Lonely Visionary

A friend and I were discussing a colleague who’d gotten herself impregnated by another colleague. The guy apparently decided he was good for the baby but not for her. Smh.

 It’s the same old plot- a vulnerable, maybe a trifle foolish woman, a pressurizing, maybe a trifle sick man and you’ve got a mix made in hell.

How many times would I have fallen for that one? Even now I’m still a sucker but… with God, I just don’t suck at the same things anymore. How often is the scenario up there played out? The one major way women get sucked in into low-down, dirty relationships of convenience with guys they don’t need or even know, when they should be finding themselves, working on themselves, moving on in life, knowing what is wrong, seeing dangers and pitfalls, avoiding dangers and pitfalls, getting better….

Yeah, it sounds like a lot of hard work but precious stones are formed under exceptional pressure- the right mix of materials, high temperature, and high pressure and there it is!  Of course, if what comes together under pressure is wrong you just get hard stone- You either buckle up and make the hit or buckle down and be lost, maybe forever.

Don’t make a mistake- I am not some cold blooded, frigid b-word that has never known what it is to be wrapped up in the warmth of a guy nor wants to be. I only got to the point where I said I wanted more. Not just the warmth of a guy but the warmth of a worthy guy, a guy worth my while. I was made for better.  One psycho relationship after another dysfunctional relationship was not the way to go- I had been pulling mad men faster than bees to a honey pot and packing them into my history thicker than sardines in a tin- and I needed none of these! I was the problem.

So, yeah I still want a guy but not the (then) usual kind. Now I want a guy I can actually introduce to friends even if the relationship goes south. Before now, I’d be with a guy and I’d know I could do better. Wasn’t settling supposed to be a once in a lifetime thing people did when they got married?

Anyway, needless to say my current choice in men has significantly and systematically brought down the number of palpitations my heart can get from looking at any man. Sure, old habits rear up but they’re easier to deal with when I know them for the problem that they are.

I’m telling my friend how women set themselves up for failure in a relationship. In not knowing who you are, you fit into what a guy wants you to be. God help you, if the guy has got less stability than a horse in quicksand. Yeah, there are lots of married people but I envy none. I simply look forward to my ideal. And when I’m wondering if it is possible, if the guy even exists, I work harder- on myself, to get to where I need to be. I’d rather walk alone than get there broken or never get there because I’m with the wrong one.

Yeah, it’s not easy. I told my friend how painful it can get. But I’ll take my pain as the price I pay for getting what I want… and if not that- then at least, for getting where I want.  

Life series

I think my compound has become  a veritable hotspot for a reality TV show. Yeah, everyone should be on one and like it or not we all have our own personal reality TV series played out every single day of our lives. I wish I knew yours because mine causes me so much laughter, even if for much of the time the laughter happens when I look back.

I've got this 'wonderful' neighbour. I'll just call her J. The essence of 'work in progress' it's hardly a day that goes by you don't either hear something about her or see something about her to get you in stitches.

On this fateful day, she tells me of how my puppy, Caesar is about to get all up in her two (or three) year old son's business.

Apparently, for some reason her son is outside his mum's ground flat without his panties on. Caesar takes a fancy to his dangling infant 'boyhood', has his hackles up and his bent on snapping on it.

I couldn't help but laugh. First, Caesar has taken to all the kids in the compound like butter to icing. All except one, that is... And you guessed right- J's son.

You can hardly blame Caesar I always make a point of saying. Caesar came into the compound ill and shaken from the twelve hour journey that brought him in from Jos. J's son had welcomed him with attempts at poking his eye out. Small, helpless new kid on the block Caesar was he had barely reacted and I had had to  rescue him.

I think Caesar never forgot, J kid's act. Concerned still, I asked his trainer why my usually puppy dog got the hackle rising kind of anger towards a kid, especially one particularly adorable mixed race. (Caesar was mixed breed afterall, they should have hit it off like gas to a lighter ;)) The trainer ventured J kid must have done something not so innocent as his mother was trying to let on to aggravate the dog on that fateful day.

