Whatever
My entire teens and early twenties were spent looking forward to one thing.
Marriage.
Not necessarily the wedding, the ring or even the man. I wanted the freedom I thought came with being married. The respect that came with the wife title.
Growing up, there was a way a girl who wanted to have a good life was expected to go: primary school, secondary school, university if you wanted to be really high value, marriage, children, and through it all, you had to be quiet, courteous, responsible, humble, obedient, empathetic, caring, giving, godly…the list goes on and on.
Ambition was not expected. Knowing about money was a sign of being fast and spoilt. Everything you did was towards that one goal. In fact, there were variations of a rhetorical question that was used to chastise, and as a wake-up call for, every girl who erred, even slightly.
“Is this how you’ll behave in your husband’s house?”
How I so dearly wanted to meet that goal, as fast as I could, because it seemed to be the only way a woman could do all the fun things and exactly what she wanted to do.
Oh, I loved mini skirts, I loved to dance, watch Music Africa on STV, I knew I wanted to try smoking, I wanted to be the life of the party, I wanted to wear trousers, but these were all things “loose girls” and men did.
You could only do them freely if your husband allowed it. Usually, a foreign or liberal husband, who might be scoffed at, but never openly criticized. I was going to find my liberal husband.
There was also the promise of forever companionship. A forever best friend, a forever gist partner, access to money and the good things of life.
As a shy loner with big dreams, I was excited about the prospects. I wanted all of it, and I worked so hard throughout my childhood, teens and early adulthood to ensure I was the prime woman, the most marriageable sweet thing.
I aimed for perfection.
Not necessarily because I was afraid of what anyone would think of me, but because I wanted to do no wrong. I didn’t want to be scolded, questioned or found wanting. I didn’t want any flaw that could hinder me from meeting that goal. I wanted to be good at everything I was supposed to be good at, make all the right decisions and become a successful woman.
Surely, if I did everything right, everything would turn out right, right?
Unfortunately for me, all I’ve known in the interpersonal pursuit of this goal is pain and more pain.
I aimed to be married at 18, right after university. I finished university right according to plan, but learnt during that period that merely having a boyfriend required pure luck and enduring a lot of bullshit, talk more of attaining marriage.
I couldn’t understand it. It seemed like you had to switch off the brain you and your parents paid so dearly to sharpen, the very brain you were expected to excel with, just to have a peaceful, successful relationship.
At 21, I started seeing women my age from other parts of the world making money, living and enjoying life without a man. Nigerian women who had moved abroad, foreign women in first-world countries. Instagram and Twitter were full of them, doing things I could only imagine doing.
I envied them so much.
Not in the way that made me think they shouldn’t have those things, but in the way that made me wonder why I couldn’t have them too. Seeing people my age living the life I wanted made me feel like I was already falling behind in a race I hadn’t even started. Shebi I went to school too?
I felt inadequate. Almost worthless, even.
Then I decided, okay, money is too important to wait on a man for. I can start making money while still searching for the man. In fact, I hoped it’d make me more valuable to whoever he turned out to be.
See, even my independence had marriage somewhere in the equation.
Just before I turned 25, something happened that changed the way I understood love, people and everything I’d been waiting for.
I hadn’t just gotten heartbroken. I had been betrayed, berated and abused, all of a sudden, by something I thought I’d get married to.
For 10 months, I was treated right for the first time in my dating history. It was worldly, liberal and sweet, everything I wanted. It looked like my dreams of wearing the littlest clothes and going clubbing while my man held me and stood watch over me were finally here.
Except it wasn’t my man.
It had said it wasn’t ready for a relationship, but it loved me. Somehow, I was manipulated into believing that love was enough reason to wait, that what we had would eventually become what I wanted it to be.
Everything felt great until it flipped the switch and I found out it was all an act in an exploitative scheme. The affection I had come to trust gave way to cruelty, betrayal and humiliation. I was left trying to make sense of how something that had made me feel so loved could suddenly treat me with such disregard.
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I can’t even say how naive of me, because there was absolutely no way I could have known.
After removing myself from that mess, something shifted in me.
Don’t let anyone lie to you. The cage isn’t just in your mind, it’s in your society too.
For years, I had followed rules that promised a reward that still seems impossible to reach. I’d tried to be good, responsible, obedient and deserving. Yet, someone could come into my life in the guise of that reward, torment and break me UNPROVOKED, and go scot-free, unscathed.
I refused to let the cynicism consume me. Instead, I let it fuel my defiance and growing disregard for people and the norms.
My thought was that if a man could commit such terrible emotional crimes and get away with it, a little short, cutout mesh dress and club nights wouldn’t hurt nobody.
I decided I couldn’t wait to have a husband before wearing the clothes I wanted and dancing all night under the stars. I had to take myself there.
It was my mid-twenties. I really couldn’t keep waiting to be someone’s wife or for a man’s permission to access the life I craved.
The thing about freedom and free will is that you spend so long waiting for someone to hand them to you, not knowing it’s already all yours, you were born with it.
You don’t even realize that this is YOUR life and YOU are the only one who can live it, you don’t realize it’s YOU who has been denying yourself.
Now at 30, I’ve still never been properly courted or asked to be someone’s girlfriend or had anyone I could confidently call my man, my partner, or whatever.
Imagine spending so much of your life preparing to be a wife and not even getting to be a girlfriend.
It’s almost funny.
Almost.
I am a late bloomer to the reality of life and relationships, and I am not letting go of my delusion. I want a reality that seems impossible to a majority of people, and that’s fine. I am going to do and get everything I want, and I am no longer waiting for a husband.
Despite living happily in my decision so far, I realize there’s something else I have been saving for him.
My thoughts.
For the longest time, I imagined having someone to tell everything to. A forever best friend, a forever gist partner. Someone I could philosophize random thoughts with, share silly, mundane opinions, debate things that probably don’t matter and talk for hours about everything and nothing.
I wanted someone who would be interested in what went on in my head, not just what I looked like, what I could offer or how well I fit into their life.
I still want that, but I’m tired of waiting for a husband to have those conversations.
I also want to be more social in my 30s. Not necessarily in the sense of knowing everybody or having a million friends, but in the sense of building connections that go beyond the usual pleasantries and shallow conversations. I want to know what people think, why they think it, what they have experienced and what they have learnt. I want to share my opinions, hear opposing ones, question what I know and maybe learn a thing or two.
I want conversations that make me think long after they have ended, and that is the main reason why you’re reading this.
I am starting a new series titled, “Let’s Talk About…”
I have no idea how frequently I will show up for this or the kind of topics I will explore, but three episodes are already in the works, and I am really passionate about them.
Let’s talk about mundane things and be mesmerized by the sheer abundance of thought, the fact that we actually live the same lives, experience similar things in different ways, and maybe even leave life clues for others.
You don’t have to agree with me. In fact, I’d love to know when you don’t. Tell me what you think, what you have experienced, what I have missed or what you see differently.
I don’t want to just put my thoughts out into the world, I want to know what happens when they meet yours.
So, whether you have a story, an opinion, a question or a completely different perspective, there’s room for it here.
Please indulge me, let’s talk about whatever.
