My True Life Runaway Story (3)

Continued from last edition...

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By the third day of my stay in my friend's house, my brother started calling her NITEL land line , and asked if I was there, which she answered in the negative. A day later, he called back saying he knows I was there because there was nowhere else I could go since all my other friends’ parents won’t allow me to stay in their houses for so long without trying to settle the rift between my parents and I. She stood her ground.

My brother would keep calling from time to time, pressuring my friend, but she didn’t yield. There was nothing anyone could do because they didn’t know her house, and people were not that traceable in Lagos as they are now when technology is sophisticated.

Anyway, by day 6, my uncle called, instead of my brother. I don’t know how he did it, but he cajoled my friend to admit I was there. After she did, he begged me to come back home, that nothing would happen, bla bla bla. His mouth was so sweet, that I agreed. Anyway, I was already getting tired of the constant fun and a life without challenges I was having in my friend’s house. So I left, and went to the office, where my uncle, mum and dad, all worked.

My mum was in the other branch, my dad didn’t say anything to me, and my uncle took me home. The next day, my parents called me, talked to me for nothing less than two hours, with my dad saying how my mum is the best woman in the world, how he met her as a virgin, and I should emulate her, and all that.

In my mind, I was rolling my eyes, thinking “what is all these? Do these people actually think I’m a bad girl?” won’t it have been nice if my dad were alive today to find out that I am actually getting married as a virgin, so they should have cooled their horses then.

Anyway, after the plenty lecture, they let me go, and I never ran away from home again. Four years later, my dad died.

Now that I am older, anytime I remember that I used to be a runaway girl, it gives me more insight into the kind of person I am. This experience is just testament to the fact that I am was trying to carve myself into who I really wanted to be.

It is not news that I am highly choleric, and I have no respect for norms that are not progressive. I challenge status quos. I have been a leader right from my mum’s womb, and I am the person who gets called to come and put administration in place when something is not working well.

If I am among a group of people trying to achieve something, and things are not being done in efficient and effective ways, I would talk. I would ask them to give me the work, and I would try to demonstrate how it should be done, by carrying out the task, no matter how voluminous.

I make no bones about the fact that I do not like many parts of the African tradition, and because of this, I am very private and introspective, just like my dad. A lot of times, I keep my mouth shut amongst extended family members, and remain polite. If they become too much for me, I go to my room, lock my door, or leave the house.

I cannot thrive in an atmosphere of strife. Anytime I find myself in one, I always try to make peace, or I leave it behind completely.

I do not subscribe to the notion of a woman staying in a house where she is constantly beaten. I have never seen it happen before, and I pray to never see it. I only read about it in the newspapers and hear about it from friends.

And yes, if I am being physically battered and oppressed in my own house, I don’t think it needs to be said… As an adult empowered woman, I will run away.

My True Life Runaway Story (2)

Continued from last edition...

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The second time I ran away from home was when I was about nine years old. I was on holiday from boarding school, and I was of the opinion that my mum was making my life miserable. So I decided to run away. When she asked me to empty the thrash, I took it out, emptied it, dumped the bucket somewhere, and ran away…

…to my grandmother’s house, which was about 45 minutes’ walk away from my house. When I got there, my grandmother wasn’t around, but I met my uncle, who was just leaving the house. I can’t remember what I told him vividly, but it must have been something like I didn’t want to go back home again because I was being maltreated. The guy just looked at me, and asked me to enter. He didn’t have the keys to the front door, so I went through the back door, and he locked me inside, and asked me to wait for my grandmother to get back from work.

Seeing how peaceful my life had suddenly become, I slept off. Hours later, at about 10pm, I heard my grandmother’s voice at the door, and what sounded like my parents’ voices. She was saying something like “she can’t be inside this house. There’s no way she can be here since no one has been in this house since.”

Next thing, the door opens, my grandmother sees me lying on the chair, and screams “she’s here! How did you get inside? How long have you been here? Why are you here?” I told her my uncle let me in, and answered her other questions.

My parents took me home, and didn’t say a word. The next day, my mum didn’t go to work, and it was just both of us at home.

Let’s just say… SHE BEAT THE LIVING DAYLIGHT OUT OF MY WHOLE BODY. CHAI!

Six years later, I ran away from home again. This time, it was much more thought out since I was older and more calculative. I was 15 years old, out of the secondary school, just about to enter university, I was now a big girl, so the normal African parents beating had stopped, or so I thought.
I can’t remember what exactly happened, but I know it bordered around them getting worried that I was going to end up being a bad girl, buttressed the fact that I had asked a guy at La campagne Tropicana to take his picture.

