FOE OR FRIEND?

Its a cool sad day when you think about friends, then foe, then friends again and you wonder which is which. Where is the distinction? Where do you draw the line between a friend and a colleague? A family member and a friend? What is the extent or limit of what i tell you and what i keep to myself.

Thus is my predicament as this beautiful week draws to an end. In my very short while working in this beautiful city of Lagos, I have come to understand that not all that glitters is gold, literally. I have made friends i wished i could keep and then i wish i never met them. I have also made friends who even though they have stabbed me in the back repeatedly, something about me still keeps loving them and holding them close and believing that the backstabbing aspect of their life is simply their nature coming into play and not just that they set out to hurt me. I do not want to believe that they  would on their own set out to hurt me because then, i would be forced to hurt them back or something close. Maybe i would be forced to give them the biggest cut of their life, lets say totally ignoring them in public when they say hi to me or try to make friendly conversation.

Anyway, Joe told me lately that my friends are different from my colleagues. Joe is a friend, you will get to know him. He advised that i draw a very visible line between both. He was right. The dictionary would define a colleague as a person with whom one works in a profession or business. She could be called a workmate, a teammate, co-worker, associate, partner, colloborator. I must say that it never mentioned my colleague as my friend. Why i have this desperate need to merge both into one and the same is still beyond me.

However, in time, i have learnt that no matter how much you want to call a colleague a friend, she remains that; a colleague; someone who you are in constant corporate competition with, she aims to better than you, to be more favored than you, to earn more than you, to be looked on in better light than you, and believe it, to have a better life than you. A shame if you had though to look upon them as friends but true nonetheless. Maybe in my own little world, this is what i have come upon as a conclusion, mayhaps it is different in other worlds, i couldn't possibly say, given that my experience is only limited to disappointments in the form of colleagues who are rumor mongers, gossip peddlers, back stabbing thingies. It's almost like your misfortune makes their lives a whole lot better and gives their existence more meaning. Sometimes, i don't mind the rumors so much, just when that when they hurt,there is that momentary pause and then you remember, "oh, i forgot, not a friend, just a colleague".

There has been one exception though. Or maybe i'm wrong. I'm still watching, though in utter disbelief still. lol. Maybe this is just that part of me that can't get why both can't be merged into one, still trying hard to lump both together, my colleague that she is and the friend she keeps proving herself to be. Though in fairness to my colleagues, it's hard work to be finally penciled a friend by me.

Has it been different for you? Have your colleagues turned out to be a friend or more than a friend?

Ps: TGIFriiiiiiday!!!A bit below the weather, but still can't wait.

J

Dear Future Husband,

 

There's been soo much on my mind lately and i'm wishing you were here to help me sieve through them and sort them all out. I read that book; Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus. They tell me that you will be good at solving my problems because you are from Mars. I do not know how that is or what that means, but i hope you are good enough to be able to provide solutions to my ever wondering mind.

 

I hope you are smart enough to know that i say the toughest things when im a softie inside, I hope you are smart enough to take my meaningful advices cos i give good advices when the issue doesnt concern me.

 

Chima says to warn you that i can be difficult. Chima is my brother,you will get to know him in time. I hope you are not so wimpy that you will shy away once you perceive that i can be quite a stickler for certain things like ensuring there are no remnant soap studs on the floor after bathing or that you don't leave wet towels on the bed cos they irritate me.

 

There are soo many things i want you to know about me and i guess thats why i'm still single. I want to take my time and be sure that i have those teeny weeny butterflies in my tummy when you hold my hands or when you catch my eyes in one of those very rowdy parties that we will eventually be attending as a couple.

 

I want you to know that i always want you to hold my hand. I sometimes wonder if something is wrong with me...Is there something they call that? Am i a   hand fetish? Its almost like i expect to feel a love current when you hold my hand. Mayhaps thats why i keep insisting on a guy that knows to hold my hand, always, always asides from when he is changing gears, lol. We should get an automatic car as well. That way you wouldn't have to change gears so much. My hands will always be warm enclosed in yours, not like how they feel right now as i punch these keyboard and refrain from using all my fingers 'cos they are frozen like little icicles.

