Lucky for you!

Writing and me.
8 min readSep 1, 2022

I’ve been meaning to make this entry for McCoy’s Lucky For You challenge…

Pexels

Lucky for you, I like to learn

..and grow. I feel comfortable asking you about things. I like the brief and non-stop yarnings about different ways to reverse out of a spot, the different names of God and his different dimensions to which we as believers can deal with him. Sometimes when we text, I “star” some messages that I find to be profound, other times I populate my “screenshots” and “favorites” folders with evidence of the magic that our interaction creates.

I don’t like to say “never” when it comes to learning because apart from the fact that anything and anyone can teach me something, saying “never” to a school of thought or a concept hinders me from learning, unlearning and relearning when I need to.

I like it when we don’t walk on egg shells around correcting each other. I am so grateful for the trust we have in one another. You find a new course or a job listing, an invite to attend a stage play, or a new song and I’m the person that comes to mind. I like to learn, regardless of whether I am moving with or away from the trend. I always have something planned for this week and next week and next month -planned in faith that I’ll be alive. I get restless when I introspect at lights out and realize that I haven’t learnt a new shortcut to work or the meaning of one expression or the other, that day. I struggle when I have to do things in the same way, over and over. It kills me. Maybe I get bored easily, maybe I’m just on the run, seeking ways to transcend and evolve.

Lucky for you, I like to travel

I loveeeeee to travel. I don’t enjoy packing and unpacking for the trip but I can bear it. I get butterflies when I travel by road but It’s nearly orgasmic for me if I make this trip to Eastern Nigeria, in a luxurious bus, at Christmas, in the company of strangers with whom the only things I have in common are our love for Igbo, jokes and our interest in buying all types of snacks from the hawkers along the road. I love to hear the loaders dragging one another because then I begin to laugh. I love air travel too- the obsession with weighing the luggage, the silent prayer I make to get the seat by the window, the feeling of being in the sky and taking as many pictures as I can. I like to feel the gratitude course through my veins when I arrive at my destination.

I’m never overwhelmed by the stress, as long as I get to enjoy the trip. If it’s a new place, great, greater, greatest.

I can’t wait until I can travel to Japan and Amsterdam and New York and Paris. I daydream about going to Jordan and sailing in Venice, creating at least two years’ worth of content. I love to experience the transformation when people who started the trip as strangers end up as friends and even prospective business partners. I love it when my friends share pictures and videos unprovoked, while on their trips to Kenya and Rwanda. I love seeing you live life beautifully and I’m thankful for the updates you share on your Insta-story and on Snapchat.

Lucky for you, I like art

I’m tempted to say I live to experience art. It is so satisfying and enriching for me when I come across art in any form- be it as music, culture, rhythmic gymnastics, sculptures, stories and screenplay, the waves and sand at the beach, fashion, architecture, pain, adire, food, protests, podcasts, playlists, adrenaline, furniture, carnivals and festivals, women and men’s bodies or a color-coded closet. All art, all beautiful. I am the biggest fan of all creators, including myself. I think it takes great strength and vulnerability to share your work with the world, to stuff the world full of you and your doings and to take both the banging steps and those that barely leave a footprint.

Lucky for you, I like weddings

I get so envious of extroverts sometimes. They don’t have to feel comfortable first before they come out of their shell. Shell? What shell? They don’t have to do all that energy conversion that we introverts do. For us introverts, weddings are simply another social gathering which we’d rather sit out. But I like weddings, just like you.

I’m in trouble because I am obsessed with the concept and entirety of anything called organized fun:

— I want to see people dancing, skating for the first time and laughing anytime they fall on their bum, singing along to the music, skydiving, doing the leg work, the shoulder dance and the belly dance. I don’t like how deafening and irritating the speakers at sit-out spots are, but I look forward to hearing the noise that comes from different tables at the reception of an evening garden wedding when the music goes off abruptly. I love people making jokes as they are gathered at their tables at the beach or at the shore, making funny faces for the camera. I love it when the stakes are high at the polo club and the community stadium and people are giggling and yelling and moaning because of a miss.

