....Times They Are a-Changing

Sometimes it just gets too much.. come on! I wonder how we all manage, I mean those of us who actually have real important things to do, not including time spent sitting on the computer and chatting rubbish like....mmm now but actual important stuff to do with studies, work, family and real-life generally.

Now, I find I have less time to sit around and be a bum, when did that happen?!!! I remember those endless days spent sitting and thinking about what I'd be like as a grown up, thinking about when I could go out without asking permission, now, sometimes all I want is for someone else to be in charge, so that if I'm late, or I mess up and forget to do something, or I do something and it doesn't go as planned, I can shrug and say it wasn't my fault. It wasn't me. She told me to do it.

Now if its not studying for an exam its writing an endless paper, if its not that then its endless errands and filling endless forms and interviews. Sigh. As I go on about this, the word "endless" keeps coming up and its funny... when I decided to visit my dear old notepad on the internet, I wanted to write about how time flies. Things sure seem long, till they come to an abrupt end, that is. No matter how slowly events unfold, how much warning we have, how many times we've been made aware and reminded that nothing lasts forever, things just go on forever --when they are actually happening. So much so, that we actually totally forget that noooooo condition, no matter how real and everlasting it seems at that moment is permanent. Whether good or bad, short or long....unnervingly brief or painfully drawn out, time (on the whole) is nothing but fleeting.

Its positively crazy, the way everything does come to an end, that's not just a tired cliche, not just some thing that you hear and should discard from all thoughts and contemplation. I know if I have this at the back of my mind all the time, a lot of things would be different. You know the difference between those people who have had a near-death experience and those of us- normal folk with no such experiences. We normal folk find it ever- sooooo easy to find faults in everything, get exasperated and say how bored we are, flare up over the most trivial of things, keep bitter malice for ages because we don't think twice about it.... and well, to be fair, there's no real reason to.... or so it seems.

On the other hand, those who (literally) have had the shock of their lives, and feel lucky to be here, have you ever seen how they walk down the road singing and doing a little jig to whatever they are listening to on their ipods, they will dance at any given opportunity, laugh like they are crazy over the most inappropriate jokes because they find them genuinely hilarious and can't be bothered to hold it in, they tell you without hesitation when you annoy them because they can't be bothered to harbour anything and burden their minds with that rubbish, they just appreciate and express more, and they do what they damn-well like.

I don't want the life-threatening experience ohhhhh, but Lord do I want the calmness and serenity that these people have, the self-acceptance and the mindfulness to do everything that needs to be done with a smile on my face, no time for whining or bitching because all that does is slow me down and break my focus. With age comes maturity, with maturity comes responsibility, the times they are a-changing and there's not a lot of it to waste, but there is a lot to be done, a lot we have to make happen while we are here, we might as well do them well....no time for time-wasting. Time-wasting and time-wating activities are the devillllll...ok I'll calm down and take a breather.

THAT IS ALL for now. Off to the shops, hope they haven't closed, bank holiday, I'm sure the lazy buggers will want to rush home, I've got to rush rush rush.

Looking..

Looking back on lazy days..

As with everyone else, at every stage in life I find myself in, its always a case of, wow, I'm -- years old now, I'm so big/grown up/young (that's the order in which I referred to my stages of development at the respective stages). Before I got "big" i.e. 10 years of age my life revolved around walking to and from school (accompanied of course, very much to my dislike *grrr*) , reading books, re-reading them, reading the labels of anything and everything in the house and trying on whatever outfits and accessories I could get my hands on. At that stage I already felt like I was old enough to do stuff and go out on my own and I wanted to travel on my own to places like Egypt and cartoon-land lol sigh. If i could talk to my pre-10 self, I would tell her:

Don't be scared of the dark, enjoy your books, and the lady has to take you to school and pick you up in the afternoon, stop getting so angry about things you cannot control.

After I passed the great 10 years of age mark, I first of all changed schools just before I got into secondary school, so yeah, new school, new uniform, new friends, no more walking to school, being escorted by an armed officer (pretty cool) couldn't complain, rather, this new form of being ushered to school was very much embraced lol. Not for any other reason than, it was cool to have someone bring me lunch every afternoon from Mr. Biggs loool and wait till I was done to take me home. I made new friends, immediately went into the more chilled and laid back class (the other class had this mean lady who used to either threaten or beat you, I don't know which but I thanked my God the girls in the chilled-out class rushed me into theirs on my first day). I'm sure Mrs B. wasn't that bad, actually I found out she was cool later on and maybe the lovely girls with smiley faces were the ones I should have been scared of but yeah, it was all good. And to you, the stupid bespectacled prefect or head girl who came to attack me on my first day and told me in the bitchiest way possible that my shoes were the wrong colour (little Bunmi thinks: you dead dog, my new school shoes are being purchased as we speak hissss with your freaky legs) I still see you around, and I will never forgive you for doing that, butt-face. If I could talk to myself at the beginning of what was a very lively and utterly heartbreaking (at the time) period, I would tell myself:

Don't feel bad for anything you cannot help, whether it's winning every dancing competition at every party, whether it is "coming between" two best friends whose hobbies are already to bitch about each other to you till they run out of breath, they are not friends anyway. Don't feel weird that you don't like the heart throb of the class, he isn't that special, and you are not strange for not liking him, its okay to prefer the more quiet and cute boys, they are more special anyway. Oh and one last thing, only slap when its necessary and babygirl, if you are going to slap, SLAP HARDER!

Okay so leaving my new friends, time to go to secondary school, there was a big fight and we never spoke again *sigh* but before then, I cultivated the habit of organising how-do-i-say.... social events lolol, mine was the first party that boys and girls danced properly, like no dancing competition and all that crap, and then in the first days of secondary school, a big group of us just sort of gelled and became what was known as *the bubblers*, we had some extra friends who maybe were not friends with all but only some of us, but yeah we were one big happy family. I'm not going to go into this stage too much apart from saying that we as a group were accused of everything from lesbianism to cultism and carrying out devilish rituals lol, at the time it was quite stressful but looking back it is hilarious at the thought of someone accusing me and my 11 year old friends of being gangsters, prostitutes and cultists :D looool oh my. I would tell my innocent fun-loving pre-teen self:

Continue to have all the fun you want, continue to show that gossip and lies are for people who have nothing good going on in their lives and do not give that stupid "school mother" half or even any of your pocket money EVER, to some people, the truth is not normal. Oh and sitting on a girl's laps doesn't make you a lesbian.....relax, that teacher is a maniac (apparently her daughter used to smell/pee on the bed/was a kleptomaniac) you get the picture.

Too much nostalgia for one sitting.....*sigh*