Anyway, it ended up in me getting thrashed, and up till now, I still think it was unfair because I did not do anything wrong. So I refused to stand still. All through the period, I kept shouting “what did I do? What did I do? I didn’t do anything.” And this kept angering my parents, so the thrashing continued.

This was such an embarrassment to my teenage big girl reputation, getting beaten just as I was about to enter university. Even my siblings thought it was unfair.

So late at night, I packed some clothes, told my brother and sister I was running away, for good this time, and they must not say a word till the next morning. They asked where I would be going, I told them I didn’t know, but I was going.

About 12 midnight, I left the house. Everywhere was so dark, and I was scared. I didn’t really have money on me, but the will to leave my woes far behind me was greater than the fear the darkness of the surrounding created. On getting to the major street close to my house, I realised I wouldn’t be getting far that night, cause the major streets were gated, and there were no buses by that time.

So I walked into one of the streets, and kept walking till I saw a hausa security guy guarding one duplex. I begged him to allow me sleep in the compound because I was kicked out of my house and I couldn’t go far that night. So he laid cloth for me on the bare ground of one of the balconies, and I slept off. I thank God for that guy because I could have met a monster instead of him. What would have been my story by now?

Very early, the next morning, I was off. I went to my friend’s house, and explained the whole situation to her. We were classmates in secondary school, and were both waiting to enter university. She was alone with her brother and sister in the house, because their parents had been out of the country for quite some time.

Life was now very good. Free food, free bed, no parents bossing me, and beating me for what I didn’t do, no chores, nothing! And my parents could never find me… ever. There were no mobile phones then, and internet was not even common.

Day 1, Day 2, Day3… And then the drama started…

To be continued...

My True Life Runaway Story

This true life series was inspired by Judgejudyjudy on her struggles with suicide at some points in her life. While I never tried to commit suicide because I love life too much, I did another thing to leave my own struggle behind. This trend started from my early years into my teenage years. I’m sure you would enjoy it. Read on.

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The first time I ran away from home was when I was about 6 years old. My mum had brought out a pair of scissors and threatened to cut off my earlobes. Seeing the sharp and shiny object approach me, I took to my heels, and ran to my neighbour’s house. Prior to this, my classmate had forced the blunt end of HB pencil into my earring holes, saying she wanted to make my holes bigger, and so days later, I ended up with terrible sores in my earring holes. On seeing the sores, my mother stuck very tiny short broom stick inside the holes, so that when they healed off, the holes wouldn’t close up, and that was how I had been going everywhere. Due to my carelessness, the broomstick fell about two or three times, and my mother would scold me, and reinsert another one immediately, in which the holes were really threatening to close up.

So one day, I was playing around the house, and she caught sight of my ears, and the broomstick was gone. She started screaming, took hold of me, and told someone to bring her scissors, that she was going to cut off my ears since I was careless enough not to take care of my ears, and prevent it from closing up. I assumed she was joking, but when I saw the scissors in her hands, and she brought it close to my ears, I managed to free myself from her, and that was how I ran away.

At my neighbour’s house, I told them what happened, and that I’m never going home again. Later, they asked my brother to start looking for me everywhere. He came to where I was about 2 or 3 times, but they kept telling him I wasn’t there. I was there till about 10pm when I heard my dad’s car drive into the compound. By this time, everyone had slept, both at home, and in my neighbour’s house. I had never been happier to have my dad come back home.

So I left my neighbour’s house, and went to meet my dad. He was surprised to see me outside by that time. I told him I ran away from home because my mum wanted to cut my ears. So we went in, and he served my dinner, and added one full fish. Wow. One full fish? It was such a bonus from running away from home, because we only got half fish as children.

The next morning, life was normal. Everything just went on automatically like the incident never occurred. Now that I think of it, my neighbours must have found a way to tell my mum that I was with them, which is why everyone, except me, had slept soundly that night.

About three years later, I ran away from home again. This time, to a farther place, but it wasn’t as palatable as the first.

To be continued…

How I almost lost track of my mind

I’ve been wearing a tracker for about a year now, and I don’t see myself ever stopping it. Anyone who knows me well knows I’m strongly into fitness, healthy diet, and living a good lifestyle (took after my dad in this). So using a tracker was just good for me to maintain my way of life. So I got a fitness band, not a fitness watch, even though the functions are the same. But a band allows me the opportunity to wear a watch on my left hand, and then the band on my right. I love watches… quality ones. If I had gotten a fitness watch, it means I would have had to ditch my original watches, since I can’t wear two watches, and that is not acceptable because…

I NEVER EVER TAKE OFF MY TRACKER

The only time it goes off is when I want to switch it from the left wrist to the right or vice versa. And when I do this, I am on one spot, not moving, so I don’t lose step counts.

