Have you met your body double?

In the midst of the busy busy life I have just jumped into, I absolutely have to share this!

I have recently gone into a new business venture  which requires me liaising with businesses in a different time zone so I find myself having to keep awake in the wee hours of the morning. In the middle of one of these nocturnal virtual  business days, I decided to "keep busy" on facebook (lol). I went straight to one of my favourite pages (Black Girl With Long Hair) to feed my new addiction - Natural hair. There I was, looking through pictures of my co travellers on the natural hair journey (mind you, I have never posted a picture on this page) and lo and behold, I come face to face with a picture of two women, one of which I was sure was ME! You cannot imagine how stunned I was. I stared at this picture for the longest time and finally asked the person sitting next to me to take a look. His reaction was same as mine. I could not believe my eyes. I decided then to save the picture to my computer so as to keep it for records.

The next day, I went back to the picture and needless to say my amazement had not reduced. I then decided to ask a family member. I sent the picture to my sister without any explanation. All I said was "what to you think?" Here is the conversation that followed.

Sis:  Lol is that all your hair? It's loads!! And your friend is natural too?" 
Me: You wont believe! I saw that picture on facebook. It's not me at all.
Sis: Huh? It's not you? It's you kissing her (I guess trying to identify the one in the picture who she was SO sure was me)
Me: I swear! my eyes almost popped out when I saw it. The resemblance is too much! Incredible.
Sis: Hmmmmm.........that's incredible. But you have a blue dress like that.
Me: That's why I had to show you. I couldn't believe it.
Sis: Wow!

I'm guessing she still doesn't believe it. What do you all think? I am considering tracking this Lady down. Good idea?

Been so long.....

Wow!
I cant believe its been 5 whole months since the last time I was here. Well.... I shall be back as soon as possible to fill you in on all that has happened. Least of which is the progress I have recorded on my natural hair journey.
Hold your breath!! :D

Passenger Etiquette

Thursday 5th of May; I am on a flight from Lagos to Dubai.

I had picked my seat before hand and found it quite easily.17C an aisle seat right behind the mother and child row.  I quickly settle in as much as I can. The other two people on my row were already seated and boy were they noisy! Anyway, the door finally closes and I notice that the row in front of  me only has one person in the window seat so I grab the opportunity and change my seat -  Relief! To my surprise though, the girl who was sat beside me - now behind me - taps me rather roughly and says to me 'are you sitting there?' to which I answered 'yes'. She seemed really pleased to hear it as I over heard her saying that she will recline her chair and sleeeeeeep. She promptly moved into the seat I had just vacated therefore placing herself right behind me.

After meal time, she reclined her chair to sleep; I did the same. I fell asleep quite easily; She however woke up a while later and again

Lagos - Friday 15th April 2011

I wake up on Friday morning feeling vibrant and rearing to go. I need to see my mum today as she's in town in transit; on her way for a well deserved holiday.

Quick shower (no make up), phone calls and emails done, checked a few things off my TO DO list, and its looking good! I get into the car, turn on the A/C (which I had just spent N25,000 on 2 days before) its cooling well enough as the temperature outside is around 40 degrees centigrade

 So far so good, I set off. I pick my brother up on my way to my mum's. We drive for about 10 mins into a 1hour journey and bam! it all begins. Traffic begins to slow and eventually stops! As if thats not bad enough, in the near 40 degree heatwave, I notice that the car suddenly feels hotter ( no way! this CANNOT be happening) my brother is fast asleep in the passenger seat, blissfully oblivious of what's going on. I'm hoping against hope that its just the heat and that it would get better as soon as the traffic eases but alas that was not to be. So I continue to crawl at snail's speed

Just do it!

So I'm generally quite lazy when it comes to fitness. I so want to be fit and lead an active life but....yeah, there's always a reason not to. Now age is creeping up on me and I realize that now is probably a good time to get off my backside and engage in some fitness routine. My dear sister got me a pair of trainers last summer ~ needless to say they are still brand new LOL~ so I reckon it's time to dig them out and get them dirty!

I started today by taking a brisk walk to the post office....yay!!!

Wish me luck!!

MRS....

How much are you willing to endure for this title?
Some women I know endure humiliation, abuse ~ physical as well as mental, torture, you name it! Just to get the man to marry them and when he does, guess what changes; NOTHING!
A friend of mine once came to me complaining endlessly about her husband and the short comings of their relationship ~ financial and otherwise. She painted a terribly sad picture of her relationship so much so that I was forced to ask "well, why did you marry him?" Her answer ~ as honest as it was, it absolutely shocked me. She simply said to me "I was desperate!" Now I cant claim to have all the answers but in my opinion, desperation has never and would never be a good reason to enter into any sort of contract.

Now lets flip the coin. From the man's perspective, while you were dating, you bent over backwards to accommodate him, you accepted everything he threw at you, you were cool with his bad behavior ~that's possibly why he thought it might not be a bad idea to marry you ~ and then as soon as the deed is done, you want him to become something entirely different simply because he took you on a walk down the isle; isn't that just a bit unreasonable? Women generally do this because they believe strangely that he will change. At this point the guy is totally confused thinking 'oh my God she has changed!' LOL!!!

