Author: Osemhen

Oh, Baby! My 3rd Pregnancy: Good, Hard & Worthy

Published by Osemhen

For the longest time, I debated hitting “Publish” on this post. Until now, only my closest friends had any idea about how my pregnancy progressed, and it all felt too deeply personal to share. I was only able to tell it by writing in the 2nd person. I am immensely grateful to all the women whose pregnancy stories helped me make sense of what I was going through and gave me hope that it would all be okay. And so I’m telling this story. Because there’s another mom out there frantically Googling, and if I can somehow help, then it would be my greatest privilege. When you find out you are pregnant, you let yourself feel only the slightest shock and panic. After all, you’re a veteran at this thing, right? Yes, you aren’t in the best of health to begin with. Your iron levels are low and you are borderline underweight from the stress of school. Still, this is your 3rd pregnancy. The first two were relatively smooth, you don’t expect this one to …

What If People Came With Star Ratings?

Published by Osemhen

Like on Amazon. I’d meet the mom of my son’s classmate and as we shook hands a band on her wrist would flash: 4 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. A disembodied voice would read out the reviews left by all the previous people she’d met and interacted with. For instance… Pamela⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️- Such a great friendShe’s my daughter’s godmother and has a wonderful habit of taking my kids out to play every month so I can have a weekend off. If I could give her more stars I would! @LagosTroublemaker⭐️- Can’t take a jokeShe blocked me on Twitter because I made a harmless joke about Igbo people. Poor sense of humor. Of course, each person would be oblivious of her own rating. I wouldn’t know what my rating was, and neither would you. I don’t know how possible that would be, but since we’re here imagining things, we might as well continue with the fantasy. You do agree that the reviews would make our interactions easier and help us identify (and avoid!) unpleasant people. When you walked into a room, …

How About Some New Books?

Published by Osemhen

If you’ve been meaning to cop great books at a giveaway price, here’s your chance. I’m donating dozens of books to a book drive for a good cause. It’s a strange feeling giving away my books. My heart is beating really fast in an anxious way. Lol. I’ve never done this before. But I volunteer with this awesome center and we’re raising money to support the good works being done. We thought it would be a good idea to have a book fair where we sell books in really good condition for way less than they actually cost. And I’ve got a nudging in my spirit saying, “It’s time.” (Possibly inspired by rearranging my bookshelves). So if you want to get really great, fairly used books at less than N1,000 each, you should totally come hang out. Venue: Afara Leadership Center, 25 Thorburn Avenue, Yaba.Date: November 2nd, 2019Time: 12 noon – 4pm Please come (with a friend!) and please spread the word. Great books. Low Price. For A Good Cause. (Or just share the flyer …

A Few Things You’ve Lived Long Enough To Know

Published by Osemhen

If you have to choose between three pairs of shoes of okay quality, and one pair of higher quality, pick the latter. There are few things worse than cheap shoes that fit badly. You don’t need anyone’s permission to do or not do anything. You don’t need other people’s experiences to validate your own. Self care is hard. It is not always self-indulgence. It is not always splurging on spa treats. Self-care is often about trading immediate gratification for future well-being. It’s investing your money. It’s putting your phone down (is there anything more ephemeral than the latest Twitter scandal?). It’s getting your 10,000 steps per day and drinking water and sleeping well. “Give people the same energy they give you.” Nope. “Treat others as you’d like them to treat you.” Yup. Sunscreen is underrated, especially in Nigeria. Sometimes, the most loving thing you can do for the people you love, is let them make grave mistakes. Beware groupthink even when the motives seem sincere. Anti-fragility is a concept worth exploring, especially when it comes …

I Arranged My Bookshelves

Published by Osemhen

According to topic. Because I tried to do that Instagram thing of arranging according to colour, and it was an epic fail. I mean, it looked pretty. But it was perfectly useless. To find a book, I had to remember if it was a yellow book, or a red book and my books ended up with Jodi Picoult sitting next to Jordan Peterson. It did not make any sense. Another reminder that sometimes, social media trends don’t mean much in real life. This time, my shelves are arranged according to themes. Career. Fiction. Childcare. Interesting Non-Fiction. Husband’s mish-mash of books (because his taste is eclectic). The boys, bless their little souls, have one section of the shelf for their 5 Books of The Week. (No, I’m not a mean mom, but I simply cannot have dozens of children books in my living room. So they’re only allowed to keep 5 in the living room). I have boxes of books to give out. The first idea I had was to exchange them for vouchers at coffee …

On Ghosts From The Past.