 

I want you to know that i do good in the kitchen but do not want    to feel like cooking defines my womanhood. So therefore, i wouldnt want the regular demands and authoritative requests for food like my dad does with my mum.Let's hope he doesn't see this. J  Fortunately,  my mum is the traditional woman and doesnt mind soo much as she feels that is what is expected of her.

 

I want you to be a Catholic, Ibo man because i do not want to have to adjust to a new 'Bible Believing Church', fast 40 or 100 days a year or any of those unbelievable Christian God-knows-where-the-hell from demands these churches make on we Christians. Then i want you to be Ibo cos as exposed as my mind is, and as Western as i may want to believe i am, i feel the need to connect with the man i love in my local dialect.

 

Dear Future husband, I do not want to be head of the family.My neck would hurt too much and God did not intend that i do that. I want you to be the head so i pray every day that your job be soo great you won't care what i earn. That's not to say i would ask you for money when i want to surprise you or buy you stuff for you birthdays or just for the heck of it.lol..

 

I want you to love me. I know that is quite rare these days but i have never been known for wanting the easy and cheap stuff, you would get to know that eventually. I want to feel your love when you reach for my hand, when you pull my zipper up because i can't reach behind my dress to do it myself. I want to feel it burn through my cheek when you peck me, just there. I am not sure i still like being kissed on the forehead anymore. Most guys do that a lot now because of all those yada-yada they do in movies and tell all the boys our secrets and what we love. Now, any guy would just walk up to you and in 5 mins he would want to be bluberring your forehead with kisses. Hmm... Lets reserve the forehead kisses for the night time. Yes, I think i will like that...

 

I want soo many things. I want honesty from you before and after we tie his huge knot, I want fidelity, i want your respect, for me and for my family and i want your chest to lie on every nite when i go to bed. Kindly turn down all jobs that require you work nights. The only tolerable absence will be when you absolutely have to travel.

 

One other thing dearest, i wil love you like i have never loved anybody in the 2 decades and some figures of my life.

 

See you soon.

 

Sincerely,

 

...

MY VIEW

It took me ages to get onto this blog today. For some reason i had logged on an alternative e-mail address and i lost my admin rights when i din't log on with the old one. Wheewh! i was almost jogging on home but the thought of loosing ownership over this, simply undo-able.

Okay, so here i am, doing a lazy job of penning down something today. I woke up this morning tired out, so tired that if i were working in a pretty liberal firm, i would have just called in sick and resigned to bed.But...i couldn't, i did a few more naps and dashed out of bed some minutes before 7.00a.m

I had watched this really fabulous movie the night before, what was the title again..."The Butler" Fab...Fab...Fabulous movie. Damn! Way better than "The Wolf of Wall Street" that was all the rave. But then that is my humble opinion.J In this movie, Oprah... Yeah! Oprah Winfrey that you and i and the rest of the world know was in the movie. Crazy right? I thought so too. I mean at a moment i had to ask for confirmation to be sure she was the one i was seeing. Anyway, she really really knows how to do her thing and other things if i might add. lol...You should see the movie. Anyways,i'm digressing. My topic is "MY VIEW". The Butler kept me up late at night and i woke real late as a result and still drowsy.

I'm taking a bath and i'm thinking to myself...What a story! Yeah? 'Cos i mean the racism way back then in the Unites States of America, i can only relate to it on a certain level. Way different from the way a Forest Whitaker of back then would relate to it. So i'm thinking and comparing, in my head of course and while the bath was still on going, i'm thinking about Chinua Achebe's There was a Country and Chimamanda Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun. One story, two authors, different times, different eye view. The 83 year old Achebe told a Biafran story in the most vivid way possible, for him it was not a tale, it was yesterday, it was an event in which he lived and which he was a part of. It was impossible to dissociate the author from the event, the story to me was like a flash back. I didnt find it enjoying, i found it pensive and sad, just like Achebe must have all the years he put into writing the story. Adichie, the lady after my mind, told a tale with finesse and she captured it. She made it entertaining for us all and she gave those of us who didnt really know what happened an insight. The Biafran story is a beautiful historical story. It is something in history worth knowing. A story about when Nigerians had balls to fight for things they believed in, not anymore though. It was a time that all pray never repeats itself, at least not in their lifetime.

