“Every human being is intended to have a character of his own; to be what no others are, and to do what no other can do.” –William Ellery Channing
Rainfall is my go-to means of escape. Perhaps God agrees to this with its bountiful supply in the state I reside in: Rivers State. I’m only happy when it rains by Garbage has a safe space in my head, often playing on repeat when the rain comes falling down. Today, however, it is different, because my skin feels different. My head is a big balloon filled with what I’m told to be every moment. My eye is a window to the world, and for a second, I open it with wild fervor as I lay on my bed, blinking hard at the stationary fan hanging from the white ceiling—a reminder that I’m here, alive and well, in the room I call my own in my father’s house.
Usually, the sound of rain on my family house roof brings with it a certain nostalgia of the times when I had not yet known so much; when I was the carefree chubby girl who played pretend with her brothers and wondered, often, why she was not a boy. But today, it reminds me too much of what it’s like to have to follow a rhythm. To be someone. To be a woman. A girl who wants to become. But what she wants to become eludes her sometimes, and most often than not, defies societal expectations.
My grandma’s words resurface as I burn holes into the unmoving fan covered with wisps of dust that escaped my last cleansing of the room: “Ada, this house is not really your home. You will marry and go to your real home—your husband’s house.” I grimace in faint recognition of the hurt I’d felt that day because it’s lonely enough that I am an only girl, but to be told that I have no place is the sucker punch I did not need to be delivered as a teen.
I flip past the memory.
The rain begins to pound on my window, pushing me to shut it firmly. When I lay back on my bed, my mind takes me on a journey. Like a trek around my university’s main campus. Like a trek under the hot sun, sweating, but wanting my legs to feel weak; to be defiant against my own body, to punish it for not feeling, for not being female enough. Outwardly, my developing body has taken on its given shape, curves and all. Inwardly, my mind struggles to wrap around the expectations of softness (and the, “You’re growing o, you’ll soon marry” that has begun to ring in my ears from well-meaning family friends) when most of what exists in here is indifference, suppression, and hovering thoughts of never-ending plans and analysis.
It’s like a prayer is whispered on my head or I’m entering a trance: the raindrops pelting on the roof fades, and I am transported to the first time I found myself.
* * *
It’s no wonder I found myself in words, but it is also a wonder I ever found words so late. One would have thought I would be an early writer, given that I was raised on endless Bible stories and picture books, however I never wrote words in a creative way until I turned thirteen. But my head was a mess. It was everything in one: a sea of imaginations and words bouncing freely; a television show with characters that spanned out through years and years of intuition (a logical reason I have grown to love soap operas despite my personality’s silent disapproval).
I read somewhere that what humans grow up to call their personality is not really theirs, but molded by the people who raise them.
Isn’t it a wonder that I was molded to become something they now question?
You cannot do this.
What do you do in that room of yours from morning till night?
You have to greet people on the road.
Smile. Smile!
Why do I find it hard? Why am I stuck in this body that moves against my will? To want to laugh, but frown. To be awkward and so unfeminine when a boy flirts with me and I stare at him like: What are you doing? Somehow, it helps that I found out about the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, and oh, it explains so much that I scream, I’m not so weird, after all! when I’m typed an INTJ female. And, of course, it explains why I am so, well…me. But the questions do not leave my head: forever a mess of what can and what cannot be.
I found myself when I found that I could channel my anger into words. I wrote my first creative piece (creative insult, who am I kidding?) in Senior Secondary One and earned myself a resounding slap from one of the recipients. Thirteen. The child of a reputable local Pastor, I should not have been calling people yam leg or beans head. But my mind had learned to dissociate fast and rebellion had begun to buzz in my ears. Anything was better than the burning rage that coursed through my body at the slightest provocation. Anything was better than having to sit still and be robotic: good, good, faking goodness. If I fought, I’d be chastised for being a nuisance. If I screamed, they would make me a prayer point during morning devotion. So I wrote. And wrote. Until my anger morphed into fiction and I began to flirt with poetry.
What I call finding is just a brush of the tip of an iceberg. What I call losing is being lost in a dance with my soul. Being forced on a journey to become an entirely different thing. And every day, I swear, my mind wars with my body. My soul and spirit war with everything that is physical, and everything that is not.
* * *
The University is a different ballgame, and in it, I find myself losing and yearning, and finding moments to be irritated at life. It is in the way my Mother calls me regularly to remind me that I should read my book and pass well o. It is in the way my Father calls me and tells me that I should pray, too, as they are praying constantly for me. And yet, again, as the rain falls, and I’m back for the holiday in this familiar room most of my childhood memories linger in, I remember what it’s like to lose, and what it is like to choose.
I like to call December twenty-fourth my miracle day, because twice, on different years, I was given admission on this day.
First time: Plant Science and Biotechnology.
Second time (and, bless God for this): Pharmacy.
