BEFORE I TURN 20

BEING 14: DOUBLE WAHALA!!!

Krystal speaks:
A small voice in my head is screaming don’t do it! Don’t do it! But I will do it anyway.
Imagine me stepping out my hostel at 14 in slow motion to the beginning of Oritse Femi’s “double wahala”; you know how the instrumental in the beginning goes yeah…
Yep! Being 14 was a whole roller coaster ride o!
Let me start from the top.
A week before my fourteenth birthday, I started making my hair. It was too full (so the teachers said) and I didn’t feel motivated to cut it again so I started off with thread for the whole of that term ; the black rubber the wicked salon women would use to whip your back when you were a much younger child. The hair was so short but I insisted on making it long and pretty, something I could pack nicely and put a nice hair ruffle on. Darling Amy one of the baddest stylists then would do justice to my hair and even with my thread, I was steady killing it.
The young child I liked did not fail to disappoint me on my birthday just as he had done on Valentine’s Day the same year; no gift, no warm wishes, nothing.
I couldn’t care less because I was busy claiming moth drawn to his flame hoping things would get better, but I was for real trynna look good that term (third term) for some reason I don’t know of.
The birthday came and yo!!!!! In my entire life so far, I have never received as much gifts on a birthday as I did on that one. Maybe I am exaggerating because friends have bought cakes for me, sent me money and all, but damn!  I had gifts pouring in. Sets of provision, love from all and sundry, sharks my favorite part (oh don’t be confused dear, drinks were serious contra band goods in my secondary school so people called them SHARKS instead. That way, teachers didn’t really know what’s up and we smuggle it in and out of school) and lots more. At this time I was friends with a good number of ss3 boys, the ss3 girls were my Gees’, the juniors loved me, and everything was chill.
  Those who couldn’t get me gifts sponsored me the next day (because the birthday was on a Sunday I vividly remember) at the school canteen and my provision cupboard was overflowing and I soon had to put more stuff in my box.
I resumed with my laptop but this procrastination that they kept preaching could kill us, my diaaaaaaa! I kept procrastinating to drop it at the computer lab and place it in custody of the school but all still seemed fine.
Until assembly one day that started with VP admin in a huge fuss about some sweets and bubble gum found in a strange bag. Long story short they searched all Ss3 students and school was on fire. They seized a whole lot of stuff, gave the most bizarre punishments, fished out some relationships, even called parents to have a meeting to discuss the unruly behavior of their children (missionary school shaaaaa on top bubble gum and sweet); mehnnn things were just running out of hand too quickly.
   As babe wey dey in the midst of Ss3 girls, the loss was devastating and my school (let’s just say they can embarrass somebody well) didn’t try for them. That set was literarily counting down to leave because the stress from the whole issue was exhausting. I saw the entire signs o, but I didn’t just imagine they would come for me.
They had changed our matron popularly known as “mama” from the sweet old lady that hated people dragging the feet so badly (it drove her insane to hear people shuffling their feet as she would call it) and was so keen on young men tucking in their shirts to look like civil members of the society, to one new woman like that.       No offence o!!! But I didn’t ever like her till I graduated. Don’t know if I do now but I really do not care because all I have at this point in my heart is love and the right treatment for everyone.
I kinda don’t even know how to feel about it till date because I feel like the woman was constantly looking for how to put me in trouble, but haqqqqqq  “o maro kam si kwado”  (she didn’t know I was prepared) my God was bigger than all my problems.
I am so sure it was her idea for them to raid hostel again and empty my box yet still, it doesn’t even matter.
   Umunne, all those sharks (almost a dozen), the nice hair bands I got, so many beautiful things and my presents were carted away and destroyed. My laptop was found, confiscated and Aunty Veronica that I put my trust in (asper the teacher I had told originally that I had laptop in the hostel but she was like “there are no sockets in the hostel so you can’t use it. Don’t worry dear”) DENIED ME BLATANTLY. See why God said the arm of flesh will fail you if you put your trust in it.
My darling VP Admin called the other ss2 girls and I to tell us how disappointed she was. So many contra bands were found in our possession and she wished we could do better.
Omo that term was hot and my guy was busy giving me issues while I was trying to handle the situation.
A na eku nke a n’eku  (we still dey talk the one wey we dey talk/ we were still on one issue) news that I had a boyfriend came to limelight.
Haqqqqqq
Forget o!!! My head wanted to explode when G and C (Guidance and Counselor) called me to inform me. She had this natural liking for me, so she was actually giving me a heads because she felt I was innocent and didn’t want me to be taken unawares. Wow! I quickly (pronounce QUICKLY as Q- emphasis on the Q, uickly so you can laugh small) ran to my guy and told him what’s up. As the coded guy he is, we had to lay really low so that all the fire could die out.
Eventually, the fire didn’t.  My school was out for everybody that term so everywhere was red.
The Ss3 guys were not even finding it funny. Because of leaking mouth juniors that would tell irritating lies like “I saw senior A and senior B lying down on top of each other when Mr. John was in class” and other strange and weird lies like that, they made a strict law banning all their juniors from passing their class area. Me I sha don’t blame them because they had had enough.
They were so pissed that they started to count down almost a hundred days till they graduated and in this case I mean finished NECO to go home. Their exams got postponed when it was like 12 days left and that’s how the bad omen of countdown in ss3 came up in school. We all believed that countdowns had bad luck that accompanied them, but still the school made things too heated for those ss3 people to concentrate so they were in such a hurry to leave.
