I want you to learn about life, about its artifices. Learn of how like the seasons it would come with its highs and lows.
It would tell you on some days that you were made to be inconsequential and that the dreams you have carved in your mind of distant places are as trivial as that of the little boy who imagines he would one-day ride on the back of a lion.
It would tell you on other days that success is something made for certain people who have been reared in a certain way, that because you grew up eating beans without plantains and in a house with many neighbours, you do not deserve to be successful.
“Imagine” It would sneer at you then say “How can you be rich when you do not know how to be touché, biko go and sit one side”
I want you to learn that life does not wait for the sloppy. That it is the train that comes to the station for 12pm passengers and leaves by 12pm. It does not wait for you to dust your shoes for the journey ahead, or trim yourself to suit the expectation of others.
Life does not like that you are too bothered about what people think of you.
It is like the Priest set to officiate a wedding mass who came and because the bride was running late wedded the man with no one and left the premises.
I want you to learn about love, about how like a dress, it comes in different styles and patterns and although some of these designs might not suit you, it is not right to reprimand them.
I want you to learn that no form of love is inappropriate, that no form of it is unethical enough to warrant stern retorts. And that doing this makes you just as prejudiced as the preacher from some church bothering Lagosians with voice address systems “Don’t wear trousers or paint your nails“ because he is from somewhere in Imo state where it is immoral for women to wear trousers.
Because he has mixed morality and religion together in one bottle, shaken them together before use like a body spray, and bringing his unfinished opinions into religion so that he says “The Bible says you should not smoke” even though there is nowhere in the Bible that says you shouldn’t.
I want you to learn that religion is the enemy-religion is the enemy.
I want you to learn about gender equality. And not in the way the egotistical women do these days, fighting for their opinions to matter, not in the colourful smoke screen we see bothering our eyes on Facebook and BBM-I am a powerful woman, No man can take my voice– but in the cloaked parts we do not see. How much of a feminist are you when we are not watching?
I want you to learn about equality, in that subtle way your Mother did. To know your voice matters, not because you say you know you do.
I want you to learn that you have a solid stance on love. That it’s okay to sometimes stare at old chats nostalgic for what once was, that it’s okay to recognise perfumes of strangers that had once been the smell of the happiest moments in your life, its okay. It’s okay to wish for the things that brought you the most hurt, to look at old pictures and wonder If time was briefer than it seemed.
I want you to know that no one should be able to leave you swimming in a pile of tissues and pulling the window blinds.
I want you to learn that you are enough, that you are more than enough.
I want you to learn about family, that there is nothing like it. For it is like the scar from a fire that lingers, no matter how far we go, or how big we grow. Ask Chigozie Obioma, author of The Fishermen, ask him, he knows.
I want you to learn about yourself. Know you more than anyone else, so that when people say “This girl you are too feisty”, you would reply “I know” instead of “Am I?”.
I want you to see yourself as someone else, an exciting new character you have just met and whom you are trying to understand. I want you to be surprised at your actions countless times, so that you cease to be surprised at them.
I want you to learn that you are beautiful. And not just in the pruned way the world has defined beauty-maize coloured face, properly drawn eye brows-but learn that you are beautiful and sufficient and adequate and that you are as much as necessary.
I want you most of all, if no one else would for you. I want you to learn to appreciate yourself, to learn to love yourself.
For as you begin to love yourself, less things would start to matter, less people would be able to hurt you, most of all, less things besides you would concern you.
Wayne Dyer says, “You cannot be lonely if you like the person you’re alone with”
Remember this.
In 2016, remember all these.
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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija
Caleb Somtochukwu Okereke is a Nigerian writer and literary blogger born. His poetry and short fiction have been published on the Kalahari review, African writer, Quality poets, Teenageaye magazine, Birmingham’s-New Black magazine amongst countless others and in the Texas based journal-The Hamilton stone review.
