The gift of singleness

It almost sounds like an overcompensating joke. At least, I thought so the first time I came across the book with this title. Being single at the time( still am), this might have been a cheery book to read, but I thought “Nah, I don’t need any patronising soothsayers to tell me how lucky I am to be single" *insert exaggerated eyeball rolling*.


Remember those innocent, carefree days of when you were much younger. When you only had to worry about your times tables. I miss those days! I didn’t have to worry about anything!!... At least not anything serious. The same cycle continues, we're always going to long for the simpler days.


Fast forward 10 years down the road. You are married to a great man, have 2/3 great kids, and a nice job. Its exactly how you pictured it but guess what ?! you didn't imagine that you wouldn’t have time for yourself. It’s always going to be my kids this, my husband this, my job that! Even with just a boyfriend, you still have to think about the other person and plan with them in mind.

The gift of singleness is freedom. You don’t have all that stress, you can just do you. You can call the shots in your own life without anyone’s approval. You can travel to Antarctica if you like, shave off your hair..whatever! (err..almost whatever) Focus on you. your dreams. your goals. The person you want to become. Do the things you've always wanted to do. Enjoy your own company. Goof around in your room. Chat to your friends forever and not feel guilty.  Know and love you!!


I think not worrying about the future really helps. Knowing that at the right time God will bring the right guy. If I know that day will surely come, that means I have limited days of freedom left and I sure as hell would make use of them now before they run out.

For all the single people out there, I hope you begin to see the gift in your singleness and just enjoy me-time.
And here's a stirring p4cm video about waiting. Enjoy :)

And It is written...

So, a couple of years back I remember when I began to test my writting prowess and I wrote out a bunch of random scenarios. I am still not a very good prose writer, it may be something I wish to experiment more with later but we shall see.

Life is for sharing, so I thought I would share them with you.

They do not make sense in a progressive manner. They are just a bunch of lines/paragraphs where I try to play around with similies and just the flow of words. Some of them make more sense than the others...I have my favourites...but I'll leave you to decide yours( if you have any). Enjoy

......................................................................................................................................

The rain poured down heavily. Flooding my senses with memories of every time we had walked this same route to my place. They were all happy memories, blissfull ones in fact. The wind jolted my umbrella upwards, and the rain poured heavily on me soaking me through and through. I tasted the warm salty tears mixed with rain on my lips and slowly continued to make my way home.

Always, always and forever yours. Sometimes, I wander away and get lost. Sometimes, my feet finds itself in dodgy territories, my eyes seek new and delightful sights and my flesh aches for lusty thrills of the world. But your love, the sweet, poignant, far reaching tendrils of your love always draws me back into your embrace. You’re always there. No matter what, no matter how far I wander, you always take me back. Please always be like this and never let me go because I‘ll only always and forever be yours if you’ll always and forever be mine, my Lord, my King and my God.

(This one was more from the heart than from the head)

She was all he wanted in a girl; smart, sexy and at the same time innocent...innocent enough for him to want to protect her. It made him feel very important and manly. The fact that despite all her brains and beauty she still needed him, that did wonders for a man’s ego. He watched her as she spoke to their realtor, outlining all the specifications she wanted for their dream house. He had recently proposed to her and they were planning on moving in together. Finding the right house was proving difficult but it was more of Sheila’s problem. His problem had come earlier in form of the proposal. He had wanted it to be perfect and he had spent many nights worrying and many days planning the perfect scenario for it. He had consulted Dapo, his best friend and Angela, Sheila’s younger sister day and night to go over every detail and to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything. It had to be perfect because this was the first time and last time he was ever going to propose to a woman. But it was also his nature, if he was going to be involved in anything it had to be planned articulately and executed perfectly.

