23 Means Freedom
I remember the first phone I had. It wasn’t really mine, of course (it was more of a house phone, and I could never claim it in public). Somehow, I managed to sneak both the phone — a small Nokia torchlight — and an earpiece into my room one Friday night and listen to the radio. In my mind, it was an act of rebellion because we didn’t listen to “secular music” at home. Feeling for all the world like an adult and a ninja, I tuned in to popular music picks until midnight. I was 13.
A couple of weeks later in school, I could finally, for once, relate to a conversation. Someone brought up one of the songs I’d latched on to that evening. I was about to seize the moment and go, ‘Hey, I’ve heard that song, I know that song, I like that song,’ but before I could speak, someone had already disregarded it. Within five minutes, the consensus was that it was a ‘mid’ song, not worthy of like, and it was summarily dismissed. I immediately shut down, never to acknowledge the song in public. Ever. Until now, anyway. The song? “23”, by Miley Cyrus.
I had several experiences like that growing up — in my childhood, through secondary school, and into early uni. Times where I either expected to be ignored or had been before, so I never spoke up. Or worse, times I’d almost convinced myself to, only to shut down at the last minute. I was a quiet, introspective child, which everybody assumed made me “mature,” as opposed to a confused kid navigating people, identity, and a host of things she shouldn’t know about yet.
This meant I resumed Unilag barely knowing who I was. I absorbed all information and opinions, parroted ideas on things I didn’t understand, and somehow absorbed them as my own. I didn’t have the steadiest identity and ended up the “devil’s advocate” and classic contrarian. I already considered myself a very weird kid anyway — silence covers a multitude of sins — so it wasn’t hard to lean into being uncommon and “not like the other girls” (I shudder even thinking about it), claiming everything that wasn’t mainstream. It wasn’t much fun to permanently be the contrarian, different one, but quirky was better than sad.
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Luckily (or unluckily, however we decide to look at it), 2020 happened. I had no phone (do we see a pattern here?), and I had too much time in my own head. After a series of ridiculously frequent mental breakdowns and… other triggers, I found myself finding myself, to some degree. I found the person I wanted to be and what she wanted. It was more an unearthing than a discovery, as she was always there; I just found a way to let her out and get to know her. We started four years ago, and we’ve grown together since — me and myself.
It’s been tough going. Even with the self-discovery and the growth, I’ve still somehow restricted myself in certain ways. Not just mentally — some of my environment isn’t very conducive to a certain personal freedom — but it’s a major roadblock. Mental restrictions include a sensitivity to criticism and how difficult it is sometimes to trust after you’ve disappointed yourself time and time again. Environmental restrictions meant that there were things I couldn’t do as a kid due to my environment. I don’t know if I can now because I don’t know how, and I haven’t fully identified my limits, but it’s requiring a bit of mental effort to let myself just try. Part of it is because I’d always gotten ‘no’s and ‘we can’t do it’s and ‘it’s not possible’s — something or other — and I internalized that. I didn’t do any of the things I wanted. It became a recurring theme where there would be things I wanted but never went for because it didn’t occur to me that I could just take them. I couldn’t take them before — in so many cases, that just wasn’t an option. And so I stopped actively wanting. I still dreamed, but not in public.
In the last year, though, I’ve realized that I can just do whatever I want. It started gradually, with dreaming again and insisting on my preferences instead of leaving things to fate, and rapidly progressed in the last couple of months. My developing life philosophy now is that the last of your dreams is on the other side of cringe. That you can really just do things. It’s honestly surprising how something so simple can change an entire life outlook; I took a risk with my IT placement in April, registered for improv classes in July (got them to defer my admission to next year too!), started chasing my dream career in August, applied for things I was in no way qualified for and got further than anybody could have expected. Today, I’m going to shoot arrows. It’s something I’ve wanted to do since Wattpad fantasy books with the female girl boss MCs, and I will get to the rest of the training montage, mark my words.
All this because I let myself consider things that would never have occurred to me to do. Because they were right there, and there was an opportunity, and it occurred to me that I could just take it. That I could apply for that thing, and I could go to that place, that I could walk up to that person, that I could just say hi, that I could make that connection, send that DM on LinkedIn, buy that thing I want, just freaking do things.
And it’s been freeing to realize that everything you want is on the other side of you taking it. Sometimes you have to ask, but most of the time you can just take it. And that is freedom, to me. That is what 23 means to me — getting to be myself. It means that if I want to, in the words of Miley Cyrus, be “in the club/ high on perp/ …tatted up/ miniskirt/ with my J’s on,” I can.
And I hope I always carry that with me.
