"He is proud." I heard a guy spoke of me.
I smiled when I heard him say that.
Let me tell you a little about me.
I was a little boy with loneliness as his companion. Inferiority complex took a major part of him, I hated myself and believed nothing good can ever come out of me.
During Children's Day Celebration in the church, I always hid and exempted myself from participating in anything. I was too conscious of making mistake. I tried a few times to take the bull by the horn, but always had a reason not to have tried in the first place. I was mesmerized, beaten to the ground, helpless and forsaken.
I heard many people say I was the ugliest kid of my parent. They told the truth, maybe, maybe not. The mirror was an evidence. I never like what I saw- A very skinny image of a boy who almost died of a sickness. "Lepa" became his second name. His eyes bulged out like they would fall at any moment. People started calling him "oju-olomgbo" meaning cat eyes. He cried and questioned God for given him a different colour of eyeballs. His proprietress always told the other kids during assembly to call his legs "mosquito legs" after being punished with several whips of cane. One of his teeth protruded out of his gum, which made him look like a vampire. He was so fair in complexion that people called him "afin" some say "albino" some even say "ororo" people said the truth I concluded, I was the ugliest.
Whenever I performed poorly in my exam at school, I would be spoken to like it was all my fault. My parents and aunties would take every of my mistake to be a reason why I didn't do well. And when I requested for extra food during meals, even if I would later be given, I would hear the server which was always either one of my aunties or elder sisters say after sucking me dry with a look of rejection and irritation, "that's the only thing you are good at." Then a long hiss would follow.
Almost everybody had one ill thing to say about me. It gave me sleepless night, and finally made me shrink deep into my shell.
When I took the second position in Primary five, my joy was full. My dad would buy crate of mineral like he always did for my younger sister, who was in the same class with me. I got home and was the first to declare what position I took. I saw expressions that weren't really a smile on their faces, then "you tried" was all that was muttered. I was mad. I did it for them. In fact, I was living just to please people.
My elder brother told me the most demeaning words I have heard people say to me. During a youth convention in my church when I was eighteen, I wrote a spoken word to be said, though I was going to read it from the book. I opted into writing because that was the only remedy and companion which was always ready to let me wet it with my words filled with burdens. I gave the piece of writing to my elder brother who asked me what is the theme of the program when he read my topic. I told him. He asked what was mine, I told him. Then he finally said, "What is the correlation? If you don't have something to do on that day, come sit and watch people who have better things to do." He flung the sheet of paper back at me, who was sitting on the floor. Tears beclouded my eyes, I grabbed the dangling sheet of paper in the air and tore it into pieces.
I hated myself for trying yet again. I hated writing, my companion. I slid into hell.
I dropped my pen for more than a year against my wish. Though I tried picking it up to write, but I dropped it again because I didn't want to go through the torment of abuses for lack of my competence.
Goodly enough I got admission into the University and had a change of view of life. For the first time in my life apart from when I played football back then in my hood, I was celebrated for touching lives with my pen on paper.
"You shouldn't have joined the bulletin group (writing group), you belong here." A senior friend told me in an all-night drama rehearsal. That statement birthed my love for acting.
I'm so proud of so many things in my life, the greatest of them all is that I am a survivor. I've survived inferiority complex, fear, hatred, sickness, frustration, depression, and even death. Now, I'm no more afraid of giants because I'm now a professional giant killer.
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