The Bougainvillea

Depression had changed a lot in me. Day by day, I am growing more insensitive to life and the people around me. For me, now life is like a dying Bougainvillea which had lost its color and glory. They say, Bougainvillea symbolizes passion in life. While watching them grow over my neighbors’ wall, it seemed like they constantly search for acceptance more than passion. No matter what, just like how they were discovered, it attracts the attention of every single person who passes by my neighbor’s house with its graceful masses. Not many knew the plant had its own story of bravery to tell behind its disclosure. The woman who found the plant had to disguise herself as a man on a voyage with more than 300 men on board around the world in search of exotic plants because in those days French Navy never allowed women on ships. At last, she was forced to give up her discovery rights on the plant in return for not being prosecuted. Even though, she became a world-renowned botanist for her other discoveries, her most beautiful finding was taken away from her just because she was a woman. It was definitely her passion for plants that lead to this glorious revelation.

Apart from being a product of someone’s passion or being revealed in the end, I guess there is a part of the plant which wants its rightful owner to be accepted by the world, not just for its discovery but as the first woman to circumnavigate around the world. That might be the reason why it grows in masses, climbing over all the walls and trees, in a wide variety of colors and elegance that made people curious to an extent that they found its rightful owner and accepted her for her accomplishments. The vast spreading nature of these Bougainvillea takes my thoughts back to the invisible cancer that’s growing all over me, questioning and controlling every thought of mine, knocking down every hope and pestering me with its shady voice every single night; “You don’t deserve to live... There is no one who wants you here… You are sick”.

It constantly reminds me how my absence is not going to matter, and even my presence doesn’t. I failed to realize that my body is my biggest asset. It has been maintaining itself so well even when I ignored it for many years. In the past, I have heard about phantom pain from one of my doctor friends, but now I started to experience it. Maybe this is the punishment for taking my body for granted. No one believed me when I said I am aching for no cause. They consoled me with “We are all in pain” and I believed them, though it was all in my head and everyone is in pain, mine is no different. I started hearing noises at night: shady, soulless whisperings; gates creaking; doors unlocking; loud footsteps and those prolonged till the dawn. I thought it was all in my head again, my mind is playing games with me and I mocked myself for being a drama queen (that’s what everyone here calls me). Even till this point, I rejected myself and its inner callings for help. My body and psyche kept screaming at me, constantly giving me signals about something that is going to take control over our territory, and what I did is just shamelessly ignore it. I always thought no one is going to accept you if you are weak and that’s what happened. I exposed my weakness and they just overlooked it. Every time I cried or showed signs of sadness without any reason, I condemned myself “Damn me! Why do I whine so much?”. Even though there were so many red flags, I didn’t realize that something deep inside is forcing me to cry or making me sad unreasonably and urging me to choose loneliness over commitment, isolation instead of valuable relationships and irresistibly death over life. I imagine this is how a parasite takes control over its host.

When I am feeling low, it echoes my negative thoughts with much greater intensity. I felt lonely even with the closest of my people because someone is consistently trying its best to pull me down, hit the rock bottom and break me into thousand pieces so that I won’t move my limbs anymore. At this point, I realize with grief that I have turned into a slave of my own inhibitions and finding a way to the top needs a massive amount of strength which I am not aware of how to attain. I hear new generation kids saying, “I don’t want to be accepted by anyone”, it’s so brave of them to say that, but helpless people like me, need to be understood, listened to and accepted by at least one person in order to save themselves from the strong clutches of mental cancer and move forward with the life. It’s hard when people don’t realize it themselves. The time you lose from ignorance will be the time you repent the most.

While lying in my bed staring at the ceiling fan, I reminisced about myself reading the story of the beautiful Bougainvillea and Jeanne Barret - its rightful owner, a part of me secretly wished that I also had someone with me who would spread over me like a Bougainvillea, help me feel accepted, unleash me from my deepest numbness and sail with me through the toughest storms to discover lands where I really want to cherish my life that I had taken for granted once.