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Letters 05 (Her Version of Events 2)

May 2, 2016 / By Oreoluwa Abidoye

Dear Readers,

This is a follow up letter to Her Version of Events 1 .

Dear Friend,

I don’t think I have ever told you how much I don’t like weddings. Here is why; I don’t thrive well in a crowd but that is the selfish part. I believe weddings should be small and intimate with family and loved ones whose absence you would feel if they don’t attend. I don’t appreciate how we have turned it to a rice eating event and we have neglected the importance of the day, the milestone in a person’s life that launches them into forever.

All that said I was in a mood since my August vacation, I was rebuilding the walls around my heart and looking forward to going back to work, a familiar ground to help me gain balance and feel like me again.

But my mum had to ruin my perfect plan and drag me to a wedding, under the guise that I need to get out more. Get this, she didn’t know the bride or the groom personally. She is a friend to the aunty of the bride and she even went ahead and bought the aso ebi for both of us. She walked into my room that Friday night, with a dress already made for me and gele to match. I was perplexed.

My day dreams had carried me to beautiful place and I nodded to everything she said because I wanted her to leave. On Saturday morning I realized what I signed up for when her personal make up person walked into my room. The conversation of the previous night played in my head, there was no getting out of this. I put on my best fighting spirit to help me through the day.

Everyone avoids the church service but it is my best part. I like reading the vows and hearing the couple recite it. Thinking about the vows took me back to one of the many conversations I had with he-would-must-not-be-named. We agreed on weddings and the special effect that reciting your own prepared vows at your wedding has, how it makes the day special. This was on day 15 of my holiday.

Now I am not sure what to believe any more.

I was lost in thoughts so I didn’t realise when we arrived at the venue. I sat at a table with my mum and her friends and my phone became my companion. I recently started a book titled the Rose Project by Simsion Graeme; the story is captivating following the journey of man with Asperger syndrome and his approach to finding love. It is funny at all the right places.

I was lost in my book when my mum taped me to tell me about a young man looking in my direction. How she notices these things is beyond me. She was urging me to go mingle. I resisted then she gave me the sad face and launched into how I don’t want her to see her grandchildren, how I push men away, she was almost in tears. I knew the routine but I caved because her friends were judging me with their eyes. I picked my purse and left the table, I stole one backwards glance at her and she was upbeat again, I really needed my own apartment; a space free from all her drama.

I moved towards the exit but the young man blocked my path, I recognized him immediately; he sang a beautiful love song for the couple during their first dance. His face stuck with me because of the texture of his voice and the fact he played the guitar. Everyone knows I am a sucker for men who play any musical instrument.

I decided to sit and talk with him; I liked his cologne and his music.

He sounded intelligent and didn’t go overboard with the compliments so I knew he was sincere, but I wasn’t attracted to him. I found myself comparing him to he-who-must-not-be-named. So I excused myself from the conversation but not before I exchanged phone numbers with him and made plans to go for a live show of an Afro Soul Musician the next weekend.

On my ride home with my mum, I looked out the window of the car and decided I needed to stop mopping around and resume living.

letters,

Dear———-

March 10, 2016 / By Oreoluwa Abidoye

A few weeks ago, ‘’Hey Soul Sister’’ by Train was playing on the radio. The song took me down memory lane to a period in my life I haven’t given any consideration to in the last two years.
It was second semester in our third year in the university, we were seated next to each other in a Financial Accounting class our seats were located in the middle of the class and considering our lecturer’s bedroom voice it wasn’t the best choice.

I didn’t want to be the one that lost out on our current deal, so I was faking concentration, refusing to acknowledge that you were stealing long glances at me whenever you took a break from writing your note.
I wanted so bad to wrap my free hand in yours and let you trace circles on the inside of my palm but that would mean losing our deal and my pride was larger than my need for touching hands.
My fake concentration broke when you reached for your ear phones and placed them in my ears and the first line of the Train song blasted into my head ‘’Lip stick stain on the front lobe of my left side brain’’.
Hey we all know that nerd Ore would know the part of the brain responsible for love.
I broke into a smile and in that moment I am sure I loved you.

I know this is weird and I am the last person you are expecting a letter from, but don’t drop it just yet.

There is a point to this and it isn’t to win you back or drag up old emotions; listening to that song left me feeling guilty and there are a few things I’ll like you to know so here goes. It feels like I am writing to a stranger and this simple fact has me wondering if you still love milk or if you still take the most beautiful unassuming photographs of people but who am I kidding I know deep down that you would always love milk and photography makes up more than 50% of how you express yourself and share your beauty with the world.

What I really should be wondering about is what goes on in your day, how many new movies you have seen, which series you are currently hooked on and what new artist is bringing your ear drums to life. I have lost the right to know these things to have long conversations about nothing important just the shared joy of having listening to the next person’s voice.

