Are you going through a season were life is slowly but surely passing you by? Every happening around you seems to be nothing more than a recorded tape played over and over again. You see yourself as a bystander, an observer, with little or nothing to contribute to the happenings around you. Your passivity is sometimes so acute that you dread the thought of being invited into anything akin to reality. You are just content to watch. Now, I know that activity may sound to you like, the “hard stuff”, but that is not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the little things that make up our daily existence as social beings. Mundane things such as a simple “hello”, good morning”, “how do you do”, can all of a sudden become herculean and altogether demanding, exhausting your last drop of energy.

You just want to lock yourself up in a sound proof, transparent bubble, from where you can clearly see your world without encountering the risk of participation.

As you gradually sink into this system of living, you become content with being alone, and you also become your worst critic. Your reasoning ability is gradually reduced to solving daily problems such as waking up, brushing your teeth, taking a shower and getting dressed. Soon, you begin to drift and to lose sight of your dreams. Your dreams now seem so far, far away; if you remember them at all. Now you begin to confuse what you want, with what the rest of the world wants. Now you are nothing more than a drifter. People’s ideas stick to you like a magnet. Your insensitive brain begins to tell you, “Every idea is a good idea”. Soon, you become a pursuer of other people’s dreams. Yours is fuzzy now. Lost in the distant land of depression, self-pity and discouragement.

You want to wake up, shake yourself up and live again, but you can’t.  People look at you and you smile back at them. You seem to them as one who knows what he is doing. But you know deep down inside that you don’t. You want to scream for help. You want to matter, to be relevant. But none is patient enough to see the emptiness inside you. Everyone is busy. And besides, you are doing okay; aren’t you? Sometimes, you are lucky to make a new acquaintance who is “interested” in you. You are hopeful again. Maybe, just maybe, he will be my savior. But alas, he is just a passerby, looking for someone with something to offer. Someone who can help him advance his cause. Your articulate exterior attracts him at the beginning. Then he sees you as you really are, weak and “helpless” as he is. He disappears. You are disappointed again, perhaps more than the last time.

And then you realize, nobody is coming to save you. The truth dawns on you slowly but surely, like the gradual peeling away of scales from your eyes. It’s disheartening. It’s heart breaking. But it’s also liberating, because you also realize that if no one will save you, then you must save yourself. All of a sudden, a strength you never knew existed comes on you. You are hopeful again. All of a sudden you are strong!

And now you can teach anyone the lesson you have learnt, that everyone is carrying a cross. No man can bear another’s cross. To each his own. Therefore, you must be strong for yourself! 

"Drive through"

I had a terrible experience today on my way from work. Well, I was driving down the popularly known Abuja airport road with a colleague from work when suddenly we heard the deafening sounds of a siren. I looked through my mirrors and I saw a group of cars coming behind me at an alarming speed, consisting of some Toyota Land cruiser jeeps, and some motor cycles. I tell you it was a spectacle. The motor cycles where criss crossing the airport road and would have made the cast of the Fast and the Furious totally green with envy.

At this crazy sight, I simply maneuvered my way to the extreme right lane, trying my possible best to avoid this mayhem. However, that was not sufficient effort as one of the motorcycles zoomed past me with the driver waving at me to get off the road. To where? I wondered as I was already at the extreme end of the lane and there were some taxi cabs parked on the dirt road directly beside me. Next thing I knew one of the jeeps came so close to my tiny corolla and practically nudged me off the road and I found myself dangerously sandwiched between the Jeep and the taxi cabs on the side of the road. How I got out of there, I still don’t know but I give all the praise to God who keeps His own.

After they passed, we saw their number plates, “Taraba State government”. Wow, was I disappointed? You know the worse part; his aides and his drivers did not give two pennies about the rest of us commuters on the road, all they wanted was to get their “oga” to his destination by the fastest possible means. You know the very sad thing about our Country Nigeria is that the followers are sometimes a lot worse than the “followee” (if I may use such terminology). The rate of sycophancy in the nation is both disturbing and ridiculous.  

 I still wonder at what would have happened if by the slightest chance the jeep had brushed against me and succeeded in throwing me off the road. What would the governor have done? Would he have bothered to stop? 

