It was a warm Saturday morning in late July 1996. I was 9; almost 10. The birds were chirping in excitement, the morning dew, fresh and still, dripping from the tree leaves. I had been prepped hard for this day. Daily memory “drills”, 6 hours of schoolwork and 2 hours of home tutorials 3 times a week, learning new words and watching for current affairs updates from the local TV news. Like an athlete, I was primed, ripped and ready for this day. No stone was left unturned. My teachers rated me so highly, my parents never expected any less. I had progressed quickly through the 1st chain link of the famous 6-3-3-4 National educational system, with a “double promotion” in Class 4. Time was a blur. I kept outdoing myself, excelling in my grades and beating the competition. The National Common Entrance examination that year had been a great success, I was the best in my examination center, though one of the youngest candidates. I scored 503/600, if I re-collect. I was sure to get admitted into both Federal high schools selected. However, I wanted a lot more. Parents/Guardians were told to drop off their kids/wards at the school gate, so I parted from my mum with last minute pep-talks, prayers and "pocket money" (the favorite part). With the accreditation and registration processes completed, I was allotted a classroom and seat number. The exams started right on time. The first part – Mathematics & Quantitative Reasoning - was a landslide victory – I crunch numbers in my sleep. I needed the Part B of the exam to go just as well – English Language, Current Affairs & Verbal Reasoning. I knew the pass mark needed to secure a place at the International School, University of Lagos, one of the most prestigious high schools in Nigeria. The Part B section started after the lunch break. It was all going well till I hit a roadblock. There was an essay question, which read, "write an essay, about 150 words on 'Nigeria of my Dreams' ". I read the question again. I read it a third time. “This must be a mistake”, I thought. It didn't sound right to me. I looked around the hall, with my naive, pearly eyes. No other candidate seemed bothered. The room roared on in the ambience of a properly invigilated exam. I felt I was in trouble. How was I supposed to react? Where do I start? Do I have to fall sleep to come up with this dream? Don't we all only dream at night while we sleep? What if the heavens refuse to give me this dream within the required time frame? How do I select a specific dream, dream that dream, wake up and write about it? Would I wake up on time? I just had about 2 hours to write this exam section. I gazed at this problem statement, flipped, twitched and steered. Finally, my guardian angel whispered in my ears. “Leave this section, write the other sections and come back here”. I scrambled through the other exam sections, filled and shaded answers as the clock ticked away. Just as I finished and moved to get back to the essay question, I heard those 2 magic words, “Pens Up”. I felt it was all over. I had let myself and many people down. What would I tell my parents? How do I explain that we were asked to dream and write about it, and I couldn't do either? How could this be happening to me? “My teachers must have left this out; they did not teach me”. That was my conclusion, with my tail firmly tucked between my legs, as I walked towards the school main gate. I squinted from a distance to see if my mother was there waiting. I knew she would ask how I fared and would try to assess my body language. I had learnt not to lie to her pretty early, I wasn't taking a chance this time. I only managed to get a few in till I flew out of her nest to build mine. I happily told her that Part A went well. She knew my capabilities, no surprises here, smiles all round. Then to the bad news, Part B. I told her what happened. She listened intently, laughed and told me what was expected by the examiners. The scales instantly fell off my eyes. How was I supposed to know? I wish they framed it clearer. Could I possibly go back and fill this section? Of course, only in my dreams. I was consoled with an ice cream cone and we drove back home. My father laughed and sympathized with me but was confident I would make the pass list. The next few weeks were a nervous wait, a heavy weight. The hours and days gently strolled by. I could not bear the thoughts of failing an entrance examination into a prestigious school. My mother had left her senior teaching position at a State Secondary school and took a few steps down the career ladder to accept a teaching role at this school, just to ensure that my father only paid discounted school fees for my siblings and I. How could I let her down? How could I let us down? Finally, the news broke. I passed the exams, went on to pass the interviews and was admitted into ISL, UNILAG. I was overjoyed and relieved that I had kept my own side of the bargain. My younger siblings also made the cut in their times.

I am happy to announce that my official website http://www.aerikvon.com will be online very soon!

