Doing it afraid

You can't breathe

You can't think

Your Palm's sweaty

Your heart's racing

You repeat the mantra;

"it's well, it's well"

But reprieve comes not

Then you think

Maybe, just maybe

You can't do this after all

This isn't your call

This isn't your path

You must've misheard/misread/misunderstood

This isn't for you

You talk yourself out of it

Yes, you must have misheard 

After all, you don't have the skills

You're not as well read/spoken as Ms. B

Neither as confident as she

Surely, you won't be taken seriously

You think

I'm sure we've all found ourselves in the aforementioned scenario at some points in our lives.  It's a dicey situation sometimes, however, I dunno what to say to you other than, "just do it!" What ever it is that “it” is, just do it. This is my message, and it's for me as well as for you, just do it.

Selah...

Jolly July

Hi darlings,

Issa new month, happy July guys. How was the weekend? Rainy right?  Yeah, same here and then Lekki was flooded, whew.

Saw pictures online since I've refused to own a TV set. Please don't ask why, cos I assure you that my answer wouldn't make a lick of sense.

There's a lot I wanna say but don't even know where to start. So, that's that. Once again, happy lollified July.

Peace.

Did I mention I spent the entire weekend indoors? Well I'd have felt it if not that I was kept busy with the wig I was working on. Handwork's good I tell you. Sometimes.

Will also be sharing some of my write ups next month. Yesss, I'd participated in a competition on IG (my first😁) and it was fun I tell you. And challenging too. It's not beans writing daily, ya'll can testify to it here, hehe. So, the goal's to share one for everyday. Should've started this month but well, as you can see, we're way into the month. So August by God's grace, will be sharing a write-up everyday God willing.

Since June was 30 days and August 31, will be throwing in a last day bonus😉

Bye people, I leave you with "Holy Grail", it was my sound accompaniment all through my lazy busy weekend😘

Turtle Soup

Gloria Gaynor's 'I will Survive' usually does the trick but not this time. No, not this time. My mantra of recent (I keep switching 'em) has been 'The just shall shall live by their faith'. It just keeps going round and round in my head not that I'm complaining, no. 

So, my actual reason for coming out of a semi vacay is 'cos of the  news my lil' birds have been bringing. With all I've heard so far this maxim neatly wraps up what I'm been told: 

when the going gets tough, the tough gets going.

That said, I have good news. All that's going on with the economy, fuel subsidy, price hikes et al is for good. Eh? Someone's wondering if they read correctly, yes you did. Business moguls - or should I say experts? - say it is at times like this great opportunities present themselves (for my business oriented people, shine ya eyes). This is the time some of my friends will hammer (come into good fortune). Thou knoweth thyselves.

I was glad (with reason) when all these changes began I was forced to give up on certain unhealthy habits like my love for snacks and pick up healthy ones, long walks. Before I purchase a snack, boy, I reason it well. Ain't got that kinda cash to throw around no more. You feeling me? Hahaha. But really, desperate times call for desperate measures.

For me personally, it has been a great time for my experiments to thrive (I'm big on DIYs) and has opened up alternative means of getting things done (does multipurpose ring a bell)? For example, let's start with:

Food: I've found that so much I thought I couldn't do without, I can actually do without and have found new uses for food items that I once undermined.

Beauty regime: back to the basics biko. I never knew I had an Aloe Vera plant in my house (ok, I did know, but never paid it any mind) until I ran out of cleanser (ladies, I hope you're reading in between the lines).

Transportation: I hear carpooling's great but I wouldn't know 'cos my car's yet to arrive (on the high seas *wink*). So for those of us still hopping buses, it's not for every mileage you need to board a vehicle (truth be told), there's a reason some are called 'walking distance'. Work those muscles.

The US passed through a great depression once upon a time and history has it down as one of the dreariest of times - I shudder to think of what went down in that period - that I daresay has made them the formidable nation that they are today. What we're passing through now is beans compared to that. My advise for the time being, would be to buckle those belts, hold tight, sit tight and try not to fall off 'cos it's gonna be one helluva ride.

Meanwhile, I cannot logically explain why that title for this post 'Turtle Soup' but I have this feeling that I do know why.

So pretty please do share, what lifestyle changes have you had to make with all that's going on?

Photo Credit; PicsyMag

Frank Friday: A Selfish Decision

Hi there. So, it's Frank Friday and I'll be sharing a bit of myself. You know, the bit that's not so put together, the bit that I get to cover with a false sense of bravado on a daily basis, lol. We've all got those bits.

So here's what we'll do, I share, you share, we all share. And what are we sharing? Not PMS o, haha, I know it's scarce and all (a sad development) but we'll be sharing that part of us that's hidden from the world. Where we nurse our fears and uncertainties but please, nurse them no more for no good'll come off that. 

So, here's me opening the show, let's call it a launch of this Frank Friday Series shall we? ;)
***
When I announced my decision to resign from my job, many thought I had taken leave of my senses, that I had gone gaga, nuts, cray cray, cuckoo. Who ups and leaves a job when you haven't gotten a replacement *points finger at self*, that's who. 