Published by Osemhen

What do you do when ghosts from your past darken your threshold? It’s the call from an ex that you don’t expect. First, incredulity. Then recovery. A stab at politeness, at small talk while all the time thinking, “What the bloody hell? How did you get this number?!” It’s the social media message from an old friend. Mutually probing. Tentative. Wondering. “Are you the same person I knew all those years ago? Has adulthood drowned the kindred spirit I once knew?” It’s chance encounters with people who you knew before. Before. And again the small talk. But not before awareness passes between you and you know, you recognise in them the missing of what was. It’s old diaries, pages musty with age, in longhand script that you no longer use because we type everything these days (gosh, I still love, love, love writing longhand!). It’s gibberish that, at the time, was everything and this time is nothing. What do you do when something calls an old name that you no longer answer to? Sometimes, you answer. It …

A Song For Every Season

Published by Osemhen

I don’t remember what sparked the thought. Maybe it was a random tweet that showed a clip of Gorillaz’ “Feel Good”. Or it was my Apple Music subscription renewal notice. Or the despair at checking Google Maps and seeing, yet again, an 18 minute’ drive to my sons’ school, when it should’ve been five. Whatever it was, I found myself fiddling with my phone. Searching for a playlist I knew must exist, the playlist of all the rock/pop songs of the 2000s. The songs of my university days. Isn’t it wonderful how the sound of one song can take you back to a specific moment? For instance there’s Vanessa Carlton’s “A Thousand Miles”, which takes me straight back to 2004, my first year of Diploma in Unilag when we all still texted like this, “Y r u nt n class? Shld I sign 4 u?” *shudder* 2nd year was Ciara’s! Wande Coal’s Bumper to Bumper was the anthem of my final year. Every single party played this song. I cannot hear this song without …

This Is How I Turn 30.

Published by Osemhen

The journey to 30 starts weeks, months before September 15th. There is brooding involved, as expected. I brood with books for company. Too many to count here. But there is “Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine”, and “Love Lives Here”, and a book on peak performance whose name I don’t remember (and am too lazy to google right now). This book convinces me to take the plunge and delete my social media accounts. I start with Facebook. Then Twitter. Then Instagram. 11 years of memories and identity carefully archived, and then summarily removed from the Internet. It doesn’t bring the catharsis I hope. But it is a good first step. An old friend reaches out on Google Chat (who uses that?!) to ask how my writing is doing. I tell him what seems like the truth. That it’s dead for now. But even I don’t believe it. **** In 2017, I followed a colleague from work who volunteers with St Vincent De Paul to the Island Maternity Hospital. She was going to check on a young …

To The Acquaintance I Met Who Still Refuses To Say Hi

Published by Osemhen

Dear Acquaintance, We’ve met. You know we’ve met. I know you know we’ve met. You know I know you know we’ve met. We met when your brother introduced us after mass many months ago. Or we met when our toddlers both reached for the same toy at that group play date thing we go to every other month. Or we met way back when our parents used to attend the same rotary club meetings and we stood behind them, silent teenagers, as they discussed random things. We sha met. But Acquaintance, you seem to have forgotten we’ve met. Last month, I caught sight of you as I hurried towards church. I looked at you, ready to smile and say Hi, but you stared past me stonily. It would be embarrassing if it wasn’t so frightening. You frighten me. Your indifference reminds me of mean girls in secondary school and I thought we left such antics in 2003. Have I offended you in the past? Do you regret us meeting? Would you rather I pretended that …

Does Your Wife Have Natural Hair?

Published by Osemhen

Congratulations! You have either convinced a naturalista to become your wife Or your wife has decided to stop putting relaxers in her hair. Either way, you have become a member of a club few know exist until they join it. Welcome to the Husbands of Natural Haired Wives Association (HNHWA, pronounced huhn-wah). You will meet your fellow HNHWs at the natural hair meet-ups your wife might on occasion drag convince you to attend. You will also meet them in church when the wives step aside to discuss twist-outs and salon recommendations. And maybe, one day, you’ll meet a fellow HNHW in the hair product aisle of your neighbourhood supermarket. You will recognize his bemusement at the difference between Cantu Shea Butter and Shea Moisture. You will recommend he buy both to avoid “trouble in his marriage”. Here are a few other helpful tips you should know. No, your wife is not haemorrhaging from a huge gash on her scalp. That red/brown stain on your pillow case/white tee-shirt/car head-rest is henna that has bled off her hair. It …