Having To Choose

Hi guys. It’s been a while.

I wrote a piece over on fvdedcollective.com titled ‘Bursaries and Virginities’ and it’s my response to a report about a university in South Africa offering bursaries to female students who remain celibate and undergo regular testing to ensure they are sticking to the terms of the agreement. You can check it out here. I feel like I’m not done talking about it yet because it really is a segue into a lot of deeper issues that weigh on my mind a lot of the time. I was angry when I wrote that post but now I feel like I can reason a bit better.

I was talking to a few of my friends in university about this and almost all of them said they would accept this bursary and the aforementioned testing just because they were already virgins and they didn’t plan on having sex before graduating from university anyway. But what I didn’t get is why they didn’t get that this whole situation was the biggest pile of shit in the first place. So I guess this is what I would say to them if they would listen to me and my words flowed as naturally as they do when I’m sitting in front of a computer screen.

I understand wanting to remain celibate as much as I understand wanting to have sex and I understand wanting to have an education and not having the funds for it at the time. I understand why this could seem appealing but I don’t understand why one has to choose. I don’t understand why sex has to be used as a weapon against a woman or anyone.

At the end of the day, I am a human being first. I am an intellectual being, I am a sexual being. I feel things, I want things. I have the capability to be anything I want with everything that I am. We are all sexual beings so why is sex something that I have to choose? It’s the choice that irritates me. It’s the fact that I have to choose between wanting to expand my mind or taking part in this fundamental act of life. It’s this notion that all I present to you is what’s between my legs and nothing more. Why can’t I have the possibility of both?

The reasoning behind this bursary was to minimise the spread of STDs and unwanted pregnancies and all that jazz. But do these things happen on their own? Do I click my fingers and demand to have chlamydia or have a foetus grow inside of me? It takes two to tango. Everyone is super quick to point the finger at females in almost all cases that involve sex. Be it rape, be it harassment, anything that involves consent or sex itself going wrong, females are seen as the problem and 9 times out of 10, I bet a female didn’t bring any of the issues on to herself. No one has stopped to consider the problem could stem from a male?

There are basics rights as a human being and from all I see and from what I know, the experiences of a female in this day and age are inexplicably tied to her sexuality. And it saddens me. We are so much more, we are not just sex. Too many times, I hear women saying they need to change what they are to change the outcome of situation that involves a member of the opposite sex. We have to do all the work or we need to be the defining factor. In my head, inequality is tied to the saying “from who much is given, much is required”. My one sole question that I will continue to ask is “why?” Yes, we are a bundle of intricacies and we do so much for the world but we’re not the only ones here. I just wish I knew why it was always down to women to be the sacrificial lamb in almost all situations.

Georgina ❤

Songs of the Week

And of course, The Life of Pablo but Kanye’s being difficult so either subscribe to Tidal or download it somewhere. It’s great. It’s in my top 3 Kanye albums, I’m not ashamed to say it.

Home

Before you do anything, I command you to read Tobi’s post, also titled “Home” on her blog here, we did a thing together. Please and thank you!

I was utterly prepared to do some poetic post with the recurring motif of “home is where you can walk around braless and give zero fucks” but nah, I’m going to switch it up, keep things exciting.

Whenever someone talks about “home”, my initial thought is always Nigeria. Always. I never thought I could feel so strongly attached to that country but I feel like my soul is rooted there. Every bit of me wants to be there all the time. The weather can melt your face off but it’s the best. Every day is an opportunity for growth, for discovery. The country is evolving, the nation is growing up and I get so overwhelmed just hearing about new developments in my endz (yes, endz with a z). I spent a massive chunk of my teenage years in Nigeria. As I formed into the graciously dazzling young lady that I am now, Nigeria moulded me, it dug out little caverns in me and dwells in me.

It scares me when I think of the number of people who leave for “greener pastures” in foreign lands and end up never coming back. I know, Nigeria isn’t for the fainthearted: that nation requires balls of titanium, a resolve that can never crack, patience in the truckloads and an ability to just take it all in and not run for the hills. But it’s home. It’s what runs through my veins: it’s always making a guest appearance in the small things that I do: be it a tinge in my voice or the sass in a look I give someone, there’s just something in me that continuously reminds me that Nigeria is where I want to be.

The food. Can we just take a moment? Can we acknowledge the sweetness, the absolute sweetness that is Nigerian food? I can’t remember the last time I heard someone hail the awesomeness of a plate of correct jollof rice by saying “the rice is too sweet”. I’m guessing using the word “sweet” to quantify the yumminess of savoury dishes comes from the direct Yoruba translation of “o dun gan” which literally means “it’s really sweet” but I digress. Nigerian food is a miracle to taste buds everywhere. Whether it’s akara and a small loaf of bread from the ever-faithful woman who was always there, every single morning, just there on the side of the road, expertly scooping up ground beans and squeezing out teeny balls into the abyss of bubbling oil before her on my way to school or the buns lady or the boli and epa lady or the suya man or the buka mama with her steaming plates of white rice, beans and 20, 50 or 100 naira meat. Food was never-ending, it was an experience just buying the food, it was a phenomenon sinking your teeth into it all.

