we don't yuck other people's yum

it’s saturday and i’ve started calling my saturday’s tobaby saturday’s because every saturday i think of you and write to you and as i lay on my bed in darkness. i’m thinking i should’ve written all day, i planned to write fiction to you today, but it’s also one of days that i’m ultimately tired, there’s no single bit of creativity to start writing. so here’s something i wrote weeks back in the middle of one the worst weeks i had, a bit of me, enjoy it.

I was in 100 level when I bought my first perfume, maybe before this my parents had taken me to a small kiosk to pick out a perfume, but I know it wasn’t often. I know it wasn’t often because I always smelled like the black Bodman perfume my father always bought, the one I shared with my two brothers and I never complained, i’ve never been one to complain.

this last couple week has been hard, not hard in a way that I deserve pity, hard in a way that I deserve joy, i’m currently in taraba state, it’s been a whirlwind. i’m meant to be somewhere entirely different but you see, the day the easter jos attack broke out …. I was headed there. I had no other option than to not go, so I found accompanying communities to tour, but you never realise how inter connected these places are, by someway we were meant to take the Jos-bauchi road to head straight to bauchi instead of jos but that same day there was a second strike that affected that road, I couldn’t go to bauchi, instead I spent my time navigating calls between my parents. my sister acting as the mediator, soliciting that I come back home. I on the other end of the phone explaining we were only exploring the safe areas, she was right, going home would be the best option, but when you’re young and broke you no longer look at ‘best’ you first wonder ‘best’ for who?

I had spent too much, this trip couldn’t afford to fail. In the past few months i’ve realised travel content is in fact ridiculously expensive.

as the boy with the bright smile would say ‘anything that can go wrong will go wrong’ Murphy’s law.

I was 15 in my first year, and when you’re 15 …you don’t make a lot of smart decisions, you’re not meant to, you’re meant to be 15.

So I didn’t have a lot of friends t

Between you and I… I had none, just inherited friendships from my siblings, people who mostly saw me as a little brother on some days and on others….they acted like they didn’t even see me at all.

I wish I knew how stupid I was meant to be when I was 15, how stupid I was allowed to be

instead of trying to do everything perfectly I wish I actually let myself be 15, even if it was just for a day.

when I got my first allowance, it came slightly late, or was it my second?… it had to have been my second. I bought food for almost everyone in the friend group I wanted to be in, they ate my food but didn’t become my friend, but it didnt matter to me because… they ate my food atleast. not everyone, same way not everyone said thank you, in a nutshell 15 is a funny age but that’s not quite what this story is about.

I had to have turned 16 when I bought my first perfume and now I think of it, maybe I should’ve known better, I went to that big little mall all the other students went with their friends, I scanned the perfume line looking for something within my budget, 2k.

and as crazy as it sounds I was shopping in the big boys session, in retrospect maybe not the biggest boys session, but ‘2k perfume boy’ I wasn’t small!

I didn’t look through the shelf with anxiety just indecision, in decisive on what I wanted to smell like or who.

my love, identity is a funny thing, no one teaches you how to have it but everyone spots it when you don’t.

The store didnt keep fancy burnt Italian coffee to ‘clear your palette’ after smelling perfumes… like the stores I shop in now.

the perfumes were small and cheap they weren’t made to last, just like the love I gave out.

I scanned through the shelves looking for the perfect bottle, perfect smell, perfect anything to fit my imperfect life.

When I think about it, life can be awfully poetic when you’re hating it.

1,500

the perfume of my dreams was 500 Naira cheaper than I had even budgeted. Absolutely insane.

but I walked out without it, too scared to choose without an audience, too scared to exist without an audience, when the day was almost over I went on to my brothers friend, the one I liked the most who was often unkind to me. I smiled and told her I found the most amazing perfume - she liked that type of thing; shopping or at least trying to shop… we were broke students so I thought it’ll excite her especially the price, I had sprayed the perfume of my dreams on my arms hoping it’ll stay lingering enough for someone to smell it, no one did.

i shoved my arm up to her nose with a glee on my face, I was excited, I was 15.

or was it 16? i can’t remember now.

it wasn’t the move away that made me sad, it was that I had done everything she liked, went to the store she liked, went up to her room first, remembered the name of the perfume and included it was such a steal yet she didn’t care…. And what’s worse? I don’t think it was a lack of kindness, she just didn’t care that I had found my favourite perfume.

she wasn’t unkind, she perhaps just didn’t care… or worse? she had her life she was living too.

I wish I cared enough for myself to go on ahead and get my favourite perfume for myself.

Sometimes you’ll need to save yourself, sometimes only you can pull yourself out of a dark cloud, sometimes you’re your knight in shining armor.

Because if no one is coming to save you, doesn’t that also mean no one is coming to stop you?

This entire week I’ve thought about this, my first perfume buying experience, my first flight, theres so much room for life to happen, so much room for ‘firsts’ no matter who you are or where you are, but it takes a certain level of inhumanity to take away someone else’s kindness, gratitude and joy.

I want to be the type of person who never yucks anyone else’s yum, you’re happy, I’m happier!

Thats all for today, I wish I could tell you about how pissed I was earlier today but its my birth month, please relax this month.. in fact take it as a holiday, the 9th to be exact on that day please sleep, eat your favourite food and remember the world would shine on everything you do.

i wrote this after one of the most stressful weeks in my life, navigating adulthood is challenging and things happen that sleepy remind me of this, but the beautiful part is, it always passes. the message still remains the same, don’t yuck other people’s yum.

in other news see the fresh spaghetti i made this week, and this part is for my mummy that said when i grow up i wouldn’t care about eating two meat. MUMMY I DON DEY CHOP STEAK OOOO TWO MEET NO EVEN LATER REACH ME.

Before I forget, how’s your day going joor? and happy tobaby saturday my love, see you next saturday 💘 also how did your week go? abeg tell me in the comment. i don use my bad character pursue all my friends 😭