I'm not quite sure where this one's going but I'm sure that we'll get there. Pah! Come on! You should be used to this by now. I'm often not sure of where I'm coming from or going to, but we make it work somehow. Now, I feel compelled to tell you what it is I mean by making it work somehow. Life is a tricky messy thing, but it all works out in the end. There'll be a conclusion. There's always a conclusion. Even if the conclusion isn't what you hoped it might be, take some comfort in the fact that things do in fact conclude, always.

Back when I was love struck with love lost, I started writing something...

Every now and then we get with people that aren't the forever people. That means that you won't be together forever and ever, and that one day, your feelings of profound selfless love will turn into feelings of I love you but I'd sooner see you headless. Yes! Such is life. Nothing lasts forever. The loving somborri of today is the emotional terrorist of tomorrow, and the emotional terrorist of tomorrow is the, I swear it was the devil that possessed me to consider of next tomorrow. Like I said before, such is life. Shit happens. Everything ends, and nothing is good in the world. Yes I'm bitter. No, I don't care. Anyway, because my heart has been the victim of much sufferhead and torture...

Naturally I didn't finish it. Why on earth would I want to finish a thing like that? It's vaguely amusing but, I think I'm done with that. There are so any tales I could tell of

Thank heaven! I couldn't bear it. So I cast it aside like a burnt out cigarette and returned to business as usual. But, lately I've been thinking about the forever people and who they might be and that's when pack came up. The forever people are pack: your ride or dies, your ever dependables, the people that show up for you when all's said and done and the people that you show up for too. They're the people that don't understand you and are somehow fine with it. We're people. We're not always supposed to be understood you know? So now, more so than ever, I'm focusing on the way of the pack.

It is pack to run off on your own for a while on some adventure or the other. Pack won't judge, they'll let you go.

It is pack to not always be pack. Packs are living breathing coteries. You may leave one and find another, but you'll always remember that for a time you were brothers in battle.

Pack remembers the best of pack. Always. And even if there are hard times, pack remembers how those hard times led to something better.

Pack bleeds for pack.

Happy Days,
Afam

In other news, I'm contemplating writing less about me. Or writing about me as I did 3 years ago. All of the good, none of the bad. Life affirming, never wallowing.

By now you should all have heard. Yesterday, at least two masked gunmen stormed the offices of Charlie Hebdo and killed four men who worked for the paper, Charb, Wolinski, Cabu and Tignous. It is sad. Things like this are always sad, because it's an assault on the right to free speech and expression. That right is one of the easiest ones to take away. If you kill someone because of what he said, then a great number of the people who think as he does will fear for their lives too. It doesn't matter how loudly you rally against the aggressors because you know that deep down, there's a smidgen of fear that cannot be denied. Because of who I am, and where I am, I understand this. There are things you do not say; there are articles you do not write. When people ask you why not you laugh and say that you're disinterested, but the truth is you don't really want to invite any form of persecution into your life.

In Nigeria, more than a few journalists have been killed by unidentified gunmen. Their cases have never been resolved. I am not so optimistic as to believe them random events. I know that all men must die, but, in Nigeria, some men die with a question mark. And while death is horrible, there are many things that can be done to break a naughty man's spirit. I don't know what they are and I'm grateful for this. I like my body unbeaten. I like my purity unsoiled. I like myself alive. So while I'm gutted by the deaths of the fallen journalists, and cartoonists. I'm not going to join the Je Suis Charlie Hebdo social media campaign, because I am not Charlie Hebdo. One day of screaming for press freedoms in France will not absolve me of my skittish words when discussing issues that are perhaps better left undiscussed for the sake of safety. In my opinion, to be Charlie Hebdo is to speak out unreservedly without care of what might happen to you because of it. I do not do this, so I am not, or I cannot be Charlie Hebdo. I would like to be I think, but I also like myself unworried and unharmed. So today I'll think about all the ways I'm not Charlie, and what a shame that is.

I've just got to say that some of you people are trying it. I don't mean you afamzers/famzers. You guys are lovely and wonderful and brilliant. I mean the other ones, the ex-afamzers. I mean, I know we didn't work out and stuff, but that doesn't mean I died. What kind of God awful exes are you! Jesus!

It's just like one ratty imaginary ex of mine said to me just now,

"Afam I haven't seen you around for a bit, are you dead, or ill?"

Of course the bit of my brain that thought that has been lobotomized. I do not like it when my body parts wish me ill.

In a similar vein, some of you guys have been coming up to me and asking whether I still blog or not. Dudes! Chicks! Twats! Don't ask me, read the bloody thing! And if you're genuinely not interested, fine! Don't bother me! I won't bother you! Or better yet, google the ramblings of a madman and find out. Stop making me uncomfortable in public.

And now that that's out of my system let's get to the matter for today. Yes, I'm not blogging for the sake of it today. I have a matter that I'd like to discuss. No, not discuss. You lot are not really involved. I'll take it again. I have something that I'd like to blog about.




At this juncture I feel that it is important for me to remind the lot of you that I, Afam, am not an Orphan. I have a Mama Afam and a Papa Afam. While Papa Afam is awesome - I mean the guy is just amazing. If I'm half as strong as he is, I'll move mountains, and tame devils. And if I'm anything like him I'll find a nice Isa L'Eko babe with a brilliant family and settle down. - Mama Afam is beyond. She's like the beyond in Bed, Bath and Beyond. You get a Bed, a Bath, a Laptop, Love, free advice, a rottweiller, a bull dog, a bottle of Amapola (aka what I'm drinking as I write this) and a prayer warrior all in one chocolate 35 year old body. I realise that you must realise that if Mama Afam's 35 then she had me when she was 11. And I know that this sounds unreasonable but you must learn to ACCEPT it to. What this means for you is that if you should ever run into Mama Afam, you must flirt with her. Flirting can be flattering which is why I have a couple of numbers that I'll never use. I like to think of them as souvenirs of my youth. In each of them is a future that I said no to. I like my little mementos time. In one timeline there's an Afam who's a single dad with a terrific 5 year old and in this one there's me. I'm losing the plot here.

What I really mean to say is that there's so much that's been done for me. In 2012, when things seemed particularly bleak, that woman stood by me through thick and university paper work and process. There's really nothing I could say that could possibly describe the depth of feeling that I have towards her, and the brilliant thing is that I don't need to say anything. It's all there, in every look, in every sigh of frustration, in every tear, in every shared laugh, and in every hug, that I have never loved another as I love her, and that I think, is enough.

Happy Days,
Afam