I had lived in the same apartment for 4 years now after my
university days ended. And through this house, I have known 7 ex-housemates,
and countless prospective tenants who came to visit the house before deciding
it was not a fit for them.
This new housemate of mine started living here from March
2018, right after I did some renovation and repairing in the middle room. To start
off, I installed a lamp. I only got to know the room didn’t have any lighting source
apart from the window after the previous tenant left. I also had to rewire the
cables and plug point since the wall adjacent to the bathroom has water damage from
leaked pipe in it, soaking all the wiring inside; rendering it too dangerous to
use.
I had to service the air conditioner since it was left in
bad condition; the refrigerant has all dried, and the machine won’t function
after the filter was cluttered with dusts – it even caused power trips because the
dusts covering the filter causes the fan to use a lot of energy to pass air
through the blockage.
Irfan was the name of my new housemate. Right off the bat,
he told me he was a clean freak. He wanted to move from his previous house
because he couldn’t stand the sorry state of the cleanliness, apart from his
smoking housemates. Whew, that was a red flag because to be honest, I’m not
particularly an orderly person. But since he decided my house was orderly
enough for him to move in, I guess I’m good.
Irfan was a person who was almost always bitter, which I had
grown to know from his WhatsApp statuses. Some of them, though not directed at
me, was quite offensive. He was angry at most things that he came across – like
an unaccommodating bus driver who won’t switch off the lights when he wanted
to sleep warrants a full paragraph of story on his status.
His job particularly seems like a major thing that irritates
him on a daily basis. Irfan and I shared a few similarities that surprised me. We
graduated with a degree in Environmental Science, he was now waiting for his
viva voce for his Master’s degree. Well that does resonate with me on some
level. Having two unrelated people with the same qualifications in the same
house is like hitting a jackpot, the probability is insanely small.
He is now working for a well respected environmental
consultant in Serdang, which was a popular employer for my peers. Some of my
friends still work with the company, which means we do have mutual friends.
It’s strange to learn lots of things about a person from his
social media, especially when you live under the same roof. That is how I learnt
lots of, no – most things about him. About him having bleeding nose every other
day, his endless pile of works that he had to stay late at the office all the
time, his desire to quit his job, and finally when he couldn’t take it anymore,
his tendering resignation.
He sent a message to me last night, telling me that he had
finally quit his job. I wasn’t shocked at all because I read about it all on
his statuses *sniggers*. But later, he revealed to me that his doctor diagnosed
him with minor depression. You see, I did know he had depression before, but I didn’t
know he is still suffering from one.
He was planning to stay at his parents’ place starting from
September. I know this must sound absurd, but after he (sort of) came out to me
as having depression, I didn’t know the right response to say. “I’m so sorry. My
condolences”? “It’s okay. I know it will pass”? I just realized that I never
encountered this situation before, so I had a total black out. I knew
depression was real and that lots of adults suffer from it, but I never thought
that that adult would live in the room next door. Let alone confiding in me
about it.
For fear of saying things that I didn’t mean or giving him
the wrong signals, I didn’t answer his messages until earlier this morning.
Perhaps after all, the reason he was easily triggered by
small inconveniences was a symptom to a bigger problem ie his depression. It did
put things to perspective, at least for me.
To Irfan, I’m not sure if you’ll read this (but some of my
followers know you, so yeah, perhaps you’ll come across this later), I just
want to tell you that I hope you’re going to be okay and I hope you’ll graduate
soon. I’m so sorry that you’re having depression, and so sorry for everything
that I did that might have inconvenient you. Good luck for your future endeavor.
XOXO
-
Bad, your disorderly housemate
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