Living alone diaries #12; Annoying meetings, stiff wigs, dealing with loneliness, and how being Nigerian is a red flag

Guess what day I’m writing this on?

Most probably the day you’re reading it on. That’s right, today, Monday.

The truth is I completely and totally forgot to write this whole past week, and I only realized that yesterday (Sunday) evening as I was thinking about stuff I have to get done this.

Anyways, better late than never, hm?

I got back to Abuja on Tuesday, which was very unfortunate as I was nurturing hopes of just staying the whole week. Alas, NYSC had other plans and very conveniently staged a “General meeting” with all core members on Wednesday. I was extremely elated and delighted to attend this supremely beneficial and eye-opening meeting while standing under hot sun, in a large crowd and in my irritatingly annoying khaki.

It was all very swell, as I’m sure you can tell.

Now, I’m sure you’re wondering, what exactly was so important that a general meeting was called?

Good, let me tell you.

From getting there I was already annoyed, here’s why; if you know me, you know that I’m not the best at keeping up communication with people (my best friend and I speak every 1–2 months), I hate constant texting and detest phone calls even more (my mother and I have had an argument about this) and it’s really nothing personal; I just genuinely hate speaking over the phone because for some reason, I find it extremely draining. Back and forth texting is the same for me. Come to think of it, that’s probably why I don’t have very many friends, with my introverted tendencies and my aversion to communication, forming bonds is exhausting to me.

Anyways, I digress.

So, because I’m like this, naturally there’s a lot of people that I know but don’t interact with — at least regularly — and one of these groups of people are the people I met in the three weeks orientation camp that is pre-requisite for national service. Again, I don’t bear any of them any enmity, I’m just really bad at keeping up with people, and to be very honest, it’s not something I have any desire to work on — calling/texting/going out really just exhausts me on a deep level.

Sorry.

With this general meeting now, I was forced to see a lot of these people again, and as you can imagine, there was the usual exclaim “Golly, where have you been, mate” (quite obviously, they don’t talk like this, its just my old colonial roots showing through) and I have to feign interest in “how they’ve been” and “what’s been up with them” and “why don’t you call/text” and all such crock. So, already, I was irritated.

Then, after standing (no chairs) for almost 15 minutes, the Local Government chairman graced us with his presence and began a very incensed lecture about how as core members we are not supposed to leave our state of assignment and how he’s going to take attendance at the weekly CDS meetings very seriously and all that. As you can imagine, I, who had just returned from a lovely trip to Abuja, was just internally laughing.

After that, one dreadful lady from NDLEA (I’m too tired to look up the full meaning of the acronym, just know they are concerned with drugs laws and regulation) came up to give us a very enlightening (not) lecture about drugs, the different kinds of drugs and drug abuse, while simultaneously demonizing addicts, being wildly transphobic and sporting a disastrously stiff wig.

It was a dangerous situation, really.

After that, a pastor (?) came on to lecture us about were liable to die early because we’re not vegetarians. Also went on to tell us that his food has magical properties that can seriously affect our lives and futures. He seemed really intent on this topic and spoke of little else his whole sermon.

And then, we were asked to queue up to write an attendance list. I’m very sure we were almost at 200 people there, and they very wisely told all of us to form one queue.

(?)

Thankfully the officials saw that this wouldn’t work and split us up according to batches, so that was much faster.

The whole this was long and annoying, to be honest.

On to better things now, I finally finished an article I was writing for a magazine and submitted it yesterday, fingers crossed that it’s accepted. And I was also able to do the newspaper publication for mandated for the issue in my passport to be corrected.

All of you planning to have children, listen now and listen well; if you’re giving your offspring a compound name or a name with many variations in spelling, make sure that they know exactly how to spell it and in that exact order, also, when you’re registering them for their international passport (and other such vital documents), make sure that the information captured is correct and accurate, to prevent rubbish like this from happening.

As for me, I have no intention of fathering any children so that’s that.

I’ve felt very lonely over this past week, and I know the feeling was only exaggerated by the fact that in Abuja I had something to do almost every day for the short time I was there, and I was very distracted (happily so), so coming back to Jos has drawn a very stark parallel between that and this. It was quite an overwhelming feeling of melancholy and sadness that I actually called work and told them I was sick.

I’ve found that I’m reaching very deep levels of introversion because of my living alone.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d take living alone to living with almost anyone else, most especially my family, and living alone does have a lot of perks, but I’ve discovered that while I do genuinely enjoy having my own space and doing things according to my schedule (big, big pro for me), I do still want to have the option of being able to go out with a friend to a nice restaurant, or randomly catch a movie, or even have a sleepover (very rare, but a possibility), available to me. And as you can imagine, with my stellar communication skills and preference for familiarity, it’s been a bit of a struggle finding ways to have social interaction with people.

The thing is, I actually don’t really want to make new friends or to go out of my way to find people to interact with. So, you can imagine this is quite a quandary for me; feeling trapped in my own head but not being interested in venturing out.

I’m just going to ride out the remaining months of service; I have till February next year, so not that much longer. Dark thought, but sometimes I wish I could just go into a coma and fast forward to another part of my life. (No disrespect intended to people that have actually been in comas).

Oddly enough, I’ve also been thinking of what this series will become when I finish service, because I’ll probably move back home before I tackle the next aspect of my life. Will it continue as living alone diaries? Would it still make sense even if I’m not actually living alone? If I turn it into just a weekly journal series, regardless of where I’m living would people even read that? Would I have stuff to write about?

I don’t know, but I do know I’m going to keep writing until next year, and see where that takes off to. Who knows, I might actually start a proper blog, though I genuinely wonder if people would read it, there’s nothing really special about me and my thoughts and I mostly write these living alone diaries for myself anyways; its nice to hold myself accountable for something and its also great practice for my writing.

In other news, Nigeria is deeply embarrassing and its very displeasing to me and my homeboys; over this past week, Emirates has put out a statement that they have halted flights to and from Nigeria, basically, they said Nigeria has been owing them a lot of money (if I’m not wrong, about 150 million dollars) and they can’t keep on running at a loss. Apparently, the reason why Nigeria is in such debt is because of the unfavorable exchange rate.

There comes a deep shame with being associated with this country, I’m so serious right now. Because how? Its not even about not having money any more or the class divide; you could have millions of naira and you want to travel and suddenly a whole Emirates has suspended flights to and fro your country is this playing?

Someone will now come and tell me “If we all leave the country who will be here to build it”

Excuse me please, how has the Nigeria herself built me? Offered me an edge or an opportunity to actualize my potential? (Without stressing and suffering me first — do you know how exhausting it is to just register for basic things and even just vote?).

I tell all my friends that live abroad or have stronger ties to places that are not Nigeria, please, don’t be patriotic o, you best be applying for visa and making your way out.

On that beautiful note, I’ll end this entry here.

How was your week? Can you still afford things you afforded two months ago? I’m curious.

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