Coping with being a normie
I have lived my entire quarter a century life believing I was special. That somehow, I was imbued with some kind of supernatural qualities that protected me and kept me alive throughout my disease-afflicted childhood. Most of my childhood friends died of some condition or other, ranging from scientifically explainable to purely superstitious.
Perhaps the most weird recollection of such deaths is a friend of mine from primary school. I will call him David for the purposes of this blog post. Now, David and I were great buddies at a time when we were aged around 9 or 10 (that's usually class 4 where I come from).
One unfortunate day, David and I came across a mysterious cow horn on our way to school. This horn was covered in some sort of a black powder, wrapped with a red cloth close to the tip and a little bit oiled. What caught our attention wasn't the horn but the pile of coins that were deposited around and in the horn itself.
These coins were of the same denomination (20 shillings) and back then, they were worth a few pieces of fried cassava and lots of salt. Naturally, David and I decided to ignore the whole horn situation and take our share of the plunder. We didn't take all the coins because we were a bit in a hurry and we were scared. So we just took what our little hands could manage, wiped the black powder and oil stuff and voila, we were rich for that day.
During break time at 10 AM, David and I used the plundered coins to purchase fried cassava and buns. We ate and enjoyed ourselves. A few months later, David died at his home and the conditions surrounding his death suggested a strong involvement of superstition. I remember that day like it was yesterday. When the teacher came into our class and announced the passing of David, I was scared shitless. David and I never shared how we came across that pile of coins.
I attended David's funeral service along with my classmates. This was my first time attending the funeral of a person I used to know. A friend. Time to say our goodbyes came and as I passed by David'd little coffin and looked at the body inside, it dawned on me that my days were numbered and I'd be following him shortly. Deep down I felt I was going to be OK. Although I was scared, It didn't take me long to forget because I had survived other ordeals in the past and this was just one of them.
It was days, then a week, then months. Years went by and everyone forgot about David but I'll never forget. This post is not about dead people so I'll let David rest in peace, for now.
Being born in a resource-limited environment, I rarely could afford proper medical care in my childhood. As a result, most of my health-related problems that came with being a child were resolved by using traditional herbs or left alone until the body managed to combat them. This was a horrible experience and it has left me with lifelong scars. On the plus side, my immune system got stronger to a point where I rarely got sick in my teens and now my adulthood.
I have been so healthy to a point that I have never had any significant health problem that led me to be bedridden, needed special medical attention such as blood transfusion. In fact, I didn't know my blood group until a few days ago. I always just assumed I was so special that it didn't matter. I had to be either a universal donor or a universal recipient. My money was on universal donor (O-). It had to be that.
A few days ago, I went for a HIV test (first time in more than 5 years) and decided to also check my blood group. I was pleased with the results of the former but disappointed with the latter. I found out I had B+ blood in my veins. What? That's the normiest blood group ever. How could someone so special have such an uninteresting blood group? I have never felt this betrayed in my entire life.
To be honest, I'm still in denial but I'm slowly accepting my new reality. I'm just another normie who got luck too many times that he was led to believe he was special. What am I going to do about it? Nothing. Here's to being a normie, but in a special way.