Control has always felt like a suffocating weight on my chest. I despise it deeply, and I often find myself reflecting on the six long years I spent in an authoritarian-style Christian school where every thought, every step, and every gesture was policed. With each passing moment, I felt myself slipping away. I wondered how everyone around me seemed okay. No one appeared to care, and over time, my desire to just be treated with respect felt foolish, irresponsible, and far-fetched.
I struggled to make sense of their rules concerning modesty. Each time I thought I understood, I found myself more confused, as if my very self was at odds with their unyielding standards. I’ve never wanted to be a speck of dust until a school staff pointed out how my skirt rested inches above my knee, or how a perfectly fitted mid-length gown became too raunchy. And the most ridiculous of them all, how a T-shirt that had a cat mapped across was too vulgar to be seen in public.
Recently, I graduated from the university with a degree in medicine and had to spend some days in school leading up to my graduation. It was so amusing walking through the hallway of my dorm and being told “Your lashes are way too long”. I watched as they continued to pick apart everything: “This necklace isn’t allowed” “Tie your hair”. I replied firmly “I am not a student of this school anymore” and walked past to my room. It felt exhilarating knowing I was officially free from the constraint of organised religion.
Read – The Books Within – A Creative Non-Fiction by – Shalom Ayerwot – Uganda
I was free from the thoughts of “what ifs” that plagued my every day with fantasies of a life somewhere far away beyond this mess. When you voice out your feelings about a particular treatment, you’re manipulated by the group into thinking everything is an act of care. Never control. You have to see the light; whatever is done is done for your own good, you’re told. Whatever resistance you have to these so-called rules is the devil speaking. And soon enough, you will be tamed, reared to become docile, complacent, silent. This is the goal, I suppose.
The car rides back home were one of my favourite. It felt like being thrown back into normalcy each time I left the school gates. I would sit in the car just enveloped with relief. I needed those times- leaving, being back home with my family, seeing my friends in Lagos again, eating the best home-cooked meals, dressing freely, going to places because I finally could without filling an exeat or writing some ridiculous letter.
I wasn’t home often, but one of my most treasured memories was coming back to Lagos for my 20th birthday. Celebrating with one of my best friends, talking, eating Japanese cuisine in the most elegant restaurant, taking pictures and exploring the surroundings of the place we were in. I am so thankful I did something for my 20th. Because it’s so easy to just let plans dispel into nothing. I fought against that and just let myself be happy.
Read – A Little Longer – A Creative Non-Fiction by Tarinabo Diete – Nigeria
Turning twenty marked a significant turning point for me, I found myself slowly shedding the bitterness I haboured towards my institution and just started living despite it. I experienced a profound shift in perspective, moving from resistance to acceptance, recognizing that this journey was mine to own. Despite the weight of everything pressing down on me, I became fiercely committed to my joy.
In retrospect, I question whether things were as bad as they seemed. This chapter, once overwhelming, now poses as a strange yet pivotal part of my life history. It persisted for a really long time then on a random Tuesday morning, it ended and became my past.
In ‘Women Who Run with the Wolves’, Clarissa Pinkola boldly states that “by laying out what one experienced, what one has made of it, what is admirable. It is the admiring of it, rather than the being of it, that releases the person.” The weight of it all now settles upon me like a benediction.