And the light bulb went on. J kid's other attempted acts of exploration on my puppy when he thought I wasn't looking. His mother's usually grand stories about her climb through life (she would hide her son's meanness very well), and Caesar's general lovely relationship with another neighbour, Z's kids.

It all began to make sense. Needless to say I was glad with my response to J- Since she insisted on leaving her son's crap saturated Pampers outside despite knowing Caesar when let loose would at the moment have a go at anything, I simply turned to the House guard who was to watch Caesar in my absence, 'If my dog behaves like a dog who eats crap, then it's going to be your fault for letting him eat crap'.

Turning to J, I say "I think after rustling through the crap you leave (carelessly, was implied) out back, I guess he was simply looking for the privates that belonged to the butt that excreted them"

Of course, I was laughing most pleasantly when I said that. Needless to say she had nothing coherent to say after that even as she also laughed politely. The guard could barely hold himself and neither could Z when she heard of the incident.

I had passed my message across without needing to cross any claws, cut any claws or bare any claws. And enjoyed myself while at it.

Maybe I am the one who needs to be on Reality TV. I definitely entertain myself quite well. And entertaining others would be a definite by product. Lol!

Don't be a fool.

As I thought about a recent disappointment I wondered how I could have stooped so low,made such an error in judgment. To be candid, I had been reactive. And like my boss would always say being reactive never panned out well.

I swung like a violent pendulum between the good I was bent on seeing and the evil that lurked insidiously, playing peek-a-boo in short intense bursts I had imagined no one capable of. At least, not anyone around me. Or, anyone I knew. I soon vacillated between self righteous anger and docile guilt. Thanks to just about the 'right kind of fellowship'

Yet, I had felt that if I had not discovered somehow that I had made an error in judgment I would have considered my choice worth convincing, worth keeping. I had even tried that when I had presumed and not known; when I had been bent on seeing milk and honey where only death, deception and destruction lurked.

As it turned out, things were not the way they seemed, at least not the way I had wished they were- all true, and clean, pure and sincere, at least a 'good' heart or a right one- the peek-a- boo was the truth.

What hurt me most was the mentality of a destroyer. Honored and cherished as I have come to find myself, this person had no qualms destroying what others were in love with.

As I berated myself and cursed my costly lapse in judgment, I heard the word- I was not to blame myself for believing good of another human, of expecting that they meant well and finding it difficult to believe that they meant harm. I put my faith in people in expecting the best out of them. I should not feel bad for putting myself out there and caring. I had done nothing wrong in putting my faith in someone and believing more of them than they were by a long shot.

I only needed to be careful. To know that people are wicked. There actually are people who take pride in being unscrupulous. There ARE people who actually do NOT have a conscience, do not feel bound to do good. They do good only when they feel like it not because they feel like they owe it to their fellow man or to serve God with it. There is no limit to how low they can stoop.

I heard yesterday of how five boys went to meet an undergraduate female student at her parents house, raped her and as if that was not bad enough they killed her AND THEN RIPPED OUT HER INNARDS!!!!!!

Tell me, are those boys still human? Do they still have a soul? Or are they just demons in human bodies, their own souls long gone...

Well, now I know they exist.. Now I know they exist in the lives of common faces- husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, boyfriends, girlfriends, fiancés, fiancées, colleagues, friends... Evil beyond measure.

The human mind is capable of infinite evil. It is also capable of infinite good. The truth though is that, evil abounds more than good. Why I close my eyes and expect the latter in any human at all beats me. How much more the fact that I look into the eyes of a stranger and expect the better.

I surprised myself last week. Yes, I recouped myself because I can't imagine life otherwise. For some, that 'surprise' is their way of life, their choice, they won't or perhaps cannot imagine their lives any other way...

Now I know, I cannot do wrong by loving, by caring, by believing, having faith in people, but I can do myself, other people, the whole world, my destiny a whole lot of wrong by being a fool.

I would be a fool to fancy an enemy a friend, a fool to run straight into a spear stretched out pointed at me, a fool to cast my pearls before swine.

Life Happened to Me

As my head registered the fact that the phone was not going to ring, my heart continued to flutter intermittently in hope. It just would not get it would it? The guy was not going to call.

