try boredom

I feel much better now btw, thanks for asking.

let’s first of all ignore the fact that i am trying to force myself to cry at 12 am so i’ll feel better but the tears just don’t want to come, and talk about the fact that if you are anything like me, your brain probably does not function unless it’s 3 am.

a lot of things are running through my head right now. the different ideas are literally running to and fro in my head (i am not even joking), and i feel like i have to hold them down one by one like they are hyperactive babies, then pick them one by one and write them out. but that would be boring, wouldn’t it?

even if i try to pin them down and deal with them one at a time, i would lose the train of thought and forget every single thing i wanted to write about. this is literally my excuse for not writing for so long.

honestly, i’m not sorry. but i’m glad you missed me.

pardon me if you get confused as you read this letter because i don’t even know what the exact content of it is going to be. i will be going from one train of thought to another. but oh well. hop with me.

yesterday i saw a video about a content creator who left social media for a while and then came back. and the whole video was about the pressure of returning after a break. when creators disappear for some time, they feel like they have to come back with proof that the time away was productive. like they owe everyone an explanation.

so they return with sentences like
“while i was gone, i learned that…”
“during my break, i discovered…”

like the break has to come with a certificate of productivity. or just have to come bcak in style or with a bang likeee

but the person in the video said something interesting. they said sometimes it’s okay to leave and just… leave. to take a break without having to prove to anyone that you were productive during it.

and honestly, i needed to hear that.

because the truth is, me i am a prodigal child.

Bí mo ṣe lọ ni mo ṣe padà dé.

The way I went, is the way I returned/came back

there is no banger. in fact, i was not productive. i was not learning any profound life lesson. i was mostly spending time in bed watching series after series. sometimes i wouldn’t even bathe unless i absolutely had to go out. occasionally i would read a book here and there, but mostly it was just episode after episode of something.

every time someone asks me about my youtube or my substack, i just…

lie.

i have lied about a lot of things.
“i had exams.”
“i’m working on a project.”
“being the president is a lot of work.”
“i don’t really have time anymore.”

when in fact, the truth is that my brain has just been blank.

just blank.

and the funny thing is that being blank does not mean i don’t have ideas. i do. i have so many things i could write about. stories that happen around me, random gists that i know my subscribers would laugh about, like i’m their nosy roommate doing amebo in the most entertaining way possible.

i even have clips. lots of them. i document everything. random moments, random thoughts, random situations that i know would make good content. but when it’s time to edit or actually make something out of it, i don’t know where to start.

it got to a point where i told myself that i would start a series of final year diaries for my youtube videos. that also did not work.

i try to start working on something and there are just too many ideas to pick from. they run around in front of me like hyperactive babies, and when i finally try to catch one and hold it down long enough to work on it, it goes poof and disappears with the rest of them.

one minute there is so much noise in my head.

so many thoughts. so many directions.

and the next minute my head is completely blank, i start to feel like patrick.

and then i have to wait.

wait.
wait.
wait.

until i get bored.

the funny thing is that boredom actually makes me productive.

i don’t even know if that makes sense, but it’s hard to explain to people that the only time i can focus on something important is when my brain has literally nothing else interesting to do. it has to be tired of everything else first.

it’s also why i can be writing this right now when i am supposed to be making a proposal for a project that i have to turn in before 10am tomorrow.

newsflash.

i haven’t even been able to think of the project for weeks.

my mentor has been asking but there is literally nothing i can think of

i’m really hoping my brain works the way it normally does. maybe when i finish writing this and nothing is exciting left to do, i will finally be bored enough to sit down and think about that proposal.

or maybe not.

because now that i think about it, i just remembered that i texted my cousin on snapchat yesterday, and i still haven’t opened snapchat since then, so i should probably check that.

anyone knows how to explain why i can spend hours watching bridgerton from season 1 to season 4, finish the entire thing, realize there’s nothing left to watch, and only then remember that there are clothes in my laundry basket that have been there for more than a month?