Fear and I are no strangers. Growing up with abusive parents and marrying an abusive man at the age of nineteen; you become accustomed to being afraid. Nightmares have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember; but the fear that grips me now is like none I have known before. I am a Christian, so I should not be afraid of dying. I should be happy that if I die, I will go to heaven, right? No. I am afraid. I am afraid because although my soul is ready, my mind and body are not. I am afraid of never seeing my children and grandchildren again. I am afraid of dying on this God forsaken island when there this so much I want to do. I am afraid to go back into the classroom because what if I get the coronavirus and give it to my students? The guilt would eat me alive! Physically, I have trouble sleeping. I can't fall asleep until at midnight or later and when I do, I have nightmares. I have chest pains. Heart conditions run in my family. I can't tell anyone. I don't want to burden them with my fears. I have little appetite. I have to force myself to eat something every day. I used to love food. I am an old-fashioned cook. I bake from scratch. Growing up all my kids' birthday cakes were homemade. Add to that, I am a stress baker. My daughter used to give me a hard time when she came home from school and caught me baking. She'd ask, “What's the matter, Mom?” Food was a big deal. I have often been told I needed to open my own restaurant or bakery. I almost did once. Now, the kitchen brings little solace. Emotionally it's like an alien has taken over my body. I have had some pretty traumatic things happen in my life; but I handled them with relative calm and that lack of a habit of panicking has gotten through them all. I take a deep breath. I tackle the most urgent thing first. I make a list of what I need to do or what I need and mark them off as I go. Over the years I have managed to show a brave front; but I can't anymore. I cry a lot. I am anxious going out in public. My heart races when I do. For five months, I have gotten out to go to the grocery store and that is all. I live on a tropical island and I can't even enjoy it. I am calm one minute and hysterical the next. I'm moody and volatile and it has caused serious strain on my relationship with my fiance. Who can blame him? It doesn't help that I am a redhead and have the trademark temperament. So, how afraid am I? Pretty damn afraid! I have begun to write my will. I have written my daughter a six-page “goodbye” letter. I have written my son a letter. I have always prayed, and I know I am saved; but now I pray every night the traditional children's prayer, just in case… Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray Dear Lord, my soul you take. God bless Quinton and Little Jack. God bless my daughter Christina and her husband Clifton. God bless my granddaughter's Zoey, Malia, and Alice. God bless my son, Monty. God bless Bree (my son's soon-to-be ex-wife), Alaynah, Kaden, and Alex. God bless all of my friends and family and loved ones. God, please watch over all of them and keep them safe from harm. Please God, put a hedge of protection around my family and don't let them die. In Jesus' name, Amen. There are times that fear chokes me and I am unable to get out of bed or do; but don't want to. I force myself to get up and face each day. Going through the motions of fixing my fiance's breakfast (he works nights). I force myself to walk our dog and do the laundry. I force myself to cook supper each night; and then I have to force myself to eat. I look out the window and long for the beauty of the island around me but am too terrified to go out and see it. I have always written a journal, but now I am writing four to six-page entries. I have gone through four ink pens in the last two weeks alone. I have days that all I can do is “depression sleep.” Even this rest is plagued with nightmares. I'm aging fast. Dark circles under my eyes and wrinkles appearing daily around my eyes, mouth, and hands. I am just 49 years old, but I look and feel sixty. With all of this, you would think that it was impossible to look forward at all. You would think that it is impossible to dream about tomorrow, next week, or next year. Even I am surprised that I can, that I have. My fiancé and I have a dream of buying a live-a-board sailboat and sailing around the world. Planning for this dream consumes our days and nights. We have made lists. We watch sailing videos. We talk and discuss what we need to do and what we need to buy. We've laid out all of the steps to follow and have it all worked out. Yet, all the while a shadow lingers behind the surface fueled by the fear that this dream will never come true. That one or both of us will die before it becomes a reality. A voice whispers in our minds, This will never happen. Why do you bother to dream at all? I answer back, “I don't know, but I do.”