Reading and writing and the preservation of language and its forms and the kind of eloquence and the kind of beauty which the language is capable of is terribly important to the human beings because this is connected to thought. — Iris Murdoch

Hope for the future

I met an old gentleman the other day. We were at the Nigerian embassy and everyone was stressed and irritated about the inefficiency and disorderliness of the system. There weren’t enough seats for everyone and so immediately someone’s number got called up, it was a scramble to get their seats. The lucky winner of the seat next to me was an old gentleman. I watched him shuffle and settle down. He picked up his phone and left a voicemail for someone explaining that his trip to the embassy would take much longer than he had expected and so they should not bother to expect him soon. He only hoped he would get his whole business sorted before the embassy closed for the day. As I watched him I smiled to myself. He was cute. Not in a pervy way oh. This guy was old enough to be my grandpa but he obviously had a sharp mind. He could still work his phone to fill in appointment dates on his phone calendar and he spoke impeccable English. I love cute old gentle men because they have a mass of knowledge and history to happily give away and so I decided that I somehow had to strike up a convo with this man to pass the time in this dreadful place.

I can’t remember now the first question I asked, but we did get talking and somehow the convo drifted to the Lagos he knew before he left Nigeria in the 1960s. All the British and a few Nigerians in the upper echelons of society lived in Ikoyi while the normal Lagosians lived in other parts like Surulere. Despite the division, he clearly remembered that things were good. There was always electricity and water. Not any more I joked. He frowned slightly at this and said that after going back to visit over the years, he had seen his country get worse and worse and somewhere along the line he lost hope for a better Nigeria.

A few seats away was a man passionately arguing that it was wrong to be watching British television in the Nigerian Embassy. “Don’t they have AIT?! This is the problem with Nigeria; we don’t like to appreciate our own things!” Some nodded in agreement chanting “It’s true, it’s true!” Others just looked on, worn out from waiting hours to be attended to. The old man next to me slowly shook his head and said “Oh, I don’t like to even think about Nigeria’s problems”. He said it so vehemently that I felt sorry for him. This man had lived his whole life hoping for a better Nigeria and nearing the end of his life, he had given up carrying the unfulfilled hope around with him. Better to forget and die peacefully I guess, than be driven to your grave frustrated and disappointed in your home country.

It made me think though, one thing he doesn’t have that I do have is time and the opportunity to do something. This man obviously didn’t contribute much to Nigeria because he left when he was 20 and only came back as an observer. His whole life and children were in England and so maybe it was easier for him to give up hope. The morale of the story is if we fold our hands and do nothing, nothing would happen and the lawlessness that prevails in our country would continue to prevail. We have to be actively engaged in building Nigeria. Than man doesn’t have the chance to be in the future of Nigeria anymore but we do! We are young and we have the power! If only we believe. I love my country, I really do and as bleak as it seems now, I have hope that a glorious future looms ahead of us. If we look clearly we can almost see the first few strains of light coming through. The full coming of that glorious day however depends on YOU and ME!

I absolutely love TY Bello! I am so excited that she's back and I love this song, the message, the video. She's so beautiful as well...I could go on and on, she deserves her own post.

Please Leave your comments! Would love to hear your thoughts :)

Light at the end

Some days are just gloomy. You know you really have no right to be sad but you just are. You know you should be grateful for the amazing life you have but somewhere inside you, you know it could still be better than it was. I wish for alot of things right now, but wishes aren't horses. The only way to fly is to buy me a set of wings..(or a G6.lol) Regardless, I'll never stop being hopeful. God's plans for me give me a future and a hope. That's after all why this blog is called sugary sea...the bright optimistic side of life.

If you ever feel down and out, be encouraged. There's always a light at the end of the tunnel as far as we hope in God. I do have to add though, that there may be light at the end of the tunnel but you will only get there by walking towards it. Fait + works peoples!

Peace out! :)

We know but we don't care!

I’ve been thinking that nowadays we know too much, we see too much, we hear too much. Information overload! In school, on the news, in church, on the tube, bill boards and magazines ...like everywhere you look but the thing is the more we know the less we do. We’re so used to news of disasters around the world that we are barely moved by the latest ads pleading with us to donate. It’s really sad and I hope that even if I can’t change the world, I can somehow start to contribute more to its development.

Sometimes I wish I was born in idyllic simple village times. People were much more content with what they had and way more involved in their community. I mean I’m grateful for technology and modernisation but it still has its down sides.

Enough moaning. I thought it would be a good idea to introduce a “Thankful Thursday” :). It’s so easy to focus on all the things that are not going right. So today I’m grateful to God for good food! Lol. Yes, I love my food. But lately, I have been eating well, you know veggies and fruits and my wonderful oat clusters. And the other day I made an apple pie. I never ever thought I would enjoy making food but now I do and I just have a greater appreciation for food. So ,yay, Thank God.