A lot of these women sadly are married in name only. Some of said marriages are in fact conducted more shabbily than room mate arrangements; which prompts me to ask 'is it always worth it?'  Agreed people get married for many different reasons but if one does not achieve happiness in the union what is the point? (I'm assuming that happiness is paramount in the life of every living being) Yes I know some very happy married couples but even a larger number of terribly unhappy ones. Some go further to say that life with any man is bound to be miserable anyway so why not take the most financially rewarding offer...
Maybe if we were all a bit honest with our own selves, it just might make it a little easier. A good starting point will be knowing what you are getting, and then realizing that it is what it is, then accepting what you got, and lastly make the best of it and live with it.

On the other hand, I come across people who are happily single (ironic eh?) and yet the married ones will go to extreme lengths to impress upon them several reasons why they need to get hitched ~ is that because misery loves company?

To Judge or not....

Why do people feel the need to impose their standards on everyone else?

It has become more and more obvious to me how so very judgmental people generally are. The average person I come across these days seems to be in a hurry to judge everyone else and in fact everything by their own standards (or lack of it).
You think your way is either the only way or at the very least the right way. You jump to conclusions at every opportunity. You expect everyone to think and behave like you do, not caring whether your audience even supports your way of thinking and regardless of whether you are indeed qualified to make any assessments - which often time you are not! Nothing but nothing gets past you - even the minutest details. You believe you know what's going on in everybody's head, why they have done what they did, what they will do next, and on and on the list goes! Surely we can just agree to disagree? Must we analyze everything, and then offer unsolicited advice as a matter of fact?

I cant help but wonder if this is a new phenomenon. Have we always been like this?

I am sure that I can be described as being opinionated myself but at the same time, I am very open minded and accommodating of others' views. My opinion is just that - "my opinion"- it ends there. I make a conscious effort not to judge people at all, I only wish that more people could be like me :0)

Sharing in a relationship

Are we allowed to have private lives within a relationship? How much is too much to share in a relationship?

Sharing the same bedroom, using the same email address, going through each others phones, sharing office space, having the same circle of friends, shaving your legs with your partner for audience, sitting on the toilet bowl while your partner is in the shower???!!??

Growing up, my parents had separate bedrooms - my father maintains that a woman needs to have her own room whether or not she sleeps in it.

Sixty is the new Forty

I saw this phrase in a book recently and it got me thinking.

I look back at my childhood years with amazement. The conduct of mine and in fact most parents those days is so different to what is obtainable today. The same is true for the relationship between parents and children  comparing those days to the present day. Parents were more feared than respected. Parents were like gods whereas they are now friends.

A simple example is birthday parties. When I was a child, children's parties were for CHILDREN. The parties in my household were in fact left to my mum and us, my dad was never present. We invited our friends who's mums dropped them off and came back at an agreed time to pick them up. All attention was on the children - making sure we had all the fun.
These days however, it is a very different scenario. It is a child's first birthday and all the friends and acquaintances of the parents are invited whether or not they have children to bring along. The ratio is probably 500 adults to 100 children! The parents have as much (maybe more) fun as the children. They dress up to the nines and come out and socialize with their friends.

Growing up, I never saw my dad wear anything but a formal suit or traditional outfits oh and of course for dress down days, the occasional French suit (remember them? I've never seen anything quite so funny!) And as for my mum, dressing down meant the traditional Iro and buba!
These days though, parents are so fly! They know all the 'in' things, the 'must haves'. They are up to date with fashion, music, technology, you name it.....they have fun with their kids. I attended a PTA meeting once in a Lagos secondary school and I remember thinking "hmmm....these mums sure look good!" There's no way you could find mums looking like that in my school's PTA.

I often find myself having to consciously calculate my age (lol) and constantly experience surprise at the result. A few of my friends also have admitted same. So is sixty really the new forty?

Hair

So I chopped off all my hair at the beginning of this year and boy am I relieved!

 I recently watched the documentary by Chris Rock "Good hair" and it was such an eye opener. I saw the origins of all this human hair that we wear, I saw the effects of relaxers on our health and body etc
I had been toying with the idea of going 'natural' for a few months but didn't really have the guts to do it until I saw this documentary. I just could no longer bring myself to wear hair that has been sacrificed at temples for whatever reasons. Neither could I sit and allow relaxer be applied to my hair and scalp. Just the thought of it made me cringe and feel physical pain!

I have now been wearing my hair in its natural state for 5 weeks and I have never been so happy and confident about my hair. Some people who are on or have taken this same journey have had unpleasant experiences with people making snide comments but truth be told, I have had nothing but compliments.

For me, its more than just the new found fear or wariness of relaxing/altering my hair texture or wearing dodgy weaves or damaging my scalp. It is more of a spiritual move. It is a step forward in embracing who I am . I don't know where this journey will take me, but I'm sure looking forward to the ride.

Back to my roots

So I did my big chop today yay!!!

I am sooooooooooooo loving my hair! I Wish I had done it earlier.