1st Post of 2017

It’s a new year. I’ve set my goals for the year and I’m feeling invigorated about actually hitting my goals. The goals I set for myself this year range from spiritual, mental/Physical health, commercial to purposeful and relationship goals and up until I shared it with my closely knitted niche (whom I will call the Great 3) I didn’t realise that there was nothing about work on my goals.

In one of my regular conversations with myself I casually told me that – “I have created a work plan which is separate from my goals and besides, the goals are about who I am and the work plan is about what I do.” and this was enough at the time. Time being 01/01/2017

Fast forward to 03/01/2017. It’s 5 am and someone is blowing up my phone. I refuse to pick until I get it that the person on the other end is equally as mulish as I am. I pick up and the first thing I hear is “Gen don spoil” Of course I recognise the voice. It’s Thomas, the Handyman at the office. And my year officially starts…

Between getting ready for work and calling various Generator fixers and literally begging them to come early to my office on the 3rd of January when most people were still “holidaying” I started asking myself why exactly there was nothing about work on my 2017 goals. I usually look forward to work but this year was different. I didn’t even change my hair style as I didn’t want to waste 3-5 hours of my precious holiday at the salon. Am I burnt out? Is it because I had just one week to rest? Am I tired of my work? Which part? Do I want out?

I’m taking my time with these questions because I feel that in savouring them, I will figure out the plan for 2018 and maybe 2019. Who knows, maybe something big is about to happen to me. Whatever the case, I’m dealing with these questions and any other that arises gently and slowly until I figure out a roadmap that works.

By the way, I’m a Scrum Master/HR & Admin Manager/ Executive assistant by day. After 5 pm I’m a whole bunch of other contradictions- SAP Consultant, Growth Hacking Enthusiast, Lover, People helper, Skincare addict and Mentor. Yea I’m one of those Multipotentialites. *Shrugs*

Fierce and prickly, I’m a bit difficult to know and understand especially with my eccentric but perfectly sane opinions and principles. I write when I feel like, I love whom I want to, and I generally just want to be a better version of me…

P.S: So what did I actually learn on my first day back at work? That I can’t fix everything. That I can be cool with not being able to fix everything. That I can be tolerant of people who feel I should be able to fix everything.

Before the girls came back…

A girl went in, a mother came out

Forced to grow old.

Wisdom came early

And brutally.

Knowing when to be quiet and unassuming

Hoping the hungry leer would skim past her

Knowing to brace herself if it fell on her

And didn’t move on.

 

Forced to open parts of her.

Parts she didn’t know could open

To murderers in their numbers, and losing count

when trying to achieve numbness.

 

Choosing death wasn’t cowardice, it was hope

 

Feeling life growing within her.

Resenting her fertility.

Wondering whose eyes would stare back at her.

Would it be the rodent eyes or the beady pig eyes,

Or the soulless unseeing stare?

 

Death wasn’t cowardice. It was the only way out.

6 Packs

I get home.

I strip off the man-made bindings and walk around wearing the clothes God gave me.

I look down and wonder if this kangaroo pouch of mine will ever tone up into the lines and form I covet.

Six packs they call it.

I marvel at the width of the waist and hips.

The former the size of a big man’s hands from forefinger to stretched thumb and the latter as wide as his shoulders.

I exaggerate…

I find that I’m comfortable in my own skin.

There are flaws. Quite a few actually.

but I’ve come to love them

And wear them like honour badges.

P.S: What have I learnt? That I am beautiful 6 packs or not. 

My type

I read about Sarah Kay for the first time on my friends blog  and the piece was The type. It resonated and triggered a response. For a while, I debated with myself on whether to leave it in my draft or post it…

Here goes My type!  Inspired by Sarah Kay’s The type

I’ve always been the type of woman men want to look at,

So I didn’t let them look

I mistook their eyes for hands

So I covered up in loose clothes and a boyish style.

I didn’t know to let them see what a woman looked like.

I didn’t realize that they may not have seen one before.

 

I’ve always been the type of woman men want to touch,

But I refused their touch

I didn’t think it was me they were really reaching for

Maybe a bottle, a meal or another woman.

I just didn’t think they could see ‘me’

So before their hands could find me, I made them my brothers.

And became guardian, muse, friend and mentor.

 

As a woman with skin and bones, veins and nerves, hair and sweat

I wasn’t made out of metaphors, excuses or apologies

But I have grown to be a woman men want to hold

Now I know to let them hold me,

Knowing that only a few will want to learn what it feels like to curl themselves into a question mark around me

And admit that they do not have the answers they thought they would by now.