I wouldn’t say I miss the attention I used to get from all breeds of men back then but now I actually notice how much of it there was, if that makes sense. All the cat-calling and the hey baby, can I have your numbers and the married men who would purposefully drive slow to match my walking pace just to propose the notion of financial domination to me, the obsession over girls half their age… it was a lot to deal with so if you think Nigerian girls are particularly mean-spirited, it’s most likely not intentional. It’s a defence mechanism, no doubt.

I want to be back there. I want my children to have Nigeria entangled in their hearts and minds. I want to help my nation, watch my nation succeed. I want to get my hands dirty with the grime and grit involved with growing something, tending something and watching it flourish into the beautiful creature it’s always meant to be. I want be one of the lucky ones who can say “I knew my home needed more hands, needed a nudge in the right direction so I went and I helped and here we are now.”

Georgina ❤

Song of the Week

Listen to GoldLink and let your life change.

Shh.

I made a discovery this week and it is this: I don’t like people knowing I have a blog. It’s been a year. I should be used to having one and people reading it and telling me they like it but I still have a panic attack every time a new person raises their eyebrows at whatever screen is in front of them as they vocalise “Oh? You have a blog?” I almost want it to be a secret. I don’t want anyone to know.

My lecturer didn’t show up for one of my classes this week so I was just making small talk with a newfound friend. We got onto the subject of Instagram and I found out he can draw, like amazingly well. He was nearly shuddering with shyness, he was so embarrassed about me gushing over his talent and I didn’t really understand why it was such a big deal until he landed on my page and I forgot I had put my freaking website in my biography. With the largest amount of surprise in his voice, he was like “What’s this? Is it a blog?” then he went silent then he went “wow” then didn’t say anything about it again and all this while, I was rigid. Rigid with, what I now admit to being fear. The fear of being found out. I almost felt like a fraud.

I have these moments of utter identity breakdown a lot. Like, a lot, you know me. Almost every little thing makes me want to re-evaluate my life to the point where I feel like I’ve never amounted to anything spectacular in the first place, it freaks me out. This blog makes me feel that way a lot. I like writing it and when people respond to it, I do feel elation, extremely, even. But simultaneously, when people discover it and I know who they are, I feel like something changes in that moment, like they view me in a different light. And I don’t like this light. There’s a change for the smallest fraction of time. It’s almost like they’re disappointed. Maybe I’m reading it wrong or maybe I just know some crappy people.

I always say it but I don’t look like I blog. Based on stereotypical assumptions gathered solely from first glances, if I were to squash myself into a specific criteria through a Venn diagram (visualise it with me), blogging or any form of smacking letters into a Word document in my free time wouldn’t be anywhere near my circle. It’s just not what pops into your head when you see me or maybe even know me a little. Even I look at myself in the mirror sometimes and think “You? Blog? Nah.”

I’m a conglomeration of all these supposed skills and hobbies and experiences and interests and cool oddness and I express it in a way I like but I just don’t want people I know to know because I think it changes perceptions drastically. Strangers are my kind of people. They don’t know me enough to be able to weigh up my two different “personalities”, I guess. I wouldn’t know if my actual physical presence differs much from my online presence.

Why does any of this even matter to me? “I don’t know,” she wails, as she throws her hands to the sky in frustrated frustration. Frustration squared. I think – I do a lot of thinking here in case you hadn’t noticed – I’m just trying to rationalise my feelings. I’m trying to do that now. Instead of feeling things and wallowing in these feelings for God knows how long, I try to ascertain why I should allow myself to dwell in such an emotional state if it’s not going to be beneficial in the long run or if I can’t see that far ahead in situ, for that moment. It’s a new life thing I’m trying out, as you do.

Literal eureka moment, I have it: I’m battling with the notion of uniqueness. I want to be unique and this blog, believe it or not, is what I think gives me my edge. But this perception of me being unique is what I don’t like. I don’t agree with people thinking this thing I do makes me unique at all because in the end, it doesn’t. A lot of people blog… but no one does it like I do. See? It’s such a mess but it’s a fathomable mess. But then again, the only thing that really gives me any form of comfort in the midst of all of this is something my really cool friend once told me: “everyone is unique so no one is.”

I should have my shit together by next week, hopefully.

Until then,

Georgina ❤ ❤ (two hearts because I forgot to give you one last time)

Songs of The Week (listen to them or else)

#ThisIsMyArt (…ish?)

