Ok, so I just got done watching “The Notebook” after having watched it when it came out in the movies in 2004. The same year my love story started to crumble. Seeing that movie the first time was so heart-wrenching for me because the passion between the main characters hit way too close to home…..
So….. 6 years later, everytime I go get a movie to watch, it seems the Dvd just calls me from the aisles. And tonight I finally succumbed knowing the state of my heart right now. Of cause, I laughed in the right places, cried in the right places and visualized my life in some scenes on a parallel view.
Now inspired to write my own story, not like anyone is going to read this blog, just a way to let it all out….. I might read this 5, 10, 20 years from now and laugh, cry or just reminisce, who knows? But here goes……
Dates and times are approximate as this has been a while. Some dates are exact. If anyone happens to stumble on this blog, I hope you enjoy it….
Early 2000
Back in school, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State, formerly called Ogun State Uni…. Second Semester 100 levels…lol. We had lectures on PS(permanent site). Not so much of lectures, more like hanging around in class and waiting endlessly for our lecturers to come teach. That is a whole different topic for a whole different blog. I lived in Aiyegbami, Cherith Hall was the name we gave our dorm. I had 2 roommates;
Kemi, I knew from church, we grew up in the teens church of RCCG Acme Parish. She was in Ago way before me, started with pre-law. When I was doing my diploma in Lagos at the long-distance center, I always bunked at her place off Itamerin when exams period came as we took our exams on the main campus of the school. Those times I spent in Ago, I met a few of her friends so being roomies came naturally when I got into the regular undergrad.
Yetunde, I met in Iwaya while staying with my Uncle as I was there being tutored to re-take my SSCE and also going to the satellite campus for lectures. She was a neighborhood friend and we struck a fast friendship. She graduated from high school either in ’98 or ’99 I can’t quite recall. I was retaking the tests in ’99 and felt so out of touch as I had officially graduated high school in ’96. When I got picked for Mass Comm in OSU, I asked her if she was interested as she was just waiting for the next year to start college. Lol….such a kid she was back then, she said yes. I helped her with her paperwork and 2 weeks after I moved to Ago, she joined me in school not knowing no one else but me, we became roomies too.
Our first semester there was all about discovery! Mass Comm class was said to have had about 450 students. Lol… Looking back now, I think we were more like 200/250. We were all so young! What did we know?
That was the semester friendships started forming. We added to our duo, Yinka, Kemi, Grillo, Yemi, Afolabi(RIP), Oreofe, Abbey oh, Jonino, Dapo. We were this clique of mid-class good kids in our minds. We the girls did not dabble into “Aristo runs”, the guys were not involved in cultism. We were all churchy kids to some degree, except Yinka who was a moslem then.
Back to the dorm, second semester, year 1. Still discovering our neighborhood. On our nameless street were other dorms; “Kuku House”, the “Ake” house two doors down, “Bobagunwa House” and other privates houses that were used as dorms. The Uni did not provide dormitries so private people built and rented out their houses to us students.
It has always in my nature to study my environment and the people in it before I made friends though that in itself is sometimes a spontaneuos act! I was more closely knit with my housemates and their friends. The Ladele sisters lived in the room next to us; Lape, Jeje and Iroti. Iroti and Kemi, my roomie were Law classmates. Their fellow mates/friends became our friends too. Bisi, Bisi, Bola, Arin, Remi, Joko etc. We all had mutual friends in their class and ours so we were all friends and acquaintances.
Yetunde and I always hung out at Abbey’s house, “Olowoporoku House” with him and his cousins. Cool cats the whole lot. In our neighborhood, Kemi was friends with the guys in Bobagunwa. I had noticed one of the guys that kinda looked familiar to me and told her that evening. In the normal Kemi fashion, she made fun of me that, “Moby, na everybody u sabi? Na everybody look familiar?” We laughed and I reminded her that I went to 8 high schools and 7 elementary schools(another blog), so I might actually know the dude….lol.
Not quite long after, the guy and his roomies walk past our hall and Kemi goes to say hi. Goodness knows what she says to them, and they walk over to us and we all got introduced. Dayo, Segun and Jonomo. Segun is the familiar guy so I asked if we had met before. He too had wondered all the while since we had moved to the neighborhood. Jonomo was smitten by Yetunde as I could immediately tell with how his attention was on her….lol. The Ladele sisters joined us and we all chatted for a bit and the guys left for their hall.
Back at Olowoporoku, I had struck a friendship with Abbey’s cousin Toyin. He had a banging body as he was a body-builder and also taught karate to people that signed up for the classes. He was a year 3 Law student at that time. I had taken karate at a young age. I quit after getting to the third black belt stage. I kinda grew out of my tomboy stage….. Kinda….lol.
Our friendship was centered on karate, philosophy and law, not like I was interested in law, he just liked to talk about law a lot….lol. We spent time together and somehow started dating. Very weird as his cousins knew something was not quite right with us dating but did not say anything. Boys covering boys asses you could say.
He always talked about me coming to his dorm which was on the other side of town. Lol….and I stalled as I knew he wanted so bad to sleep with me. I just was not ready for that yet as at that time I was still a virgin-by choice not christianity…..lol. He tried to act all patient with me, but I knew he wanted me bad!! Lol… We fooled around a lot, a whole lot. I wonder how/why he didn’t rape me?
