Category Archives: Late night

29 and Unmarried

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Posted by in Dreams, Experiences, Late night, Life, More Action, relationships, Thoughts in motion, Uncategorized

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I can’t even begin to tell you what its like to be a woman of African descent born and raised in the United Kingdom.

Trust me when I say there are many realms to navigate through, AND to do it successfully? Its hard, hard af.

In my culture if you’re not married at 29, you’re already past your sell-by date. Yes it IS the be all and end all. It’s something almost all mothers irrespective of backgrounds are worried about.

It’s heralded as an unspoken and if you’re Nigerian very spoken of rite of passage for a lot of women. I remember shortly after graduating, the questions began to come in thick and fast about when I will get married, as if I am supposed to pluck a good suitor from a tree, wrap him up and present him to the family. As the first born in my family and one of the eldest in my extended family, in Tupac’s words “All eyes on me”. I had to ban my family at one point from asking me such questions and I won’t even begin to touch on the children, biological clock, and your eggs will be dust talk…That’s too much to discuss in one day.

If its not my family, its my friends and their families. Sometimes they say it and at other times I just feel it, the general consensus is “Irene, you are the problem, stop being so picky etc”. At some point, not sure when exactly, I started to believe them and it cost me! I mean if ‘everyone’ is thinking it and often times saying it, they must be right, right? I MUST be the problem, right? I didn’t want to be the black sheep and the one who wouldn’t get in line, so I ignored all the alarm bells and stood in the shit for a little too long. I entertained pursuits that I knew from the get-go were not right. Fortunately for me, I came out bruised and not broken.

Do not and by that I mean NEVER go against what you feel in your gut.

In addition to desperately trying to make something work, I spent a few months last year looking at every woman’s finger and then harshly judging her because the conditioning I had had since I was a child began to engulf me and swallow me whole, like Jonah. The thoughts swirling around my head were what’s wrong me? Why does she get to be married? Why wasn’t this a part of my life? Nobody wants me?! (Proceeds to cry in the corner).

The pressure to be married or find your soul mate is everywhere and unavoidable. It’s on TV, its on social media, it’s on YouTube, it’s on the tube, anywhere you can think of it, it’s there, haunting you.

There is an implicit notion that you are broken if you are not in relationship, engaged or married. Having a ring on your finger infers that you are wanted, loved and that someone saw value in you enough to make you a Mrs. This train of thought is detrimental, soul destroying and on every level, just wrong.

You are not broken, nor unloved or unwanted. The ideals established by our families, our cultures and society are often times unrealistic and can lead to an unhealthy state of being.

Anyway, I say all of that to say that I have been delivert*,I have finally made peace with all those demands and expectations that I and others had for my life. I have opted to be nobodies bitch least of all this society’s.

I have become very clear on what a good suitor looks like and my previous experiences were not it and I’ll be damned if I get to the altar and Mr Big chooses not to show up, someone will die, sorry I mean…nah, someone will die!

There is a whole lot more to life than being married or in a relationship. Life doesn’t stop there as my many married friends will tell me, it’s also not an easy feat. While it may not be in your very immediate future, do not sit there moping and become a glutton, get busy. Get busy in discovering more about yourself and living your best life yet while it is still on your own terms, because when you do eventually settle down, you can kiss goodbye to that lol.

Really spend time investing in yourself and your goals. Focus on the things that make you happy outside of anyone and do that, explore, learn a language, travel a lot, buy a home, do a placement abroad, write a book, go back to university to study (actually don’t, tbc), try new things, become a yoga instructor, take a series of cooking classes, make money, join a circus, start painting, get into photography, start a business, take a twerking class (hey, your mate will thank you later),spend time with your non annoying family members and friends, become so busy with living a wonderful life that you do not have time to feel sorry for yourself or look at other peoples lives as being seemingly better than yours. Your life can be amazing on your own, you do not need a mate to have a fulfilling life.

Now, I am not advocating that you completely shun your desire to have a mate, simply that you do not make it your everything. When people are desperate, desperate ideas and decisions become them. When people are happy, well you know how that goes.

I’m off to the gym now at 00:40, okay i’m lying, I was going to though, ha! Tomorrow, I promise.

Goodnight Xo

Ps Delivert- The act of being over delivered from something. Past past tense lol.

Sleepless nights

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Burning the midnight oil.

Where are my weirdos at? My tribe, the ones who suffer from self-inflicted insomnia, caused by an overactive mind to do more, be more, live more, everything more!

The struggle is all too familiar to me. You know you should be sleeping as you have a 9-5 to get to, but for whatever reason you can’t and when you do actually fall asleep, its time to get up, ugh.

I was pondering today on thinking, and how it can often times be an achilles heel, Anxiety is worrying about the future and depression is worrying about the past, and although you can think your way into a new way of life, it is impossible to do so without taking action.

I attend weekly counselling sessions, yup you heard right, weekly counselling. Before I continue, I have to say this, counselling is for EVERYONE! No matter who, what, where you are, you can benefit from having a place where you can offload without judgement.

Anyway, so like I said earlier I have counselling because I’m ill, I kid, for various reasons, and at one point during these “meetings” (thats what I like to call them), I discovered that I spent a lot of time thinking about all the things I had to do constantly, and consequently feeling overwhelmed to point of not actually doing anything whatsoever! Nada, Zilch, Nothing.