Disclaimer: about halfway through this, it seems as if I’m talking to myself. I was working it out as I was typing it out, literally. I didn’t want to change it, workings of the mind and all that jazz. I was also hopped up on ice cream when I wrote this and you know how crazy I get when I have ice cream. And, no, I didn’t just realise the coolness of hashtags, there’s an entirely substantial reason for the title.

Existential crises seem to be my latest thing. If I don’t have one at least once a month, it’s an off month but I need them, keeps me on my toes.

I’m volunteering at my local library this summer to get the little baby geniuses of my community to put down the iPads, pick up a book and stare at it for a couple of hours. I do it because I like to think I’m enabling these kids to see the beauty of words, understand and appreciate the magical worlds in the lines they read. In the few moments it takes for me to quiz them on the books, the sincerity and eagerness to impress me with their knowledge burns through the most and I find it mesmerising. Children are mystical, honestly.

The children, however, didn’t bring about this crippling need for me to re-evaluate my life; it was the guy who was my volunteering partner for the day. He was a 17 year old white male with a Justin Bieber circa 2011 haircut. It was 9:30 on a Monday morning and I was ready to sit in stone cold silence for 3 hours just to avoid any means of communicating with him. We were asked to do some book cataloguing and as we were trying to decipher the library’s incredibly ancient shelving system, the ice broke and we started talking about all kinds of things. We talked about TV shows, comics, university, career prospects and all that stuff. He told me he had sussed out what his niche was: TV or voice acting, kitchen design or drama teaching. Despite how odd the selection of goals seemed to both him and me, these things made him happy and the prospect of being either one of the three was more than enough to keep him motivated. I couldn’t help but envy him. At 16, he had such a level head on his shoulders and his path would be way easier than mine but that’s another rant for another day.

On cue, I had a teeny weeny internal meltdown. He had found his art and he was running with it. I like too many things to say I have an art and it worries me. If someone asks me what I’m good at, I won’t have an answer. Does “oh yes, well, you see, I write stuff and organic chemistry gets me going” qualify as a decent answer? I’m always asking people what my backup plan should be if being this kick-ass scientist I have totally envisioned myself being backfires on me. Writing is a comfort, it is escapism and blogging helps me share my weirdness, helps sprinkle my fairy dust all over the place. But I am also incredibly inconsistent with it and even though I’ve been doing this for 10 months (wow, 10 whole months?), I still get terrified every time I press publish. I still fret that I’m talking to a void of white noise and broadband cables. I worry that everyone who tells me I’m good is entirely bullshitting me. But then again, I feel like I am pretty good at what I do, even though I’m not entirely sure what that is. I write about what’s on my mind, I write about how I feel, I write about what’s happening to me, what is around me. Writing is a release; it is the unbuckling of the metaphorical belt on the jeans of life. Is it cheating if I really love to write about whatever it is I write about and still love knowing I can create worlds inside a beaker that can make or break a person’s insides? Am I allowed to have two arts, so to speak?

Damn it, I can. I can love writing and I can love blowing things up in a lab. Art is expression, art is creativity, it is skill, it is work and it is love. It is what you love and it is what I love and I think I’ve found it. This is what I love to do; I could shed a tear.

Now, I have some good news and some bad news. Bad news first: this blog will be more or less dormant until September. I know, I know: how can I write a whole post screaming about how much I love to write only to drop this bombshell on you? This is where the good news comes in: someone likes my writing so much, they’ve asked me to be an in-house writer on their website. Mama, I’ve made it! Obviously, I’m not trying to get fired so I want to channel my all in to the website, meaning I don’t want to post things on here that are lacking juice, you know? I say September because I’ll be back in university, I’ll have things to complain about, people to throw literal shade at, opinions to air.

I’ll be writing on a weekly basis on this website so if you really love me, you’ll find me on fvdedcollective.com which is re-launching on the 29^th of July, mark yo’ calendars. I’m beyond ecstatic and I’m super nervous but I think I can do it, I hope I can. So, guys, please, be nice and visit the website when it’s open. Come and read what I and a bunch of other mind-blowingly talented people have to say. We are the youth writing for the youth and about the youth. Don’t miss me too much, I’m not far.

Songs of the Week because yeah

Until September… don’t cry, don’t make this any harder than it needs to be,

Georgina ❤

 

And The Award Goes To… Not Your Child

Last week, I played the role of supportive big sister and went to my brother’s secondary school for this end of year show and it was so intriguing to witness exactly how parents behave. Every single school thing I’ve ever attended, I’ve been on the other side. I’ve been the one waiting to be called up with everyone else’s eyes on me.

To sum up what I observed, there’s nothing like a public acknowledgement or lack thereof of the achievements of the fruit of your loins to bring out the absolute worst in you. Body language is the biggest snitch. Sure, some parents will never outwardly express their absolute disappointment in their child during such events but you can sense it. You can feel the subliminal God, did I give birth to this foolish child thoughts just swirling above your head as they sit and watch every other child but their own get an award. I found it so funny as the parents waited with bated breath to hear their child’s name being announced only to exhale with silent bitterness at the child that did win. It was a like a war of worlds between the miniature fist bumps and the heavy but stealth eye rolls of contempt.

