November 1st starts off National Blog Posting Month. My objective: write a daily post based on the new writing prompts that go up on The Daily Post every weekday at 11am. As for the weekends, I guess I’ll just have to come up with my own randomness.
It being November 2 today, I’m already late to the party. Objectives for the month: brevity and honesty.
I have 45 minutes to catch up to yesterday’s writing prompt, which was:
When was the last time you felt really, truly lonely?
The night of August 9, 2011. In a matter of hours, I went from Addis Ababa and the comfort of the constant company of my beloved close and extended family, who were all gathered to celebrate A & K’s fantastic wedding of the century, to Hong Kong where I knew not a single soul and was delirious from jet lag and too much crying on the plane. And, since I was terrified that my money would run out before I finished what I was there to do (process my work visa for China, a place I had already started to hate by the middle of my first week there the previous month), I was staying at the cheapest place possible – a tiny room in a creepy hostel in the Chung King Mansions, an area where the roach and human populations compete for domination and looks could be deceiving as to which was which. To top it off, my Chinese employers were being less than speedy about sending me the documents required for my visa. Spending yet another night in that hostel room, I kept seeing myself in the very-near future as a penniless non-status alien lying unconscious in the streets of Hong Kong with people stepping over me. And it would have been all for what? Just so I wouldn’t disappoint all the people, most importantly my dad, who were so impressed by and proud of my being all the way out in China? I felt not only geographically distant from those whom I love but also emotionally miles away from my own desires and intentions. The night of August 9, I’m pretty sure I came close to losing it. I was curled up on the hostel bed bawling my eyes out and singing Swing Low, Sweet Chariot to myself. Good thing a fat roach scurried across the floor right then and snapped me out of it.
Rebecca Fisseha, Writer. 