See What We've Become, Imagine Us 15 Years From Now

I was calling a friend just last week Tuesday at around 8:30am because I'd missed her badly and just wanted to say hello, but she didn't pick up. I got a txt a couple of minutes later that read; “hi darl, missed u bunch! making a presentation at a board meeting right now, allow me to get back to you as soon as I'm done.” Then it hit me like a stray bullet! “We're in the next phase already”.

That Saturday when my good old friend from Presec times; TT came to visit, it was getting to the end of the conversation that I realized that almost the whole time he'd been there, we'd been talking about our CEOs, what the future held for our respective companies, the nature of office politics, strategies we were employing to advance our long-term career objectives and the like. Then it hit me even harder!!!

From the days when we used to be late to the dining hall, when we'll frantically ask the 'Enter-pee' (entertainment prefect) whether he could show the newly released MATRIX at entertainment on Saturday, when adrenaline flowed through our veins at the thought of breaking bounds, when we looked forward to the next 'inter-co' like it was a speech-and-prize giving day, and girls in ponk (barbed hair) were the kind of girls we dreamed of .

Through to the days when our 1st 2nd and 3rd terms became just 1st and 2nd semesters, and we formed long queues to register for courses we wouldn't even understand a thing of by the time the sem. was over. We got late for LECTURES and listened to long 'I-remember-when-i-was-your-age' speeches from our lecturers, because that's what our TEACHERS metamorphosised into. We became obsessed with travelling,wrote IAs and mid-sems, agitated for inner rooms and filled our wardrobes with lacostes and jeans wear we weren't too eager to repeat, or tank tops and Budha shorts (my fave). Browning, narrowing, representing at all drink-ups and downs, hall weeks and beach parties……

And now, now we've got alarms set at 4:00am, we hardly get to wear our designer jeans and snickers because we MUST be in a neatly ironed formal attire all week through. We've either been disgusted by or mastered the art off ass-kissing and boot-licking. We 'pri' to get to work early and miss breakfast just so we can be behind our DESKS 2hrs before our reporting time so our CEOs (what our lecturers became) will see themselves in us…how they started out-lol,if you don't think that's funny you've probably been doing it yourself-. Every weekend is highly anticipated, and we're lucky when we get them to ourselves. We no longer get money for free from our folks. The best they can do is to lend it to us. We understand more why back then in school, the workers were always looking forward to holidays we were having almost every day.

Our diction and jargon has changed to SAP and Agency Agreements for us payroll and real estate guys, C-SPAN for the insurance people, DELIVERABLES, TARGETS and what-nots. 3-squared meals is more like 3 big deals, because we leave home too early to have breakfast, have too much to do to have lunch, and get home too late and tired to have supper…so we just slip something in whenever we can. We make friends in traffic, because it's the same bunch of cars we queue up with every single day for hours on end to get to both work and home. When we go to the mall almost everyone there looks so much younger and childish, almost all our prior-work priorities and fantasies seem rather immature now…..uhhhhh, do you identify with any of this? I do, and that makes me wonder…

Will we change again from how we are now? Will who we are now be a stranger to who we'll become in like 10 years? Will we regret or reminisce? Will we relish in what we've become or wish we were 23 again? Lol, I fancy calling you up for drinks on a fine Saturday and hearing you say “cant Ben, have to be at a PTA meeting”. The times when you go to car showrooms and check out the Station wagon section and drool over the newest family-size Vans…totally oblivious of the fact that the porches and sleek saloons were on display on the section you passed by. You don't even care who's around when you fart anymore….you're too old to care. You keep hearing 'Dad/Mom' and 'Mid-life Crisis' in the same sentences too often!! You seriously consider whether you want to go into Politics or into full-time Ministry. Lol, I could give you check-signs for the next couple of pages, but I'm sure you catch my fart -ei sorry, I meant drift-( I'm still quite a young man, I car who knows it when I do).

The funniest thing happened on an elevator ride to my office the other day. You see, where I work, there are 8 floors of different companies, and I'm on the 3rd. I entered it that faithful morning with about 7 other people going to different floors. We get to the 1st floor, and then there's a funny 'farty' noise followed by a serious foul smell!!! Mehnnn,if you were me you'lda leaped for joy when the elevator door opened on the 3rd floor!! The whole lot of them were going to the 7th and 8th floors…I suspected the old man, lol, why should he care??!!

My point is; life doesn't run on electricity, so it doesn't pause or stop for us just because we flick the switch or ECG puts out the lights…it still runs, each one of us is a living proof. So it makes sense to plan, to pray, plan and pray some more, so you don't end up farting everyone's day into the bin just because you are too old to care. Then find a good person to love, because you look 9 years older when you're 34 and still romantically misplaced, I figure, lol.

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