Being surrounded by it all got me thinking how Nigerian kids have to deal with all that plus a hell of a lot more by the time they get home. It all starts in the car. Your parents will give you the silent treatment but the second everyone is in the car and seat buckled in and the key is in the ignition, someone will start: “Why can’t you just make me proud? Why can’t you just focus on your work and win an award or did all the other children that win have two heads? No, we cannot go to McDonald’s, there’s rice at home.” If you’re lucky and you go to a fee-paying school, there is no way you won’t hear “after all the school fees I’m paying, simple award you cannot get.”

If you haven’t lived through it, you wouldn’t know. I can’t tell you much it sucks to try and do the best that you can, academically or otherwise, to then have your parents tell you “but why couldn’t you get higher than this?” or “what did everyone else get?” I’m guessing it’s a Nigerian thing. Competition is embedded in our DNA and a lot of parents are of the mind-set that their child must have a title attributed to their name in terms of a profession to be able to say, “yes, my child is not a bastard.” I honestly believe as a Nigerian child, you will hear the words doctor, lawyer and engineer thrown at you at least 700 times before you reach the age of 16. I know they mean well because job security and financial wellbeing are attributed with such jobs but they are not the only jobs in this world, for goodness sake. And how many times have you said “I want to be a singer/writer/artist” to only have those dreams shut down faster than you could even imagine?

I’m actually extremely lucky. My parents have never been soul crushing, dream stomping monsters but they’ve never been the ones to ignite a flame that couldn’t be sustained, you get me? They’ve allowed me to find my own feet and find what suits me as they fully understood that whatever I chose to do was what I would be saddled with for the rest of my life, not theirs. For instance, when I was really young, I was convinced that I was Beyoncé’s protégé. I was destined to be her next in line. I used to watch the Crazy In Love video on repeat, I nailed the walk and the sudden drop to her knees and everything. I could lip-sync like there was no tomorrow, I actually could sing…ish and I had confidence in the bucketloads. One day, I just said “Mummy, I’m going to be a singer when I grow up.” My mum looked at me, utterly bewildered yet astonished, I can never forget how she looked that day, and she said, “Maybe you should have a backup plan, just to be on the safe side.”

When I think about it, I always wonder what my own response would have been if my own child said something like that to me. I want to say I’ll be the best mum ever and say “sure, baby, you can be whatever you want to be” even if my child sounds like a cat being dunked into a bathtub. I mean, I want to be as encouraging as I can possibly be and I want my children to know they can get to the top of any ladder this world offers them to climb. I want my kids to know that they can be whoever they want to be and they’ll know that I will be the one forever in their corner, no matter how epically they fuck up because they will and that’s okay. I want to be that mum who screams her head off with joy even when my child comes last in school races or brings home C minuses on their report card because that’s what every child wants. Everyone needs that little push just to know they’re on the right track. But as always, I worry. I worry I say all this and create this foolproof ideology of how to parent in my head until I am faced with hardcore motherhood to only have my Yoruba genes shroud my sense of open-mindedness and for my inner we-have-rice-at-home mum mode to kick in.

I guess I’ll know when the time gets here and there’s no use fretting over something that hasn’t even happened yet. All I do know is, awards don’t mean anything… most of the time. I mean, look at Kanye West: wasn’t he voted least likely to succeed? In primary school, I didn’t win a single award until I was leaving the damn place. Every year I was boycotted, if that’s even possible, until finally, finally, I won the science cup in year 6 and well, look at me now, bitches. Secondary school? I used to get awards and certificates like they were plates of jollof rice on a Sunday afternoon.

But that’s besides the point. Don’t live by someone else’s idea of you. You are you and as long as you’re being the best you there could ever be, everyone else can nose dive off a very tall building. That is all.

Song of the Week

Remember, my news? Should tell you by next week 🙂

Georgina ❤

Not Built To Confront You

I really don’t like confrontation or tension. I know some people live for it, they live for the drama, they live for the buzz, they relish in the discomfort of others. I am a big ball of nerves; everything and anything will unsettle me. I was knitting my way to nostalgia one evening and I just remembered all the times I could have royally turned all the way up but the little chicken that I was just wouldn’t rise to it. Here are two of those times.

It was Valentine’s Day season and I was around 14/15. That year, we had this secret admirer post box where everyone could write little love notes to someone they liked and on Valentine’s Day, the messages would be distributed accordingly. I wrote a note and thought nothing of it. However, the day before the letters were going to be handed out, there was a lot of murmuring whenever I was in a vicinity until finally, someone several school years below me came to tell me this girl in my class had gone into the box, found my letter and read it out to everyone who would lend an ear to hear. I remember feeling wonderment initially. I found it completely bizzare and somehow endearing but then humiliation took hold, I don’t know why. I shouldn’t have felt ashamed, he was going to find out eventually but maybe it was because the crucial element of secrecy had been totally violated and stomped on.