I am sure you have a tonne of questions for me after these two paragraphs but I am getting to the point of this letter and here goes. Sorry I didn’t accept your hand of friendship after our ‘’relationship’’ ended fun fact, it took me so long to accept it and learn to say it out loud.
I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to be friends with you, to share any aspect of my life with you, I needed to grow without you, find out who I am and the possibilities available to me without you.

All of who I was at that point in my life was wrapped up tightly in you; I had lost my identity in you, my dreams each and every one had you in it. You had become my sun and I was willingly drawing light and direction from you.
I had to find myself, learn to dream for me and learn to love myself without you. Any relationship with you would have hindered the journey to self-discovery I needed to embark on. There was never a perfect time to explain any of this to you, heck I didn’t understand what was going on at the time.
I needed to be selfish to heal and I hope you can understand that.

I have moved one with my life; learnt to deal with life situations more maturely and more importantly learn to face life as a complete individual. So I am just wondering how you are, how your dreams are panning out, and I have tried to turn off my wondering mind in your direction but I have come to the understanding that there is always a room that ‘’firsts’’ occupy though, it’s an ever shrinking space.
So feel free to reply ‘’Stranger Ore’s letter’’ or not, the ball is entirely in your court. Consider this an explanation, a peace offering of some sort and you are officially off the hook from the promises of the song ‘’The Only Exception’’.
From A Distant Part of Your Past

Photo Credit: Mr Johnson

letters,

Letters 04 ( Her Version of Events 1)

September 4, 2015 / By Oreoluwa Abidoye

Dear Friend,

Sorry I haven’t written in a while. I am living by one of my many policies. This is a new one, so I will share with you what it is.

I believe I need to start enjoying every moment of my life and not trying too hard to document it; I document later and let my memories help me relive those moments when I write.

So I went on my first holiday without my family. it is one of the numerous things on my list and just because I really needed a change of environment. I didn’t go with any expectations, just the need to be away from home and explore by myself; so I booked a hotel for a month, packed up my car and left.

My heart hadn’t fluttered in so long that I had gradually started forgetting what it felt like to worry about whether or not the person noticed you enough to match your fluttering heart with theirs. Permit me to steal a line from John Green’s book- The Fault in Our Stars ‘’Falling in love with you is like falling asleep, it starts gradually then all at once’’‎

That is how I felt. I didn’t notice when it started. It literally hit me one morning like cold coming through an open window and it was over whelming. It took a few days to adjust to my fluttering heart. This is because I had become too accustomed to my single life that the thought of the change felt like the introduction of a virus into my perfectly running system. It wasn’t a welcomed change and I felt missing from my own life.

I love walking and I hadn’t gone on a walk in so long so I decided to walk around the compound of the hotel every morning, earphones in place, and enjoy the view and the cold that morning provides, but there he was on my third morning out, there he was intruding my personal time. What makes walks wonderful is the solitude it provides, but without prancing or taking calculated paces, I walked faster.

I turned back to make sure I had lost him but there he was, fast-walking to catch up.

I realised one thing that made the process easy for me to embrace; I was fighting a lost battle, the sooner I accept this simple fact the easier the process will be.

He caught up with me and I found out a few things. He had been watching me in the mornings from his room window.(Uhh…)the criminal minds part of my brain immediately screamed stalker but my legs wouldn’t run in the opposite direction. I strangely found this faltering, my whole body seemed to be working by itself and not listening to the commands that my brain was sending out.

I started talking about seeing him at breakfast and wondering why he spent the whole time on his laptop, ignoring the rest of the world. My mouth seemed to do this on its own accord.

We walked around the compound two times before deciding to seat at one of the benches and keep talking. I found out we had very few things in common but that didn’t bother me. I was just happy for the conversation. ‎Around noon we walked back to the hotel reception and went our separate ways. This was the 10th day of my holiday.

The morning ritual continued to the 20th day of my holiday. My walks didn’t feel the same without him and I wasn’t feeling missing in my own life anymore, I embraced the process and enjoyed every moment.

On the 21st day, I waited for him and he didn’t show. My walk was miserable and unlike other days, the biting morning cold affected me.

On the 22nd day I dragged myself out of bed and I was still alone, me and the cold.

On the 23rd, the last day of my holiday, I was packed and ready to go. Driving before the sun is up is way better and I couldn’t wait to be away from the hotel and lick my wounds at my next destination. A part of me still hoped that he would be waiting, but he wasn’t.

I asked myself this, “In this age and time, why I didn’t collect a phone number, pin, anything?” I guess it is my fault, my loss.

