Can We Pretend

There's an age you get to where everything hurts.

Things that normally roll off your back just seem to pause for a little while longer than they should. Going through a bank holiday and not have one, not even a single solitary one, of your friends call to ask you how you are. That stings! Coming back to Lagos and forgetting how cruel, cold, calculating and insincere this city is, and people keep reminding you, "But you wanted to come back to Lagos, you wanted to come back." Yes. But I think we are missing the point. It was between living in a city that was worse than a Bayou in the summertime and a city that's a mix of NY city and LA (for the beach and the superficiality) if you were me, which would you choose.

Exactly.

In the end, I just realized that every part of Nigeria is dirty. The People. The Space. And I don't quite appreciate the living space I'm in. Can I just live in it and not be constantly reminded of the dirt and grime?

Today I saw one of my neighbors lift up a trash lid with his bare hands and toss his trash in it. Then, as he walked by me, he started to scratch his nose WITH THE SAME HANDS. Is there something wrong with me? Have I been watching too many talk show segments on "hidden dirt" like The Doctors, etc.

Everything just hurts and everything and everyone feels dirty to me. I saw a post on Instagram that read: The older you get the more you realize why Britney shaved her head. Ha! I realized and did almost the same a year later. Remember "attorney guy" Summer of 2008? The hurt I feel now, none of my usual "feel good" remedies can soothe me:

Done fixed my hair, done shopped up a storm, done drank all the drink, done seen all the movies, done stayed prayed up and asked the Lord Jesus to help this sista out, done sought the Holy Spirit's intervention to help get these folks acting right. Done did e v e r y t h i n g.

I still sting. It still stings. And I don't know what to do about it.

There's an age you get to where everything hurts. So much. Who knew coming back to Lagos would hurt this much. Not I?