The Holiday Entries: Small Blessings

This is an extract from Day 2. I feel the need to point out that these were all written in the heat of the moment.

I think I have my appetite back on the upside. Something about travelling takes the whole idea of food off of my mind for a while.

I really want my stuff back and I am getting even more homesick; I swear I cannot wait to be back in Dubai. I keep calling the airport almost frantically and there has been no answer. My mum keeps telling me all these things; ‘in case of next time’ she says…I am too angry to contemplate the possibility of a next time. I keep chanting ‘home is where the bags are’ in my head. Currently the bags are in upheaval which means home is in upheaval which means I am in upheaval.

I had an argument of sorts with God today and I told him that if I didn’t get my stuff back I would never come back. I feel like he laughed and said ‘you were never gonna come back anyway’.

Oh I took some pictures today. Not anything to write anywhere about. 

The Holiday Entries: Home??

I've thrown out hints about writing some stuff about my time in Nigeria but as you can see it took me a little longer than it should have. The truth I was hesitant to upload anything about it because frankly I disliked almost all of the time I spent there. 

I kept something akin to a journal for the duration of my two weeks though most of its contents are self-censored and may never make it into public viewing. So this is how I plan to work it. I'll put snippets of my journal entries on here with some of the pictures I took and hope and pray that is enough to satiate your appetites (JIA!!).

Let's start with Day 1:

I hate travelling. I think I’ve said that over a handful of times since I got to the airport and I think my friend who has the unfortunate task of travelling with me is sick of it now. But I have my reasons. Journeys never go the way they should and destinations almost always prove deceptive or painfully correct. First they had a problem with my tickets which took them all too long to sort out and led to me buying overly expensive perfumes in duty free. Then they delayed my transit flight by an hour. Then upon my arrival and after almost an hour of pointless waiting, it was disclosed to me that my bags had in fact been misplaced/left behind/or its location were otherwise unknown.

Of course my mother blamed ME for the fact that the AIRLINE misplaced a BUNCH OF PEOPLE’S bags...I can see how all that is my fault.

Nevertheless I returned “home” to mull over the fact that I had lost not only my bag but my friend’s bag that I had checked in for him. GREAT START. 

Eventually I found myself thinking that this was a sign that I should never have come. I should never have returned to the motherland after all. I truly didn’t want to come. I am in that place in my life where I am spreading roots in some place other than what most others would call my home. I am as yet undecided as to whether that is a positive or negative change; maybe it’s a bit of both. All I know is as much as I love my country and my people, my family and the few friends I still have there, I don’t think I can live in this country.

IT IRKS ME WHEN....

So this post is about two things in particular that people do which just annoys the crazy out of me. I picked these two things because they seem to be a common theme around these parts; too many people here are guilty of them.

ANNOYING OCCURRENCE NUMBER 1.
People who live their lives repeating past mistakes like they're in some kind of time loop.

Why in the name of all that is sane and not in a straight jacket would you look at yourself and repeat the same mistakes over and over and over and...just stop. Please. Anywhere else in the world psychologists would have diagnosed you with some syndrome or disorder, because there is nothing normal in repeating yourself. What kind of selective memory loss deceives you into believing that it is perfectly OKIES to put your self in this situation? And what really trips me about these people is that later on they come to you like,

 "OH MY GOSH!! I can't believe I did that!! That was so stupid of me!!"

And they leave you with this impression that they finally understand what you spent the better part of a century explaining to them like it's theoretical physics or something. But just give them a few more days and they'll be back to their old ways. And you sit and watch their display of madness in total confusion, because frankly this can not be the definition of life.

Worse still are the ones who come seeking your advice, and then get angry and rude when you tell them the truth!! *sidenote* If you don't want MY advice then explain to me how you arrived at MY door. I don't dish it out willy-nilly but if you ask for the truth please don't expect anything but the truth.

Which leads me to point Numero 2...

ANNOYING OCCURRENCE NUMBER 2.
People who say one thing then turn around and do something entirely different.

I don't want to think of it as lies, go ahead and call me naive. I'd rather think of it as stupidity because I feel like your foolishness has a cure and there is still hope. But if you are actively telling lies when there is no need for it I have nothing to say to you.

I fail to understand why you would come to me to discuss something that I honestly have no interest in and then lie to me!! I didn't ask you. You chose to tell me yourself. So...why lie?? Because you know that what you're doing makes no sense, that's why.

If at the end of this post you're wondering what it is I really want, it is for people to stop letting other people's opinions of them (mine included) rule their lives. I feel like the reason why people act foolish a lot of the time is because they are under the impression that this is what the world expects from them. Screw the world and its many invalid opinions; what do you want?? I want people to know who they are, what they want and to stand by that belief until they have reason to do otherwise.

Of course, as always, I'm asking too much.

PS
Lianne La Havas is my new mini-music obsession. Find her on YouTube and kindly stalk her music. Gracias.