I wondered what I might have done wrong and I realized that I did not have to look far. A guy who had heard accolades and sweet things from a former secondary school mate had had only high hopes about meeting me. When he met me and I opened my mouth what he heard from me was different from what he had expected.

As I flayed myself for opening my mouth too wide I also wondered why I had to justify myself to anyone. Anyone who didn’t think I was good enough for them was really not what I needed around me. Heaven knows, I have had my own fair share of life. Who was it that said that life is what happens to us while we are busy making other plans? It sure happened to me. What I had planned versus some of what I got are so far apart they blow my mind. Yet, I cannot deny them. Less than I would have fancied and as much as they stink up the joint even for my own poor nose there is nothing I can do about it.

The story that had come up about my past in conversation with this expected caller had gone such that I daresay he couldn’t get off the phone fast enough. Yet it is not my place to chase after him. I would sooner hold my breath than do that.

The woes, throes and echoes of my past have rang so loud in my life that it is time I shelved them. Having to bring them up to a new acquaintance or even an old one for that matter is such a priviledge I don’t think I want to share it anymore. Most would just use it as an opportunity to raise you on a pole and take potshots.

As I thought about why I had related the not too pleasant details of an intimate relationship gone awry to a new friend and prospective date, I wondered why I was looking for his approval anyway- I didn’t know him. Did I think he would give me a pat on the back for my mistakes or did I think he would be ready to carry the baggage he had to be sure tagged along with me just by virtue of my having had the kind of past I have had.

Well, I look up and I see that God has written a number on me. I am not to be toyed with. I cannot fill my experiences, missteps and misjudgments in a single volume book how much less in a few conversations. Trying to do that not only appears to me to be an effort to seek approval or some kind of pity but it is at this point having me wonder why at all I tried to.

Why do I need to explain myself, seek approval?

Am I proud of where I have been? I don’t need to answer you on this! Have I been through hell, murk and dirt? Is that really your business? As a condition to date you I have to awaken my past? Roll over and move on. I need to step.

God is working on me. Even in all this- expectation, disappointment, rejection, I still see his Hand- making me stronger, better, gladder and ever ready to take a no but never tiring to take a shot at life, believe, hope, dare to expect. Yes, the other person has a right to say ‘no’. And I have a right to not be defined by where I have been, to move on.

Yes, Twenty years ago, I was spick and span (sans a molestation), a former class mate felt strongly enough about that to recommend me to his friend. Sadly enough though (?) life happened to me. Get used to that or fall off my radar.

Sincere Ramblings

I’m sitting here on my bed wondering about the myriad that have been lost to jungle justice. A fifty naira note stolen here, a phone over there, pepper…. And there it is- bloodshot eyes, a raving mob, lost minds, a tire and matches’- Jungle Justice! A life lost prematurely, judged by a gathering of ill informed, ill engaged, self-righteous, misfits no better than the ones they strain to judge.

I imagine the feeling of helplessness that comes over the victims. Strength cannot save, nor can they stand in the face of this unjust ‘just’, their lives never to return cut short by the arbitrary and random whims of an impersonal mob.  No one dares intervene. To intervene would be to be judged an accomplice, perhaps the mentor of the errant, likely by eyes reeking insanity. To intervene would be to be judged- by jungle justice.

On a level it happens everywhere. Not just on the streets- the arbitrary and deranged gang-up against an individual at work. It might clear up in a minute. But imagine if it hadn’t. You just tasted helplessness.

It might be among a group of friends- that unexplained situation that flashes past your face when you are suddenly the one looking in from the outside because they all just decided you were up for ‘mean-spirited or wicked pot shots’- for some reason. You might not end up dead on the streets but imagine a little tilt to the left and you just might be. 

What about the chance happenings, the unexplained choices that decide a person’s death just by them running into an irate mob while they were on an innocent errand. Does even one person blink? Does even one person speak up and ask, “What is going on?” Or does someone really wake up and is too scared to ask?