Did Achebe do justice to the Biafran story, he did, but it was such a sad story i never finished reading the book...L Though i hope to someday, at least, to pay my respects to the great writer that once lived among us. Chimamanda made me hug my hard covered book and thank God i bought it when the news of the book was just a buzz. But then, I've been biased about that lady since i read "The thing around your neck" since she wont let me into her Farafina training for writers which i have only tried out for once, but ever so more, since her talk on "We should all be Feminists". I could go on, but my blogging today is not about Chimamanda, its about our view of life.

Your view and mine and the world's will always always be different.They will always differ and such is life. That difference is what makes each person different from the other,its what makes them interesting, its what makes them worth spending your time on and we may try to change it, but eventually each individuals view solidifies and makes him who he is.At least, that is what i have learnt and that is why i have ended up with diverse friends and frenemies and foes...

THE PROMISE

It wasn't so much the negative response that got Isioma looking wide eyed and mouth shut at Jide.It was the inconceivability of it all. She had never been turned down by a man, never in all her 26 years.Though of course she had never had course to put herself out there

 

"C'mon Jide, it's just a kiss". "Well, it's a kiss i'm not willing to give" Jide replied. Isioma bit her lip, nodded and quietly got down from his car. Then just before he reversed to drive off, she turned around and waved, still bright eyed.

Oh God! Shoot me now, she thought. This was definitely the embarassment of the century. She had put herself out there for the first time in her life and she had gotten shut down, Shut down by not just anyone but by Jide who claimed to have loved her. It was a rowdy evening and as she made her way to her stop, people looked at her bright face which she was sure was now pink from embarrassment and from trying real hard not to cry.

 

Jide had been her almost love, but she goofed before he could get her there; 'in love'. There was something between them, undeniably so as all Isioma's friends knew but she kept it temperate, struggled to keep it under control because for some reason she felt she didnt have all of him and for that, it was impossible to give all of her and impossible to explain why a part of her held back to her friends.The most outlandish of them being Nma, who felt she knew it all about love. Nma had gone as far as telling her boyfriend Ndubuisi that Alice was unromantic. It was a bit painful when Ndu as everyone fondly called him referred to her as unromantic at their last hangout. Haaaha! she throated, wherever did you get that? Me? Unromantic? C'mon, ask Nma now i';m the very epitome of blue and in love".She turned to Nma to get her concurrence but from the way she shifted her eyes and sucked on her straw,Isioma knew she had done it again. Rattled on about her to her boy friend.

Nma was one of those friends that couldn't keep their mouth shut about their friends whenever they had a boyfriend. She told it all and one had to remind her not to spill their secret with each boyfriend she took on.Isioma smiled and said, "Well, whatever, love is a farce anyway" and i'm done with it...For now" she added and winked at no one in paricular.

 

She settled into her bus and thought to herself, she deserved the attitude Jide just gave her. She deserved every bit of it. Once again she had tested a love proclamation to her and it  had failed,it was sad, but it was true, So far, love has not endured for her. Why wait? Why bother? And then she thought about the young men whose love she had spurned in the past and re-affirmed again,'Oh!I absolutely deserved that'.And she shrugged it off and paid her fare without a word to the conductor even when he asked her in Yoruba "Elo ni?"for how many? The guy sitting close to the window looked at her and on closer look, he knew she was in no mood to talk, so he said to the conductor, "one, Four Hundred naira change". It would have been difficult to take a bus in Lagos if one did not understand basic Yoruba. The driver counted her change but instead of giving it to the helpful man who had volunterred what the money she paid was for, He streched his hands right across and smiled at Isioma and then gave her her change, making sure his meaty fingers grazed her palm and then he whistled back to the door, shut it and grinned from ear to ear.

 

The bus ricketed away from the park and she smiled to herself thinking "Promises mean nothing until they are kept". And then she made her own promise to herself and prayed she kept it. She made just one promise to herself but it encompassed a whole lot and she knew right away that if she could keep it, then she would have made the biggest forward step of her life. But then of course, that was only,'if she kept it..."

 

 

A new me

 

 

Dear Everyone,

 

Its been almost a year since i  wrote on my blog and for those who may have checked i apologise that it was hard to keep tabs on me.