Well, I confronted the girl in question and she vehemently denied all the allegations, expectedly. She was the only one who could have done it because she was the only one who was around at the time of the crime who knew my handwriting, see? I left the situation but it still haunted me, I couldn’t be in the same room as her at the same time, I avoided eye contact with her, it was so hard for me to just ignore all the tension. It was thick and sticky, just hanging over our heads like a pail of honey. The boy in question didn’t even see the whole mess as a big deal, he just found it cute. It got to a point where I had a dream about it and it was such a messed up yet visually stunning dream and I remember it vividly: my tormentor and I were in this fenced-off patch of land surrounded by oak trees, the sky was clear and beautiful, it was dark, the leaves rustled, the stars were bright and there was a breeze in the air, it was just us. We started shouting at each other, incoherently at first then Jacob from Twilight style, we literally morphed into white horses. I’m not even shitting you, we literally transformed into stallions and we were neighing our asses off, hot air streaming, tails flaying, everything. She was about to charge at me and I galloped away into the distance. I woke up at that point and I just stared at the wall in my bedroom, telling myself that enough was enough. The next day, I walked up to her, looked her right in the eye and said, “look, it’s all trivial, can we just get over this and move on?” and we hugged it out.

My heart isn’t built to hold a grudge. Even if I haven’t done something wrong, the issue will still weigh down on me until I solve it. I’m becoming more resilient with age but back then, I couldn’t hack it as you will definitely be able to tell by this next occurrence.

Assembly time in boarding school was a mess. It was prayer chant after prayer chant, national anthems and pledges, some guy with the most awful moustache screaming at over 500 of us, all lined up just accepting our fate. This particular balls-less moment of mine happened days after my 12^th birthday and menstruation was mother nature’s gift to me. I hadn’t worked out the kinks yet but I was in pain and there was no way I was going to stand all the way through the useless morning rituals whilst my uterus conspired against me. There was a policy, you see: if you were ill, you could sit down during assembly and the health prefect would come round to interrogate you. If your reason seemed legit, you could sit and be the envy of all the other poor souls who hopped from one foot to the other in agony. The health prefect that year was evil incarnate. She was like 6’3”; she carried around a bust that would have been so magical to lay my head on. She permanently scowled. She frightened me to no end. She made people cry; she spoke pidgin when she was lecturing the hell out of us juniors; she demanded to be called Senior *her name* and if you dared to omit the prefix, you were doomed. God, I have suffered in this life.

Anyway, my ass was firmly planted and I waited. She got to me, towering over me, peering down at me over her goliath chest and growled “what’s wrong with you?” I remember shrinking underneath her glare; I don’t think I could ever forget just how small I felt in that moment. I managed to say “I have period pains.” She leaned in even closer, turned her ear towards me and said “Eh?” and I repeated myself, a decibel louder. She gave me a cold look, eyed me up and down and asked how old I was. My brain to mouth pathway was well and truly frozen because before my body clock had time to reboot itself and consult my memory, I blurted out “11.” Without a second’s hesitation, she snapped her fingers, casually told me to “get up” and walked to the next victim. I was dumbfounded. I was utterly stupefied. I couldn’t believe I had just said that, I couldn’t believe I had forgotten my own age. With retrospect, I realise it wasn’t just I who had massively cocked up that whole moment, it was the godforsaken prefect too. How is she deciding girls who are below a certain age cannot have periods? What if I was genuinely 11, genuinely having a battle of worlds inside me? Every time I’ve replayed that moment in my head, I’ve always had myself tell the prefect to do one. I’ve always told her to get her facts straight and her life sorted out as she clearly doesn’t know shit. I’ve always had myself remain seated and dared her to move me. But alas, in that moment, 7 years ago, I just stared at the back of her mammoth-like body until she turned back to face me, screaming “are you deaf? I said get up.” And I walked to the back of the line, on the verge of tears, shame overwhelming me.

I’m really not here to be anyone’s enemy; I’m not here to make anyone’s life miserable. If I could make everyone happy, I would. I just want to sprinkle my fairy dust of love and life on us all. But let a bitch try me. I joke, please don’t try me.

Song of the Week

I can rap this whole thing, honestly. #Throwbackkk

 

Georgina ❤

 

Is It Really Real Though?

Just so you know, there will be spoilers for the movie Tomorrowland: A World Beyond. So, stop now if you plan on watching it. I highly doubt you want to watch it but you never know.

