Memories — Souvenirs & Garbage

Bliss Akinyemi
5 min readSep 30, 2021

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Love is a beautiful thing but how many times have you experienced it?

I don’t mean the times you’ve said I love you. Nahhhh…

I mean, how many times have you felt love springing up from inside of you? Okay, what did you make of the feeling?

Trust me, those questions have nothing to do with this month’s post but you know, I had to drop intro. LEEEMAOOOO!

Or, maybe we’d eventually talk about love, let’s see how it goes.

For someone who chides herself for being grossly inconsistent, I think it’s about time I change the narrative in my head.

I don’t know if it has anything to do with me growing older and being more responsible but the number of things I’ve followed through this year makes me want to give myself a gift — a souvenir for this feat.

In case ‘things’ sounds vague to you, let me add context to it. This year, I made a promise to myself to publish a post on Medium every month (of course, I can write more than one post per month but I had to start from there). This is September and I have not missed one month.

That!

Even my busy schedule in the last three months couldn’t hold me back.

Wo, I deserve an accolade! Do am if e easy. LEEMAOOO!

Speaking of the last three months… Hmmm.

I also produced 12 episodes of my podcast (if you’ve not listened to a single episode, please tell me my offense and let me apologize) and the 13th episode is going live tomorrow.

Omoooo

Don’t say “and so?” because I went through a whole lot to make it happen and I’m fucking proud of myself. Out of these three months, I didn’t have electricity in my apartment for two months… ko tie funny!

Shebi you know I need light to edit my recordings. And, yeah, I produced my show myself (I know I said it before but I had to repeat it cause 6 months ago I didn’t see that happening).

In this life ehn, just pray to be blessed with amazing people and work to have enough money to fill the gaps.

Shout out to every one of my guests who came through and helped me make this season a success. To my team members and contributors, God bless you all.

Season one of BeforeNow podcast has left me with souvenirs — I earned the company of some amazing people and I do not take it for granted.

At all!

Ermmmm….. Are you there?

Ehen!

Remember how I was ranting in my Valentine post pe ‘God when?’ and bla bla bla… Well, God responded and somebody’s son has found me. Hehehehehehe

Oh… boy! I have the yummiest bar of chocolate in my corner — a souvenir of another event. Gosh! It’s been such an amazing year. But, that’s all the gist you get to have for now.

By the time I write that how it started versus how it’s going post ehn, it will cause asphyxiation, as in, e go choke — bo se ma je niyen (that’s how it gon’ be!).

Now, let me tell you why I chose to write about souvenirs in September.

My head is filled with memories that I have shared with a lot of people and I’m guessing your head is not empty either.

The year has been a rollercoaster but in all things, we give thanks.

Anyways, some of these memories are fun while some are traumatizing. But, what to do?

Lately, I’ve been sorting the memories in my head when they pop up. Let’s not lie, some are absolute trash and they belong in the trash — no apologies to the people and places that contributed to their creation. It is what it is and I said what I said.

I know you like gist, so I’d share one of my memories with you.

Early December 2019, when my friends and I had no freaking idea that we were going to be washing our hands back to back while wearing face masks and staying indoors in the coming year. Three of us went to the pool and spent an entire day there. Just one of us could swim but we were happy to tag along.

At the pool, we met different people and had a great time. Actually, having conversations with strangers is something I find fun to do. We laughed for a lot of ridiculous reasons and it was one time of our lives that I wish we would have again.

When I’m around the people that have seen me finish, I say a lot of silly things cause I’m generally a senseless person in my comfort zone, so imagine the amount of fun I was having until the supposed swimming instructor decided to ‘teach’ me how to swim.

Innocently, I agreed and surrendered myself to the most unbelievable harassment of my life. I mean, right in front of everyone, this crazy human was touching me inappropriately. Haa! Wahala be like pool instructor.

Immediately, I terminated the ‘class’ and walked away from the guy and the pool.

You see, that day was one great day of my life but it almost got a dent because of that psycho.

The truth is some memories are going to have a mixed effect on you. A great day can start out bad and vice versa, so learn to identify the souvenirs you want to keep.

Nobody can tell you what to do with your memories and all those talks about focusing on only the good can sometimes be dustbin talk but I’d still encourage you.

There’s no one way to deal with issues but as long as it is within your control, please, sort your memories.

Take out the garbage and keep the finest.

In all your doings, please try to never run out of good memories to reflect upon.

Before I stop typing, let me tell you three weird but fun facts about me.

Or, I shouldn’t? Well, I will.

1. I listen to Christmas songs all through the year and my recent favorite track is the Pentatonix version of Sleigh Ride.

2. Sometimes, I sleep on the floor or on my yoga mat after making my bed because I don’t want the neatly spread bed to get rough.

3. There was a time that I used to carry sanitary pads about in hope of saving someone’s day. I don’t know why I stopped, maybe sapa tori pad ti won.

That’s it people, show some love by leaving as many claps as possible behind.

Ps. If it’s your first time reading me, welcome to my monthly non-fiction write-ups!

Pss. Please, you people should listen and share BeforeNow Podcast and this post too. K’oju bayen lo.

I love you.

MiCi

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Bliss Akinyemi
Bliss Akinyemi

Written by Bliss Akinyemi

Name-maniac. Cake addict. Helpless Romantic. Chocolate lover. Wannabe polyglot. Aspiring traveler. Storyteller.