The back-story of my life

 

Our journey takes us to difficult places…anonymous

I’m the kind of guy that you hear from me mostly noise of useless chatter. But today I’m going to share a portion of the back-story of my life. My life has been a gradual process built upon solid foundation of work, pain and patience. No drastic happenstance that changed my life overnight. But one thing that I can say radically changed my life is going to Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria (ABU).

My life would always be marked as before and after ABU. The post ABU is critical. But even before then I was a fighter and have had my dreams. Nothing comes to me by fluke, although at times I can feel the hand of God in my affairs.

I nearly died the first of my ABU days, because of the new situation I suddenly found myself in. I was used to getting money back in Kano and spending. All of a sudden, I abandoned everything and went to ABU and lived inside that open prison. Now I spent less than 500 Naira a week. I felt totally depressed, with a clamp permanently over my chest. I breathed with difficulty for the great part of my time there.

I cursed myself and questioned my judgement. I contemplated going back to Kano. My friends stayed in Kano, attended the hometown university and earned money in the market. The ABU years are one of the most difficult times in my life. I endured. And I feel like things were over from there.

They’re not. They follow me to America.

In the bus, I vaguely felt it the first day I was moving to Zaria for schooling. That I’d hardly ever live in Kano again, like before, with the balance of things intact.

My life after ABU followed similar pattern with ABU days. Single, living away from home, and doing stuff for my professional life, ultimately laced with aloneness, loneliness and the terror of work. But it shall pass. I say it shall pass with a tinge of doubt. Bigger things for me means bigger personal difficulties.

Why all these difficulties?

I am the kind of man who lives private and ascetic life. Left to me, I can live on few bucks. But I am utterly concerned about dignity. While I don’t court power directly, I crave for what power can offer: respect and dignity. I am a man with high taste for finer things. I’m also ascetic, leading a simple private life but quietly relentless. The money I spend directly on myself comes to me in the form of books, perfume, clothes and shoes. The rest is for family. I place a great expectation on me and hold myself accountable. I want to be free. This is because I recognize the joy that freedom of choice can offer. I want everything in my life to be of my own choosing, which is where I have a complicated relationship with God!

I know I need to work hard because of these things but there is something I didn’t expect!  

2018, from when I finished university and started pre-NYSC life in Kano, I realized the life I live is not the kind I want. I had to do something about it. I didn’t consider myself a failure. I was driven by a great anxiety for progression and personal development. I was dissatisfied with the present. I feel that I deserve more and better things.

Which means I’m a very ambitious person. How do I get money needed to fund the lifestyle I crave for myself and family? Somehow, I didn’t seem to like government job and I’m not a good business man. But I knew I would do well thinking for solving humanity’s problems. I started working to create condition for my life, for my wife and children.

I started applying for jobs at international organizations working for humanity. But then there was a problem. In one job I was asked to quote my salary and that was where I believed to have problem, even though my spirit told me that my skills didn’t quite fit. I applied to some paid fellowship, and failed again. The money wasn’t too much, even though I didn’t earn those figures at the time. It won’t be enough for my dream, but I needed it anyway, for my wife and children. They needed great life, to travel the world and live life.

Achieving my dream brings to me a new realization. I have to be psychologically prepared for the journey to my dream. Meaning, I have to be rootless and light and have my idea of home and family changed, exactly the vague fear that came over me on my first trip to Zaria.

But somehow, from my dream, I felt that I needed to leave Nigeria. I started working on that. Right now, I can say I’m am on the track to the dream of my professional life. But there is one or two hitches in my personal life. I did not see the trade-off. Or maybe I saw them but didn’t expect the pain to be this much, this intense.

Madison, WI