Letter to my Older Self
Tags: Adult, Parenting Advice, Motivational, Solo, Self Discovery

I remember I was tired, I wanted to sleep. To go home and hold my wife and watch TV and sleep. It was a long day that didn’t even yield anything. That was when your uncle called that your grandpa had died. I didn’t believe it at first, it took a few seconds for it to sink in. But when it happened, my brain went on overdrive. I was already thinking of burial arrangements, who to call to clear the family portion of the cemetery, the elders of the house to inform.

My stress level just tripled, but I was feeling even than ever to deal with it. It was time to man up.

The next month went by as fast as the wind, but we did well. We did the burial and deserving of his status, and even went a little bit overboard.

After the burial though, I came back to Lagos and resumed work like I didn’t just lose my dad. It wasn’t until the lawyer called me a month later, requesting for my presence at the will reading. It was at that point that I truly realized that my dad had died.

I didn’t keep on touch with him enough when he was alive, now he was dead and I was alone. Truly alone. And I felt cold all over

The will reading came, it wasn’t anything special. I got a few things to myself. Anything I had joint ownership of was ceded to the other person or sold immediately, which included the house.

None of us wanted to keep it. We all had bigger houses then, except your uncle Bj. He had just started building his house then. So we decided to sell the house. We cleared it out. We have almost everything out to neighbors and family members, and kept the really important stuff to ourselves. I took the largest share it the books and other things in his study, because the others didn’t want old stuffy books, so I took them. When I unloaded the books here from Ibadan, your mother didn’t want me to keep everything, but I didn’t answer her. This was my dad’s things.

I was arranging the books into your sister’s room, which was my study then. We just gave birth to her a year and a half later.

There was this big children’s dictionary that was in dad’s study. It was actually out book, not his, but he said the dictionary was not to be disrespected and he put it among his own books. I think it’s still there. A really big old thing. It’s almost useless now. Kids of nowadays just google things on their phones and that’s all. Doubt you even know how to use a thesaurus.

In the middle of the dictionary though, there were five letters. One for me and each of my siblings.

It wasn’t a letter from our dad. It was a letter from our younger selves. He made us write it after we did something stupid. I can’t remember what, but I know it was really stupid, and he didn’t want to beat us. So he separated us from each other, and asked us to write a letter to our future selves.

I stood there for a while, looking at the letters, with our childish handwriting on the envelope covers. I think BJ’s own even had a rainbow drawing it.

I can’t tell you the contents of my letter, but I can tell you that at that point, I was an utter disappoinment to my younger self.

I cried and cried, I was sad for weeks before I eventually realized that I wasn’t going to live my life to the standards of anyone. Not even a younger me. And I think I learnt to live better afterwards. Maybe after like 5 months sha.

So my dear son, quit your job if you want. Even though the starting salary they’re paying you is almost equal to my salary after 33 years of service. Even though your mum worked hard to get you the job. Even though the next few years will be really hard for you. You don’t owe anyone anything. Not even a younger version of yourself, and certainly not your mum. But you owe your current self a lot.

I’m going inside now before this mosquitoes finish me. I’ve said all I want to say on this issue. The rest is up to you.

Goodnight son