 

Some men want to hold me- They think I’m the answer

I’m not the answer and I’m not the question.

I am not the prayer either

Nor the joke or punch-line.

Sometimes I want to nibble so I take the role of a snack

But I am definitely not the victim

 

I don’t know if I’m the type men want to love,

But I will let them love me

And I will love them in return

Knowing that I have limbs

And I can walk the rope when the crowds have all gone home.

 

I’m not going to waste my time wondering if I am the type of woman men will hurt,

If he leaves me with a fast beating heart, I will learn to dance to the beat.

I will forgive myself for my decisions If I need to

Because I know that I am the type of woman who is searching for a place to call
mine.

 

The walls can come down

The pots can shatter

I am the place and the sun

I can build it

I will build it.

 

My truth

I keep coming back and you keep letting me.
Sometimes I’m so stuck on you. That I can’t eat or sleep.
Usually when I really need something from you.
But then, I drift slowly away after getting it.
And you watch me and let me drift.
Painfully I imagine,
Wondering why your love doesn’t seem to be enough for me
But knowing that I will come back.
You don’t know when but you trust that as self-sufficient as I am
I will return to you.
Cos your love is the only real love there is and you know that I will realize it.
Hopefully not when next I need something from you.

You said to me “Before you were born, I knew you and I loved you. I will always love you.”

I hear you Lord!
I love you too
The thrill of life is seductive and
Sometimes I get ahead of myself.
I take your love and sacrifice for granted.
I’m deeply sorry Lord.
You who has always been there with open arms, always ready to forgive and take me back. 
You who listens to me any and every time.
When I vent, when I hurt, when I muse, when I worry, when I’m happy.
Even when I complain ungratefully, it’s always been you.
And I know I don’t do enough to show you how much your love means to me.
But I love you Lord and I acknowledge you as my Lord and Savior.
You are my truth and my one true love.
Forever and a day more…

#1 Letter to the Wordsmith of the North,

Dear U,

I’m writing you this letter because you asked me to write you a letter. I’m not exactly sure of your expectations but here goes.

I find it interesting that you find me interesting. You with your seemingly innocent voice and charm, seeing beauty and love in dark places, freezing memories in time and sometimes rewriting them to suit your wildly vivid imagination.

You asked if I had a crush on you. My answer was No. You thought I was playing at being coy. The truth is that my answer is No. I don’t have a crush on you. (And it’s not because I don’t remember how a crush is supposed to feel)

I have gotten to know you, so I know there’s more to your boyish laughter and charm. I know that you genuinely love God and I suspect He even has a pet name for you. I know that beneath your childish eagerness to see the world and make beautiful memories is a deep need to imprint the world with your legacy. I know that underneath all that sing-song, easy going charm is a calculated and fastidious Man who knows exactly what he wants out of life. (Most times)

I admire your gifts – That raw ability to freeze memories at exactly the right time and put words to the most complicated of human emotions in a way that provokes the understanding of the simplest person.

I am neither coy nor fluid. I don’t know why we met. I do know however that there is something big in front of you. I also know that soon, I will understand why we met. Meanwhile, I’m glad I met you.

Yours Truly,

Chinwendu

P.S feel free to use me as your muse.

Embracing our truth

At a movie I went to see yesterday evening, the phrase ” Naked and not ashamed ” jumped out to me. Almost 24 hours later, another phrase poked me. This time around from Mary Jane. “Stop being liars and embrace the truth no matter how ugly it is“.

Somehow my mind found a connection between the two phrases.

A lot of us feel that our loved ones should love us because of the part of us that is good, clean, sweet and beautiful.

A lot of us expect our loved ones to be tidy, good and all things nice. 

Because of this feeling, we try to hide anything about us that isn’t good or socially acceptable. And we’ve become quite good at it.

Being the humans that we are, we can’t hide for too long and soon enough those parts of us that aren’t sweet or beautiful start to peep out from the edges of our neatly arranged facade until we can’t control it anymore and then our not so good traits forces its ugly head out and roars proudly in indignation at being kept hidden.

If you are a smooth individual, you’d try to balance out the ugliness with the sweetness, if you are not so savvy, the ugliness reigns supreme and gradually bullies the sweetness into silence or non existence.

It is usually at this stage that a loved one would say “she wasn’t like this when I met her. She has changed. I don’t know her anymore”.

We are humans and that means that inherently we are dirty, ugly, mean, selfish, greedy and a host of other vices. We are also beautiful, good, kind, selfless and wonderfully designed in all our diversity.

