I think by now, the ‘there is time for everything’ line must
be such a cliché, for African peeps especially, that we may not even consider
the moral lesson behind it when it comes to mind. Of course we know there is
the time to wake up, go to school, have a boyfriend or girlfriend (well that
may be an exception though) and do all sorts of stuff. So I’m so used to this
line that it has become one with no magical strings attached . . . well until
my younger sister took it to another dimension.
Now she is one girl who can talk. I mean talk the hell out
(yeah the typical younger sister won’t shut up kind of talk), and what is more
annoying is that telling her to shut up is like inviting her to say more. So
this is how it goes; I’m up in the room doing stuff. She comes in and asks if
I’d like some mint candy. She gives me a wrap and tells me she’s had it since
the previous year (and that’s how many months now?) . . . ‘No way, thanks’. She
says there is nothing wrong with it ‘it’s okay jor . . . I don’t know why I’m
keeping it sef . . . I just haven’t found the right occasion for it’
Now that’s new, I never could have thought there was a right
time for ‘sweet’. As much as it was just another of her kind of talk, it did
get my thoughts. Of course, a moral lesson came out of it; we just cannot go
wrong with time.
I think of some mistakes I may have made at some point or
even stories told by others and it boils down to the fact that we did not get
our timing right. So you think you’re 16 and out of secondary school, just
about the time to have a boyfriend . . . err, I don’t know much about the
boyfriend/girlfriend school of thought, but don’t you have JAMB to prepare
for?. . . or some dreams to build up? Is there a cash prize for whoever dates
him first?
Or your friends are all heading up to the studio to drop a
‘bomb’ ( which is often what you get these days) and just because two ‘wow’
lines slipped out of your mouth by accident, you assume that you are the next rated
star (of course that’s the point where unrecorded memories of you singing right
from the womb come up) and you think it’s just fine enough to quit school and
run after a career of which you do not even have a future outline for? Now
that’s the point where I like to say SMH (shaking my head!)
I have nothing against having a boyfriend at sweet 16 or
racing after your talents, those are just two out of other tales. The deal is
that time is just one stakeholder we always have to answer to. It may look so simple
coming up with some decisions without even thinking twice especially when
you’re young, but like Lionel Richie says ‘when you're young, all you know how
to do is wrong. Life can play tricks on you at times . . . you think you’ve got
everything when you’ve got nothing’ (okay that last line is me singing. I so
love that song). The deal though is, however way we view it, life does play
tricks. So maybe that ‘there is time for everything’ line should click in our
heads as more than jrust a cliché. (You really don't have to wait till 25 to
get your first kiss though)
derinsola
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