All posts filed under: Love. Life.

Lessons on Loving, Lessons in Living.

How It Feels To Turn 25

Published by Osemhen

I turned 25 on Sunday. It’s the silver age, I hear. Of quarter-life crises and self doubt/realization.  It’s the knowledge that I am older than my mother was when she had me. It’s the power that comes with approving of the choices I’ve made thus far. I have no regrets. I have been incredibly stupid, and shied away from looking myself in the mirror. I have been surprisingly clever and written well-worded letters of commendation to myself in my diary. I have been deliriously happy and in love with the world. I have plumbed previously unknown depths of grief and prayed to die. And yet, right now, I have no regrets. Through it all, I have written. In diaries, in notebooks scattered somewhere in my room, on this blog and on others’. And so it’s only fitting that I write on this occasion of turning 25. But what to say? I could reiterate everything I wrote when I turned 23, and it would all still be true. As would the words I wrote to 10 …

The Contentment Challenge

Published by Osemhen

The best part of being an adult is earning proper money. You can’t convince me otherwise; when I compare my childhood to my adulthood, the key difference is that I can now buy myself a tin of Danish cookies as often as I like 🙂 And I can now buy myself a host of other things. Stuck as I am in this limbo where I earn money but don’t have corresponding responsibilities (no family yet), it’s an incredibly liberating feeling. I can literally buy myself anything I want. If it’s expensive, I just need to save up and it’s mine. Awesome. And unnerving. I consider myself a rational person, not given to frivolous purchases or impulse shopping. When I was younger, I learnt the importance of buying things on an as-needed basis. New books? Because I needed them for school. Handbag? Because I needed to carry my stuff around. New sweater? The old one had holes in it. Having a small allowance made this prioritization a must. But I’ve noticed things have changed. About a …

Vacation Chronicles: The Summary

Published by Osemhen

I unpacked yesterday. Finally. A whole week after I returned. I unpacked my clothes, and my shoes. My trinkets and my creams. I unpacked memories. Early sunrises, late sunsets. Cold. Sushi. Solitude. Privacy. I unpacked. It felt weird going on a vacation alone, at first. A guy at Madame Tussaud’s asked me, “Haven’t you got any friends?” I gave him the easy answer, “No.” I didn’t tell him I had spent the previous week with some of my friends, including my best friend. I didn’t tell him that at the end of my sight-seeing, I would return home to the house in Camden where my cousins and grandparents were. No, I have no friends, I’m an alien in London and my time is my own. It was a very, very good feeling. I got lost many times. Thank God for Google Maps. I sprained my ankles, and had to wear Ace bandages on both before I could walk. I ate ravioli and hated it. I ate sushi and loved it. It was a spiritual retreat. …

Osemhen's Vacation Chronicles: Day 1

Published by Osemhen

Hey! So I’m finally on vacation. It’s many firsts. My first vacation by myself, no family or anything. My first trip to Europe. My first trip to the UK. Honestly, I wasn’t excited about it till about an hour ago. I didn’t plan to vacation alone, for starters. But I’d already booked my ticket when I discovered I’d be going alone. Oh well. The trip was boring and sleep-filled. I arrived Manchester about 9 am and reported at the hotel I’d booked still sleepy. To my chagrin, the receptionist announced I couldn’t check-in till 2pm. Plenty English has been spoken but nothing for me. So I dropped my luggage with her and I’ve gone sight-seeing. As I type, I’m in Gatley. It’s cold (12 degrees C) but not half as bad as I imagined (n.b. I’m wearing 5 layers of clothing and I’m indoors :)) In my short walk, I’ve counted half a dozen barber shops. Hair cutting must be lucrative. I can’t find any bookshops yet, though. I’ve bought 2 coffees just so I …

2 Last Things and A Happy New Year

Published by Osemhen

It’s been a tumultuous year. In a good way and in a bad way. Good in the sense that I was always busy, meaning that I was never bored. Bad in the sense that I rode many emotional highs and lows, and I was often too busy to blog. But I’m here now at 19.52. Typing this on my phone, hoping it looks just as good on a PC. I want to talk about two things. First is what I call the “obligation of good manners” to one’s family. I was sounding off with one of my friends the other day and he said something along the lines of “If I can’t be comfortable and be myself at home with my family, then where can I be?” It was a pertinent question. Home is where we relax, we chill, we let our hair down. It’s where we’re accepted for who we are. But too many times, it’s where many of us display behavior we wouldn’t be caught in in public. We’re brought up to not …