My eyes blurred and as I blinked, the tears fell without control. I packed and cried.

Then I looked in for the lesson learned. It was good to know that I could still connect with another individual and my heart could still flutter. If nothing, I am grateful for a reminder that I am human with emotions.

letters,

Letters 03

July 16, 2015 / By Oreoluwa Abidoye

Dear Friend,
There are a number of things I do behind closed doors; they are like rituals and traditions that are scared to me. In the spirit of new beginnings and learning to live out of my comfort zone I will share a few with you.
Whenever I start a new book, after the first few chapters I fall in love with certain characters and I skip to the end many times to find out if they die. So I am mental and emotionally prepared for their death. Reading a number of Nickolas Sparks’ books is responsible for this.
The next one is still on books; I rewrite endings of books I don’t like. I will explain. When I read a book and the end it too dramatic for me or doesn’t follow the trend I hoped for, I write another ending sometimes just in my head other times when I am inspired I pen my alternate endings on paper. This helps me sleep better at night.
Another is that I write myself in and out of situations, I have a crush on a boy, I write a sappy poem about it and when I am ready to move on I write a goodbye poem. For me writing what is going on in my life solidifies it, makes it real in my own universe. So I document all moments so they are remembered and never forgotten. (This I do also for the benefit of my children and grandchildren, so by reading my journals, can share in the weird but beautiful things I have lived through)
I write in pencils or coloured pen; like pink, yellow, purple, hardly black or blue. Pencils? Well because you can erase. Just like history, it is what we make of it. How we twist or choose to remember certain moments. Writing in pencils gives me that power to erase lines that once existed into oblivion.
Coloured pens because I like colour in my life, everything looks very bleak sometimes and it feels like all the beauty in the world is faded, using my coloured pens in my own little way brings back colour into the world, I add extra strips here and there.
I have a deep love for music, it helps me unlock emotions I didn’t know I had, let alone allow to shine or even give room to grow. I would love to create music but I can’t. My vocal chords seem to have a mind of their own and wouldn’t corporate with my dreams. I appreciate from the side-lines and I let it become the sound track of my life. For many events I have a song that perfectly explains that moment and when I relive those moments I have the song playing in the background. I can say my memories are moving pictures with their own live band playing in the background.
I think a lot about heaven. I have a list of bible characters I want to meet and I have questions I want to ask them. Top on my list, after I have greeted God, said my special thank you to Jesus and thank the Holy Spirit for guidance of course, will be Brother Paul. I’d like to tell him that his letters helped me find my place in the body of Christ and I have so many questions to ask him.
The last thing I am going to share with you is the fact that I have a never ending conversation with myself. I get tired of it sometimes but never bored of it.
If you feel up to it, I will gladly welcome your own letter on the things you do behind closed doors.
Your, Friend Ore

letters,

Letters 02

July 2, 2015 / By Oreoluwa Abidoye

Dear Friend,
I have been thinking a lot about uncertainty. I know it is something we all try not to think about, we try not to let it bother us, but it is there, lurking in the background. A constant reminder of how unsure we are of the life we live. One thing I have learnt is constant are those beautiful moments. Moments that are mind blowing… Some of them we capture in a photo, a video or even a recording. Like an old photo of my mum and her elder brothers, they are all really young in the photo. My mum couldn’t be more than 4 years old in the photo, but she has her mischievous smile on and her brothers are standing behind her like her protector; almost as though they would guard her with their lives. They are all so happy. That moment is perfect because it celebrates the innocence of childhood and the joy of the moment. Or the tape recording my grandpa made of my younger sister crying. Oh she cried a lot when we were younger and now that she is taller than the rest of us we have that to hold over her head and laugh about. It is a little debris of a place long forgotten. I must have been 8 or 9 in this other photograph. It was taken in the church compound. It captures perfectly my relationship with my younger brother. We are standing side by side and holding ourselves tightly, we are not smiling yet you can tell we are happy…peaceful. That’s just how we are. We communicate, not in many words, but in the static of the words unsaid between us. We have each other’s backs and we hold on tight to each other. There is this photo of my dad and I and this was taken when I was a baby. I was so tiny. My dad carried me in one of his palms, half concentrating on me and looking at the camera man all at the same time. You can see the love and joy in his eyes, the eagerness of a new father, the uncertainty hidden because of the joy that overshadows it. When everything seems bleak, I look back on these captured moments and relive their beauty. It gives me hope that no matter the uncertainty of life, beautiful moments will always occur. Armed with this, I face uncertainty…

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letters

Letters 05 (Her Version of Events 2)

Dear———-

I know this is weird and I am the last person you are expecting a letter from, but don’t drop it just yet.

Letters 04 ( Her Version of Events 1)

Letters 03

Letters 02