Throughout last week, I wondered through my grief how people coped with challenges in life. I have my many coping mechanisms in dealing with different challenges. My very public career has often impacted the perception of my personae, which often erroneously throws up misconceptions that I suffer no challenges, have no pain, and easily ride storms. Nothing is further from the truth. Life has thrown me many curves, and some of them have been very curvy indeed, but because I believe in a higher being and I have always enjoyed the support of family and friends and sometimes strangers, I have always come through at the other end polished and sharper. But not without the scars that come with the many battles in life’s vicissitudes. I have kept my private life very private, as I have always done, but when you are a public figure, there will be rare moments when these two collide. I daresay I have managed my work-life balance in the best way that I can. But upon reflection in the last week or so, and looking back at the many incidences that have defined my incredible life, I can see how easy it is to be alone in a crowded room. In explicating this situation, I wish to draw inferences from many interesting perspectives in life.
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First is grief. Everyone has been there. When you lose a loved one, it can hit hard. For months, you are just going through a motion
While people are talking to you and chatting excitedly, you often have an out-of-body experience. You seem present, but you quite often have floated out of the room unbeknownst to you. Most days are filled with natter, and you are usually alone in a crowded room.
The second perspective is when you are mired with deceitful people. People whose modus operandi is to defraud two-year-olds while pretending to be at the forefront of your church. Then there are those whose daily lives are permanently coloured by lies and frothing-at-the-mouth deceit. People who choose to tell you something in the morning and say something else in the evening, which is at total variance from what was said earlier. People who can literally bury you alive with words about you that are untrue. In times like these, you would be in a crowded room and still feel alone when those who know you and your values are standing on the other side of the room with Mr Deceit or Mrs Deceit. These incidences help you understand the dynamics of character. People who say one thing and mean another and at the top of the pack are those who see the truth and demur. Those who can not stand for something and who would die for nothing. People with no moral high ground. Shameless and barefaced in jumping from one cause to another, who have sold their soul to the devil. In the presence of these ridiculous people who can sell their parents for a mess of pottage, you seem to be alone in a crowded room.
Over the years, I have encountered many persons with no integrity, but one of my more intriguing tales has to do with a colleague with whom I shared my innermost pain in my career space. That kind of person whom you trust to share. A month later, this colleague denied that I spoke to him. I was gobsmacked. It was not me, he said. Maybe someone else. I was beyond horrified. Suddenly I felt alone even though there was music and the clattering of doors opening and closing. I spoke to him in the office. Was he drunk? No, he was being fraudulent. Afraid to rise to the occasion and refusing to take responsibility.
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Finally, how does it feel when a family member or good friend serially throws you under a bus? At first, you think something is wrong with you. They lie, they cheat, they disrespect, they defraud , and they ask you to applaud them while pretending you are at fault.
There is nothing wrong with you when people ghost you: a friend, family, a lover, or a colleague.
You feel alone in a crowded room when people are morally bankrupt or when life throws you a curve. Stay strong!
