It is All in Your Head
A true short story on feeling different while being different
My thoughts have been as harsh as the cold wind on my skin lately, constantly tormenting me as I wade through daily activities. It presses down on me, choking, draining life out of me through every open pore until I start to feel numb, and one moment away from losing my composure. I sit in class, especially the interactive ones where I must open my mouth to speak and watch how the language I have known since birth dances differently on my tongue, and I hear, in my head, messages of shame. I hear voices laughing as they blend, taunting, reminding me that I stick out like a sore thumb. But I try to hold it all in because I know, deep down I know that it is not true, and yet, I find that I stare into the eyes of those who I speak to, watching every blink, every dilation of their pupil, every sudden movement so I can catch a whiff of the judgement. So, maybe, maybe I can know that my head speaks the truth. But it doesn’t. If my head is never right, why do I always believe it so easily?
“It is just culture shock, it will change with time,” everyone reminds me when I manage to bring up the matter as if this truth is suddenly going to set me free, while at the same time asking questions like ‘when are you going to sound like them?’. I went to TikTok the other day. Typed in ‘How to speak like an American’, hit the search button and several tutorials popped up. I scrolled past the first few, not convinced enough by the thumbnail displayed on the screen. Then one appeared, Nigerian, like me. Interesting, I thought, while I tapped the screen to open up the video. She would be a better teacher to me because she is just like me.
The lady on screen starts by saying things I should stop saying. Water is not WHAT-TAR, but WARTHUR. Same with Better. Father. Mother. I move from the sitting room to the toilet, phone in hand as I sit on the toilet bowl, allowing the short video to play again, and again, and again, while I practice the words in my head.
WARTHUR. BETHUR. MOTHUR.
Finally, when the video restarts again I follow behind and repeat the words out loud. My first step to sounding like them, to not being so different. I continue even after I put a pause on the video, repeating the words, and playing around with sentences. I drop the phone to wash my hands, lost in the moment of the words as I make use of the running warthur. Then I look up in the mirror right above the sink, and I see myself. My face belongs to me, but my mouth is about to reject the way I have sounded all my life, and sadness crawls around the eyes that stare back at me.
This is not who I am. It feels like I am about to sell a large piece of myself just to be able to fit into the crowd of people who I technically do not belong to, and that alone breaks my heart. Out of shame, I close my phone, wash my face and exit the bathroom, promising myself never to do this again.
When I tell this story in class a few weeks later, the first response I get from the white lecturer is that he was certain no one cared. As long as they can understand me, it does not matter, so why then do I find myself trying hard to sound like them? I look around me now and I see people from all over the world who just speak. Some from countries where English does not glaze their tongues, so they struggle with saying the right words, but they do not try to change the intonation of their sentences. Or maybe they do, perhaps I shall ask them one day.
I feel joyful that there are Nigerians in public spaces that I can look up to as regards this feeling, like: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Ayra Starr and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to name a few. They sound like me, and even in the face of the multitudes they interact with, they do not wash off their heritage, that is their accent.
It took weeks to fight the voices in my head, and sometimes when whoever I speak with hits me with a “Could you repeat that?”, I feel a biting sensation in my chest, but I brush it off, and will continue to do so, because at the end of the day I am different, so what?
Note: I have been writing this since February and I did not have the right words to express myself while I was going through the feeling.
What I Am Reading
I recently got back into fiction because my days are usually consumed with academic reading. Currently trying to finish the Asian Historical Fiction I got in January.
What I Am Watching
A few sitcoms to help me get through my stressful days. I also just finished the UK Tubi show, Boarders and I will miss the lovely cast. It ended quite well, and the uncertainty that the teenagers had resonated with me because that's how life is. XO, Kitty Season 3 is coming soon and I will be deep into that. Fingers crossed my ship sails.
Who I am Listening to
Stray Kids, as always, because their songs are quite motivating. I mean, when you have them shouting Do it, Do it, Do it, Do it in your head for three minutes, you get the memo and do what you have to do. I also listen to random playlists of other songs too, mostly Christian.
What am I working on
I messed around and started a club at school, although it's not very active yet.
Became a founding member of the Pan-African Young Publishers Association ( PAYPA ) because I love books and the behind the scenes of publishing and talking about African Publishing in general.
The Historical Fiction book I am reading is part of the research I am doing for my Edo Historical Fantasy I am working on. I started this in November and I have about fifty thousand words altogether. It's been tough writing and schooling, but I am pushing little by little.