My First Crush

The first thing you should know before you proceed in reading this is that It is not your typical love story lol. It’s the story of one of the most magical yet confusing feelings I’ve ever felt in my life! Another thing you should know is that growing up, I was not the everyday girly girl, I loved my comfortable baggy jeans, tank top & low cut. So crushing on a boy wasn’t necessarily my thing to be honest except he was Chris Brown, if not, Naa. I had a lot of boys as friends because they would always walk me back home from the barber’s shop. However, being lovesick wasn’t my thing. It was the first time i had the butterflies in my tummy experience.

It was a hot Thursday afternoon, my mum just dropped my sister & I off at church because Revd Paul, our youth pastor, had insisted on us attending teenagers camp that year. Heaven knows I was angry, I was not a fan of the teenagers department in my church. I had my own clique of friends, we all didn’t like the department & we were all rebellious so we had a very strong bond. Since I heard Revd Paul talking to my mum about camp, I knew I had to inform my clique as soon as possible so they would attend too & no one was allowed to bail out.

The excitement of attending camp didn’t hit me until I saw my friend’s mum’ car approaching towards the teenager’s church building, you can imagine how happy I was. I quickly left my sister’s side to join my babygirl. Even though I see her every weekend, we act like we’ve not seen each other in ages.. it’s always fun catching up with Toluwani. While we were busy catching up & sipping on our Mirinda, I saw a strange car, one I didn’t recognise because it didn’t belong to any of the family I know in church but I didn’t pay much attention, my friend will be in camp with me, that’s all I cared about.

I didn’t notice the people in the car had alighted & were already getting comfortable.. they’re going to camp too. Wow… this camp should be fun I said to Tolu, our sole aim was to go there to laugh, not to participate but to laugh! While we were waiting for the church bus to come back, I saw three of the kids from the strange car looking at us, one of them said something & they all laughed out loud, I knew they were talking about Tolu and I. Male gossips? Ewww. 1st turn off but I noticed one of them in particular didn’t laugh much and he seemed cool..

Anyway we got to camp around 4pm on Thursday, I was already very tired and was strangely missing home. We settled in, had dinner & proceeded to the hall for the welcome remark. The new kids sat right in front of us, still whispering & laughing, what’s with these boys, I mused. They can’t be forming bad guys here, they’re not even members of my church & they’re in my territory. I already drew the battle line at that point in my head.. I already had a soft spot for the “cool one” though.

The next day, Friday, I already met 2 of the kids as their bunk was two away from mine, very lovely girls. They told me the 4 other boys were their cousins and one of them liked me in particular.. oh wow. I had not even had time to check them out well. But while thinking about it, i was Hoping it was the cool one from the first day. My mission that day was to have a good look at them. Fast forward to later that day, that evening, as part of the activities, we were put in various groups, guess what? Two of the new guys were in my group! The cool one & his cousin 😬 Wow! We said our hello’s & they seem cool after all but I was still not a fan. I needed to know what they said about Tolu and I I thought.

Honestly all through our stay in camp, we didn’t talk much but I was gradually crushing on the cool one. His name is Niji btw. On Friday evening, we were cast to act a drama for our group at variety night which would also be our last day in camp before we traveled back on Sunday, isn’t God good? The icing on the cake was Niji was casted as my husband in the drama. Haha I knew we were match made in heaven, behold I’ve found the bone of my bone. Plus it was an opportunity for us to talk but he still didn’t say much to me, he told me he liked my top & my hair, I couldn’t stop smiling. I ran to Tolu to tell her about what he said, she was excited for me but she told me not to show too much excitement, true. I’m a bad guy, I shouldn’t show my excitement so he doesn’t start feeling like a mini god.

The strange thing was even though Niji didn’t say much to me, I would always catch him staring at me, everytime our eyes met, we’ll smile & look away. What the heck is wrong with this boy? Why wouldn’t he just talk to me I wondered. To make matters worse, I was very cool with his cousins in our group, he was in my group so we were always in the same space.

