A Past-Lived Stupidity

A part of my child hood has been of recent interest to me and that is the foundation of the note below!

The feeling of a past-lived stupidity.

I  went to an all-girls secondary school and I can remember the thirst to be part of a group or the cool girls’ clique and I laugh at myself now.  I remember the after school strolling out through the back gate and seeing all the girls talking to the boys and walking shyly through the corner and wondering if I just crossed someone’s mind as I walk passed awkwardly. Sigh

The after school lessons which was a haven for gossips, friendships, crush and confusion. The extra lip gloss after class and the latent seriousness we throw around, and wondering if we should act intelligent or silly; that decision was based on the kind of people around us at that time.

It seemed our life was either going to be destroyed or rebuilt depending on what we wore and who saw us wearing what. It seemed our level of cool degree was very dependent on the valentine gifts we received, what we watched on TV, what we gossiped about and who knew who, amongst many others. When passing a street filled with a crowd of people, wearing the right dress filled our hearts with so much joy that joy in itself could not even explain!

Most of the time, our worst enemy at this moment, was one of our parent. One of them would always see the need to tell us to go across the road to get some type of food ingredient or buy some roasted plantain and groundnut, in front of the people our lives depended on! We died slowly every time we crossed that road.

It had nothing to do with social network because we did not care if these people knew our names or if we ever spoke to them, but it had something to do with a social feeling. A feeling of mental highs and lows and the epileptic nature of our self-worth was solely dependent on external parties who were teenagers just like us with hormones and egos as the replacement for sense and maturity.

But how could we have known better?

How could we have known that those pimples we desperately tried to hide underneath the foundation we stole from our mothers' closet was just a phase? How could we have known that we did not need to lie we travelled abroad during the summer because travelling abroad was going to be a casual activity in the coming years? How could we have known that there was no need to lie about the designer of our BATA because we would learn that it is not in the make of shoes we wear but in the depth of footprints we leave behind? How could we have known that the girls we termed cool and we thought we could never ever dream to be like would all grow up, marry and give birth to babies just like every other girl?

How could we have known that our definition of cool as teenagers was as lame as comparing Obasanjo to transparency?  How could we have known that our parents sent us across the road to buy that roasted food product because she did not want us to go hungry to our lessons? How could we have known that we needed not to be ashamed as to what our parents bought for us because in the coming years, value would be better explained when our parents talk about us with pride? How could we have known that the recognition we desperately searched for, at the right time, would come from the right persons?

Oh, so many things we did not know! And so many things we still do not know!

Even at this stage, contentment is still an illusion to many and comparison has become the measurement of progress or not. Have we not learnt yet, that we should be wary of what we consider important because in 5 years or less time, they might seem very irrelevant? Hmn, I shall not analyze this phase just yet but in the coming years.

Someone mentioned that education is the progressive discovery of our ignorance, and I would like to state that Maturity is the progressive discovery that our ignorance was way too deep!

Matthew 6 vs 21 ‘For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also’