I loathe movies whose sole message is to preach about the imminent demise of Earth. I’m talking about 2012 (that movie was trash, utter trash), Interstellar (if it wasn’t such a mindfuck of a movie, I would hate it but I can’t), Elysium (why Matt Damon, why?) and every other soul-crushing apocalyptic film there is out there. Well, dare I say it, a movie singing to the same tune has finally gotten through my several walls of concrete and it has touched my heart and my mind and that movie was a Disney movie, can you believe it? Not only did it make sense, it terrified me.

The whole movie was about this other dimension called Tomorrowland. It was, obviously, 10,000 times better than Earth but for some reason which was super unclear, our world was going to end in 58 days precisely because of this monitor in Tomorrowland. Everyone figures out that the only way to save the Earth is by switching that machine off, go figure, but around 100 minutes in, Hugh Laurie who played the villain, goes into this totally expected monologue about why that monitor needs to be kept on and this is where I got messed up.

So this monitor is like a satellite that beams into different dimensions, including ours and it beams this idea that our Earth is destined to be overwhelmed and perish. It was subliminally incepting this notion that our Earth is dying and we are killing it by our greed, neglect and waste. But the villain kept stressing that he initially began emitting the signal to scare us into realising what life would become if we didn’t take care of what we have but he pressed that we just accepted our fate and since we had accepted it, we dived head first into ensuring that would be our end; no one was willing to accept a different fate or steer the wheel down another road, a happier and brighter road. And I really got shook. I really had to just stop and consolidate, considering it was a film meant for 12 year olds and their parents or whatever. The message was so realistic, I had to think: what if it was actually true?

What if this whole thing we know as life is actually some state we’ve all been induced into thinking is real? What if everything we eat and inhale and drink is all pumped with chemicals or enhancements to keep us completely embedded in this life? What if every outlawed substance is actually the only gateway to exposing what life is really about? What if Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, John F. Kennedy, John Lennon, Gandhi, and dare I say it, Nelson Mandela all knew something besides wanting to make the world a much better place? Or more realistically, what if someone, a higher being, really is beaming this notion that our world is destined to destruction by the work of our hands and we’re just accepting it?

It’s all really crazy though right? It’s all just conspiracy talk. It’s all far-fetched but the most powerful thing we have is our imagination. Our imagination is what leads to reality. You think, therefore, you are. You exist because your mind tells you so. I’m writing this because my mind is working. Surely filmmakers and authors of dystopian books such as 1984, Fahrenheit 451, The Handmaid’s Tale, even The Hunger Games who come up with these worlds that seem so far-fetched yet entirely possible have an inkling of what’s going on or at least an idea of what is to come?

I can’t believe a Disney movie has managed to put me on the absolute edge regarding my own existence. It was a really mind-blowing concept; I don’t know why people didn’t go to see it, it didn’t do too well in the box office. But just think about it. Think long and hard. Think about what the higher authorities aren’t telling us, think about the outer body experiences you have. Think about all those moments you’ve had thinking why something is as it is and why no one is challenging it or taking their sweet time to act on it. Get all existential, it’s good for you.

Mini Rant of The Week

A word is enough for the wise: stop getting your knickers in a twist over things that do not affect your life. If it’s not directly stopping the flow of food into your mouth, why are you making so much noise? Worry about the plank in your own eye before screaming about the speck in someone else’s. Gosh.

Song of the Week

Georgina ❤

The Issue At Hand Evolves

I have been MIA for way too long, I know. I couldn’t think of what to write and I wasn’t even prepared to bullshit you or myself through something meaningless. They say time is the best answer to everything (they don’t, I’m just making it up as I go along) but that’s all I needed. I got my mojo back.

When we were little, there was always this curiousity towards the opposite sex. There was the whole “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours” kind of thing. There was this air of innocent intrigue, keyword being innocent. From year 4-6 of primary school, the whole class used to chill together, we were all friends, good friends, friends that MSN’d together at 6pm until dinner was ready. I personally think I skipped the “boys have cooties” phase, I was born hormonally charged. I’ve always liked boys; I didn’t shy for them nor them me either. I think I had my first kiss when I was 8. I remember being so blasé when we’d play truth or dare as young’uns when first kisses were imagined by others and cherished on the top shelf of the mind of others, kept with all the much-loved memories. I didn’t see it as something monumental. It was just a thing. It was almost something I could do without.

Did your mum ever give you that talk that scared the shit out of you when you were younger? Did she ever tell you touching a boy could get you pregnant? I am so lucky for a mother who didn’t wreck my mind like that. I don’t think I knew the actual mechanics of sex until I was 11/12. Boarding school made sure I knew every single excruciating detail.

But what I’m saying is, when we were young, heterosexual friendships weren’t something that was out of the blue. They didn’t threaten anyone, really. Seeing a young boy and a girl being friends didn’t necessarily raise eyebrows as it does now. Drama evolves with time. It may have been around when we were prepubescent and it is ever so present now that we are grown but it’s just so much more in your face. The fact that you’re not meant to have a genuinely friendly friendship with a member of the opposite sex is fiercely shoved down your throat. You are almost taught to believe your platonic relationship is destined to become tinged by attraction eventually. Just wait on it.

