2019 — Year of Two Halves
There is something about things made in halves and the oníbejì (twin) bread is a legendary example. It is two pieces of dough baked in the same pan that forms one piece of bread with a seam down the middle. This seam was as important as the loaf style was common in my childhood as kids usually had to share one loaf of bread or in my case, had enough snack money for only half a loaf. I wonder why they are not common anymore. Are kids now living so boujee a life that they no longer share bread loaves? Or bread is no longer cheap enough to be a snack for kids who want to share and need clean cut halves. Either way, a clean cut is what I got in 2019. Around the middle of the year, I left Nigeria to enrol in a full time MBA program and it is starting to look like a marker, a milestone; an event that serves as a reference for other happenings like “Lágbájá had his son two months before I moved, and it’s been xyz years so his son is xyz years old now”.
In 2018, I made two big decisions — getting married, and deciding that I wanted to leave Nigeria — and they were the major determinants of my 2019.
Before I got married, I intended to enrol in an MBA program and had made preliminary moves towards it. As time went on, I narrowed my potential schools to one country because my wife was staying there. You see, a long distance marriage is not the best thing in the world and I wanted to do the killing of two birds with one stone.
It resulted in a year of contrasts, and not the usual one of conditions in Nigeria versus out of it; it is more personal. It is a switch from living in the same city as your sister, the same house as your brother and having the rest of your immediate family 131km away (yes, I measured it) to not knowing exactly when next you’ll be seeing them. Moving from having your best friends around you to having no one you can leave the house on a whim to visit. I knew those changes were going to happen, but I didn’t know how it would feel like on a Sunday without a lot to do and seemingly all the time in the world to think. Perhaps the funniest change has been going from being a regular Lagos Joe who bought suya or shawarma (or any of the numerous edible things available) on the way home from work to being a student. A tight budgeting, no whimsical purchases student in full glory. You can see I like dark humor.
It has also been incredibly bright. My wife is no longer 5,200 miles away from me and that has perhaps been the brightest part of it. I get to experience her fullness and a bliss of having that one person with you, close to you, and I look forward to a lot more of it. I have also experienced that which I wanted an MBA for — a proximity to a diverse set of people and a breadth of knowledge. I enjoy the scholastic journey the most; some say too much given that an MBA is seen as a foundation for a professional career and not an academic one. To that I say: we enjoy what we enjoy.
There are some things that are fixtures in the background of your daily life, like people you see (almost) everyday. I had Jimi, OJ, Temi, Bose & Tomiwa sit within 10 feet of me every workday (and some not-workdays) and now I don’t; perhaps my timing was best as they were to all leave their seats for different roles and locations within a few months of me leaving. I now have a different set of colleagues, and in spite of lifestyle differences, some of them have shown me genuine kindness that fills me with warmth to remember. Tony, Tony, Keshav, Happi & Faiyak, thank you.
If there is one thing that bothers me the most about my second half-year, it is that in the location I spend most of my time (you guessed right — school), there is no masjid. There have been an awful few times I have said non-jumuah salat in congregation and while one can say school is temporary, so is life.
There, that has been my 2019. Defined most by an event in its middle and how different life either side of it has been. In making the switch, I have had the best people around me for support. My parents and siblings, my in-laws, Sabur, JJ, AS. You all made it easier than it might have been without you and I thank you. My wife was, and is my MVP and this wouldn’t have worked out without her. I pray we have many more years together.
Today, the temperature outside is 6 degrees celsius and it registers as good (if not very warm) weather, something unthinkable before I moved. It is the perfect time to think about how things have changed, and about the things I miss - my parents and siblings, my friends, Megachicken shawarma and Ogudu roundabout suya. I have gained a lot too; a closeness to my wife that I only used to wish for, a breadth of knowledge, and learning how to moisturize all of my body properly (which I’m still learning haha). They are not like-for-like, but which of the favors of my Lord will I deny?
