testicle that have lost their lustre and just hangs there like loose balls of akara.
Or will it be a swift blow or what. I really don’t know, my mortality or otherwise stare at me in mocking salute to my fear.
Too many people close to me have died. I have watched them suffer in debilitating pain as they leave. Too many not to disturb my psyche.
And then the news. Once you ask, they will say. You didn’t hear, he has died. Was he ill? Yes diabetes or No, he just didn’t wake up.
Fear is a constant companion. Read your Bible, they say. Or try the Quran and find inner peace. Hard.
Immortality. Nothing like that. Mortality is everything because man must die at some point, but the suspense, the mystery is the wahala. The uncertainty.
So what do I do? Nothing. Just live my life by my own rules. Make myself happy and not because of anybody to frustrate myself in trying to conform because ‘Las Las’ na me alone go answer to myself when I dey go.
Immortality? Nothing like that…
*Duke of Shomolu*