For instance, let’s say your girlfriend/boyfriend has a best friend of the opposite sex. Wouldn’t you want to know everything about this supposed best friend; be everywhere when your significant other and said best friend are together and most importantly, know whether they are having/had sex or not? It is just impossible to have peace of mind when your lover has an opposite sex friend who was there before you. There’s no way you would allow for such a friendship to form when you are in the picture, no way in hell.

Once we reach a particular age, I’m going to say 16 as that is the legal age (stay safe, kids) even though I witnessed this and have lived this since I was 12 – platonic relationships between the sexes do not exist. You cannot have a friend who is a boy/girl and just leave it at that level. There is always that underlining tone of sex being whispered in the background even if you know in your heart that you’re not necessarily attracted to the person. I remember I was texting someone I had just met and we were in that phase of asking questions and once I got past the standard enquiries such as how old are you, where are you from, what university are you studying in, I went straight for “do you have a girlfriend?” even though I knew I wouldn’t ever be with this person in any way shape or form. Or the time I was texting someone whom I had again just met and less than an hour into our text-versation and establishing common ground, he was asking to meet with a wink emoji. The wink emoji. It’s almost primal, dare I say it. Maybe it’s our bodies’ way of ensuring we find a mate and by doing so, we are psychologically programmed to find a potential, secure said potential, establish then eliminate competition. Occasionally and unknowingly, you just catch yourself on the first step of this process and ask yourself “wait what? I don’t even like him/her, what the hell am I doing?”

I guess with age, what is important to me changes. I’m getting old, I am 19 years of age. Before I can blink, the –teen will be a distant memory. With age comes maturity; comes change that I can’t fend off even if I wanted to. My attention has shifted to what matters now but might not matter in 10 years. Tastes have changed, tolerance has changed. Things that mattered, don’t. Things that I couldn’t think about without feeling a huge swirl of emotion only make me smile now. Every little thing that happens to me is a lesson to be learnt, wisdom to be acquired, another gem to be kept. The drama evolves but it will always be around. Maybe when I’m 29, I’ll look back at this phase in time and laugh too.

Song of the Week

This song makes me bust a move.

 

And this tune tune tuneeee. This album came out the year I was born.

I will be back, promise. I’ve missed writing. I’ve missed you, blogosphere.

Until then,

Georgina ❤

 

What’s In A Name?

I’m still reading Americanah and I just finished this bit in the book in which the white Americans kept asking the protagonist, Ifemelu, whether they were pronouncing her name properly and how it was such a beautiful name and all that. The book then went on to talk about integrity in keeping one’s God-given accent and Nigerian name and that’s where I paused and had a rather existential moment.

We all know my name is Georgina, it is the name my parents chose for me, it means “farmer”, it’s the female variation of George which is actually Greek. But, it’s weird because, I’m Nigerian. Growing up, I used to ask my mum why I had such a name, not that I don’t like it but all my fellow Nigerian peers have Nigerian names as their first names. She would tell me that was the name they liked and it suited me but of course, as I got older, I asked again and my mother told me it was to make my life in the diaspora easier.

Secondary school in Nigeria, however, wasn’t necessarily easy with such a name. I know for a fact that I made people uncomfortable just with my name: it was too hard to pronounce, too foreign, too pretentious. I cannot count the number of times I’ve told people my name for them to ask me where I’m from ethnically and then see the abject confusion spread across their face almost immediately. Some people even think I’m lying, they tell me “No, for real, tell me your real name” or “but you said you’re Nigerian, what’s your name?” as if I’m one of those fake people who come to the UK and completely reform themselves, with an equally as unrecognisable accent in tow. Don’t even get me started on the way people butcher my name, the mispronunciations would be hilarious if they weren’t being directed to me. I have to choose which name to use, depending on what, who and where. It’s not confusing, I’ve grown to be adaptable and to answer to either of my many names. There was just something about that book that struck a chord – does me having an English first name make me a cheater? Does it reduce my sincerity, my Nigerianess, my integrity simply because I do not bare the pleasure and sometimes burden of having a Nigerian first name?

Nowadays, I feel like I have a point to prove by assuring people that I do have a Nigerian name, just to fit in. It’s absurd, I know. I’m not the first Nigerian with an English name as a first name but come on, the ones that you know have nice and easy names like David and Joshua or Sarah, they have Bible names, not peculiar names that you don’t hear everyday.

I grew up feeling an English first name was the way to go, it set you apart and it was what I would do for my own children: they would reap the benefits of having an easy to pronounce, simplistic name, to ensure their survival in the Western world. My brother and I are the only ones out of all the cousins from my mum and dad’s families to have English first names, isn’t that saying something?