 

I hope that from now on though i would make it easier for us to relate. This year has been a most tremendous one for me. If you don't know me, then you couldnt begin to guess on all the various changes. i have metamorphosed through. In these few months that i have been crass enough to abandaon you all, I have been busy making glasses and glasses of lemonades from the various lemons that life handed me. I finally feel that you may now congratulate me 'cos after all the various processing, my lemonade tastes great, all chilled in a beautiful glass cup and trust me, you love a drink from it. Please dont stare at my glass. lol...

 

I see the sun again and it is a beautiful one and i welcome to myself once again; my first love, "writing". Suffice it to say that i will be more present than most in the coming times.

 

But just to update, in the time that i have been away, i have grown into this lovely, young woman, Oh yes! young! haha! and i say that and laugh as i listen to the cool buzz of this air conditioner and smile at my beautiful glass of lemonade becos i look into the mirror and life hasnt been that tough on me, you know. Anyway, i have grown, i have learnt, i have moved around, i have shaken off baggages and i have made a new home for myself somewhere still grey even for me. Some may say, why moving unto grey areas? I say, why not? After all, the only way to demystify a sector in your life is by venturing into something different. I am venturing dears, i mean, what do i have to loose? Hmm? I have this feeling that it would be for the better and if not, there again, i would have learnt.

 

So tell me guys, what life changing thing has happened to you lately? What life changing event has occured for you as the year draws to an end.

 

I have missed writing, i have missed it so much that i had to make do with littering my room with little pieces of papers and post-its with various ideas and fun phrases. Lets hope i'm smart enough to remember it all and share it with you all.

 

Kisses... 

 

 

My Country

Today is not one of those that i feel like working. Actually, its really not one of the days that i feel like thinking or talking or feeling. Its one of those days when all i want to do is breathe, to focus on getting as much air as possible in and out of my lungs. Perhaps tomorrow will be a better day. But today, today all i want to do is breathe.

 

I am wearing the wrong vest underneath my jacket, it is the wrong vest becaue its is cream coloured and you can see right through it into my cream coloured Marks & Spencer bra. Concentrate on the fact that i highlighted the designer of my bra; my underwear, who no body really gives a care about. I did this just because i feel an innate need today to increase my self worth. I came to work with my neighbour as usual.Sitting right next to him as we sped past Lawanson and headed straight for the Island, we got into a discussion on my least favourite topic; my country; Nigeria.

 

The discussion centered around Affluence, The Nigerian government and Taxation. In his usual characteristic calm voice, he asks , "Onyi, if you were a Pastor, will you own a private jet?". Laughing out loud in my most no committal way i replied, "i don't know". A definite answer may have been easy to state for some people, but not for me. In my case, i have had the privilege of being on the good and not too good sides of life. I knew what it meant to be driven at the back of a taxi straight to work and back home and i knew the craziness of having to struggle for a bus to get to work and to get home in good enough time. It wasn't just the comfort of it, it was the filth around Mushin area of Lagos, the madness and recklessness at Oshodi, the filth and rudeness from conductors and commuters as a whole, the helplessness of squeezing into space that would cramp your back for a whole week and still having to keepcalm and maintain a serene front. I knew what it meant to want the finer things of life not because you feel the wealth was uncontainable but because, some place in your mind you feel that you have earned the right, to have those things.

 

My neighbour went on to explain the injustice of it, "Why should they own jets?" 'At the worst, they could charter a plane, but to buy a jet and maintain it at an unbelievable amount is the ultimate show of rude affluence".  What cut most about this was that these pastors amass wealth via the sweat of struggling people and the Nigerian government do not have that special knowledge to levy tax on this wealth. Is this me and everyone else who thinks same being jealous, i think not. What should be done must be done, after all, aren't we all equal anymore?

