My Imperfect Paragon 1 - How I Became The Clown

In continuation of my inability to start I post I must apologize and get right into it because I just spent 15 minutes staring at my phone.

On the 27th of April 2018 I played my last match of a game called "Paragon", developed by Epic Games, a nane you might recognize as the company that created "Fortnite". I remember staring into thin air for 3 whole hours not knowing what to do with my life. Now don't get me wrong, a game stopped is FAR from being my main concern in life, I have bigger problems. But that game, for a while, was the most consistent thing in my life. I had it through 3 countries, one I started playing it on, one I travelled to with hope, and one I returned to in disappointment.

The naive in me will never stop hoping for something consistent. A friend, a mother, a brother, a wife, and a daughter. You would think that with ALL the people that disappeared from my life for one reason or another, I would learn that my life just isn't meant to have anything consistent. I often listen to people talking about their friends "Oh, we have been friends for 7 years", or some number, and I always think how I might even KNOWN someone for that long.

Growing up, I was never anyone's bestfriend. And to those who I have been, they faded into darkness. My mother wanted a boy, and when my brother grew up to disappoint her, she had me. I was her favourite. The person who loved me the most, I was the person who another person loved the most. But years later, countless hugs and kisses later, I had to watch the person who loved me the most die.

It was also the year the yeat that my father travelles to Dubai to start a job there to support us. I saw him two whole years later thanks to the war. I remember hearing his voice once during the time a part which is at my aunt's house when he called to talk to me, but I was too sleepy to understand a thing.

The absent of my father, meant the absent of anyone who would care about me. Not that I blame my sisters, they were all going through their pain from my mother's passing. My second to the oldest sister had a mental breakdown, I remember one day I was feeling extra sad and wanted to talk to anyone. It was late at night and I heard some thumbing noise from the bathroom, with fear I approached, it was just a trong consistent noise, like someone was hitting the wall with a bowling ball covered with cloth. I walked in to see one of the most horrifying I would ever see in my life. I would my sister banging her head into the wall as hard as she could. And once she saw me she ran at me and screamed with her thick blooded face and her "this is all your fault", and started smeering the blood coming off her forhead onto me with strong slaps.

The reason I think of that often isn't to say poor me or anything but to me it marked the start of me keeping everything to myself. It made me fear telling anyone close to me about what hurts me because I knew I would just be adding to their pain. The second event is a long excruciating one which is what rhe passage of time from that event did to my other sister Lara. You see Lara was known by everyone around for her long beautiful hair, she shared the same birthday as my mother; imagine having that over your head every time you celebrate your birthday. Lara started plucking out her hair with her hands silently and without anyone noticing. Within few months Lara would have pull out the majority of her hair ALONG WITH the roots and would be almost completely bald and would have to wear her Hijab even at home. I often blame myself because I did notice it the moment it started but I just didn't talk to anyone. I was afraid of getting hit, spat at, beaten, screamed at the moment I would open my mouth.

You know, I don't remember havinf a friend until I was 11, and we only became friends because the guy was returning to Iraq from Yemen and was living next to us. Throughout my life ever since then I would go on to have plenty of bestfriends, but they were MY bestfriends, I wasn't theirs. I never learned how to process my pain, never had the guts to even talk about it or bring it up in a conversation, never had the balls to say "I am sad because.." I am always the guy not crying at a funeral, or if he does, then it is when no one is around. And because I never learned how to talk, I didn't learn how to listen. And before I knew it, I became the clown who is insensitive and can't take anything seriously and jokes about everything.