I love it when people bond. It pleases me when there’s a celebration and the women are sitting together, gisting, cooking and revealing secrets. I love to be in their midst, watching, observing them joke, compare recipes and techniques for slicing different vegetables. I love to hear the men bless the kola and roar with laughter too. Their jokes are premium. I laugh a lot. I catch cruise a lot. Most of the time, with myself. It’s an eternal thing, that’s why I cherish funny people. And people that can have fun! Many times, I don’t join in -at least not in the way they’d want me to. I have my own way, which I am positive you will enjoy and lucky for you, you’ll have front-row tickets.

Lucky for you, the moon doesn’t care about you

“See finish”. That’s what it’s called when some people who have been longing and groveling to get into your space come face to face with how ordinary you are and they can’t deal. Lucky for you, it’s you, demystified. You let yourself be seen, heard, honest and vulnerable, but who doesn’t? Who can not? We are all special, every one of us. It’s just another day but the same shit. Nothing lasts forever and everything changes. Lucky for you, tomorrow is another day and lucky for me, we’ll try again together.

Lucky for you, my heart is the phoenix

I can’t tell you all I’ve been through, cos I don’t want it to somehow become a battle of the most pitiable story, or a competition for who’s got the biggest God. Cos I’ll win. I take it all on the chin though, like a big girl or like a small girl with a big God. I love romance. I like the chase, the words, the eye contact on dates, the flirting, the impulsive kisses and the exchange of everything nice. On some days, I want it all and I go for it but on other days, even a whisper feels like noise. Lucky for you though, I can reroute. Detours don’t necessarily scare me, they just infuriate me. Maybe it’s this fury that burns to produce these ashes from which I arise, with unabating enthusiasm. That’s after I’ve bled and mourned and crumbled and paid my dues.

The currency in these times is pain and lucky for you, I am wealthy, like anyone with the Midas touch.

Where haven’t the winds blown my ashes to? I’ve made that trip to checking on people who have hurt me and made me feel disposable when I should be letting what’s dead stay dead and buried and forgotten. I have let persons who broke my trust and crushed our friendships at the heel of their feet -like it was valuable and replaceable- back into my space after swearing I was done with their pretentiousness and cowardly dishonesty. I’ve second-guessed my instincts that can call “bullshit” from a mile off simply because I don’t want to buy into that bullshit idea that anyone’s instincts can be so accurate all the time. I have celebrated people who didn’t even clap when it was my turn.

Lucky for you though, I don’t take as much time as I do to break, to heal.

Lucky for you, I like to be seen

…and I like communication, even though my DMs are dry.

I like to talk about my feelings and how your actions make me feel. I could say it to you or find ways of processing that don’t include you. I also like to listen. It is an effective way of communicating. The easier it is to communicate, the simpler things become.

I am an epidemiologist by training so I process numbers a lot. This is why you have to believe me when I say to you that for every one person I have a connection with, there’ve been twelve others with whom I struggled. It is based on the data. You are the thirteenth one out of thirteen and you are the first one to catch my eye. I have to go through such a long line to meet you, every single time. Certain things that you have done have done enough to convince me that you see me. So I set sail every time, to collect another dose of heartbreak and disappointment. My DMs are dry, so you most likely have no competition. Lucky for you, you find me to be as intoxicating as I do you and you get to experience me and love the hell out of it. We talk about the uncomfortable things, which makes it mindboggling for me when you ghost me; when you’d rather act like we are strangers rather than apologize for disrespecting me.

Lucky for you, I like to clean

The use of the word “like” is only putting it lightly because I’m borderline obsessive. I don’t like smudges on glass surfaces, including my phone screen. I want the kitchen spick and span, the surfaces so squeaky that they’d piss off someone with sensitive ears and the rags mistaken every once in a while for regular clothing. I want my gallery clean; with no evidence that you were ever there. I might keep the voice notes simply because I love voices. I’ll always never hold a grudge so I might initiate the conversation that straightens things out. Usually, this makes you feel good, like a juice box for your ego. I don’t care though because I like to be thorough. I can’t entertain regrets. Which is why lucky for you, when I let you go, be sure that you are free from me for life.

Like me, who has finally published this, you too can always start somewhere. That’s the greatest thing about being an adult, demystified or not; self-sabotaging or not.

This has been a long read so I appreciate you for sticking with me.

Kindly let me know what bits of this you can relate to by highlighting them. Also, clap as many as fifty times by holding down the clap icon. This ensures that more people get to see this entry.

Stay laughing and stay lucky.

XO!!

--

--