Individuals can come together under the most extraordinary circumstances, but as I sit here and reflect, I wonder how we arrived at this position. She was going through arguably the worst period of her young life and being at home was stymieing, as I almost felt that I could not breathe. It was a few weeks into December and I was yet to secure employment. I did receive two offers but I was told not to accept those positions as my mother was weary of commission type positions. My father, from across the world in Nigeria, saw my lack of employment as me not being "driven," "not taking things seriously" and "not having focus about the direction of my life." He got to my mother and she began talking this jazz. I was furious. He found out about my music, so his thought was that I just wanted to lay around the house and make music. Let's explore this. If I am an upcoming musician, then I am not yet making any money from my music. Yet I still have all my debt from attaining a first degree. It tends to snow in Michigan so I had to get a car. Plus, I am young and would love to go out once in a while, so what money would I have to do any of these? I had already stored my motorcycle for the winter so I was waking up everyday, applying for positions online, and then literally beating the pavement around my mothers house. What trust fund did he leave for me to enjoy this "lavish" lifestyle? I would return from hours of job hunting, and this was the shit I had to put up with, when the only reason that I was home was because he was not stepping up to his responsibilities. When my book, "Galfing: A Young Man's Guide" transitioned from a guide, into an actual novel, halfway through it, I realized that my father is the antagonist. This is not by design. It is simply where the writing took me, and I take no pride in saying it. Other sons grow up and want to be like their father, I want to be the OPPOSITE of mine. This hurts me to say, but it is what it is. So how dare he say ANYTHING about one of the 2 things that provided an escape for my troubled mind? The other was Amanda.
Our relationship would have never blossomed without communication. Naturally, I was still weary about her marital status but the more I got to know her, the more I liked. Her best trait was her heart because I could tell that she was sincere about the things that she cared about. She volunteered down at the shelter and she was going into teaching to really help the kids. Whereas I on the other hand, am the type of person that would be saying, "Umm, excuse me! We're missing a couple extra zeroes at the end of this paycheck. Fix this!" I can't help it. I am not going to live as adult, the way that I grew up; always unsure about tomorrow. If anything, this is my biggest fear/motivator as I'll DIE first before I willingly live that way. Amanda is an attractive girl, but at this point in my life, that's almost a given (hence why I am DREADING "No Pride Night" haha, more on this in a future post). She was no "Einstein" as a lot of what I would say to her would go over her head. Then YEARS later, she would tell me, "Ohhh, I get it now!" This always made laugh, so I liked her for it. However, from not knowing her in high school, she was SOO nice, and that's they way I would describe her. Plus, we had some of the best phone conversations EVER!
I would look up from a phone call that felt like 30 minutes and instead it was 4 hours long! This was mind blowing to me, as I am part of the "texting" generation. My parent's did not believe in cell phones in high school so my first cell phone was a prepaid one. Thus, I quickly learned that it was MUCH cheaper to send a 1 cent text message than spend 10 cents a minute per phone call. Simple economics. Even when my mother moved us to a family plan with ATT, she QUICKLY learned that we would never go over our minutes but she had better get the unlimited text message plan. During senior year at Michigan, I recall wanting to learn how to talk on the phone. This is because no matter how witty, there is a difference between reading someone's words, versus hearing their voice. So those marathon conversations drew me to her. We would talk about anything and everything. She would have class at 9 a.m and we would be still be talking at 8. After a long day, she would fall asleep talking to me and sometimes, I didn't want to hang up, just to hear her voice. I was starting to feel like I could tell her things that I had never told anyone, much less a girl. She would always say that I was too hard on myself but I didn't know that life afforded me any other options. For example, Kelli was my girlfriend from high school and she is the type of girl that you marry. As you can imagine no one is ready to get married at 18, but it was this fact that spurred my break up with her.
When you grow up the way that I did, the idea was to go to college and everything would be okay. Thus we were pushed to strive for the best schools, and so not getting into the ivies was one of the most disappointing times in my young life. I felt like I was letting my family down and so I shut down. I stopped playing sports, quit extracurricular activities, and broke up with Kelli. I am sure that she did not understand as you would have to know my story to understand why this was heartbreaking for me. So in doing my music, and being more open about myself, I've realized that if I don't tell my tale, people won't know. I remember on my first project, "No Spaces," I did a song called "The World Is Mine." Upon hearing it, Uzi, a fellow Nigerian from UofM, called me asking, "Wait! You were born in Nigeria?" I've known Uzi for over two years, so that question was eye opening for me. I realized that I have done such a good job of assimilating that people don't know me. I don't speak with an accent, and with whole persona of "Michael O," people don't even know I'm Nigerian, much less an immigrant; no so fresh off the boat. So this was the main reason why I fell for Amanda because for the first time in my life, I felt like I didn't have hide anything. This was huge for me, but the physical part was just as AMAZING...
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