In this new world that’s merely a phase of transformation, I encounter arguments with people from different walks of life. Some outrageous, some so utterly silly that I pause and ponder if I’m the crazy one. Like that one time my coursemate calmly told me, “You don’t live in reality, stop dreaming too much,” when I argued with him for the sake of the high that comes with it. Or when statements like, “Stop talking like all those people you read,” is thrown at me by others when I voice my thoughts about becoming: about exploring the depths of my souls, about focusing on the person inside. Or when these intellectuals I hold in high esteem try to shun my loud musings with, “Feminist, I hail!” even though I vocally dislike tags. Still, I dream and strategize because I wasn’t born with fire to have it doused by the cold water of societal norms.
You will marry and it’ll decide what you’ll become.
What if the person you fall in love with decides that your B.Pharm certificate is useless?
What if the person you fall in love with tells you to give up on writing?
But, why does any of this have to happen?
Uncertainty is the poison I’d rather not die of. The present, as real and impatient as it is, should wait.
Today is too close.
* * *
There’s a potted aloe vera by the side of my house: the one I obsessively cared for during the quarantine. It’s something I hold onto when I try so hard to find writing quirks. It’s a cycle of trying to belong: typical writers either love cats or flowers, the internet says. Honestly, I don’t obsess over either—I have never felt connected to animals, but plants have made me pause, once or twice, to look. Truthfully, the aloe vera is for my afro, the juice keeping it full and healthy after applying on wash-days and in-between. But, I toy with the idea of having a garden, naming my plants and posting it on Instagram as an I am a writer, see! emblem just like I imagine myself as a grown woman, or a mother—God knows I haven’t learned enough Igbo to spice up my children’s life.
The thought of my aloe vera harvests an array of other thoughts of quarantine.
Planting and Watering: Waking up at morn, praying to God, praying with my family, before finding my pot of aloe vera to water. And after watering, I would sit and watch. Then my phone would guide my path as I’d type how to grow aloe vera. I found a lot of things, and one eventually worked: plantain peels. But, I would have to learn patience because they would bloom the next year in March when I would be battling to keep my head above water in Pharmacy school.
Lights: The curtains in my room stay down when sunlight begins to waft in. This is an ongoing argument with my Mother, for she so often comes and pulls it open while muttering, “Stop staying in this stuffy room, it’s not good.” I would often wait for her to go before pulling it back down during that period. Lights disturb my eyes. Really, I have photochromic glasses as proof. But, it has always been deeper than that. The dark room is a blanket to my soul.
Solitude and Music: This melds together. Often found at night when I would plug my ears to shut out the humming of the generator, and my Playlist would shuffle sad songs and slow songs and ballads and I would cry for no reason other than I could.
In the ways I survived the year 2020; in the ways I hibernated and wrote and got listed in contests, I also gave bits of myself away in hopes of this bright tomorrow where nobody will tell me who to greet, or talk to, or hug.
But, tomorrow is too far.
* * *
On finding, when it comes to spirituality, I have come to realize this: one does not pressurize an individual to find their spiritual side. Most times, it comes from yearning. Other times, it just happens. Who are we to question God’s ways?
On losing, when it comes to spirituality (yes, losses abound too, just not in the usual sense of it), I have come to slowly shed any semblance of flesh taking over. My body is only temporary, this Earth too. And with it, I evolve, and without it, I’ll go to meet my Creator.
But, God, can I say I have found myself when I speak 90% English, other percent tongues, and Igbo as a side dish? Till when will I keep on playfully cooking up stories as to why I answer Igbo name(s) but cannot follow a full-blown conversation with my Igbo-speaking coursemates? It’s almost like I was robbed off roots I never got to experience, having to rely on bits of information born out of curiosity. This is one thing I blame my parents for: we were never taught how to speak our native language. And this is one thing that stings: culture may as well be dying slowly in Nigeria. And the doctors (and pharmacists and nurses) are leaving for greener pastures.
* * *
Eyes slowly opening, heavy from its musings, I trace the pattern of arrangement in my room: the peach walls I watched the painter repaint two or three Decembers ago, the single light bulb that watched me type last year’s NaNoWriMo story, the fan that is unmoving because of the inconsistent power supply in Nigeria, the brown bedside table filled with minimal creams and perfumes, and the reading table where my laptop and a choice selection of books I stare at until words spring from my soul when I’m caught up in the heat of writing are placed. And everything is as I like it to be.
My hearing is activated somehow, and I can hear the pattering of rain on the roof again. It reduces, and soon, it comes to a stop, but my mind does not stop with it. I am left spellbound on my double bed, in the midst of all I’ve created. Of all the highs and lows I get lost in every now and then.
I love it when it rains. But I do not like this endless part of losing and finding what is and what is not.
The past plays a game of Hide and Seek with me, leaving me troubled yet nostalgic. The future in my head, spanning out years of planning and stealing present moments, locks me in its confines. My greater than twenty years of existence, and more more years of longing knocks the breath out of me. I sit up and grab a copy of my published novella on my reading table, a sign to my confused state that I can become, and caress it. This is my truth born out of the perspective I hold dear. My soul feels it. Oh, of course, my spirit too. Let me refrain from adding the body before it begins to take precedence.
************
Are you a Black woman writer? We’re looking for short stories and personal essays to feature on our digital and print platforms. Click HERE to find out how to submit.