Is that not sheer madness? You over stress, over imagine and over think something to death that you have no more energy.

Here’s my tried and tested advice: Think a little, Do a lot.

Good things come to those who do. Work with what you have and DO the best you can.

If you have debts, speak to a financial adviser, there are plenty of charities that offer free advise with debt management. You don’t have to feel alone. If its an ill family member or friend, spend your efforts making it the best time you’ve ever had together. My late Grandmother lived in a different country and whenever she called or was speaking to my mum on the phone, no matter what I was doing, I made sure I spoke to her and honestly it helped when she passed, because I knew I did not take her for granted- Every moment counted. If it is a career issue, seek out someone who you deem to be successful and ask them what they did and learn from them. The internet is also your friend, there is so much useful information, use it to your advantage.

Whatever keeps you up at night, there is a solution to it. Spend less time thinking about it, and more time doing something about it.

All hope is not lost. You are. For now. But not for long.

Keep going, keep trying and…Goodnight.

Xo

 

 

 

Relationships: Family, Friends, Career, Money…?

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Relationships are hard work, irrespective of what form its in, maintaining them sometimes, will have you wanting to free fall from the highest cliff, grrrr!

I was sent a video last night that wound me up. It was a woman talking about how you should treat your man and a few seconds in, I was rolling my eyes, blah blah blah. The thing is, it wasn’t that I didn’t agree with some of what she said, it was the conviction she held that women are SUPPOSED to treat their men that way period. I thought, hold up, what about the men? what will they be doing? does one not have to take into account the calibre of the recipient of such wonderful treatment? It made me think…

People are out here in these streets having expectations of others that they themselves are not fulfilling.

Why do we always want what we have not worked for?

Why do you expect to be taken care of, when you cannot take care of yourself?

How much have you put in for you command this in return?

What do you bring to the table?

In my experience you attract what you are. Years ago I noticed that the men I was attracted to, had one thing in common, my bad traits. It was like fighting with myself on a daily basis, stress! My vibrations were operating at a much lower level and it showed. Thank goodness for growth!

Your relationship to friends, family, career, and money need effort, consistency, nurturing and patience in order for them to flourish and be fruitful. If you are not contributing in that way, the end results will certainly reflect that.

Being on the receiving end of the amazing things in life will often require you to supply something of yourself, a sacrifice of sorts. Everything has a price, whether you think it is worth or not is entirely up to you.

So lets do away with the idea that you get something for nothing, and accept that what you sow, be it good or bad, you’ll reap in due time. I have said this before and ill say it again, you cannot sow and reap at the same time, one must happen before the other.

One must happen before the other.

Don’t be a dreamer

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I have been thinking about late night writing or posting should say. Why? Because I’m a vampire of course.
No but more seriously, there is bound to be a community of nutters, I mean like minded people scouring the internet for something to divulge into, right? People like me.

I had a pretend community called ISG, Insomniac Support Group because le struggle to sleep was real. It consisted of myself and one other guy on Twitter ha!

Anyway back to the matter. My first late night post goes a little something like this: Go to sleep. Just kidding.

What keeps me up at night? Erm a whole host of things, bills, bills, bills, have I said bills?  If I’m honest I try not to allow such things deprive me of sleep, usually if I am up till late, my aspirations are haunting me, literally.

I find that sometimes I spend a large amount of time thinking about them rather than actually doing them. The reason is usually because I have never done it before and truth be told my goals scare me lol, so what do I do instead? Procrastinate.

Last week I bought the audio book by the Shonda Rhimes “Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person”.

Shonda is both incredibly inspirational and a pioneer of her own kind. She consistently breaks the mould in various aspects of her life and is living it exactly the way she wants it. I applaud her boldness and her ability to say no to some things and yes to others, if you’ve read/listened to the book, you’ll know what I am referring to.

The thing that most resonated with me from her book, was something she said in her commencement speech at Dartmouth University, which she was petrified of doing. She said don’t dream, do.

Now you might say ‘yeah we know that Irene, we all know that’ yes we have heard it a trillion times but how well have those words permeated your skin? What’s the ratio of what you do to what you don’t do in respect of your goals? Be honest with yourself.

It was like I was hearing those words again for the first time. Its funny because my posts are riddled with ‘action talk’ yet I felt a renewed sense of attachment to the words ‘Don’t dream, do’ as if I had unlocked a new level on a game, the game of life. Maybe its because I knew I wasn’t doing nearly enough.

Yes its great having dreams, but dreams will remain a fantasy if you don’t do anything about it.

No sense in conjuring beautiful images of what you’d love your life to look like if you don’t in fact take any action towards doing something about it.

It doesn’t matter if you don’t know how to do it, just keep doing what you know and be keen to learn.

The idea is to not keep still waiting for the perfect time or opportunity. Now is the perfect time and you are the opportunity.

Keep moving, keep repeating, keep practicing, keep learning, and most importantly keep doing.

By being proactive, the universe will aid and abet in order to get where you want to be but you have to do, consistently and persistently.

Okay that’s my lot. See you night creatures! XO