THE LONG WALK TO TRANSFORMATION - III

"The thing about standing your ground is that you may have to stand alone. That's okay, as long as the ground you are standing on is solid." - Tana

What do you do when you spot unfairness at play? Do you keep mum and play along or do you stomp your foot on the ground and say, "No, not here, not today!" One of my turn-offs is injustice and on the other end of the spectrum is illogical actions. To get me, you have to make me see the perspective and that perspective had better be mentally convincing or you gon' lose me. Speaking of logic and doing things right and fairly, I had to start with the girl in the mirror. The doctrines I had been ingrained with had become irrational. It was time for me to create new beliefs.

FIRST MAJOR REBELLION

In my penultimate academic year, I changed my wardrobe again. I started to wear jeans skirts again. My skirts were reverted to short, smart and simple. I replaced shea butter with lip gloss or proper lip balm. I tried to look good. By my final year, I was fast losing interest in the things they did at the fellowship. Then one day, I had an emergency involving my brother and my father had called to meet up at his office for discussions. Coincidentally, we had a programme lined up for female workers on the same day. Well, by my judgement, my brother was more important and so I sent a message to be excused from the event at the fellowship. By the time the reply came in, it was a “no” and I was well on my way to see my father. Even if I wasn’t, I was not going to budge – to not see my father because of an event that would most likely happen again? And if it did not, my life did not depend on it anyhow.

When I got to the fellowship the following Saturday, we had been suspended – all of us who were not in attendance. How they thought we were being punished by asking us to take the bench is still unfathomable to me. No caps, I was happy. The routine was boring me already anyway. I was tired of going to scout out girls who wore bum shorts, weaves, nail extensions and had their lashes fixed, all in the name of evangelizing. It was no longer working for me. I mean, wasn’t there some other yardstick for determining who was a sinner and who wasn’t? Besides, who decides who is a sinner and who would enter heaven? We? Ha-ha!

At the workers meeting where we would be sanctioned, we were told that we had to attend a make-up event that would be organised for those of us who missed the previous one. No problem, until… we were further informed that we had to write a letter of apology for not attending and to also request to be allowed back in the workforce. No way I was going to do that! Here’s what I told myself. I would attend the meeting but I wasn’t going to write a letter. I mean, I am not sorry and if I had to do it again, I would do it ten times over. What was the punishment about anyway? And, I had to solicit to be accepted back into the workforce? I wouldn’t do that. And I did not, for nearly one full semester.

My HOD prodded, pampered and pet me but I maintained my stand – I was not sorry and saying I was would mean that I was lying which I wasn’t going to do. EoD. It wasn’t until close to the end of that semester that I decided to write the letter but without the “sorry”. I simply asked to be allowed back into the force. The letter wasn’t acknowledged and I did not receive a call to come back. So, I rested and enjoyed that freedom. It was good. No extra meetings, no trying to show up to make anybody happy. I simply went for services and returned to my hostel as and when due. During that period, God had answered one of my prayers with an inspired idea on how to achieve my long-standing dream of getting a first class GPA/CGPA. I did a little business, made friends with my roommates without feeling the need to be separate or judgmental. I still couldn’t do some things but we were like family. I loved them. My bunkmate was awesome.

Here I was, by the end of the first semester, struggling with my project. I had not turned in the first chapter. I was scared. Yet, there was a bible course that we were sort of mandated to attend from the fellowship. The mother church was organizing that one. Hence, I had to make a decision – to stay back and spend the break writing my chapter one or to be obedient and attend the course. I decided to do both, for fear of scoring a low grade and also fear of being sanctioned or silently judged again. I stayed back for a couple of days to finish up my chapter one and attended the course afterwards. There, I met with one of the Associate Pastors who asked why I hadn’t been attending workers’ meetings. I told him why and his mouth was agape. He asked why I did not come back after writing the letter and I told him it was because I never received a call to come back. He must have thought that I was such an unbelievable girl. So, on his order, I re-joined the workforce and spent the second semester as a worker - again.

This time, they had begun to lose me gradually and here is why. Many of my questions were either received with unapproving grunts or attended to with dissatisfactory answers.