I look myself in the mirror, I can discern the decay of my face. There is no smile anymore. The stasis of my lips offers satisfactorily lust in my thoughts that torment my mind with Medieval methods. I touch my idol in the mirror and I hurt. I try to close his eyes, but I cannot. They stay open and still and they look morbidly. Chainsaws echo from the overlooked cemetery, tear into pieces mercilessly the marble crosses. What have I done to myself so he looks at me like this? Why my sharpened teeth do not appear on the glass surface with sole purpose to bite her? Sorrow hallowing my forehead with sorrow. Indestructible thorns jab more deeper in the flesh of my skull. Bloody tears sparkling in my hands' palms. If I scream I will die. If I die I will have to kill. If I kill I am obliged to leave. If I leave, I will return. God, why, the sorrows of people transmute into ebony coffins that are buried within my heart? If only I could soothe my consciousness for seven days… I feel something to choke me. My throat is asphyxiating while my glass idol laughs horrendously. I can't stand the howling. No, yell at me no more. Reigns powerful silence, and then spasms commence recalling me in my starting position, before abyssal darkness arrogates my senses. Maybe fate leads me in a deathly destiny, which in case it happens, will become the salvation which is the highest virtue for a tormented soul like mine. No, I don't murmur. The existing circumstances of life have tired me insurmountably, because as I try to open a way out to the future, it ricochets me to the past. Death is the physical continuation of life, and I will be delighted if it happens to the days of my youth, for the simplest reason, that I cannot avoid him. To speak the truth, I don't want to avoid him. I want desperately to remain alive and to feel whatever joy I can, but they don't let me. In which attempt I give or trying to be present, they find ways to chain me and isolate me. The only thing that will never succeed in accomplishing is to handcuff my mind. A free spirit clearly suffering, but in no way it can be imprisoned. A free spirit prefers death so not to lose innocence, insight, respect and prestige. I have thought many times while I stroll in the city, how life would continue if I committed suicide… For sure there will be consequences and repercussions to people who they love me , however they would continue to exist without me, and with the flow of time the rift of pain would heal in desired spots. The verb “die” does not fit here, so, reasonably I use the verb “suicide”. Suicide is not an act of cowardice as some falsely believe. Because nobody knows how much pain a single human has within his soul. Nobody knows the spiritual boundaries and the stamina in a daily routine that open wounds that cannot be healed. How many people we see daily that smile whilst inside them are literally devastated… How many people we see daily that seek a kind word, a velvet touch, an understanding breath, and the only thing that get is disdain… How many people daily we place of the beam of desperation without remorse…Here is a key word which provokes pathogenic causes with fatal results. Suicide as a meaning and as an act certainly is the ultimate hybris against God, though requires determination and courage to turn yourself against yourself and violently remove the coveted life in that way. How many of you have done this macabre thought at least once… In this theater of paradox we daily live, the incarnation of life to life seems like an unreachable dream. Loneliness, disappointment, sorrow, wrong choices, guilt, remorse, unemployment, compulsion, hatred, unfairy tax policies, lies, eradication, violation of human rights, greed, selfishness, stab democracy that all people worship. The rule of law which could be, turns into a cradle of powerful coldness where everything collapse upon the enormous steel walls of human separation. Undead people wander everywhere aimlessly. They stamp upon dead bodies, seeking comprehensible sunrays of justice and transparent water to wash away their sins. How would it seem to the violators of this planet, who have elevated the obedient lobotomy to a profitable enterprise, a universal peace, which it would dismiss forever the wars for interest and people would live happily? A universal peace will destroy forever the human funnel grinders of annihilation. Only by thinking of it, my heart shivers from hope and expectation. A universal peace would give meaning in words and prestige in actions of future generations in a planet which agonizes… The only thing that is needed is an incision of kindness into the hearts of men… An incision that will bring back long-forgotten feelings, good deeds, smiles, hope… Hope for a palatable future life. We need love to live, not pain. Tears drop from my eyes as my words breath on the paper. What I wish for, what I want is, my words breathe inside your psychic dreams…

Four years ago. I remember this feeling. Tired, empty, solemnly cupping my shins in a bathtub stained with blood rivered from my wrists. Although I'm not self harming, I completely remember the pain and emptiness inside. That need for purpose. I honestly assumed that by virtue of following my passion and carving out my dreams into reality, I would get rid of this feeling I find myself in. While 2014 became a turning point in my life, making the decision to live for myself and not for the joys of everyone else around me, I'm back at in the same space, just a different context. Early 2018, and my emptiness comes from giving my career for everyone but me, to take responsibility. Owning my autonomy comes with owning my responsibility. Right now, I am where I am career wise based on my actions. Many things that inform where I am not, is based on me not acting on my talent or my goals. Things based on fear to starting. All of this is my fault - which is honestly the best news for me. Seeing that I am the cause of my unhappiness, I can also be the cause of my own fulfillment. I just need to own my responsibility in owning my space. This is what both makes me powerful as a human, and vulnerable. My responsibility in self is me determining that I am the master of my own destiny. I am the sole person that I get angry or frustrated with - and I find myself mirroring that with other people due to my lack of ownership. However, now I know. My inner self was only asking for me to stop creating mirrors out of others and face an actual mirror and see power within me. I fully understand why I moved from the space I was in to where I am now, and how my feeling of emptiness is not translating into a bloodied bathtub but rather a moment of stillness and self introspection in my journal. I am aware that I have transitioned into more healthier practices of mental healthcare, but the larger picture is being fully accountable of my life. This is the only currency to realizing your dreams.