or why do I have to waste an entire day doing the most random things like sleeping, watching tiktoks, scrolling endlessly, and then suddenly at 1am my brain decides it is finally time to work on presentation slides?

what makes it worse is that even when i finish something productive like working on those slides, i can’t immediately move on to the next productive thing like the literature review for my final year project.

no.

my brain goes blank again, and i have to wait for boredom.

how does that even work? beats me.

all i know is that boredom is the only thing that helps me not just be productive, but also process my emotions.

something happened to me around 10:30pm tonight. it’s almost 1am now and i’ve been sitting in the same spot since then, doing nothing except waiting.

because when something happens that should make me feel something — like sadness, embarrassment, disappointment — i don’t process it immediately.

i just stay numb.

it’s like my brain postpones the emotion.

the problem is that the emotion doesn’t actually go away. it just sits somewhere in my chest. right in the middle of my breasts. and it aches so much that i use my hand to hold my chest, thinking that it will somehow suppress it.

the only way i know how to release that feeling, apart from sitting in silence with the hope that the feeling goes away, is to cry.

some people scream. some people punch things. some people throw tantrums.

i unfortunately do not have the luxury of screaming because i live in a hostel with over 800 girls and three other girls in my room. if i start screaming randomly in this building, they will probably bundle me straight to the AMSH mental health department, and there is absolutely nothing that will come out of my mouth that will convince them i am not mad.

so crying it is.

except right now i can’t cry.

crying requires some kind of concentration that i just don’t have.

the sadness (or pain, I’m still trying to recognise the emotion) is there. it’s heavy and uncomfortable, and it sits in my chest like something pressing down on it. but the tears just won’t come.

so i try to think about the thing that made me sad.

which brings me to the most annoying part of today.

earlier tonight i joined one of those call-in quiz interviews where they ask you questions, and if you answer correctly, you win money. it’s actually such an exciting thing to do icl.

i’ve done them before. they’re usually simple. you answer a few questions, maybe win something small, maybe not. nothing too serious. but this time around, i already thought of how i would add the cash prize to the money for my hair tomorrow.

so i joined the call.

the host greeted me, asked my name, asked if i was ready.

i was confident. why wouldn’t i be?

then the first question came.

and it was easy. like… embarrassingly easy.

the kind of question where your brain should automatically spit out the answer before the person even finishes asking it.

except my brain didn’t. my brain went completely blank.

i could hear the question clearly. i knew it was something i had definitely learned before. something i should know. something that should have been sitting somewhere in my memory waiting to be retrieved.

but when i reached for it…

nothing. just silence in my head.

the host repeated the question.

i laughed awkwardly, trying to buy time.

still nothing.

and the worst part is that somewhere in the back of my mind i knew that i knew the answer. i could feel it hovering just outside my reach.

but the more i tried to grab it, the further away it felt.

so there was just silence. awkward silence. the kind where you can almost hear the disappointment through the phone.

eventually the moment passed. the question moved on. the call ended. and almost immediately after the call ended, the answer came back to me.

of course it did.

two very simple questions. questions that i absolutely knew the answers to. but in that moment, my brain just… shut down. and now i can’t stop thinking about it. i keep replaying the moment in my head. the question, the silence, the disappointment.

i feel like an olodo.

and there is nothing i can say to redeem myself.

so now i’m sitting here, waiting.

waiting for boredom to finally do its thing.

because maybe when my brain finally runs out of tiktoks and unfinished thoughts and random distractions, maybe when the noise finally dies down…

maybe then the crying will come.

maybe it won’t.

maybe writing this was the cry.

anyways if you are anything like me, you should try boredom.

this is the first piece of my new challenge, which, in true fashion, I still haven’t named yet. (you can find the details of the challenge here if you want to see what i’m getting myself into). this specific topic was suggested by Chris Yorkpara , and honestly, i’m curious to know if it resonates with you. let me know what you think in the comments.

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book recommendation:
Black AF History

movie recommendation:
Derry Girls

music recommendation:

cause i have been listening to a lot of Mande music.

oh. and i feel much better now btw, thanks for asking.