Variety night was fun, our drama went well too. I think it was the best part of camp. It was the first time we were out till past 10pm gisting and playing. We were all saying our goodbyes at the end of the night & exchanging numbers but my crush was no where to be found. It’s not like he wasn’t present there but he didn’t ask for my number! What?! Since he didn’t ask, I channeled my mind to just enjoying his company, gisting with his cousins & looking forward to seeing my family the next day.

Sunday morning, we were back in church. I honestly didn’t think about him much, although him not taking my number crossed my mind.

Anyway, that night my sister’s phone rang & it was one of his cousin’s from camp. She called to catch up with my sister as they bonded in camp, good for them. While I was busy minding my business, my sister called me & told me someone wanted to say hi to me, I reluctantly collected the phone to say hi when I heard the voice; it was his voice! It was Niji’s voice! Omg! Omg!!….

It’s okay!!!

The first step I took to killing myself was believing that life would be a bed of roses. Remember growing up, planning my life & who I’d be at a certain stage and what I would have accomplished. To crown it all, I told myself after achieving all these at 22, I’d get married to my then crush at age 23 and we’ll live happily ever after! Feel free to laugh, I think we have all been there at some point in our lives.

The funny thing is I still didn’t learn, even though life wasn’t necessarily rosy for me, I still kept pushing but I was pushing towards the wrong direction, I was still consciously trying to mould my life into “perfection”. What was I thinking?! For every time I did not get something right or something planned didn’t go my way, I’ll get so angry and depressed, fighting myself & asking why I let things happen that way. While all this was happening, I still hadn’t learnt, I honestly did not understand still. I am sure I was viewing life as a one-way traffic, it was either my way or the highway!

The second step I took to killing myself was not learning how to let go. It took time for me to understand that walking away was as much as a choice as it is an obligation. It takes sacrifice & strength to ever walk away from anything you feel is not good for you. However, the end result is always joy & gladness, it’s always a sigh of relief and gratitude that you left at the time you did.

I’m very young but I’ve found myself walking away from things I felt were not good for me, for my sanity. I’ve had to walk away from love, friends, career, from a future I almost settled for, even family members (yes, you can walk away from toxic family members).

It looked like I made a mistake at first because it came with a really strong feeling of rejection, self-doubt, loneliness & sadness. At some point, I felt like I gave up on the things I loved but in the actual sense, it was me leaving things not good for me & not me giving up. there’s a difference between giving up and walking away. Looking back now, I’m glad I made those decisions.

The older I’ve grown, the more I’ve realised that perfection is an illusion in life. I don’t believe anyone has a “perfect” life because life is filled with ups and downs, highs & lows, you win some, you lose some etc the list goes on. However, the real display of strength is never letting your head down, not allowing yourself wallow in your sunken place for too long, getting up to try again.

I am not sure if I’ll describe me as “very brave”, but I’m very sure I’m capable of bravery, I also don’t think there’s a right time for anything, we are almost never ready for anything until we do it, only then we realise we’re actually more than ready. It’s just the fear of the unknown, the uncertainty that stops us. Doing anything is rarely ever the outcome of a decision made, sometimes you just have to do it like Nike said 😉 lol.

Speaking of walking away, I recognized it was time to walk away when I realized the people I loved were not appreciative of my love, I wondered why it wasn’t working out because they were great people but some great people may not be a great match for you when it comes to love and in life generally. So, I made a choice between the fear of the unknown, the fear of being without them, the fear of not finding anyone who I’ll love like them and the fear of what I knew could destroy me if I don’t walk away.

And I learned!

I learned that It was okay to get it wrong sometimes and get it right after failing so many times, a win is a win. I learned that only I could create the answer I was looking for, regardless of to whom I asked the question. I learned I had to love myself first before letting any other person love me. And finally, I learned that the things you were never meant to leave, will still be there some way, somehow. It’s okay to fall sometimes but promise me, you’ll rise again.

Love ❤,

Henrie.