What if we learn to embrace the truth about ourselves? The good, the bad, the ugly and the beautiful? Would embracing our ugly truths help us learn to be naked and not ashamed before another human?

Will we then be able to love another human without judgment, seeing as we are well aware of our own ugliness.

What if we stopped lying about who we are and accept what we are?

Maybe we would find peace and beauty and some measure of control over the roar of our own ugliness.

What would happen if we trusted our loved ones with our nakedness- the truth of our real nature? Would they still love us?

To be naked and not ashamed is not for the faint of heart. And to see another human’s nakedness in all its ugliness and still love that person is the mark of a true warrior.

To those who stuck around after I knowingly or unknowingly ditched my facade and exposed the ugliness of my nature, I say thank you. You guys are the real deal. God bless you for me.

It is what it is

They think you are ungrateful when you want more.They don’t know or understand that you are just searching and hoping to find yourself.Trying in vain to touch the core of your soul and not quite reaching it.

You make mistakes and they laugh. They don’t know that those mistakes are your wisdom tools to survive in this cold world.

They think you have something to prove to them so they compete with you. They don’t know about your ‘real’ competitors- your mind and soul. You only try to be better than you.

They think you’re smart. They don’t know you know you don’t know.

They think you’re full of yourself. They don’t know the struggle that birthed that strength.

They think you know where you are going. They have no idea that it makes sense to you only when you look back.

They think you don’t know what you want. Well sometimes you don’t. But will recognize it immediately you find it.

They think you can’t stay faithful. They have never loved you so they will never know.

They think they understand you. They have absolutely no idea.

They think they love you. They just love how you make them feel.

They think you’re intense. You haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of life’s mysteries.

Till the end of my days, May I keep on growing up, never completely filling my cup.

#10ThingsIWishI’dUnderstoodEarlier

It’s been ages since I posted anything and a reminder from friends like Tosan prompted this post.

The last 8 months has yielded some rather interesting realizations about myself and life in general.  I’ve put together a list of things I wish I’d understood much earlier…

Here goes,

Falling in love is very different from truly loving a whole human being.

Death is a form of birth.

Dancing isn’t for fools.

Suffering isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Happily ever after is a myth. The truth is actually about choice and discipline- choosing to be happy and understanding that pain and suffering is as much a part of life as joy and pleasure and both should be “enjoyed”.

Art is life and life is art.

The love of self is the flipside of loving others.

Fear is not a bad thing as long as you’re the one using it and not the other way round.

A broken heart feels the same no matter the age.

Our purpose in life is to understand why we were created and act accordingly. Everybody has a role to play and it all adds up.

Letter to my 30 year old self

While looking through some files on my flash, i stumbled across this letter i wrote to myself early last year. I thought i’d share…

Dear 30 year old Chinwe,

How are you? How does it feel to be 30?

Well I’m writing this letter to you from the past and I’m hoping that a good number of the dreams I have today being the 16^th of may 2013 have either been achieved or are on its way to being realized 😉

First and foremost are you happy?

I hope you’ve either gotten your masters or at least a couple of certifications that prove you actually know something… what did it end up being? By this I mean do you have a vocation? By the way do you still love shoes and have you been able to do the shoe store ish with Kayode Bisiriyu…

Do you have a kid?

I hope you turned into a stylish, sophisticated fun loving woman who loves a good laugh even if its at herself? Do you still do series and romantic comedies?

I hope you are still a freaking optimistic realist?

Do your undies match these days?

How many of your old friends are you still close too? How often do you hang out? Or chat? If you haven’t chatted with Busola, Veev, Ebi, Yinka, Biyi, Kebijo, Kayode B, in a while then you should hit them up today.

How’s Mumsi? Is she happy? What’s Bu and Nu doing? And Ginika? Is she happy and comfy?

What’s your hair and skin like now? Still with a crew cut? I damn well hope you’ve been able to achieve the glossy skin you’ve been coveting all these while?

What’s the plan for the future? I hope you have one?

I sincerely hope God is still forefront for you?

Are you still in love with love?

Are you married?

What do you dream about these days?

Do you still want to have that strategy lab that will solve half the world’s problems? What about the free lance company or have your dreams evolved as well?

Are you still strong and confident on the outside but … on the inside? I hope your core has strengthened sha?

Are you mentoring anyone now? Are you in contact with any of your mentors or mentees?

Are you still with D?

 

Notice that all these are questions. Well that’s cos I don’t want you feeling bad about anything you haven’t achieved by today your 30^th birthday. The truth is that I love you and I’m sure I will understand whatever decisions you’ve made even if they didn’t exactly go the way we thought they would…

With Love from your younger self.