Then what is the fate of innocent people every day? What is the fate of lives lost on a mob’s whim? What is the fate of an innocent whose only sin for arraignment is ten naira stolen? Can’t we rise? Can’t we awaken? Can’t we love? Is the milk of human kindness dried up in our hearts? Is compassion lost forever? Has hunger ripped mercy out of the mercy-judgment equation? Or are Nigerians the world over simply to be sent on mandatory individual, personal and intense one-on-one deliverance?

Cannot that life taken make or see a million times that fifty naira if just given the chance? Cannot jungle justice be judged? Cannot jungle justice be stopped? Can people be given a chance to live? Can thieves cease to kill? Can those arraigned for death be given a decent exit? A dignifying one? A humane one? By the Courts?

What about the innocents tried in the courts and still found guilty? Roped in? Who pleads for these ones? Surely, the worst off is the innocent cut down before or after they have risen, having lived incomplete lives and their justice perverted. Who would save us from this? It could happen to anybody. It could happen to everybody.

Where is the will? Where is the mind? Where is the strength of humanity?

 

Rest, my true and real sweetheart... Rest.

Two Julys ago I lost my maternal grandmother to stroke. I never thought it was going to happen when it did. Yea, yea- I knew it was going to happen... sometime! I just didn't know it was going to be so soon. She was eighty three- I guess for me, there would never be a late enough time or an ideal time for her to go.

Needless to say I still mourn her. I can't believe I lost her.  Yes, there were times I could have spent with her that would have made losing her less painful but I think the one that hurts the most is the fact that she asked to see me barely two weeks before her death.

Of course, typical of me (only back then, I hope!) I told her I was too busy. Not in quite blunt terms but in retrospect, it might as well have been.

Of course, the fact that I had two aunties come in from the UK and I had flown to their house on a visit practically immediately they arrived, does not help matters.

Now I cry and I mourn and I can't tear my heart out enough. Of course, the two aunties are my grandmother's daughters and I had had the gall to go show my rebellious face to her when they went to see her.

I can't help thinking how it must have hurt her that I had found my way to them (maybe thinking I needed access to UK goodies or more likely didn't value her enough) and had not found it in my heart to either heed her call or have some private time with her. Instead I had shown up with my aunties and taken off with them.

Till today, I bless her soul and ask God tell her I miss her. The pain doesn't go away. I tread the border of talking to her directly (which I slipped into once despite knowing it to be scripturally wrong) and telling God to tell her things for me (which I know cannot be wrong- He simply wouldn't if it is wrong!). I had to ask God for Mercy, Forgiveness and Cleansing for the latter when strange things began to happen.

Well, I was reading the Word of God yesterday and I read the Book of Genesis Chapter Forty Eight and verse Twenty One where Jacob told his son, Joseph, "Behold, I die: but God shall be with you, and bring you again unto the land of your fathers." It struck me. God was talking to me.

I had lost my grandmother and mourned her for two years and it did not seem like there would be reprieve. However, I realised something- she was dead after the manner of men but God is still alive and always will be. She was dead after the manner of men but maybe, just maybe we would meet on the right side of heaven. She wasn't a Christian but she personified Love even to her own hurt. Not without human fallibility, but I think, always with Love.

Family, Friends, Acquaintances and other people who are blessings would come and go but we should love them- always. We might not always feel loving towards them but we, as well as they should never be in doubt that we love them.And we should cherish them as long as we have them. We should honour them and respect them. Even if they live to be a hundred and twenty which we can not guarantee, they will always be gone too soon.

Instead of treating them like they will always be there we should understand that the length of their lives is but a Period (a tiny dot as well as a short phase) compared to eternity. We would always wish we had done more. Why don't we at least make sure there is no blessing we had denied them - look into our hands and even though we miss them and wish we had done more, we are sure that there was nothing we could have done to bless them that we didn't do- even if it was just a visit... or sometimes, one more phone call.

As for me and my grandma, I miss her. I miss her so much! But crying and wishing wouldn't bring her back (believe me, I longed for that!) but at least I can cherish her memory, talk about her and pass on her legacy- a legacy which now includes the fact that, I would not make the mistake I made with her twice!

