Jealousy and Football Analogies

Quick question: How does it feel being the person that never gets picked?

First things first, I apologize for ghosting, life was doing the most and I let it do me (pun intended). I’m sorry, for my unavailability, I focused too much on my career and tried to soak my kidney with grain alcohol.

A couple things have unfolded in my life since we last talked. I lost my job, got another one, I turned a year older, I threw what would amount to my first adult birthday party and I fell in love, I am trying to fall out and I’m getting married (all but one is true)

But that’s not why we are here. As always I am here to make you laugh at my woes and say “I hope it never happens to me” because guess what I hope it never happens to you.

I spoke to a friend from a past life on my birthday, she reminded me albeit condescendingly that for a long time, I was the last option to be picked for anything.

That may have ended in a lot of faux laughter from my end and a 5 minutes cry in the office bathroom because a lot of things I thought I would have forgotten came back.

I often explain to friends that my major flaw is jealousy. I have tried to curb it, regulate it, trafficate it, anything-ate it. Nothing works. Instead I avoid situations that trigger it. (probably why I’ll never try cuckolding- again)

Let me give you an insight into what my friend was referring to.

For the first few years of my life, I was jealous of my immediate younger sister, she was smarter, lighter, finer and everyone seemed to like her more than me. It was hard because E was/is my favorite person in the entire world. We grew up like twins, Mrs mummy dressed us up like twins, she could complete my sentences, I would take her beatings for her in high school because no one dares to touch my sister.

It was hard hearing everyone say “why can’t you be like her” when all I just wanted to do was love my sister and not think of her as an unattainable modicum of beauty, intelligence and what not.

It was even harder in school because I was a rebel. Every Time I got into trouble and they called home, there’s a “why can’t you be like her”. It has gotten easier to deal with now because when I hear it I say “dad, you need a chaotic child or your life would be too boring”

In school, she’d get picked for competitions first. I was always the last pick, hated it so much. Why can’t I be number one?

I will always love E and she’ll always be my favorite. But it was hard not to look at her and feel bad for myself. But I covered it up nicely, as a happy child I did a lot of unnecessary laughter and jokes, but all the while I was in pain.

Time went on and that ebbed because it got replaced by another type of jealousy.

I had a high school crush, I was sure I’d marry and bear his babies. He was my best friend in the entire world and I thought I fell in love. I was comfortable with him, I was happy around him and most importantly, he is the only person in this world that can boast of a love letter from me ( me sef dey woo, like popsmoke). I daydreamed into a relationship with him and almost died on my graduation day when I heard that he was with an old friend of ours. Taylor swift has always been my trusty sidekick when It comes to sad times.

I hated both of them for years, years. It cost me dearly but I did it. That’s the thing about me, when I hate, I damn the consequences.

There are situations that people have had to make choices between me and someone/something else, There are other situations where I have let my jealousy get the best of me but I believe that if I write about them, I’d get plunged into a never-ending nerve-wracking breakdown

I see a pattern in all my escapades

I never get picked.

It’s like you are on a football pitch and you need to pick your starting 11. There’s the people you do your warmups with and then there’s the ones you play ball with.

All my life I have always felt like a warmup. I thought I would outgrow it by the time I turn 20.

However, I am 26 and I am starting to think I’ll never be on any one’s starting 11 and I still almost never get picked; as a teammate, as a partner or as a friend. The friends I have I forged with all my strength, the partners I’ve dared to have always want someone else, my ideal work team never picks me, sometimes I think my birth parents would like an exchange program with Alderman, the father of Hearthstone, he may be a deaf elf but that’s better than nothing yeah?

If you have ever felt this way, I am sorry, it hurts like a bitch.

Let me clear, I don’t know how to stop feeling like this, never have. I just suppress it under a lot of Instagram funny videos and laugh it out. I know I know, why am I suddenly writing about it?  Did I get triggered recently? Yes. I doubt if it was intentional but meh.

However I have found that whenever I feel this way, whenever I ask myself these questions, I tend to hold my people tight. I hold them tight because I know that I may not be number one but I’ll always be one. That keeps me going.

I want to say therapy helps but I have missed uncountable sessions and I stopped my drugs without prescription. So obviously I’m the wrong person to ask about that

Another thing that may help is a daily exercise I do. Everyday I force myself to get out of bed, look at myself in the mirror and say “ Eje, you will always be my number one”

And honestly, you will always be your own number one. You should always pick yourself first. If you wait for someone else to do it, you may never see that day.

Anyways, enough of my ramblings, I have a fifteen minute window that I shall now take to cry out my heart contents.

As always,

Love Light and Amala