Soldier on...

6:45pm

 Tip tap tip tap, my feet move in sync with the piano’s and drums of Tracy Chapman’s “telling stories”. It’s hot, very hot and my skin feels like its being bombarded with pinpricks of fire in every pore. There’s only one star to be seen, matching my feeling of aloofness and loneliness, but tonight, it’s not the physical that’s the problem. It’s not my too big arms, not my not-flat enough stomach, or my recent facial attack. No, it’s much more deeper, it’s not even my paranoid issues of being secretly disliked by everyone, except my family. It’s my future here, my life’s mission. Yes, I’m only –teen, but it’s important to me I know where I’m going and right now, I feel like the rain is down on me, pouring heavily and blocking my view of what is and isn’t important to me.

It’s The Temper Trap’s “soldier on” playing. Today I saw the movie, “an education”. Carrey Mulligan plays, jenny, a smart, but ill exposed girl whose parent struly want the nest for her, but go about it the wrong way. Her dad is an overprotective, mean man who insists her life consists of only her books and her plans for Oxford University. She can’t attend concerts or engage in anything fun. She meets an older man, David (Peter Sarsgaard) who entices her with concerts, fabulous dinners, auctions and makes her feel grown up and happy. She begins to soon forget what’s important because she has never been told why her education was important in the first place. She discovers he is a con man, but still continues to see him. He asks her to marry him and she agrees, abandoning her education. Her parents. Agree, thinking David is an honourable man, who will take care of her since that as the point of her schooling in the first place. Soon she discovers, David is married and has been doing the same to girls before her. She is not accepted into her old school and struggle to re-write her final year exams, while being homeschooled. She ends up getting into oxford, but considerably wiser. The point is, all of this would have been avoided, had her parents made her aware in the first place. Back to me now

I’m a living, breathing Nigerian version of Jenny, albeit, slightly less obnoxious parents. David to me was a metaphor for distractions I will face before my priorities are in order. He’s the rain, blocking me from seeing any farther, by distracting me with its cool drops on my skin. David represents boys, binge drinking and everything that threatens to topple me. But unlike jenny, I don’t know if I’ll ever get another chance to redeem myself once I’m thrown off course. I met someone today, she was smart, talented and had quite some experience. She was an average run of the mill-not very goodlooking-college girl, but she was different. She was passionate. She knew what she wanted from life, and went for it, nothing stopped her. She had experienced a summer semester in Harvard and was currently on a full scholarship in school. What am I doing? Constantly moaning about my lack of opportunities all the time?

All I want to do is write and talk. Translation: become an accomplished, internationally recognized journalist/writer. That’s all, but why do I see myself, not getting halfway there? My personal David: my innate ability to disbelief myself when I need to believe in myself the most.

I want to have a life, but at –teen, I have none, except a school oriented one. Not much of a friend person, no alcohol history(mild or binge), no sex life, nothing. I hate girly gossip …most times. I have an amazing level of nonchalance. I wake up each day and take at least two walks. Walks in which I pass people, nod and move on. I don’t want my David to hinder me to the point of permanent regret. What do I do? Like Jenny, “all I want is to go to school to study English, listen to French music, each French food”. Translation: Go to UM, eat English food, listen to and read classics and soak in the air of prim sophistication…and come out the best version of me. Flawlessly intelligent, charmingly witty and radiantly beautiful