But I held fast. Not for me, but for my progeny (more for me) lol. What will I tell them down the years when they find themselves in a similar situation? Oh wait, I'd say "my dear, I was once in your shoe but I did manage so, manage." No, I won't do that to them.

Manage, the common man's song.  That I was in a job that was detrimental to me and I couldn't quit for fear of what people might say or think? I wasn't happy on the job, I knew it and it was obvious. Yet I lingered. Why? Fear. It is indeed true that we are the ones holding ourselves back from greatness. Society has drummed it into our heads to manage, to make do with what we have and as Fela put it "suffering and smiling." I've come to loathe that word, manage.

Hear what someone has to say about this;

“Imagine a society that subjects people to conditions that make them terribly unhappy then gives them the drugs to take away their unhappiness...Instead of removing the conditions that make people depressed modern society gives them antidepressant drugs. In effect antidepressants are a means of modifying an individual's internal state in such a way as to enable him to tolerate social conditions that he would otherwise find intolerable.” 

― Theodore J. Kaczynski

See? The society has conditioned us so much so that we tolerate the otherwise intolerable out of fear. What are we so afraid of I wonder? Personally, I sometimes feel that I limit myself way too much...

Too much so. 

And so, it was with a strong sense of resolve I woke up one day to say, enough's enough and believe you me, it had a liberating effect on me. It was like taking power back from whoever or whatever I had given it to. I felt alive and in charge. And that's just the first step of my self-empowerment.

Now, I didn't arrive at that decision without my fair share of doubt, worries, anxieties and double checking to be doubly sure that I was making the right decision. To be sure, it was a selfish decision, I believe I'm allowed to act selfishly every once in a while. And do I regret the decision???

Hell no!

So, enough's enough. Life's for the living, breathe...

Photo Credit: Google

Blues...

Gosh, like Alex I was going to say "what a terrible,  horrible, no good, very bad day," but Les Brown's taught me to refer to such days as character building days :) and of course, I'm not Alex.

I've been bombarded with quite a lot of character building days of late and I'm begging crying, enough already and this is is where I say...wait for it, wait, wait...

"Thank God it's Fridayyy!!!" Whew.

This week was so far from being nice to me abi the love sharing ended with Vals day? No na. Talking about Valentine, it's finally come and gone. How was it? Did anything special? Everyday should be valentine mbok, I'm in dire need of some special loving.

I'm freeeeeee...@least for now, lol

But come to think of it, is this a way the Universe' telling me to get out of the blue collared job and do my own thing? I doubt it.

Universe, is that you? Can you please be more clear and specific as it's not by throwing these challenges my way you'd get me to listen.

I'm so proud of how I've handled them so far though I've had some not so proud moments -tantrum throwing, impulsive crying, sullenness- hmm, in retrospect,  I've not exactly done so well but I'm getting there.

So, how do you handle your "character building days"? On another note, how do you handle difficult persons as well?

Image Credit: Google 

Tale of an Ant: The Bodstacle

Once a heavy body twice removed laid down to slumber and slept deeply. Too deeply Antu thought as he watched from a safe distance, peeping intermittently from a watcher's hole he had setup when he noticed the body lay directly across his path.

What to do, what to do he thought and then he decided. Sleep on body, for it is night when all men must sleep to rise at first dawn. Some take the deep sleep never to awake, you shall awake but in pain. At least, that’s what I think he thought because you see, I was another watcher involved in the watcher’s games. Only I was aware of my presence and watched both watcher (Antu) and watchee (sleeping bod).

The long night passed on slowly, too slow for Antu as his frequent peeps became more hurried and less discreet. He watched with growing dismay as the night skyline lightened, gold tinged by the sun’s first rays yet, there was not a movement of the muscles from the prone body. It lay there, seemingly dead to the world. “But it is dawn,” cried Antu. He always did wake up with the sun and expected the body to do likewise. The more darkness gave way, the more Antu despaired for he had really believed that all bodies arose with dawn’s first light as his grandmother had once told him. In her tales, all bodies rose with the sun.

At this point, I feel I should describe Antu. A young ant in his first stages, no different from his peers but he was much smaller. According to his grandma, he was nearly eaten by a grasshopper as a baby and fell in the struggle that ensued. As stories go however, he didn’t believe one bit of it as he saw himself as special and favored (touched if you like). This would be his first time stepping out of the Chantill, a large mound of a mansion and all at the dare of the young ‘uns.

He is lightly marked unlike the darker markings of his order, this he attributes to the ‘touch’. His head’s slightly disproportionate to his body giving him a strange look which only endeared him to the Antlies- Fantu in particular.

Ah…Fantu. Thinking of her made his fluids to juice. What would he do without her? For it was because of her he had maintained this vigil. Usually in such cases, he would have long passed over and continued his search and where there seemed to be no way, he created one for himself or if need be, put his stingers to use but not this time. He wanted, no, needed to see that bod rise of its own accord. And so he patiently or impatiently as the case may be, waited. Only when it was fully bright did he decide that he had waited long enough and so it was with fire in his fluids and a cry in his heart that he rushed towards the bodstacle and stung.

It all happened too quickly but in all these, the watcher of both had drawn his conclusions.

Photo Credit:Source