On Missing Lagos

Published by Osemhen

You were born, bred and “buttered” in Lagos. It wasn’t that your parents consciously made the effort. Secondary school was incidental; the schools you applied to outside Lagos didn’t want you. Ditto, university. By the time NYSC rolled around, you weren’t interested in seeing the rest of the country. Lagos was home, and you couldn’t imagine leaving it for the hinterlands. You eventually left, though. Work made you. You figured at the time that it wasn’t a big deal; Lagos is an hour away by air. The new climate is wetter, but pretty much the same. The houses are the same, the people as well. The difference in accents is only there if one looks for it. You had friends, relatives who had been transplanted as well but they didn’t seem the worse for wear. You’ll be fine, they said, it’ll be fine. No one told you about the yen. You didn’t know you would be so sensitive, that you would miss the intangible; sleeping in your old bed, knowing your way around town, familiarity, belonging. …

How To Survive a Lumpectomy (32 Easy Steps)

Published by Osemhen

Don’t flinch when the doctor asks to examine you. Act like it’s the most natural thing in the world, like you regularly take off your top and bra for anyone who asks you. When he recommends a lumpectomy, shrug and say ‘Cool’. Because you are. Cool. You’re not a sissy, you do not shy away from pain or discomfort. Do not read Chioma’s article on the same subject. It will frighten you. Listen politely to your aunt who advocates that you pray away the lump instead of surgery. Pick a local anaesthesia over a general. Sometimes, people don’t wake up from the latter. Ask the doctor if you can take your iPod with you into the theatre, seeing as you’ll be awake. You might get bored. When he says yes, go home and prepare a surgery playlist. Tell your best friend you’re having a lumpectomy. Prepare to explain to her ignorant ass what a lumpectomy is. Tell other friends. Prepare  to answer questions like, “You let a doctor feel you up? Did you like it? …

23 Things.

Published by Osemhen

YAY! IT’S MY BIRTHDAY!!! And it’s also Chimamanda’s, so I’m putting up a picture I took with her. I’d like to share 23 lessons I’ve learned over the years. Yes, yes. This is me feeling like a world-wise philosopher. And maybe none of this means a thing, maybe I’ve just been lucky and these… lessons, picked from the books I’ve read, movies I’ve seen, music I’ve heard and conversations I’ve had, are incidental. Whatever. *It’s my birthday and I’ll spout if I want to* Put God first. It’s hard to go wrong when you’re in sync with Him. The importance of a relationship with God deserves a blog post all by itself, I can’t do it justice in a few lines. Suffice it to say that when I put God first, my life becomes absurdly simple. When I do things my way, it ends up complicated and difficult. Drink milk. How else will you fulfil your RDA of potassium, vitamin D, calcium etc.? Be content. Be happy. When I was much younger, I used to …

For Tobi Ogunniyi. RIP

Published by Osemhen

It was a random tweet. My eyes skipped over it the first time. Returned to it a second time. Then it sunk. I made one phone call. It was true. It is true. And even though my eyes blur with furious tears, even though everything in me screams one big NO! It doesn’t change it. Tobi Ogunniyi is dead. And this doesn’t make any difference, but it is my tribute to a boy who was many things to many people. We went to the same primary school but I didn’t recognize him when we met in university. He was cool, boy he was cool. He could arch an eyebrow like a rock star and he had the sort of looks you’d associate with one too. Light skin, sculpted features. Tobi, teach me to arch my eyebrow, now. You either have it or you don’t, sweetheart. Tobi, with ready accomplices in Tarela and Kenzo, introduced me to the beauty of contemporary rock. He would play me song after song on his Discman for hours, right there …

My Definition of Success

Published by Osemhen

I’ve started, and discarded many posts over the last week. Laziness, ennui, hormones, sleeplessness, blasted writers’ block (thank God for whoever coined this term) took over and had me all sorts of cranky. This week, however, sanity prevails. Maybe it’s the prospect of Lent (starts tomorrow for Catholics). Maybe it’s the realization that the end of March marks the end of the first quarter of 2011 and my resolutions are on a downward slope. Need to tighten that belt, let’s go. One of the things I wanted to blog about was the definition of success. I’ve always balked at the automatic association some people make between success and wealth: to be successful is to be rich and if you’re not rich, or if you’re poor, then you’re unsuccessful. I can’t quite put my finger on what exactly doesn’t ring true about this definition. Maybe it’s the fact that it makes success too mercenary. I mean, if I’m a thieving senator, am I successful? (Don’t tell me I’m a successful thief!) If I inherit a billion …