Through My Glasses

Growing up sucks!  We grow up and build all these emotional walls. We get suspicious of everyone and everything. It becomes about us and what is in it for us. Everyone starts testing and playing everyone else.  We don't want to love too hard because we don't want to be hurt or taken for granted. We don't want to say how we feel because we are afraid it will be misunderstood or not reciprocated. We don't have expectations of this kind of pure love because we don't want our hearts broken. Everything seems like some kind of game. Whoever out plays the other wins. Fortified from the tough hand life and love has dealt us, we lock up. We pull a poker face and form odieshi. We harden our hearts and keep fronting. But deep down we yearn for this kind of uninhibited, carefree love. The kind we had when we were kids. The kind where we aren't afraid to lay down our guards and just revel in the presence of the other. We are love beings- created to love and express tha...

I walked into a store today and the store owner, a young man that looked to be in his 30s couldn’t stop staring at my hair. This guy was oohing and aahing at “how well cut my hair was” and how it “brought out my true African facial features”. He loved the “natural boldness” with which I rocked my hair and wished he knew when next I was going to get a haircut so he could pay for it. Interestingly, his wife is also on a low cut. He went as far as calling her up to tell her that he was sending her a picture of a haircut she would be interested in. He said his wife enjoyed trying out different haircuts the way a professional chef enjoyed trying out recipes. I was amused at such obsession with haircuts and he said I wouldn’t understand. Of course, there was no way I would but I thanked him for all the attention, paid for what I bought and walked out of his shop. I walked into the shop next door, barely 10 steps from the previous shop and the reaction to my hair style by this s...

It’s February 14th. Today is celebrated the world over as St. Valentine’s Day. A day dedicated to mushiness, cards, teddy bears, engagement rings and most importantly, the colour red. Over the years, Valentine’s Day has become highly commercialised. An article by www.theguardian.com says that for chocolatiers, jewellers, restaurateurs and greeting card manufacturers, Valentine's Day is, after Christmas, the most lucrative moment of the year. Today, like in previous years, many people will succumb to this commercialization allure that Valentine’s Day brings, to spend money they may or may not have, just to prove their love to their significant other. So, who really benefits from Valentine’s Day? Are we obsessing over something that shouldn’t be? Is Valentine’s Day overrated? Have we turned something intended to bring lovers together into a mere spectacle? *IJ, a talented makeup artist has this say: “I hate Valentine’s Day with a passion. Why do we have to put so mu...

Hey guys, welcome to my blog. How is your week going? Happy New Month to you! It’s the month of love, so happiness should be our default setting throughout this February and beyond. Plus, it’s my birthday month too. Whoop! Whoop! It's a no-brainer that I enjoy writing. Why else would this blog exist in the first place? One of the things I enjoy doing is writing about conversations I have with people or issues I stumble upon on the cyberspace or in random places. I get the best blog post ideas through this means. That brings me to the issue I want to talk about today: successful and unsuccessful relationships. Take a good look at the meme below. Chances are you have seen this image before, probably on social media. The first time I saw this meme on Facebook, it caught my attention and held it for a while. What caught my attention about this meme wasn’t the beautiful couple in it. It was the message in it and the fact that it got me thinking about what constitutes success...

The day is finally here. In less than 18 hours, billionaire businessman, Donald J. Trump will be sworn in as the 45th President of United States. He will be succeeding the charismatic, first black President of the United States, Barack Obama, who is leaving office as America’s 3rd most loved President. A year ago, I didn’t think a Trump Presidency was possible. A year ago, I argued loudly and almost betted N50, 000 against him. A year ago, I didn’t think America would be ‘stupid enough’ to elect Trump President given his lack of knowledge about policies and governance, and of course, his ‘unpresidential’ mien. As I write this, I, including so many other pollsters, am eating my words and it doesn’t taste good. It’s not hard to understand why. On Friday, January 20th, 2017, the United States of America will inaugurate Donald Trump, a racist, misogynistic, narcissistic, reality television star cum Twitter addict who has zero experience, and equally zero knowledge about basic govern...

What do you do when the person you love the most and want more than anything else in the world doesn't love you back? This was the first message I saw on my phone last Thursday. It came from one of my young mentees, Andy. *Andy had been so excited about the new girl he met. Each time I spoke with him, he always found a way to bring her up. “You said that just the way *Sarah would. Did I tell you that I proofread a research paper she did on Social Media marketing? It was really good”. “Sarah said I should consider Canada for my Masters. It makes sense. What do you think”? His face always had an animated look each time he talked about Sarah, and it was quite a lot. I sometimes wished I could capture the way he beamed and shone, the way his eyes sparkled and his words jumped out like a gushing stream as he talked about her. I know he tried so hard to hide the way Sarah made him feel but he failed successfully at it. I’d never seen that before. I was more accustomed to ...

