Scared.

It has been so long since I’ve been back home. And now it’s actually going to happen. And now I’m scared. I can’t really explain it. All these years of pining and crying for home and now I am meeting it with some sort of hesitancy. It’s not that I don’t want to go home; I do with all my heart. But I’m scared that somehow, it won’t happen. As if it’s too good to be true and that something bad is lurking around the corner. I feel a little bit panicky and I hope that doesn’t grow the closer the time draws to go home.

I don’t know if anyone can understand. The first two years or so in the States, I didn’t miss home that much. I was distracted by being in a whole new country, trying not to feel like an outcast, I loved the comforts of constant electricity, running water, and how everything appeared to be so clean. I was trying to blend in. But I was 16. When I found myself as the adult I now am, I found home again, as corny as that sounds. Homesickness would wash over me in waves and thoughts of being back in Aba became more constant. Before I could go weeks without thinking of home, but those weeks became days.

Some people exaggerate about such things, but for me within at least the last two years, I have thought of Nigeria every single day. And I don’t mean I think of the country, politics, people and whatnot lol. I mean I think of MY Nigeria. The way I saw it growing up. I suppose my current fear stems from the fact of how physically disconnected I am from home. I suppose I’m scared to witness the change in person. I’m scared to see the house I grew up in. The house that when the electricity went out, I could walk around in the darkness to find a candle without bumping into anything.  The house I know will appear smaller once I step foot in it. I’m scared to see my father and realize that I grew taller.  My father who is closer to 70, but I spent a majority of my life picturing him as a man in his 50’s in that innocent manner children use when assuming their parents’ ages.

I just can’t believe it’s finally going to happen. I don’t know how many people out there have waited and waited and waited for something to happen, only it never did. I got so many hopes and false promises in the past. And those useless dreams of being home, but never being able to reach my house didn’t help either.

I’ve got it. You know what it feels like? This shit feels like my damn dreams all over again and all in one. THAT’S the feeling I’ve been trying to understand. Just like in my dreams, it is the feeling of excitement, panic, frustration and hopelessness but at the same time hope. It is the feeling of, “Oh, I’ve been here before and I know how it ends. It ends like all the other dreams before. I never get home.”

Maybe in real life, when I get home . . . maybe I will ask my father to drive me down the street leading to my home. Down that damn street that I spent countless dreams running on with a heart that was beating fast with two tunes of exhaustion and anticipation. Perhaps I will even get to walk down the last part of the street . . . I probably won’t knowing myself lol. I would be too scared that something could happen just like in my dreams. I know that fear will go away once I’m in my house and then I can take that walk.