Much of life is complicated.

"All you really need to know for the moment is that the universe is a lot more complicated than you might think, even if you start from a position of thinking it's pretty damn complicated in the first place."- Douglas Adams.

Hello beautiful people,

Can you believe we are in October already?! I most certainly can't. I hope you all have had a good year so far, and if you haven't, I hope the rest of the year turns out amazing! 

Since the last time I wrote on here, two major things have happened.

 1) My best guy friend (see last post) and I have kinda made up. 

2) My beloved country, Nigeria celebrated her 55th year of independence. 

I'll start with Nigeria. On the 1st of October, I wrote a post but didn't post it because it read too much like the Independence Day post I wrote last year. (Not much had changed to me). However, today, I went to church and at the end of the service, we sang the national anthem and I cried. I hadn't sung or really listened to our anthem in such a long time, I'd forgotten how beautiful it is. Yes, everything I wrote in the post on Thursday is true- I'm still angry with Nigeria and I don't think we are really independent yet- but (and a very big but) I really, really love Nigeria. It's a very complicated thing in my head.

Unto number two. My best guy friend. I expressed my total dislike for him in my last post and even though only very little has changed, something has changed and for the simple fact that he is truly my best friend, that little change had me willing to forgive him. Again. This situation is also very complicated in my head. I love him but hate him so much too. I told my close cousin the situation yesterday and his reply was one of the best things I've heard all year. "Dara, best friendships are complicated. Infact, much of life is complicated."

In response, I nodded my head in agreement but I couldn't help thinking about his words today. He is very right. My love for Nigeria and my best friend are two very very different things but somehow the same; complicated. And guess what? It is okay. I am/was such a perfectionist, everything in my life had to be either white or black. All the grey areas were not allowed to be grey, they had to pick a side. That is good sometimes, but sometimes, one (me and maybe you) has to realise that life isn't just black and white. It does have grey, blue, yellow and every other colour that has ever been discovered. You can love somebody or a country and get mad or angry at the person or country. We can fight and make up and fight again and make up again. We can hate our countries and run to other countries and run back to ours again and run to other countries when we begin to hate our country again. Please by all means be a stable human but when life becomes complicated as it often tends to, don't despair. Why? Well, because much of life is extremely complicated.

     Photo: keshavasari.wordpress.com

With all my love,

Dara Rhodes

1st of October 2014: Nigeria is 54

It's 4:18am and I can't sleep. I always thought I loved Nigeria but the truth is, I loved the idea of Nigeria. I really want to love and adore my country but it is so hard.

I opened twitter and searched the #NigerianIndependenceDay hashtag and my face and heart dropped. Every tweet I saw was declaring its love for Nigeria, talking about how Nigeria is such a wonderful country and praying, God bless Nigeria. 

I'm on my bed wondering if I have missed something. Last year's Independence Day, on my twitter, I rambled on about how Nigeria is not where it's meant to be but is on its way. I professed my undying love and dedication to Nigeria. This year, today, I couldn't. Nigerians really need to stop deceiving themselves. I tweeted about how Nigeria needs to grow up and I got a random reply from somebody I don't know, telling me that no country achieved success overnight. 

I am confused. Can't we see that we are in love with the idea of loving Nigeria? The people praying for God's blessings on Nigeria prayed that prayer probably since they could talk and will pray the same prayer every Independence Day till they die. God forbid, I'll sit and watch. The truth is, God has done his part for Nigeria, he has blessed us already with every good blessing. Nigeria has the natural resources and human capital to be one of the greatest countries in the world, yet our people wallow in abject poverty.

Thinking about Nigeria always makes me sad and evokes very strong emotions in me. Thinking about Nigeria on the 1st of October every year, breaks my heart. It is particularly painful because it is one day that many educated Nigerians take to the internet to say something about the country and a whole lot of them are saying the same, "I love my country" "God bless Nigeria" "Nigeria will get there". 

I didn't even want to write anything about Nigeria today because I knew I didn't have anything new to say. But opening my twitter and seeing what Nigerians had to say about the country kept me awake in my bed. Maybe as the day progresses, the angry Nigerians will hit twitter. The Chibok girls are still missing and 50 per cent of the Nigerians claiming to love Nigeria on Twitter, have never left their state in Nigeria or been to other regions. It's so sad that we obviously desperately want to love our country but the government (present and past) have done little to help us love it. Thus once a year, on the first of October, we deceive ourselves that our very unwell and wicked country is loved and advancing.

   This is how google sees Nigeria. In the words of Fela, suffering and smiling. Suffering and waving our flag seems more apt.

Dara, what exactly are you saying? The summary of my late night tossing and turnings today is, Nigeria needs to grow up. But as we all know, growing up is never easy.

With all my love,

Dara Rhodes