Two months ago, I went for a meeting at the US embassy, and along with my phone, one of the things I couldn’t take in was my tracker. It was the only time I had ever taken it off since I started wearing it. I felt so naked, living the next one hour of my life without it. Funny enough, when I just got it, and realised I might never take it off because I needed it while sleeping for tracking purposes, I was slightly irritated.

One or two times, I have noticed the band snap open, due to my carelessness. In fact, the second time, the band snapped open, and fell on the floor while I had taken a few steps before I noticed what had gone wrong since my hand felt bare.

That is why yesterday, when I lost my tracker, I almost went insane with confusion. I rushed into church to organise service with my kids, and immediately I removed my handbag from my right wrist, I knew something was wrong. I tried not to panic. I started retracing my steps all the way from where I was standing to the gate. I even checked the thrash can I had dumped tissue into. I found nothing.

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I was saying to myself, all these wouldn’t have happened if I had just brought my car to church. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t drive to church, cos I had to attend an interview session with someone, after which we had to get to some places, so I decided I would cab in order to make commuting easy after church, which was a huge sacrifice for me, since it meant inconvenience.

Now, the cab…

Getting a cab on Sunday morning in a residential area wasn’t a walk in the park. I had to walk far far away from home to find one. As I approached a makeshift taxi park, suddenly another taxi approached me, and I flagged him down. I looked in to start bargaining, only to see that it was my neighbour. By this time, one of the drivers in the park said the guy shouldn’t be lifting passengers near the park, and I explained that he was my neighbour.

Anyway, my neighbour didn’t even allow me bargain, he just said I should enter, and he took me to church, which is very far from home (Gbagada to Lekki).

On tracing my steps back to look for my tracker, I called my mechanic neighbour, to send the number of my neighbour who had brought me to church. He did that, but by this time, I was already walking back into church, having not found the tracker. I was going to the information desk to ask if anyone had dropped my tracker there, cos it definitely wasn’t on the floor in church. I couldn’t just imagine that someone would see my tracker on the ground, and want to pocket it. I mean why would someone want to steal another person’s tracker? So I was sure someone must have dropped it off there. Just before I got to the information desk, I got my neighbour’s number. I called him to search his car for something that looked like a rubber watch. And voila, there it was!

Obviously, the band had snapped due to my carelessness when I was wearing my shoes, and forcing the zip closed. I had not noticed till I got into church cos the weight of the bag on my wrist was covering up the bare wrist. Now, I have learnt. I will always cover up the lock key area with the extra covering provided, which I used to slide back before.

So yes, tracker was found, and my sanity was restored but I had lost about a thousand step count record, which could never be recovered again, and I was sad I was going to lose all my step counts for that day. But I was elated when my neighbour said he could turn back to come and give me my tracker in church, cos he hadn’t gone so far, which was surprising cos this was about 20 minutes after he had dropped me. I took him on his offer, he brought my tracker back, and my step counts continued.

I started wondering, what if I had found a cab earlier when I was in a hurry, and I didn’t have to walk all the way to coincidentally flag someone down who ended up being my neighbour? The truth is that if I had taken any other taxi driver apart from that guy, my tracker would have been lost forever, not necessarily because the person is dishonest, but because the person would not be able to reach me, since he won’t know how to extract info from the tracker to get my details – and that’s if he even knows what the device is.

So yea, everything worked well in the end, and no, I won't be taking cabs again. Even if I must, I would make sure it is one I can track, even without a tracker, lol.

How do bleating marriages survive?

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I hear that for two people to survive in any kind of relationship, if one is a goat, the other must be a sheep. So what happens when two people have a strong inclination to being goats? It invariably means one of the goats must consciously shed his goat personality and be a sheep.

If this happens continuously, then the goat-turned-sheep begins to resent the goat-remained-goat. So how are they to truly survive in this relationship? Not the kind of survival where everyone is just there doing their own thing, but pretending to the whole world and on social media that everything is fine, and they are the best couple in the world by displaying their well painted horns online. But the kind of survival where both goats are truly happy as a couple and individual Bucks and Does

My question is can two people who have very strong personalities have a good marriage... truly good marriage void of resentment?

I have never been married before, so I would like to hear from you all, both married and single.