You see, there’s a chance that the governor was not even in the car and that is exactly my point. The rate of indiscipline amongst the rulers and the ruled is alarming. And yet we wonder at the state of the nation. Until we begin to have leaders who lead by example the future of this country remains bleak. The youths have few good examples to imitate. Is it a wonder then that many youths lack direction and purpose? Where are our mentors? Where are the Awolowos, the Azikiwes, the Shagaris of our generation?

I don’t think we voted in leaders to oppress us, rather we voted in leaders to serve us. We seriously need our leaders to begin to put themselves in our shoes and to lead by example. We young people are in dire need of stately fathers, mentors who will give direction and command our respect not by force but by their very principles and what they stand for. I want to feel safe in my country. I want to be able to wave at my leaders when they drive past me. I want to see you as a Father. 

Is that too much to ask?

"Bad Hair day"

Well....I walked into a salon one day and I met this male hair stylist who made such a fuss over my hair, promising to give me the best hair style there is. I felt really important (can't deny it), up until when he took out my weave and found to his dismay a mass of the all African kinky instead of the usual silky permed hair. Well, I love my Kinky! nothing like it, but apparently the feeling was not mutual, as my hair stylist began to lecture me on the "difficult" task ahead of him. I told him I would rather prefer he desists from combing my hair, as I only comb it when it is being conditioned, and went on to wet my hair a little bit in order to detangle the knots with my fingers. After that, I told him he could proceed with the job assuming I had made it a little easier for him.

However, my efforts seemed to go noticed as my hair stylist, apparently frustrated with the "herculean" task of weaving my precious Kinky, took a hair dryer and a comb and began to furiously tug at my hair without my permission. You can imagine my consternation as I got up instantly and ordered him to put away those instruments of "hair destruction". I was not loosing my beloved Kinky to this ignoramus.

The very next thing that happened shocked me to the teeth. One of his companions instantly came to his rescue and said to me, "Is that how you will talk to your husband?" What the heck? What has marriage got to do with an incompetent hair stylist, who cannot take simple orders? Am I not paying for his services? Am I not the customer? And if I say I do not want my hair combed, should it be combed? Apparently, to this young man, yours sincerely should not express her annoyance so openly so that she is not seen to be "disrespectful" to the male folk and consequently, "not-marriage-material".

R-I-D-I-C-U-L-O-U-S

Well, I told his companion to shut up and mind his own business. You guessed right....he blew his top. How can you tell an African man to shut up? That is nothing short of an abomination. You don't tell an African man to shut up even when he is an obnoxious, egocentric African man. You never do that. What was expected of me was to sit quietly like a typical "wife material", allow the hair stylist do whatever he wants with my hair, and go nurse my wounds in secret. Who knows....he could be my future husband.

What cheap blackmail!

Welcome to Mrs! I know what you are thinking and I dare say you are wrong. This is not some blog to extol the "Mrs" status, rather it is aimed at shinning the light on a truly dark or should I say grey area. I first stumbled on the most ridiculous use of the word "Mrs" in one of the least unlikely places, the house fellowship. Yes i said it, The House fellowship, or Home cell fellowship, as it is usually called depending on the denomination. It is a small gathering of Christians in a home to share the Bible and to pray together. It fosters a sense of belonging, oneness and support as lives are usually touched through such gatherings.

Anyway, back to my story. It was at one of such esteemed gatherings that I first came across the most ridiculous definition of the terminology "Mrs". Mrs was defined as most respectable in society. I could not believe what I had just heard. Questions brewed in my mind, all of them unanswered of course. What does this mean? That those who are not "lucky" enough to be in the "Mrs" group are not respectable? Perhaps not respectable enough for society. Can this be the reason why young women would maim or kill and subject themselves to all sort of denigrating human behaviour, just so they can belong to this "respectable" class of women?

Well, that is my dilemma and also my motivation for creating this blog. I hope to establish a unique platform for open-minded discussions, so that we can all educate ourselves on what is truly important, on what life is really about. Is life for a woman just about getting married? Is a husband a trophy or a reward for good behaviour? I know you will not ALL agree with me and as such I expect opposition and debate. In fact, in all honesty, I am looking forward to it. It will only make this journey of liberating the African mind, a little more interesting for me.

However, I hope we can embark on this journey together...

Gwoman.