Nurture Becoming Nature

I  was sick a lot as a child.

At least, I think more often than average. One of my earliest childhood memories was of me vomiting and having diarrhea simultaneously, among other symptoms. I remember my parents running around to find something that would stay in my stomach. It lasted for a few days, and through the sickness, my poor parents were losing their minds trying to find something, any food or drink, that would stay in my stomach.

My dad didn’t believe in hospitals (or drugs even).

I missed a lot of days in school.

It must have been the same in primary school, but I only remember the days I missed in secondary school. One memory is a conversation I had with a classmate. I am not quite sure who it was. In the memory, while wondering about my absence yet again, she asked why I had not been in school the previous week. I responded that I wasn’t feeling fine. We both must have thought same thing happened last month too. Someone must have said it to my face that I was a sickler. I don’t remember it but I knew my classmates suspected. I mean, talks about you have a way of finding you.

It didn’t help that I was thin and tall.

I liked to run errands.

I loved walking long distances to run them. I liked to think I was a seeable spirit, ignored but visible. I soon realized I was seen more than I thought. I can never forget one of the errand days. It was a sunny one. As I don’t like cold weather, I was out in my element under the sun, probably lost in some thought, as it is my favorite pastime. I was sent to buy fuel from the filling station. I remember it was across the road, but I was still walking on the other side of the road when these two humans, at the stage where they couldn’t be called boys, and men doesn’t confidently fit them either, revved their bike (motorcycle) so close to me that I almost fell from the shock. In the time it took me to gather myself, they looked at me all over (you’d think I wasn’t wearing clothes), and said, condescendingly, in my native language Yoruba to something that translates in English to, “What! How can someone still breathing look so thin. This one must have HIV.” Laughing, all the while.

Believe it when I say statements uttered in  English language sound plain compared to the intensity of the same words in my native language.

I wouldn’t talk about this incident until years to come.

I had an unpopular reputation in secondary school already.

So when I was nicknamed after one of the most beautiful women in the world (who was a Nigerian) according to the judges of the Miss World pageant in the early 2000s, I knew the only similarity my classmates would agree I had with this woman was her stature. Also, when a boy I was close to refused to associate with me in school but had no problem talking to me in places that weren’t connected to school and in associations that weren’t mutual with our classmates, I knew why. This boy told me, as he smiled, that I looked like figure one when he saw me wearing a native attire. You know, the figure one you write as a small vertical straight line, not the fancy one you can restructure into the number 7. He was being honest, but he was my so-called friend, so we both knew it wasn’t a compliment. If I was confused about how he had seen me, what he did cleared every doubt. Years later, I would also never accept compliments nor believe my bestfriend when he told me I was beautiful, even though I would never agree that I didn’t think I wasn’t beautiful.

It was the last time I wore that particular native attire.

And I might have missed out on love too.

Honestly, my weight wasn’t the only obstacle to this never-happened love story. It is probably not the most important as well but it was important enough. For a long while then, I defended his unwillingness to see me by thinking he couldn’t love someone like me. I didn’t have all the curves I sure knew he liked. I mean, I knew him (right?) and I was sure that I was correct in my thinking. Amongst the other reasons that I didn’t allow us happen, the initial thought about my body never really left me. I would doubt his sincerity as I thought he had better options. And he was my close friend, whose judgment I trusted except on matters of romance. Oh, I did fall in love with someone else later and I thought I had outgrown the mindset of seeing myself from the the perspective of being unlovable. It later occured to me that we meeting online must have given me the extra boost of confidence I didn’t even know I needed. I remember tears filling my eyes when, the first time I met this human, he mentioned how much he liked my height and my stature. He wouldn’t stop staring too; like I was one of the world’s seven wonders. He repeated the statement about his likeness for my body in various ways. It seemed like he knew I needed, really needed, to hear it. To think he wasn’t the first person to tell me that.

Another unconscious case of words being just ordinary until the mind validates it source.

But the ‘funniest’ thing happened to me.

This also involved a bike. Where I grew up, motorcycles were a major form of transportation. I worked a bit before I got into the university, so I was over 15 years old at the time, older than I was during the road-side incident. I was coming back from work this day and took a bike home. Mid-way into the ride, I said something to the bike-man. I cannot remember what exactly; it was probably something about him slowing down his speed. He exclaimed, saying he had forgotten he had a passenger at his back. Surprised, I asked how that was even possible. He said my weight on the bike felt so light it didn’t feel like there was someone else besides him on the bike (I guess anyone who has ever ridden a bike would understand). His reaction shocked me, still does. I remember making a sarcastic comment about how I should not have to pay since he technically didn’t carry anyone. He only laughed and said I shouldn’t be like that. Reflectively, what struck me was how he found the situation hilarious and not condescending, at least to the best of my knowledge. However insensitive I felt his comment was, even I could see he wasn’t trying to be rude. I couldn’t be as upset as I felt I should be; it was a confusing situation. He also made small talk with me till we got to my destination. Now, I feel he either picked up on my offense at his earlier statement and just wanted to make me feel better (where I come from, this is a valid form of apology our elders practice), or he was clueless and was just having a good conversation with a passenger. When I got home and told Mamae about it, feeling pained about the whole situation, she couldn’t stop laughing after the initial surprise that something like that could actually happen.

This particular incident must have been what started my relatively numbed reactions to situations like this and my weapon of choice was laughter. I also started to really understand that however insensitive people could be sometimes with their words, few of those didn’t come from a bad place, at least not enough to call them evil. But obviously, it is no discovery to say the damage has been done already; though, I could never be truly numb. I am so used to this coping mechanism that these days, I can barely recognize when I am being a good sport, when I find a ‘weight’ comment funny (that is rare actually), or just faking laughter because doing the opposite isn’t a better option.

So this dance continues like a play of shadows and light.

I do win more these days. 

These experiences have an effect on other areas of my life, some I wouldn’t dare acknowledge, well not at the moment. But, life is too complicated to simplify this and make it seem like there aren’t other factors involved, other things that made it worse (and better). Sure, I do get upset but I get over it and try my best to avoid situations that put me in the position to react (‘try’ being the action word here). On days that are harder, a smile it is. How could I explain to people that a joke or insensitive comment about my weight touches very deep parts of my soul if I allow it? In summary, what didn’t kill me has made me stronger and hopefully constantly kinder and more understanding towards other people’s pain as well.

I guess that’s good example of nurture becoming nature.