TeeWai

So I got this idea off a piece I read, I thought it may just be therapeutic. So it got me thinking, if I had a chance to sit before the girl I was, what will I tell her? So I decided to write her this letter... Dear Oluwatoyin, I have many things to tell you. For starters, I am known as TeeWai this days, I bet you didn’t see that one coming. I hope you think it’s cute? Recently, on my bbm (that is a telephone device that connects me to all my valued friends), I asked if they felt you will be proud of the woman I have become, I got a lot of feedback from loved ones. Many people actually affirmed that you will be and they reminded me many reasons why. So I will gist you about a few. Let me first say that half the things you feared never happened. Plus, the society has changed, most things you held dear are now termed 'old school' . Your best dress is laughable this days or at best referred to as 'vintage' . So, back to your fears... you know how you hate ...

There used to be a time when I will get into frantic arguments choosing to see the light at the end of the tunnel, other times I sought and created justification for the mindless corruption that we wallow in. Other times I cry, in my heart at least and pray for change as farfetched as it appears. I have gone past weeping; because I have my realities staring me in the face after I wipe the tears. The pain is not new, it’s just all too familiar and never goes away, that used to unnerve me; these days I am just numb. I read the headlines and ignore the content because it is yet another celebration of corruption or an open show of man’s inhumanity to man. How can optimal electricity, education, health, mean so little and mindless feuds and ambition for more power in the midst of power for a time that you are yet to ascertain you will live to see mean more? How can any one person have the power to make change and choose the cowardice of chasing shadows and running in circles over actua...

The first time I read this phrase was in Joyce Meyer's book several years back, in fact that was what drew my attention to the book. Recently, Betty Irabor's Genevieve magazine cover page brought the words back to mind as the quote from her interview reads 'the trick is to do it afraid'. It got me thinking, and interestingly my thoughts ended up in the labour room. Everything about that day felt different as I had carried my baby to term, for me I could not wait to be relieved of the weight of my huge stomach on my small frame. No book, birth stories, accounts or advices quite captured the 30 minutes in that labour room that day. Somewhere between her head and her shoulders I went blank, I drifted into my past and saw flashes of the things I had feared, my first major exams, responsibilities I had to live up to that no one had prepared me for, the feeling of lack one to many times, first job interview, first love gone wrong, my walk down the aisle, I could go on an...

So much has happened recently and I found myself in a place I have not been in a long time; short of words and almost blank. Time and time again I tried to write out my pain, but I couldn’t find the right words. Then I saw this movie “Letters to God” and then it dawned on me what I could do to feel better. So here is my open letter to my Father, the one who sees the finish from the onset. Dear Pa, It’s crazy around me, and sometimes I wonder how I don’t lose my mind. Yea that must be because of the awesome family you gave me and the way the world looks right through the eyes of my baby. So much tragedy befell my nation and lives, too many have been lost, between the sect who kill for a living, the road accident, the ill-fated plane and the innocent people whose homes were run into by the plane. I can’t stop thinking about the confusion and fear that must have gone on in the plane the last few seconds before the crash, how many were asleep in their homes and they became history in...

I can’t say for certain if she knew what was at stake, if she had taken time to think her action through. all i recall is she smiled and the smile lit up her face. She screamed so loud i could barely hear myself speak and before I could say another word to shut her up or calm her down. She did it, taken aback and a little scared i ran as fast as i could just so I could get a hold of her arms. Could not help noticing the smile did not leave her face, I was shaken up, a little sore in my feet, quite unlike my cute one year old. She was beaming with the spark of victory in her eyes. She had taken a leap from the high bed into mummy's arms and she was oblivious of the fact that mummy nearly missed catching her. But her faith in me was blind to reason, she’s a one year old, what do you expect? Managing to smile back; even though still shaken by the fear that went through my mind. Could not stop wondering in my heart, "what if I had missed her? It got me thinking, my master knew...

Sometimes i find myself staring at an open page for hours, joggling the words in my head and dreading the critical eyes and minds of my readers. So i take my eyes off the page and go about the day's activities, silencing the words as the play out in my head. At the close of the day, i realise i cant fool myself. For I had carried my blank page in my head all day long. So i find that no matter how far from it i go, i keep coming back to my open page. Feels like i was born to do this. So i write, the fears not withstanding. Like an addict, I just can't stay away.

For years I had watched my mum do it. You may be wondering what 'it' is, yea she always took off the hot pot of soup with her bare hands. As a child at the time i thought it was heroic. Whenever i saw anyone use a cloth to bring down the pot of soup, i will ridicule them in my mind. Finally the day came that it was my turn. I could not wait to be like mum, so when i was offered a cloth to help protect my tiny hands from the heat of the steel pot i declined. With enthusiasm, I reached for the handle of the pot and my eyes turned red as the heat from it ran to my head. oh how it hurt me! i quickly opted for the cloth and from that time on stuck with the cloth. One day, mum left the soup in my care and i got carried away with other things, as I approached the kitchen I realized the soup had over cooked and was pouring into the fire. In my confusion I rushed for the pot and turned off the fire. it took a while for me to realize I had just dropped the pot with my bare hands and it d...