All along, my friendship with my neighborhood friends was getting stronger. Particularly with Segun. The next night after we met, he came knocking at our door. Jonomo was with him. They cracked jokes with us, talking about, “oh yeah, y’all are the jambites” and ish like that. They hung out for a bit then left.
Few days after that, Yetunde and I were back from classes early and Kemi had the only room key we had and was not back from classes or fellowship, can’t remember. So we were waiting for her on the verandah/porch when Segun was on his way home and asked us to come wait at his place. We went with him, hung out till Bola, Kemi and Iroti came back from school. They joined us at Bobagunwa and we all (us girls and his roomies) gisted, Segun served us bananas as that was all he had at home….lol. Then we called it a night and went home.
I still could not remember when or where I had met Segun. Him and Jonomo came knocking on our door the following evening. They hung out for a bit. I was cooking and invited them to join in our meager dinner. Segun cracked jokes about how he does not eat any other female food apart from his mom’s but he will let that slide that evening as his roomies were eating too….lol.
Noticing how Jonomo and Yetunde were talking, I pulled Kemi and Segun out of the room to give them privacy to gist well. We three ended up on the verandah chatting and making fun of them guys in the room…lol. Kemi’s mates soon came to snag her so it was just Segun and I left gisting. We got talking about ourselves, what schools we had gone to etc, then he mentioned he had gone to “Kankon” and a lightbulb went off in my head!!! I had gone to the same school for 2 years! That was why I thought his face was familiar! He was 4 years my senior and a few of his mates were my “school-fathers” as we called them then. I now remembered I had seen him hanging with them a few times back then. I always wondered who their dark, huge, quietly-aloof friend was.
Now having a common ground to talk about, we chatted for 3 straight hours remembering old mates, teachers and boarding school life. Just cracking ourselves up at the memories. Him and Jonomo leave to their dorm as there was a curfew in the town we lived in for traditional and safety reasons.
After that we became real tight buddies! Kemi even teased that I was double dating and I let know her straight up he was just like a big brother. No such thing as I was a one-man-woman and did not even look at him like that. As our friendship grew, he inquired about whom I was dating, I told him and he said, “Toyin the karate dude”? Hmph! Couldn’t I do better? He teased me so much about that. We had good laughs. I had told him that I knew Toyin wanted to sleep with me and he asked if I wanted to? When I told him I was still a virgin and not quite ready, he almost fell over on his head! Said he didn’t believe me, that I did not talk or look like a virgin. More laughs. I always confided in him on a whole lot of issues. He was my “aproko” friend….lol. At this time, Yetunde and Jonomo had started dating.
7 weeks into dating Toyin, momsie pays me a visit, brings me pocket money and groceries. I needed some “purewater” so we decide to go to the market to get some. On our way to the car, she says, “oh get your friends, let me take pictures of y’all. The only girls in the dorm that evening were Yetunde and the Ladele sisters, Namso and Kenny(new dorm mates n class mates). The sisters had their boyfriends over that day. Leke, Niyi and Mueen. So I called them girls, when my mom saw me call the sisters, I noticed her facial expression changed. She went ahead, took pictures and we got in the car.
Soon as we were in the car, she started screaming at me that were those the kind of friends I had?!?! I am looking like, what do you mean? Apparently, when coming into the dorm, momsie had seen them chics and their guys in the room with them and assumed beyond what she saw. Saying the guys were on the beds with them girls, couldn’t they seat in chairs while they visited? You have to excuse my mom’s imaginations….. She had told me as a kid when I had my first period, “now you are a woman, if you get behind closed doors with a guy, you come out preggers!!!” Lol….. Yeah mom! Love ya tho!
She carried on all the way to the market till she dropped me back at my dorm. Good thing I had told my friends my mom was strict so it was not weird seeing that she was still “raking” when she dropped me off saying, “if you like, come back home preggers like the rest of your cousins!” That really hurt me! I took my drinking water in and locked myself in the room bawling my eyes out! I could not understand why she did not believe me or the approve of my friendships! My roomies and dorm mates tried to console me but could not get into the room. They begged me to open the door to no avail. Couple of hours later, I hear Toyin’s voice. Apparently one of them had gone to Abbey’s place to see if he was there so he could talk me into opening the door and not do anything stupid to myself.
Hearing his voice I opened the door, didn’t give him a chance to say anything, stormed out the door, stopped the next bike guy, got on and called Toyin to join me. On the bike, he asked where I was taking him, I told him to give the bike guy his address that I just wanted to get away from everyone. He did so and I looked back at the entrance of my hall, my friends all had this flabber-gasted look on their faces like, “bitch we have been begging you to open the door for almost 2 hours and all you could do when you heard a man’s voice was to storm past without a word???”
I turned around with a decision known only to me at that time, not looking back. The bike ride was a quiet one. We get to Toyin’s place and go straight to his room. He started asking me about what had upset me so bad that my roomie had to come get him? I told him I didn’t want to talk about and that I was ready for him to have sex with me….. That was my decision!
I stop for now to continue later…….lol…..
Moby's Heart Chronicles 