I write for me!

Life is deceptive.

I think this confounded truth is why Plato assumes that it exists in two forms.

I hate being broken but I admit that I was or maybe still broken. On most days I don’t want to bother about things even if I find myself doing that. This is why I find relationships very annoying. I had to think about her. I had to genuinely care and that was how I lost myself in the service of her. Deception! I am scapegoat relationships amongst my many worries because nothing sapped me more than relationship. To be honest, that came as a shock. I had been away from it for years and there I was, in it and failed at it, despite how cautious I tried to be. It was her whom I was willing to be a fool again for. Like Westlife, I was a fool again and couldn’t believe it. I was a fool when I tried to be more cautious; when I tried to always say the right words. In fitting into perfection, I lost her and after I lost her, I gained her. Now we are back to where we were — the beauty of our own recklessness.

That was life’s moral lesson to me. Be reckless, Martins. Why do you care what they think? They think anyway.

I had my lowest with human relationship last year. I really lost it with everyone. Calls became anxiety trigger for me. There were days that went by without me chatting with anyone. I cherished my lone moments and became less concerned about the people in my life. I convinced myself that I was not ready to be out there. This was surprising because in my circle I talk the most and the extrovert tag suits me the most but you see, outside that circle, I just want to be left with my thought. The context here is not to be reclusive or reserved but I did not find the prompt to be more. Maybe my fears had the greater hold of me. For one, I can be many things, even at a time and I recognize my own potential so why the restraint?

For those whom I may have counselled at one point or another, this may come off hypocritical seeing as I am big on demanding that we do all we must to be out there. Take the message, forgive the messenger — we all have personal struggles, and I’m not left out. To those whom I tried loving in the way they wanted, I hope you read this and understand why we never could work out. I was only going to hurt you and that was something my conscience couldn’t make peace with. I was not in the place to match up the energy, to be consistent, to be committed and so I walked back. In some cases, I simply walked away instead of walking you into an emotional ditch. The blames were all mine.

Life’s journey for me has been mazy: too many stops and turns. There’s no compass to tell whether to take the right or left turn. Sometimes, I think hard before making the turn, other times I just make the turn and hope I am right. I live life with the silent fear of what if my life were in circles. This makes failing real to me. When I fail, I wish for another opportunity and for the opportunities forever lost, I bite myself harder in agony. My biggest flex however is my ability to fit into shapes. I like to think I have multiple personalities and I don’t think it is a disorder. Seeing how life switches on me, I think it has been my survival starter pack. I owe life to not allow a situation made from life dictate my tone. It is a debt I have constantly striven to pay, and so far, I might have been in life’s good books. Just maybe. When life goes against plan, my ability to adjust, reshape and carry on is how I know I will always survive.

INTERLUDE

I don’t like birthdays and here is why.

I have come to realize the double faced nature of people and I see it levitate to higher height on birthdays. The people close to us say the most beautiful things about us but in their corners they mean the other things and truthfully, the version of you they believe is the one they tell in secret. Give a man a mask and he will reveal himself.

The truth is that if we knew the true impression of people about us, we would realize that the impression that hurts the most would be from those you imagined had better thoughts of you. Often times, these are people close to us. I think it is more honest to simply wish people a happy birthday and long life. I wouldn’t presume you want me dead even if I stole the woman of your dreams or if I sent a woman to get your man laid. The many other remarks are unnecessary! This is where we tell the lies and exaggerate a bit too much. I do it too so I know how it works.

My ego is fine! Don’t massage it.

For this reason, I have always wished I could skip the theatrics of January 18th. The lies often bury the truth that I don’t even know which is true and I do not know who is sincere.

I will take to my mother’s prayer and live on to the next day.

Being born into a family with considerable affluence came with a certain nurture, a concerted culture that gave one a programmed life. For me, I knew my father’s plan was for us to go through with Primary school and then proceed to King’s college — a school he had a liking for. I like to think that his liking for King’s college came from his own youthful wish of attending the school. There were already talks of whom between my elder brother and I would school in the US. In a sharp twist of fate, we ended up going to a public school. The details of my experience in those years are uneasy and better fitting for a book than a piece of self-introspective writing.

“Life is the other man at the other end of the table in a card game. Sometimes the cards are in your favour and other times, you could have your last card to check up until life plays, the Joker, then pick two, then pick three, then suspension, then hold on, then general market, another pick two and check-up. You have lost! In disbelief, you wonder how you went from last card to having a dozen useless cards which you will never play because life already checked up.”

I would simply say that life holds the most important cards while we are disadvantaged players with cards that are already known to life. In the end, we enjoy the play, the game, the theatrics, but hardly ever win.

I have seen my father’s misfortune and how it broke him. Watching Jeronicus in “Jingles and Jangles” reminded me of him and I like to think that one of life’s caution for me is the awareness of how radical life can change and sometimes it is not even our fault. I expressed this in cryptic words “In a Heart full of worries”.

This reality presents me with questions revolving around but not limited to the questions: what if law does not give me the answers I seek? What if law fails me? The risk of having single choices is scary for me. I never really had lofty expectations from law so I do not trust it so much. If it failed, would I become a failure? Is my life reduced to whatever consequence law can offer?

There’s an inherent danger in sole choices. A proverb in igbo puts it finitely, “ihe foduuru otu agwula.” This means that what is reduced to one is finished. The English man discourages putting all eggs in one basket.

How!

It is tasking enough to survive as a lawyer. How do I joggle this with being more than a lawyer? Well, here we are with the seventh successful article on my medium. If I called myself a writer, it would not be because I understood principles of law. It would simply be because I have honed a skill — one which required me to rehearse thoughts, piece them together and tell them beautifully enough to keep readers attentive. I am not in the chase to be glorified as the best (maybe in some other trade perhaps). I just want to be admitted as a good writer.

Cheers!! the scoreboard is not bad at all.

The paradoxical words of Abraham Roland Samuel echoes harder even now: “In the time of peace, prepare for war”. I never want to fall victim to unpreparedness. I fear that life is already slow-paced than I anticipated. Who is to say opportunities will come twice? If it comes, I do not want to be caught unprepared.

In the immaculate words of Abraham Lincoln: “I will study and prepare myself, and someday my chance will come.”

Mbido oma

(I have a tender spot in my heart for cripples and bastard and broken things!)

Today I write for memory, for assurance, for me. I really can’t wait to get to that place where I can tell a story close to the truth. There’s so much in this year for me. I fear that I may not hit any of them. Regardless, I choose to wake up every morning reminding myself of what I need to do to achieve them. I have made a decision not to gloat over regrets. Accepting defeat, rejection and failures is the first step to anything. It makes it easy to unburden, to forge through and to stay determined come what may. The truth as I have observed is that behind every successful man is not a woman. (who even came up with that ?) Behind every successful man is a litany of failures. Success is the infinite divider of failure. To attain that, there will be attempting and failing and I am up for it all. It may be cliché to say that you miss the opportunities you do not take but that is one cliché that I know to be true.

“The meaning of life is the meaning you give it: the meaning you allow it to have.” I have chosen to have a mail box of rejection mails if that’s what it takes to get that one mail. There are no timelines here. Just will, effort and grace. So we keep trying.

Cheers to good starts!!!

I’ll drink to that.