To be or not to be
- realshepower
- Sep 16, 2019
- 3 min read
By Eyitemi Adeniyi
... that should not be the question
I am 26 years old. This does not matter for the story I am about to tell but I hope that it gives me a level of credibility so you listen when I speak. Let me start by saying people have told women they are to keep their age a secret and that they should not want to get older. I can count how many times someone has asked my age and another has jumped to my defence "you cannot ask a lady that" why not? why can't you ask my age? Do I suddenly become less me as I get older? Am I expiring and are you trying to save me the humiliation? Because I do not feel bad about my age and I feel more me as I have gotten older. So ask me my age. I am 26. I am getting older and I love it. I am getting to know myself in an environment that I have never before.
For one, I grew up a 'good girl'. I won the neatest girl and best behaved girl awards literally from primary school up until my final year in high school. What happened in my final year you ask? I no longer wanted 'to be' I hated the box I was put in. You have to be a lady. You have to cook for your husband. You have to be a good mother. You have to be be be... I was tired and so I chose not to be. Then came my rebellion years and I use rebellion lightly because I did not go to far off. I guess I did not need to but If I was told I had to be something I automatically wanted to be the opposite. If I did not like someone I did not want to be associated with doing anything they liked. I was constantly making decisions based on all the things I feared to be. I call those years 'my years of not to be' because with all my being I was constantly trying not to be put in a box, not to be like my parents, not to be.
So to be or not to be? why is that the only question? I just want to live for me! I am only learning what that is now. Everyone needs to take at least a month of doing nothing but getting to know themselves. Take yourself out on dates, get to know you and make decisions not from a place of fear or expectation. I am scared to be poor so I make certain career choices but... what do I like? If there were no expectations... no fears... what would I do?
I am learning what I like. I am reading books I normally would not. Trying new foods, activities, even new clothes. Trainers! T-shirts! who would have ever thought I would wear those. It was heels, skirts and blouses till I die. Politics! History! who would have thought? I am not sure if it was at the point where I wanted to be or the point I did not want to be, but those were subjects I never took an interest in.
So now I am getting to know me in a way that is liberating. I like to cook more than I thought I did but not as much as I am expected to as well but at least I know I like it and should there ever be a time I stop to like it then I will stop to cook. So I am getting to know myself no expectations to be like my parents and no exceptions to be unlike them either. Making each decision for me and one thing I am 100% sure of is I do not mind telling my age if I am asked. I do not like that people taught me to be ashamed of getting older because this is the oldest I have ever been and this is the most me I have ever felt and I LOVE IT. So, ask me my age and I will tell you because I am 26 and loving it. There is absolutely nothing to hide here.
