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It seems that due to the activities of a
few risk taking people (risk taking people wasn’t the word I had in mind but
it’ll have to do. I don’t swear anymore) several of you out there in the big
wide world are like me. You’re twenty something year old college (I’m keeping
it real with my American homies. That’s what you say in the States right?) and
university graduates who live at home. I was supposed to have a kick ass job in
London, or New York, that paid me truck loads of money, but look at me. I mean
look at me. I’m working from my bedroom while my parents watch CNN in the next
room. I don’t even watch CNN. I find that it’s better to read the news than it
is to watch it. If I wanted to watch E (the entertainment channel that’s
somehow almost synonymous with Kimmy K soon to be West) I’d watch E, since CNN
is a little like serious E, it doesn’t get much watched much by me. My parents
on the other hand just can’t get enough. And you know the risk taking people I
was talking about in the first line don’t you? They’re the pesky bankers that
literally blew up the world five years ago. If they hadn’t done whatever it is
that they did, the life I imagined I
would have when I was twenty three would be mine. I’m not bitter at all but
don’t give me an AK 47.
I was vastly unprepared for the move back
home. My mom tempted me with promises of good food, and laundry that I wouldn’t
have to do myself and constant access to a fueled car. She made it sound like I
would be coming back to a hotel. I wasn’t. Parents lie. I should have known
this. They still tell me that I’m more specialer and gifteder than everyone
else out there. Sometimes it’s a welcome pick me up, but at other times it’s an
are you kidding me right now? If I’m so special why am I in Lagos, and why
don’t I have a job in Goldman? Why? Why? Why? Why? They have the answer to that one too by the
way. It’s, God didn’t want it for you… or it’s not the right thing for right
now. To the God part, I think, “but what about what I want for me? Would it be
so bad to actually have money?” And about the it’s not the right thing for now
part I think, “But I needed the paycheck yesterday. There couldn’t be a righter
thing for right now!” That’s what I get when my parents, tap into the mini Yoda
that got implanted into their heads when those gametes met, and formed that
embryo. Their questions are answers and their answers are questions, and their
rhetorical questions work like mind control. “You know you’re going to be all
right don’t you?” they say/ask, and for that moment in time, I believe it. Ten
minutes later, I’m in my bedroom/office tearing out my hair screaming “I don’t
know what I’m doing with my life!!” But I only scream in my mind. On the
outside, I’m the three most annoying C adjectives that have ever been placed
side by side alliteratively. Yes! You guessed it. I’m cool, calm and
collected.
This is the cue for ten years into the
future me to walk into the room while I go take a shower and type, “don’t worry
man. You’ll get everything you dreamed of and more.” If I get back and see that
he hasn’t, my next article will be future me, reveal yourself.
Happy days,
Afam
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