Time regiments

There’s no universal route for all and a master key to unlock all our destinies.

So I bumped into a former school mate from primary school. The person walked up to me and smiled, stretched their hand outwards to greet me. I just had to be polite and I smiled back, shook the person’s hand in return. The person told me how my face looked familiar and still smiling not to make it a bit awkward I responded, “From where?”

All along I thought I was one of the selected few to possess hyperthymesia, a superior autobiographical memory where one is able to recall the vast majority of personal events and experiences in life! But I was proven wrong ! My friend gave me a few seconds to delve deep into the recesses of my mind but I could not retrieve anything!

Figuratively speaking, a light–bulb flashed over his head.

“You are Maureen!”

“We attended the same primary school!”

For a second I thought he was going to say you were a stream ahead of me. As if that wasn’t enough, he said,

“I even remember your surname.”

I was now getting uncomfortable as I didn’t even recognise his face nor remember him!

He broke the silence, “You’re Maureen Hove”.
He continued, “Maybe you still remember my sister, you were friends with her .” He reached for his phone in his pocket started scrolling through his gallery showing me pictures of his siblings. He helped jog my memory and he was like, ” we were triplets, remember?” But you haven’t changed even a bit. I looked at him, properly this time around, because all along I was stealing glances from the corner of the eye since everything about his countenance was so new to me.

Then the question I dread the most came. “Are you married yet?”

“Not yet,”I responded. What about you?

He indicated that he wasn’t planning on marrying anytime soon but the sister who I was friends with back then was married already and had two beautiful kids. I was like oh, congratulations to her! After our weird conversation, I bid farewell to him and we part ways.
I immediately boarded a commuter omnibus heading straight back home.

All the way home my mind was on overdrive. According to him, I hadn’t changed except for growing an extra centimetre tall! I wish he knew how much I had changed intellectually and the wisdom I had accumulated in the past years. Well, he kept on talking and emphasising about marriage using his sister as the point of reference indirectly highlighting how much of a late bloomer I am. I couldn’t respond then but here’s what I really wanted to say to him…

I wanted to tell him that marriage which Is deemed a societal achievement is not all that and a bag of chips. I know it will happen someday and it will be beautiful all in God’s timing!

We are so tied to culture, society, custom and time regiments, we all want to fit in because the society is intolerant to deviants, and also there is this huge fear of being ridiculed.

We all have different timelines no wonder we were born in different families and on different days. Even spitting image twins don’t come out at the same time, they are spaced by a few seconds or minutes..meaning that someone is already breathing before the other one does. It’s not a shame and there is nothing absolutely wrong to see a three-month-old baby teething..whilst the same age baby from next door isn’t..some start crawling at six months..some at twelve months. .same age group..same sex.

That same concept applies to life. The onset of puberty in adolescence differs from one individual to the other. As you know, the major landmark of puberty for females is menarche, I still remember when I was in form one and other same-aged girls had already undergone significant physical changes. I wasn’t there yet, mine started a bit late..but, did that mean I wasn’t a budding girl as well and wasn’t going to experience these changes? Absolutely not!

There is no need for people to project their fears on you. They keep telling you what they think and you end up believing them. They say a lady or man of your age should be married by such time or should have accomplished such by a certain time but on whose timeline are we working on here?

The waiting period may be very painful especially when you are being tortured by other people’s achievements and they are making it right under your nose. Don’t succumb to pressure from family and friends. Keep God close. He is about to blow your mind just be the best version of yourself that can be able to finally receive whatever you are working towards.