I became it - by Mufasa

I and Lagos weather are sworn enemies. Sometimes I think it just can’t read the room. Why are you pouring down water on a Monday morning when I’m in a straight, starched shirt? And what’s with the attitude towards weddings on the mainland? Same. Lack of emotional intelligence. The things Lagos weather would do to you. I’ve been preparing for a professional exam for almost six months now, and as at today, I’m just slightly over 75% through the entire curriculum. A big part of my life got shut down because of this, and it worries me. Foremost is the fact that I’ve considered how difficult it’d be for me to readjust to what I used to be, and the worry in that bored a hole in my brain every time. Right in the mix of this non-systematic conundrum, my personal companion decided it was time to part ways with me. It was the big-boy purchase I made for myself on my 27th or 28th birthday; I’m not sure now. Another “worry” folder added to the list. This one doesn’t bore any hole in my brain. I checked for what the faults could be, and I see myself right within the plot, knowing I caused it due to overuse. I have stretched it while studying for my MBA program between 2024 and 2025, and with the exam preparation ongoing, I’m sure giving up the ghost was the only way to go for it. I think I treated it badly by not shutting it down sometimes for weeks because I wanted to continue on the exact spot that I stopped the previous days. I also read a lot of soft-copy books. I ditched my Kindle so many times. As with mourning humans, it feels like I only have good things to say about it now that it’s no more—or perhaps now that it is in a coma. It’s not coming on. Nothing else. The situation echoes bitter and stupid things about myself: that I don’t always appreciate things until I lose them. Though the realizations are thickly layered, I think it’d still happen again. Rational living and sane decisions are walls I keep crashing into without learning anything. Not much has changed since I was a kid, though you can argue that I have an expansive vocabulary now, and can decide to talk when I want to. But all of life isn’t about verbosity or wittiness. Being grounded within oneself demands more than quick rebuttals or the ability to define situations with rare words and metaphors. I tag myself confidently as someone who sometimes has misdirected interests. I once wrote out Westlife lyrics in a book so I could remember them as I journeyed through my life, and till date, I remember the ones I committed to memory. But an unspoken one that has clung on for too long, with no optimism of being outgrown, is my fondness for the texture of a feminine backside. It’s a guilty pleasure I hope leaves me. “Ass-guy” is the nomenclature people call it now, but it’s not always about the size. Time to drop that topic like a hot lid, but don’t stop praying for me as you read this. Another part of me recited the multiplication table forward and backward as a kid. I knew the first twenty elements as a junior boy because my uncles recited them when they were preparing for their senior exams, and it stuck with me. Repetition does these types of things to me. It allows things to stick, and the blind spot continues to become blurry as well. I’ve had too many start-and-stop relationships, and all my wisdoms are from those experiences. Older women have shown interest in me, and slowly I’m beginning to think I don’t attract my peers anymore the older I get. The opposite narrative of younger women being attracted is finally a plot that is thickening with time, but I’m here in the limbo of something I cannot totally name. And I live with the fear that if I remain this way, I’d let another layer crystallize within my head—something similar to the Westlife lyrics I now enjoy singing during Karaoke. I still hate Lagos weather, but I hate who I became after every relationship ending even more. While I use the coverage, revision, and precision model to prepare for exams, I hate that I don’t have a personal blueprint for what is expected of me to be a good partner. My father tries, but I see a lot of his efforts treated as nothing with time, and that bothers me. When we talk, he tells me about things in the most honest way possible until I stop listening and start hearing what he isn’t saying. That unqualified interest from the beginning always came back to bite him, even after multiple decades of intense romantic gestures. All his tolerance left nothing for him in the end, and all his career success couldn’t cement for him something he’d be willing to write about as an addition to the legacy he has decided to leave for me. I see it. Consequences, and even more consequences. The possibility of severance even when things look stable, and sweet enough to be admired both from afar and up close. But a slight revelation is that I’ve become the very thing I hate. I inconvenience people, answer the prayers of a few, and when rage fills me up, I submerge beautiful things. I’m the one who lacks the emotional intelligence, and I don’t always read the rooms I walk into. Author’s Note For the past six months, I’ve been consumed by exam preparation while watching parts of my life—and my laptop—shut down. In the moments, I started noticing patterns: things I swore I wouldn’t become, things I hate in others that I’m now guilty of. This is me working through that, honestly.

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