And here are two super cool food blogs that have been feeding my food love:

Fit foodie finds : She’s a healthy college kid that makes the yummiest assortment of breakfast oats. Lots of experimental ideas for healthy eating...Note: not for the faint hearted.

Modern African Cuisine From efo riro to chin-chin to rice and Plantain...this blog leaves me salivating with all the pictures!! Almost any type of Nigerian food you can think of is on here, I can’t wait to start trying my hands on some of those dishes. ( Future husband be thankful!)

Lastly, I came across This version of Wheatus's Teenage Dirtbag and I love it! Can't stop singing it. Enjoy :)

The G.o.s.p.e.l

G.O.S.P.E.L. from Humble Beast Records on Vimeo.

Had to sharee! very tight flow and he is speaking TRUTH. Be blessed.
God loves you!

Woman-hood

This is such a strange word. It one of those words like menstruation and breasts that are so uncomfortably and clinically feminine. Words that scream you are a WOMAN! I haven’t always been a fan of describing myself as a woman. I mean when I visualise myself in the future, what I see is a woman but in the present...nope. I know I ‘m still young, but this may be a feeling that I carry along with me as I grow older. I prefer the daintier version ‘lady’... or anything like that. Woman is almost a call to fill the shoes of all the ‘women’ before you...women like my mother, my principal in secondary school, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first female African president and all the motherly, womanly, strong women out there. It’s a call to play your role in the fabric of society. The point of this whole preamble is about the essence of womanhood. What is the essence of womanhood that is so indefinable and almost intimidating? Are we simply the child bearers and home makers, meaningless without being placed in a family as wife and mother? Today’s modern feminists reject this idea. We are more than that they say, we are also breadwinners and presidents and CEO’s and activists ...we are powerful and equal to men.



Are we meant to be powerful and equal to men? Aren’t we the supposed “weaker sex”? Don’t shoot me yet, I consider myself to be a feminist. Not a bra-burning feminist but the type who wants to see men and women given the same opportunities and the same rewards without discriminating on the basis of gender, the type who is against the exploitation of womens’ strengths and weaknesses to promote stupid agendas. As I have grown older my view on the roles of women have taken a beating. At first I thought we were strong and oh- so-powerful, and then I thought we were hopelessly weak...and now? I’m realising that we are strong in our seemingly weak states. Are you confused yet? Lol.

I am reading this book called Woman: An asset to the nation by Nike Adeyemi, Sam Adeyemi’s wife. Some of the things she says leave me rather err...x_x but the more I read this book, the more I see the shape of a woman utterly different from the one I had envisioned all my life. A different brand of feminism than the one the world tries to sell today.

She is strong yet gentle, wise yet humble, productive but not wasteful, beautiful but not vain...she is a complex walking paradox. She is very much a Proverbs 31 woman...a woman I have always been very suspicious about (Like really?! Is she superwoman? And ...you want me to be like that?...err no thanks! she’s rather too ‘womanly for me) BUT, the more I read about her, the more I realise that I need to be like her to be anything like the woman I imagine to be in future. When God created the world, he gave Eve to Adam, and to the world, so that everything would be good. We are the finishing touch. Without a woman playing a role in the way that she ought to the world would not be good. And the state of today’s world speaks for itself. I got taught something like this in class yesterday...some guy (of course it would be a guy*rolls eyes*) thinks so too.

I have ALWAYS supported the “what a man can do, a woman can do better” movement. BUT the more I learn, I realise it really should be “What a man can do, a woman can do differently”. I am still learning this but men aren’t our competition, they are our partners. Hard to imagine partnering with some big headed chauvinist lazy pig though! I feel women/girls/ladies need to be educated on what being a woman entails. There are very few role models nowadays. Us girls need to stop being lazy and “unwise”. And I think guys need lessons too! Most of them have warped ideals of women...they want Naomi Campbell in the kitchen (^ _-) lol. God bless all the guys out there that recognise the true value of women!

Another question for another day, is can we have it all? Be super career women and super mummies and wives? Do we need to be all of these things to justify our womanhood?