Coming back to the Western world I feel like a homecoming, a deeper connection to that which I know. The past year or so I've felt like a foreigner in my own country. I don't remember them, the people, the places, the streets, the language, and those I recall no longer exist. I started to think, while looking at the pictures of my life in Atlanta, that it was not me. That it probably happened to someone else, some other me, in another lifetime, a happier time, someone I don't know.
But being back, it all started to come back. I started recognizing things, patterns, places, coffee shops, foods, how to do things, eat things, buy things, how to line up, say excuse me, cross the street at the designated crosswalk, swipe a credit card and expect it to work. How to call someone and leave them a message. How to go out without makeup and still feel like your life is not attached to painting your face. How to live life without feeling the stress or pressure that you need to one up your neighbor or this person or that person.
Oh, my neighbor has a new car so I better buy a bigger one, or this girl has a designer bag, I need to buy a better, more expensive version. You turn around and the man you love actually PREFERS women that think like that. Before you know it, you start subscribing to that kind of lifestyle, dumbing yourself down just to fit in. I NEED to have bigger ambitions. I just felt immediately connected with this easy breezy simple lifestyle as if I never left. Felt more connected and remembered things more than I did with my own country. Here, I feel like a professional. A determined, ambitious young professional. My country (Lagos) didn't give me that. Here when I say I'm good, I'm REALLY good. Here there are women I aspire to be. My country (Lagos) didn't give me that.
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