I still on the other hand, managed to keep things together with my thread hairstyle and beautiful natural hair which I ended up relaxing that holiday. Changing and inventing the hottest thread styles in the school, who wan compete abeg?? From where to where?? (In Bobriskys voice) NOBODY! My hair stylists (as baddo wey I be, I had more than one) were doing amazing and I still tried to focus on my academics.
  One day my government teacher called me to the staff room to inform me that I failed my test woefully. His concern was that as the top of the class, my performance annoyed him and even though we all had issues, he wasn’t pleased with mine in particular. I apologized and promised to do better and in, my heart, I knew I had to get my groove back.
The rest of the term had my guy in the arms of other ladies (shey na lowkey things) and when the GCE idea came up, I tried to subtly  suggest Kubwa as my center but my parents quickly snapped at me and however explained why Kubwa was not the place for me.
I was kuku registered in town and so that my father’s money will not waste, I began reading alongside with my third term examination reading.
   That term ended some kind of way and getting home to realize that I had no access to internet connectivity till I was done with my secondary education, I promised myself that I would as well make it worthwhile. The thing is that in all my stupidity, teenage recklessness and stuff, God still knew my heart belonged to him. He kept trying to call me back from the mistakes I was making through my mum, my Sunday school teacher, my dad and some friends.
Those guys knew their friend wasn’t good for me. They knew he was sharing the love with other people, they were tired of hearing my amazing heartbreak songs (I really thought I was going to be the next Taylor Swift in this life sha), tired of seeing me cry during prep when I asked for his whereabouts, they were just tired. Even they themselves wanted better for me so they were waiting for everything to explode someday so that I could be set free but then again guys would rather watch you burn than sell out their homie which I still feel can be such an evil idea sometimes.
If there’s anything I’ve learnt and if I could do age 14 over, I would certainly make better life choices and the way I kept choosing that boy over everything that mattered, it never would have been that way. Not that I regret it, but I so badly wanted to pray on some days but because I didn’t feel right in my spirit, I just couldn’t.
GCE began and I reconnected with some old friends from my all girls’ school where I did junior secondary, and we would chill. I met so many people at my center which include seniors, family friends, long lost friends, old school mates and a host of others.
I prayed one night and begged God to put me through GCE because my parents were making a huge sacrifice and I would never forgive myself if I messed it up, and he did. We had this weird relationship of “Hello daddy, I need this and this. I am sorry I only come to you when I need things, but you should understand that now I am a big girl so let’s show each other love from far okay” and I didn’t find anything wrong with it. On some days I would look at my actions, cry, think, then just go back and pick off from where I left but he was still patient till I came running back into his arms.
The beautiful thing is that I had a God who never stopped loving me and parents who never stopped praying for me, counseling me and encouraging me. They are my biggest fans so even when I would sleep on the parlor couches so I could wake up at night to prepare for GCE, they would check up on me constantly and all.
  My mum is an accountant so when I told her how bad my economics foundation was, she went to the market, bought all the past questions and textbooks I would need for Economics, got a marker board (it was actually what her or my dad used to teach us, do assignments, or what the lesson teachers used to tutor us) and commenced intensive lessons with me. I understood so quickly and I eventually ended up with a C4 as against the D7 I ended up with months later when I took school WAEC.
   My guy never called me the entire months of the holiday; not one day.
Ebola virus broke out in Nigeria so school shifted the resumption date with hopes that all would be well by the date they eventually fixed. God loves Nigeria so much so he just didn’t want all of us in this country to perish miserably therefore he rewarded the efforts of the heroes who laid down their lives and used all they could to fight the disease.
  My GCE was already almost over by the time others resumed for the new session, so I went to school to drop my stuff and keep space. Still no word from him and in my heart I knew that it was over but I waited until October when he resumed to confront him with facts and dropped the precious “Have a nice life” line I picked up from a harlequin novel I read the previous term.
The double wahala did not end there o!!!!
It followed me till I finished secondary school, threatened to follow me into the university (I think it did), but I constantly survived every bad decision out to wreck my life, and Good God (Chioma mo!) did not allow my busy body to cost me much.
Later in life I had to seriously apologize to God, to my parents, but I was never sorry to the people who tried to shame me and bring me down instead of doing things to lift me up. There were those who felt better than everyone in the room so with my cute chubby self, I was never sorry for standing up for myself.
  When I uncovered the web of so many lies that dude had, I was glad he wasn’t the one to call it quits. I was glad to be with someone who was at that time the fire to my gasoline, the ketchup to my fries and the ham to my burger. The real guy is coming, on his way but things could’ve been handled better. It would have been better as a great teenage friendship but I guess hormones, rebellion, misinformation, misunderstanding and lack of explicit guidance on how to manage that attraction, messed a good thing up. Glad it could undergo some repair but we all know the food doesn’t taste the same once it gets into the freezer so…
  Darlings, this probably highlights my entire experience when I was 14 because I had so many issues, my brother and I were always quarrelling and bickering like 2 year olds at each other, I was having break downs so many time for a young child, my relationship with God was hanging on the “he loves me and sent his only son to die for me” thread, and lots more. I couldn’t cope at some point but I am thankful I can share these stories today and we would all laugh about it.
I pray the younger generation decides to face the important stuff because having grown up problems as a child isn’t particularly a great thing and then wasting the efforts of all who love you for ephemeral things isn’t the answer either, and I hope the older guys like us get to do better and make the teenage process better for the teenagers around us.
Trust me, Udu Grace is a badder (if there’s a word like that) babe than I am and her own double wahala tales will have you rolling on the floor with your legs in the air, laughing.
I hope you enjoyed this read, and please keep your eyes peeled for our Sunday special as our way of saying sorry for not posting on Monday.
Love you guys!