Random Ramblings

“Hey, so you want me to buy you cigarettes?” were the first words that came out of my mouth, after I had called my brother, after he had messaged me on a December evening. I was ready for bed, turning down for the night when the Whatsapp notification pinged me into action. I’m not much of a social media user so whenever I receive a message, I get a little excited. A little energy flows and agitates my teeth, I start blinking rapidly, twist to get into a more comfortable position and turn on my phone.

“Do you really need this?”

“No.”

“Why do you use it?”

“Because I feel stressed.”

“Do you need it?”

“No, not really.”

“Then why do you do it?”

I felt gratified in both; that he would ask me for a favour and answer me honestly, but also annoyed that these circumstance or events would ever show up. The thoughts that had sprung to mind was, you’re young/you shouldn’t be doing this/WHY would you do this to yourself?/ B-a-a-ck inn my daaaay/No. I was a weird mix of confusion and anger; possibly even uncontrollable rage that I had to chain up to my garden gate within my mind. I was never there for them, by (what I thought at the time) choice, circumstances or even desire. I leaned heavily into my chair, holding the phone loosely to my ear, wondering. Visualising all the multiple scenarios I could imagine - what could’ve caused this?/I know why - and their solutions.

For some reason my brain felt engineered to sub-consciously understand and go through different scenarios, circumstances or in short; the 4 Ws: What, why, where, when & HOW (I know this isn’t a W), did we reach this destination? I reflected back on my past memories, went through our connection - our bond - that we shared. Enough of that. I just think too much. And at the end of the day I just needed to understand what exactly I wanted to explain to him, my personal opinion on vaping and whether there was a necessity in that or not.

I think I got through to him. For everyone that doesn’t know me, I’ve been told that I’m a quite relaxed and chilled person and in terms of our relationship, I know I can’t be there for him physically, but at least mentally. We live in a society where the world runs online; we can talk from people across the globe and therefore we can always think of someone and remember them; even if they’re on the end of our nerves and covered in countless other thoughts.

For those who were interested in the story, I managed to convince him to stop momentarily. He didn’t feel the need to smoke and he was using it to ‘calm’ himself down. My brother’s young and from what I hear, finds it difficult to calm down and think. What we as as siblings like to think from where our anger stems from, is from our parents. Our father has a cloudy history and a darker past with us. From the roots down, he would give into his anger and lash out; a lot. For me, I wasn’t around as much for those ‘beatings’ that my younger siblings took. But for me, I understand the show or demonstration of lashing out due to anger, or doing something bad has been imprinted on my siblings’ heart. So now we come to the present. Consuming influences that justify how drugs, alcohol and desires are unnecessary forms of appeasement to our bewildered mind, at least our relationship or how he considers me to be a role model - or perhaps someone just to look up to - seems to have taken a stronger hold over needing to do unnecessary pleasures, especially at such a young age.

I'll keep the ending short and sweet. Apologies for the structure and the ramblings of this writer. I write when I can, or when I want to. The mass of thoughts and feelings expressed are from different days, within different moods and it just helps me keep positive day by day knowing that, although I'm not the most vocal person in-person, I can still share my stories and feel some form of satisfaction by writing.