With all this being said, it still doesn’t ensure a smooth ride. I was in Starbucks with my friend after our exam yesterday, ordering Frappucinos and standard, the barista asked “You want cream?” “Yes.” “Your name?” “Georgina.” She paused and glanced at me, as if I was actually fucking with her. I proceeded to spell it, “G-E-O” and she put her hand up, motioning for me to stop and she says “G is enough.” Like, bish what?

I can’t help but feel a slight pang of betrayal towards the motherland when I really think about what my name is. I feel like I’m letting my peers down, like I’m taking the easy way out by having an easier to understand name whilst they have vowel-rich, syllable-overloaded, beautiful, lyrical names with the most wonderful meanings whilst I’m just the farmer. It doesn’t make me want to start using my second name on a first-name basis because, well, better the devil you know. It just makes me think. And no, I don’t know what names my future children will bear, I haven’t decided which burden I will bestow upon them yet.

Song of the Week

#ThrowallthewaybackTuesdayTune

Don’t miss me too much,

Georgina ❤

Writing Everything Down

Hello everyone, hope you all had a restful and meaningful Easter.

I always say writing is therapeutic because it’s never let me down. There is only so much you can vocalize to another human being and besides that, their emotions will get in the way of whatever is it you’re trying to convey. They will judge, they will give their two cents, they will have a response that 9 times out of 10 won’t be what you want to hear or what you even asked for. That’s why writing is so needed: it’s just me and a blank canvas that won’t betray me or rebut anything I say, it will retain my words, hold them for me, display them back to me, speaking louder and wiser than anything else.

I say this because I keep a diary. I’ve always dabbled for as long as I can remember but it wasn’t until I was carted off to boarding school around 8 years ago that I took journal-keeping seriously, almost religiously. Again, my diary wouldn’t betray me. I could write about anything, about anyone and that would be it. To today, I still write in a diary, a little less frequently as before but this blog serves as another diary for me nowadays.

I’m always typing little things whenever they hit me, for posterity’s sake. Memory fails but once it’s been stored somewhere, that is it, it’s final. I was going through my laptop aimlessly, nostalgically and I found this document titled “Time” and you know what it was? I had written down my entire experience with my ex. Everything, from our first date, to our arguments, to what the sex was like, to when he broke my heart, every little thing. Everything that I could remember, I had written it down. Call me crazy, call me overly-attached, call me whatever. I am an investor: I invest my time, my feelings, my entire being into things or people that I love. Being in love with him was brand new, we experienced a lot of firsts together. I had never felt how I felt with him with anyone before and I know that at the time I wrote all of it down, I felt I would never achieve that feeling with anyone else. I read it over and I could feel the hurt through the screen, it was that tangible. I just had to share some of it, simply because it was like a gift from past me to now me: a me who is forever wanting and will, one day, be rewarded and I felt like that little narration of my first love was something that would benefit future me, one day. It could serve as a reminder of what was and what will never be, to keep me going and keep me hoping and to remind me that the love I have (hopefully) is all the more worth fighting for just so I won’t have to write something like this ever again.

“Unhappiness is a gulf. It is that patch of thin ice that you inevitably walk over during winter. It is clenched teeth during dreams that end as nightmares, sleepless nights that can only be ended by crying yourself to sleep. It is being unable to look at yourself in a mirror for months. It is not having the self-love or even self-belief that your picture is worth being taken. It is looking sullenly out a window or at nothing in particular while in deep thought wondering where the hell you went so horribly wrong. I was consumed with sorrow because I believed I just wasn’t good enough. I don’t want to say I was depressed but I didn’t smile with my eyes for almost 2 months. I watched the video tape of Christmas that year and I didn’t smile wholeheartedly once. Love is unrelenting in every aspect: when you’re in it, you are in it. There’s no side-stepping it or half-hugging it. When it breaks you, it doesn’t just break you – it destroys you, it disintegrates you. It ruins you from the inside, crumbling down everything you’d been so careful to not become so dependent on … I don’t appreciate people saying “he’s just a boy, get over it” because it’s not just the boy, it’s what he brings about. I won’t be able to understand why God made it so that one person has the capacity to complete us but we still meet those who are almost the exact match to our missing jigsaw piece, even let them test their compatibility, let them wedge themselves into that space even though it is not a perfect match, but it is decent so we settle. But decent isn’t perfect, it isn’t good enough, so we are left exposed. We go through a lot in the name of love because it provides feelings and sensations like no other has ever been able to recreate. I know why girls take so much shit from their lovers. It’s very easy to say “if I were her, I’d leave”, hey, I say it all the time but anyone who reads this will say the exact same thing and wonder why I didn’t just get out intact but how could I? Love is everything yet life would be so much easier without it.”

Song of the Week

She needs to bless me with another album, pretty please.

Until next week…

Georgina ❤