From the scripture I read, I gather I still have God in this life. (I also still have countless blessings, even in people that He has given and still gives me). I gather He will see me to the end and 'bring me again to the land of my fathers'- the place of His promise. I will fulfil destiny. I am thankful to Him for all these. I feel as if my grandmother is also parting with me as far as this life is concerned on these Words of God. I don't want to part with her but parting we all must.

Till we meet to part no more in Heaven, all I can say to her right now is, Rest, grandma, rest! Heaven knows I can think of no one else right now who needs it more. Rest, my true and real sweetheart. Rest...

Tall? In what exactly?

All my life it would appear that I have had a penchant for tall guys. Tall and fair, tall and dark, tall and slim, tall and broad, tall, tall, tall, tall, tall. I loved tall and it seems tall loves me. It was a mutual thing. For me, tall was the definition of a complete man- curse those romance novels to hell and back! Older aunties of mine actually had to point out recently, how it seemed you could bet anything at all that my date at any material point in time would be tall. That got me thinking. They were right, you know. Of course, no amount of pleading that I had done nothing out of the ordinary nor gone out of my way to make ‘tall’ a norm was favourably received. I just felt naturally that a guy should be tall, that was all... Come to think of it, I think even the world over ‘Tall’ is a pretty vital requirement for a man. Hmmnnn......

Interestingly, tall guys the world over seem to generally preen if they find themselves to be tall. Wow! Now that I think of it, firemen are fighting fires, NGO’s are fighting for humanity, scientists are coming up with new cures for diseases like every other day and a guy thinks by being tall, he is doing the world a favour! Lol!

 Sometimes, when a guy would recount his favourable characteristics or things he considers assets, you would hear, ‘’I’m tall (usually drawled in a mock attempt at sounding casual- ‘I’m ta-aalll’) six feet ten inches ta-aalll....’’ Fie!

I have seen tall guys about as useful as a head warmer and a muffler worn together in extreme heat. And I have seen short guys with more fire in their bellies than a thousand tall men piled high.

If you ask me, apart from the brainwashing romance novels have done on women in making them think their men were not complete without height, I think really that the penchant women have for tall guys might also be a weak attempt by the women to make up for something seriously lacking in themselves. When a woman is insecure in herself, she could hope a tall guy would cover that for her; make up for whatever deficiencies she perceives herself as having in the eyes of others. If she’s insecure generally, ditto. If she’s socially immature or inadequate, ditto. If she’s mentally inept.... yeah, you got that one too- ditto! - A tall guy makes you feel good. But how good exactly is the tall guy for you?

Does he put food on your table or does he even care? Does he look out for you or does he push you toward your dreams? Are tall guys automatically responsible, clearheaded, mature and protective? Do they naturally fall into the category of guys that are coolheaded, productive, industrious and dependable? Where are the 'real men’ virtues of Integrity, Honour and Dignity? Thrown to the winds on the farce of some tall guy that automatically knows how to spell his name because he is tall? Tall guys are not necessarily smart, you know. Yes, I know my queries apply to all men irrespective of any criteria but while on this issue of ‘the craze for tall men’ please allow me harp.

From what I’ve seen, heard and know tall men are so full of themselves their height is all they generally tend to have on offer. Short guys, because of this lie that tall guys are somehow better, fortunately or unfortunately, tend to think that they have a lot more to prove. They go out of their way to make worthy statements.

Who started this lie, I beg you - that a guy has to be tall, or for that matter has to be fine to know what it is to be a man? No wonder men these days take credit for a height they did nothing to get and leave every other thing they could actually do as men to women who marry ‘heights’ (or ‘fine-ness’) but apparently no substance. It takes no effort at all to be tall no doubt. Even being fine might require some tiny weenie effort to maintain it but being tall requires absolutely no effort, requires no special skill and is definitely not picky about character.

But it sure takes a lot of work, effort and commitment to be a man. And what man needs height to do things that are a man’s? Many men, yet to have undergone coming of age rites beyond the obvious *winks* - (which hardly separates a male man from a male warthog) would rather shirk their true and distinctive identities than step up to the plate. Might I add especially if they are tall?

Which would then beg the question, on a final note- Tall in what, exactly?