There always comes a phase in the life of every individual when that individual's emotions and thoughts and body and what-have-you turn cartwheels and reaches the brink of insanity, or more succinctly put, gets messed up.
You tend to realize that you yearn for many diverse things, particularly if you're a female. Sometimes being a female seems like such a curse that one wishes that one had a Y chromosome.
On one hand, you find that you begin to develop funny feelings and funnier thoughts. You are so impossible to please. You realize that you yearn for some certain things you never yearned for before. To be crystal, you realize that being just you is not enough. You want to look like that girl who is always color-coded. And oh, you want that creme guy with the perfect diction who also happens to be your lab partner to finally notice all the signals you keep sending out. Guys are so clueless. They always read messed-up signals. You like one, he asks you out, you front a bit,, but he thinks you mean no, and that's the end of that. No more thoughts in that direction. You don't like one, he asks you out, you say no (and mean it), but he keeps coming back because he thinks you're playing hard to get. Crazy, innit?
Females, on the other hand, are really hard to understand. She doesn't like a guy, he asks her out, she says no. If he pesters her, she doesn't like it. If he forgets about her, she doesn't like it either. So hard to please.
But all of this is just on one hand.
On the other hand, you realize that you begin to yearn to have a closer relationship with God. I can identify with this one. You go to church, fellowship, etc... and see other people in the spirit, people who are prayer warriors, people who can speak in tongues with minimal effort. Quite painful, I assure you, when you realize that you find it hard to even concentrate on thanking God. One wonders if it's just that one wasn't cut out to worship God, but then, that's blasphemous wondering. So, one goes on to wonder if everyone else is faking, but that's kinda ridiculous, as well.
Then there's the parental factor. Your parents are beginning to annoy you a lot. Daddy- go getter, always came first, never did wrong, could sing, dance, run, balance a carrot on his nose, memorized the log and sine tables at the tender age of six, the list is endless. It's no wonder you inherit nothing from him, because most of his accomplishments are merely fictitious. He continuously laments on how none of you, even among the boys take after him. He wonders who you resemble. Astonishingly, he also dotes on you, and amidst much mumbling and grumbling, gives you virtually everything you ask for. When it's time to play, it's a competition for the biggest baby. He's fun, outgoing, etc....To sum it up, when he's good, he's very very good, but when he's bad, he's simply horrid.
Mamman, though, id daddy's sidekick. His crony. His yes-man, or shall I say, yes-woman. She is ready to accept that you're a martian, if only daddy says so. Mamman is the equivalent of Wonder Woman, hurtling through the trees and skies in her damask gele and matching shoes and bag, rescuing the little ones. Mamman is, according to her, when she was your age, she ponded yam with one hand tied behind her back, the tied hand washing the little ones at the stream,*******(lost a page there...sorry)******* own recipe) and you are expected to find the cure for Aids. Every mother's dream. But that's drifting away from the point.
Aunt Virus, on the other hand, is the official catalyst, praise singer, and all round hypochondriac. She is usually a maiden aunt, about late fifties, and is a hot hippie with oither a tinted skin cut or dreadlocks. She has a man who has been asking her to marry him since she was 25 (she says).
Aunt Virus can finish a six-pack of Heineken in one sitting and ask for more. She is the official preserver of the family history and never allows a situation where she can let it rip pass her by. Aunt Virus always has one ailment or the other, but as you know, she is not one to complain, so she only mentions it every other minute. Aunt Virus never misses a quarrel, and with the air of pouring oil on troubled waters, manages to cause more catastrophe.
Then comes books, lectures, etc... This is leaps and bounds away from Aunt Virus, I know, but since I'm writing carte blanche, I can do whatever I want. Imagine when you're in that mood to sleep, that mood when you realize that if you do not sleep in that instant, you would collapse. No revival. And you have a two-hour lecture on capacitors (I always wondered what they have to do with anything, but you never know). Hmmm. I wonder what you'd go for. Capacitors, or sleep. My my, I can't seem to choose.
When you now make the adult decision and go to your lecture, you wish you didn't. First, you get jostled, hit and squeezed when trying to force you way into the lecture room (I think Nigerians are quite unfamiliar with the term "ladies first".) I always just stand back and go in after the ruckus, ergo my back-benching.
When you finally get cooped up inside one cubicle of a seat, you get so opressed when the "efficos" stretch their hands (in a Hooke's Law-defying maneuver) fighting to answer questions. Questions, if I might add, that you will not hear, as the lecturer is rivalling with a mouse for Lowest Tone Award.......
And so I ended so abruptly. This short attention span of mine....
I should really make a few comments:
1) I didnt realize how fond I was of the word "realize" at sixteen. It's quite ubiquitous in my work.
2) Kudos to Segun Johnson of True Love, from who I plagiarized the term "Aunt Virus"...I'm his biggest fan. Cliche, but true.
3) I realize I rambled a lot back then. Chalk it up to youthful exuberance.
I was a smart cookie, though!
