WHAT WAKES ME FROM MY DREAMS

I remember my childhood, sitting quietly all by myself....amidst six other children and yet I sat alone. Speaking to myself in my head in my own language that only I and I could understand and reckon with. You know my mum said I didn’t use to cry as a baby and neither laughed.

Till date, I can’t remember what went on while I was in nursery and primary 1-2. This is because I lived in another world different from the classroom. I can’t remember any of my classmate or even the teachers and this made me remain close to the bottom of the class at the end of every term.

The only event I get close to remembering is my fourth birthday. There must have been a party thrown for me because I was born on February 29 and so my parents make it a point of duty to throw big parties for me once in four years and just do simple marking in the in-between years. So that meant I didn’t celebrate a 10th birthday but a 12th and I didn’t get the usual transforming 21st birthday notable for every babe but a 20th.

Back to my story….I remember that on my fourth birthday, I had a white top that had a black bib thrown behind and infront of the top was inscribed:

Happy Birthday
Titilayo is 4

I could be in dreamland for days on end..webbing scenarios in my head and living there. The popular scenario was a garden that had swings, chairs and tables and all manners of trees having fruits on them and I would play and take all my meals in the garden.

I remember this one most because I wished so much for it to come to past and when Dad announced we were moving to our own house I daydreamed about it more and more. However, when we got to the new house, all the floor was fully cemented, not even one plant grew within the compound talk less of a tree.

You know, I always say God saved my parents that I was not autistic…….

Till date I still find myself lost in my day dreaming world where everything is as I love it. I still love to go back to that sanctuary where I am all by self, to remain there for days on end and be a recluse. However, there are issues that startle me back to reality, issues that scream for my attention and make me alert to every little development in my environment.

I see these different issues and they make me remain wide awake asking what happened, where did we g wrong, how did we miss it and most importantly how do we get out of here?

This may sound very funny, but whenever I am around Tejuosho market, I marvel at what has become of my childhood London. Shopping for Christmas at Tejuosho was a ritual my mum strictly adhered to when we were kids. The mall was a beautiful sight with lovely wares neatly displayed in the shops and its clear and clean pathways. When I was later taken there as an older girl, a 100level student just out of the secondary school boarding house to be integrated back into the Lagos society I had left behind, I had to ask my elder sister, is Yaba market the same as the Tejuosho market we used to go to as kids?

I consider the situation Nigerians have to go through to apply for a UK visa and the daylight robbery being perpetrated by the UK commission in Nigeria, robbing genuine Nigerian citizens of their hard earned Naira bills and all I can do is scream in my head, THIS MUST STOP!!!!!!!

This list is endless…….and all I will like to do is ask, what must we do?