Once upon a time in secondary school, I was given an assignment to do and I did that assignment to the best of my knowledge expecting the highest of scores. Alas, when my assignment was returned, my expected score differed from my received score, the way Paul Pogba 's recent performances differ from the over £89M Manchester United paid for him. To say I was shocked is to understate the matter. I rushed off to my teacher to ask questions and I was told that 'I didn't use the teacher's exact words'. Does this sound familiar anybody? If we could all be honest, we would admit that at some point in our educational life in Nigeria, we have lost marks in an exam or a test for choosing to put our answers in our own words rather than use the teacher's exact words. There is a term for using another person's words verbatim. That term is 'plagiarism'. Last week, precisely on the 8th of September, President Buhari formally launched the #ChangeBeginsWit...

Let’s face it, romantic novels can lie. Choi. Before there was Lai Mohammed, romance novel writers were the original lying liars. *looks around for DSS*. As someone who read her first Mills and Boon novel in Primary 5, and went on to read over 1,000 romantic novels (I kid you not) by the time she left High School in 2004, I believe I have earned the right to say this. During over 8-years romantic novel reading binge, I read everything from Mills and Boon, to all the different categories of Harlequin (Harlequin Super Romance, Harlequin American Romance, Harlequin Presents, Harlequin Medical Romance, etc). I sampled bad ass, extremely descriptive romance novel writers like Elaine Barbieri, Beverly Jenkins, Nicole Hawkins, Robyn DeHart, Adrienne de Wolfe. I read them all. Sometime in University, I finally gave up that romance novel addiction, because they pedaled nothing but L-I-E-S. And yours truly done had enough of them lies. Here are the common lies romantic novels sold to...

An article on www.memefest.org titled ‘LoveAbuse’ has the following as its opening lines: Love: the strongest driving force on the planet. The most abused word in use today. The most inspiring mysterious concept. I agree totally with the second line. Lots of things get abused in the world today but I think this four letter word l-o-v-e easily takes top spot, without question. The evil and stupid things we do in the name of love are absolutely baffling. People blow up places and butcher people into tiny little bloody pieces because of the love they have for a deity. People abuse and maim those they say they love in the name of love. Love is often the reason given when a jealous lover disfigures the object of his/her love with undiluted acid. They love them too much to let them go, they say. People stay in toxic relationships because they are in love and do not want to be alone. It is this same love that makes two people with incompatible genotypes to take the ris...

Nigerian hair salons are very interesting places. It is in hair salons that you get unabridged gists of who is sleeping with who, who snatched whose boyfriend, who has been battered black and blue by whose spouse but is still forming couple goals, whose sudden hot body is just N30,000 body magic and of course who is keeping up with the Joneses while pretending to be wallowing in cash. The stories are just endless. Some of these stories often have you shaking your head in utter disbelief. On this particular sunny Saturday afternoon, I strolled to a nearby salon to get my hair washed. While awaiting my turn, the discussion switched to wife materials and those who want to purchase them. This lady was sharing a story about how she visited her bobo for the first time. The bobo had spent several months asking her out before she succumbed to the plenty love and attention he showed her. Afterward, she accepted his invitation to visit him in his apartment. Then the story got interesting… ...

I battle it every day.... To go forward or not to go forward. To allow things be or to rock the boat. F.E.A.R. of the unknown. Of my thoughts. My feelings. My strengths and my abilities. MY inadequacies and my flaws. F.E.A.R. of stepping out of my comfort zone and stepping into the spotlight. Of emerging behind the humor and chivalry that has characterised my life. F.E.A.R of laying it all bare and confiding in another about my fears, hopes, aspirations, and dreams. The F.E.A.R that after all is said and done, I am just another random, ordinary being. F.E.A.R... Of falling for you. Of having you dominate my thoughts. Of getting protective and extremely jealous over you. Of getting too close to you and not wanting to leave. Of losing control. F.E.A.R of finally peeling off the layers upon layers of toughness and letting you see into the fragility that is my heart. F.E.A.R..... Of trying and failing. Of disappointment. ...

Knock Knock.. *Enters and clears cobwebs. Swallows a tickling sneeze. Not today catarrh* Mehn, it’s been a while on this blog. Sister girl has been so busy at work lately. Talk about maximum increase in stress levels. *Whew*. What can one do? That mega dough isn’t going to earn itself. Hope y’all have been doing great. If you are in Naija, how is the fuel price hike treating you? Omo, the price of fresh tomatoes is stroke-inducing. What????? I can't deal abeg. Stew has become a luxury in Nigeria. Who knew that day would ever come? Seriously, I have really missed writing my thoughts on this blog. Most importantly, I have missed engaging with all of you on this platform. So today, I decided to get a little personal. Okay scratch that….a promise of a brand new original Arsenal jersey was the deal breaker. But yea, for someone like me who abhors talking about herself, in anyway personal, this was a huge challenge. But of course when an Arsenal jersey is involved, I throw ...