Louise

Writer. Spoken word. Performing arts. Theatre fanatic. 💖🌺💃🏾

[blue @bluewmist]

My spouse saying to the four year old about his brother, "He is telling you about it because he's excited, not because he thinks you don't know." And that, my friends, is also a lesson I need to hear.

[Pejuola| HR🗣️ @Pejuola_a]

Nobody is more stressed than a woman who knows she has potential but feels completely confused about her next move, career and life

[yimika| @yimikaaaa]

You MUST by all means develop a strong opinion of yourself so you don't end up internalizing the beliefs others have of you.

[Maryam @hell_line0]

Idk but Michelle Obama telling Barack “You told me all those years ago that you couldn't promise me the world, but you could promise me an interesting life. And, of course you outdid yourself and managed to give me both." is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard someone say to another 🥹

[🎀 planet clarke 🎀 @planetclarke]

My autistic cousin tried wine for the first time and said it had notes of rust, wood chips, and asbestos. He says he will not be trying it again 😂😂😂

Please guess what wine he had.

[✒️ @Literariium]

james baldwin was so right when he said you think you’re alone and then you pick up a book and realise someone else has felt the same way as you and managed to find a language for it. the realest shit

[bianca @biancalovesfilm]

unfortunately i do believe that every time i delay watching a film it’s because it’s going to find me at the perfect time

[GABBY @gabrrriielle]

I love how something can be the BIGGEST problem in your life and 6 months pass and you legitimately cannot even remember how bad of a problem it was 🤣

[smv @slimvnsn]

My father never came to a single thing I invited him to.

Not my primary school graduation. Not my secondary school prize giving where I collected 3 awards and kept looking at the gate. Not my university matriculation. Not the ceremony when I got called to bar in 2012. I'd send him the date weeks in advance and he'd say I'll try and that was always the full sentence. I'll try. No follow up. No explanation after.

My mother would sit in his place and clap loud enough for 2 people.

I stopped inviting him after the bar call. Not from anger. Some people love you completely and still cannot show up and after a while you stop making them feel guilty about it.

He was not a bad man. I want to be clear about that.

He was a mechanic in Mushin for 35 years. Worked 6 days a week. Sent every one of us to school. Never raised his hand. Never left. The lights stayed on and the rent was paid and there was always food and he did all of it quietly without asking to be celebrated.

He just could not sit in a plastic chair and watch something.

I accepted that and moved on.

Last year I bought my first property. A flat in Ojodu. Took 9 years of saving and 2 years of paperwork and a lawyer who nearly finished me. When the keys finally came I sat in the empty flat on the floor for an hour just breathing.

I called my mother first. She screamed. My sister cried.

I didn't call my father.

3 days later he called me.

Said he heard about the flat from my mother. Said he wanted to come and see it.

I didn't know what to do with that so I just said okay. Gave him the address. Figured he'd say I'll try and we'd never speak of it again.

He showed up on Saturday at 9am.

Stood at the door in his good agbada. The one he only wears for serious things. Holding a small nylon bag.

I let him in and he walked through every room without speaking. Not quickly. Slowly. Like he was counting something. He checked the pipes under the kitchen sink. Knocked on the walls. Opened and closed the windows twice each. Looked at the ceiling in every room the way only a man who has fixed things his whole life looks at ceilings.

Then he came and stood in the sitting room and looked at me.

Said the pipework is good. Said the windows seal properly. Said whoever built this knew what they were doing.

I nodded.

Long silence.

Then he opened the nylon bag.

Inside was a small framed photo. Me at maybe 7 years old sitting on the bonnet of an old car in his workshop. Grinning. Both legs swinging. He's standing beside me with his hand on my shoulder looking at something outside the frame. I remember that day. I had gone to the workshop after school and he let me sit there while he worked and gave me a Fanta and put a Michael Jackson cassette on the small radio.

I didn't know anyone had taken a photo.

He said he kept it on his workshop table for 22 years. Said he wanted me to have something for the new place.

I held that frame and stood very still.

He said he knew he missed things. Said he was not good at the sitting and watching. That crowds made something in him go wrong in a way he never knew how to explain.

Then he said the flat was good and he was proud and he asked if there was anything in the kitchen because he hadn't eaten.

I laughed.

Made him eggs and bread while he sat at my kitchen table in his good agbada like he owned the place.

We ate and he told me about a car he was working on. I told him about a case that was giving me trouble. Normal conversation. The kind we should have been having for years.

He left at 1pm. At the door he gripped my shoulder the same way he did in that photo.

Didn't say anything.

Didn't need to.

The photo is on my sitting room wall now. First thing I hung in the whole flat.

Some fathers cannot sit in the plastic chair.

But mine drove to Ojodu in his good agbada on a Saturday morning with a 22 year old photograph in a nylon bag.

That was his standing ovation.

I just didn't know to look for it in that shape.

[Nithya Shri @Nithya_Shrii]

When you start making money, spend a lot of money on the things you use daily: laptop, desk, chairs, bed, toothbrush, healthy food, clothes, and gym membership. This will help level you up 10x faster.

[your babyy ❤️🦋 @Veryweirdgirl_]

This year, I’m unlearning fear. I’ll reach out first, respond more, show up to invites, and stop hiding from people. I’ll care loudly, love openly, manage my anxiety better, and choose to live instead of just exist.

[‏ً @omgsidewalks]

which is why i tell people talking out loud to yourself doesn't make you craży but will keep you sane. Your thoughts are merely floating out in an abyss and can't always be rationalized properly. Bring the thoughts to earth through your voice and interact with them down here.

[Banks ♞ @promisenakpan]

Some of us take for granted that some of our friends are actually “legends” in the making.

I see some of my friends do that most insanely impressive things, and I’m like “damn, I’m so proud to know this man”

[Chigozie Obi @ChigozieObi_]

Document your life. Your fits, your friends, your family, your food, your face, your body, your trips, your outings, your reads, your lows, your highs, your midpoints & so & so & so. You don’t need to share but document, do it for yourself too first & foremost, not anyone else

[‏ً @omgsidewalks]

i've come to realise that regret is a cruel storyteller. It rewrites the past with the wisdom of the present, convinces you that you should have known better when you actually had no way of knowing at all.

[Boze Herrington, Library Owl 😴🧙‍♀️ @SketchesbyBoze]

Let this be the year in which you rebuild your attention span. Big Tech wants you unable to focus on anything for longer than a few seconds. Resist the infinite scroll. Avoid short-form videos. Watch movies without being on your phone. Read voraciously and often.

[‏ً @omgsidewalks]

you can't keep postponing things just because you aren't ready.

you have to do it scared.

[Nithya Shri @Nithya_Shrii]

Don’t forget to imagine the best case scenario, too.

[𝗱𝗮𝗻𝗻𝘆🫧💚 @beyoncegarden]

THE WAY SHE DIDN’T GAF LMFAOOO WHO IS THIS DIVA😭😭😭

[邸珥菲 @SAIBdelvi]

Find every single thing to be celebrated. Do this intentionally.

Life becomes heavier as time goes by. You're not gonna survive if you keep choosing to only see the dark.