Written by: Admin_SheEvo
The other day, I was watching an Instagram reel of a lady who mistakenly returned a wave meant for another lady, not her (bummer), so she had to keep her hand raised; then a taxi stopped and took her to the airport, so she was on an unplanned flight to Poland.
I found that hilarious, in a laugh-out-loud, “this is so ridiculous” kind of way.
So there I was, laughing my head off and wondering, “She did WHAT?” when out of nowhere.
The thought interrupted me —
My native tribe has an interesting adage about grown women not laughing with all their teeth when a joke about creaky cheeks is shared.
(Which, first of all, how many teeth do the grown women have to laugh with? Second, what kind of insensitive person would joke about creaky bones in front of an old lady??)
Anyway, I, gentle reader, am that old woman.
You see, my siblings and I got dropped off at school by our dad in his trusty old Mitsubishi Gallant for much of primary school and a bit of junior secondary school.
(It was not very trustworthy, and we had the unfortunate habit of stopping at the most inconvenient locations, so we had to get off and walk the rest of the distance to school. Other times, we would stand safely at the school gate, waving furiously at Dad in his trusty old Gallant as if willing the vehicle to not stop him on the way back home as the car backfired out the driveway)—deep sigh.
In those early days, we commuted to school primarily by private car or the school bus, a rickety old bus that made a sound like a trailer with all its parts shaking down the road, rege rege rege. We would typically hear it from two streets away and hurry to race to the bus stop.
We were not used to commercial bus rides for all these reasons. Or maybe this is just a euphemism for “I-lived-a-very-sheltered-life-so-I-picked-up-on-basic-life-survival-skills-quite-late”.
But whatever.
This particular day, we had stayed back for extra lessons after school, being the exam class, and the school bus had left. A couple of friends living in the same area decided we would catch a bus back home. It’s no biggie, right??
So off we go, make ourselves comfortable, and make small talk (which at this time consisted of the boys arguing about the latest Naruto episodes, and we girls, I wonder what we talked about).
All the while, I would keep an eye on the conversation and another on the road. We would turn the corner from Bilante, past the bridge, and my heart would start thudding in my chest. It was almost time for me to announce my stop.
Unfortunately, mine was the first of our group. I would try out the words under my breath, in my head,
“West Road One ga-apu¹, all the while my heart thudding crazy tunes in my ribcage.
I would debate, “Should I just say, ‘West Road One?”
What if I did not speak loud enough, and he carried me past my stop?
What if I shouted too loudly and he ignored me?
I would agonize over these thoughts, and as we approached my stop, the dumpster by the street corner looming closer, the anxiety would heighten, like the feeling you get just before you jump off a cliff.
Only at the last minute would I decide I did not want to jump off this cliff. I would rather wait for someone to come in a chopper and fly me across.
So I would keep shut, and the thudding would slowly staccato to a halt; about the same time, my friend would announce their stop —”Road 12 nokwa ya”.
I would then get off with them and walk back an extra two minutes to get home.
What is the moral of this story? I do not know. It’s all about finding your voice.
Sometimes, we talk about “finding your voice” as if your voice were something tangible and displaceable, like car keys or your room keys that you could mistakenly drop somewhere and not remember where you put them.
Sometimes, we forget that our voices are us—our human agency to define who we are, our boundaries, what we want out of life, and what we are willing to give.
It is not often that we misplace our voices as much as we hide them, unintentionally sometimes. Nonetheless, I am afraid to take a stand, to be seen, and to face consequences.
And I am reminded of the servant in the Bible who hid his one talent.
His choice of words puzzled me for the longest time; he said, “I hid it because I was afraid”.
I expected the Master to be sympathetic and maybe encourage and reassure him (I think that servant had an anxious core; perhaps he needed a therapist?), let him know there was nothing to be scared of,
and give him another chance to try out his newfound confidence.
But He did not.
The truth, though, is that the fact that we are scared is not enough reason to dim the lamp that God handed over to us to help light a dark world. It is not enough reason to bury the talent(s) we have been given.
This does not imply that fear is accurate. It is a genuine, valid, and profoundly distressing emotion. The Master did not discredit the servant’s fear; He did not even judge him for being afraid; he did not say, “How
could you be afraid, you stupid servant?”
No, He did not.
But, He discredited him for his actions. What did he do with the fear? About the fear? Did he let it stop
him from fulfilling the Master’s wish?
(He did, and we both know how that story ends).
It is okay to feel fear, to sometimes wonder, What the hell? To feel like your heart is a not-so-little
drummer boy high on something, and to have your palms feel sweaty and your stomach doing backflips.
It is okay to approach the cliff feeling uncertain. But what do you do next? Do you take a flying leap off
and do the one thing God asks of you right then? Or do you walk away from it all?
One appears much easier, but that is how you have many regrets later in life. (I mean, look at me, 10
I wondered if I would have grown taller if I had not walked those two extra minutes
under the hot sun years ago because I was too scared to say “O ga-apu”. We may never know.)
If you misplaced your voice, you know exactly where you laid it,
underneath the myriad cloaks of excuses, what-ifs, and I-can not. You can pick it up and
use it again.
It might seem unfamiliar, but use it anyway, and keep using it until it feels familiar, like your skin, like a
part of you— because it is precisely that.
P.P.S: If you want to read more about the wicked and lazy servant (who perhaps needed therapy but
sadly could not get it —maybe!) Check out the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25.
1
Ọ ga-apụ: Igbo expression for “I will get off” Used to indicate a passenger’s stop to a commercial driver.
2
It is assuming you have jumped off a literal cliff before, which, if you have, I would need your
autograph, as you are probably either the ghost of some reckless youth or a badass bungee diver. In
either case, I need to see you ASAP.
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