 

You make an income, not just peanuts, but a substantial chunk of money. It follows that you should give back to the society. Or what? Haven't they heard of "give Ceasar what belongs to Ceasar?" I once read that if your activities enables you derive an income in such a way as to constitute a trade or profession, then the profits are liable to tax. So you earn an income, why not pay tax? Why not contribute to the society instead of preach doomsday, doomsday, doomsday? I mean c'mon, even prostitutes pay tax in some countries. Yeah, i said so. Prostitutes pay tax, prostitutes pay tax in Germany, in Sweden, in Neatherland, those are the few i know. If those people could be taxed and even the lowliest of the society, why not u? Those prostitutes make an income and their profession is legal so they pay tax. If you amass billions every year from your church, it wont be asking too much that you give a fraction of it back to the society to improve it. You can't just preach this and that and show zilch committment to your state and country.

 

I am a Nigerian. I work for a Nigerian company. I have grown to love my work place but my least favorite topic still remains my country Nigeria. When i talk about my country and their too many issues, i feel helpless. I fail to understand why there is absolutely nothing that anyone can do which would revive Nigeria. I tell friends i'm apathetic to the political situation in Nigeria but the truth is that with each year that passes, i am older and the decadence in the country stares me right in the face and all i can do is turn the other way. Am i sick of this? Yes. Can i do something about it? Maybe. What can i do? I have no idea.

 

Friendship

Today is one of my good days of the week; Wednesday. There is really no particular reason why i have chosen this day as a good day but i know that Wednesday is always good day for me.

I am already at work feeling all bright despite the fact that the rain almost put a blur on my very bright day. So here i am reading an article written by my friend; Uzochukwu Odonwodo who i consider almost a competitor but who has so far been besting me in most things; the law, writing , reading, research, music, poetry, name it. So you can imagine the cause of my pensive mood and why my ever beautiful Wednesday is gradually waning. Uzo is one of those friends i attended the law school with and who always kept me on my toes. Talking to him was almost like chatting with the better side of me. He was one of those lawyers who was never stuffy and who never bore me. A liberal to the very core.

The best part of my day way back then was when i sat with him over his bottle of beer, i really can't remember his brand now but i strongly suspect it Star. So why he sipped his beer and i ate my very hot indomie in the very dark night, we had our fun gisting about all the books we have read in our life time. "Don't tell me you haven't read that Wole's book" he said, "Well, i really haven't" i piqued with my mouth blowing away all the steam from my hot plate of noodles and him trying to get in forkfuls after saying he wasn't interested. "I really do not think that Wole is as much of a genius as Achebe is" I said, "what he has going for him is that he is good, admittedly and then he is Yoruba"; a most influential tribe". When i say this, i know it has a tribalistic sound to it but that is honestly how i feel about it. Uzo loves Wole, he also loves Achebe, maybe because they are from the same tribe; Ibo, i wouldn't know what i however know is that for some reason, he can't seem to make up his mind on whom he loves most without feeling like he is disloyal to the other. I'm sure someday though he will.

Back to my fears, we were never in that unhealthy competition most friends indulge in, but he had his way of making me do my best, making want to be the best. Thinking back at those days makes me wonder whether i slacked off a bit when he decided to follow his dreams to Abuja. Makes me wonder whether i have been lazy, if i have slacked off so much that if i were to meet him tomorrow i would have no accomplishments to brag about, i wonder.

There were days back in Secondary School when each time i got into an exam hall, i picked out the best student in the class wherever she was, i did this with my eyes and then as i write, i ask myself, what else could there possibly be to this question and what could Chioma possibly be writing? Chioma wasn't a friend, she was just a competitor and she wasn't even aware of it. She gave me the drive i needed each time i got into any exam hall. We barley laughed together, all we did was sustain a conversation from time to time and move on. There are times i wonder what became of her, and then i remember, i read somewhere that she's married now, to a Yoruba guy in the states and then i wonder, did she fulfill all her dreams? Is she happy? Does she have any regrets?

I think about Uzo sometimes and i smile and smile, i smile at all our very lovely days back then. We did't date, it would have ruined the camaraderie we had. We did other things; we laughed, we had drinks together, we ate dinner, we listened to music, we talked about music, we talked about novels a whole lot, we saw movies together and patted each others back when exam wasn't so favorable. We had a great time.

Those days are gone. As the tide consistently changes in my life, i ask myself, what days am i in? Where will i eventually pitch my tent? Will i go on to do great things or will i just breeze through life without leaving a mark an imprint that 'i wuz ere'? And do you know that even as i write all this and tell you my fears, the clock keeps ticking...