Blooming Woes
I was a late bloomer.
My much younger version was just a late bloomer at
everything. From math to boobs, it took forever for everything to fall into
place. I just felt I was a natural born olodo, it explained everything really
but nonetheless I couldn’t understand what being an olodo had to do with my
boobs not growing when girls my age in my dorm and classroom were already wearing
a brassiere.
I was 14 when I starting becoming body conscious. I can be
so aloof and very unaware of the world I’m in. My joy and pride back then were
in books. I loved reading novels and totally immersed myself in them and used
to win prizes for best student in English and English literature so I guess I was
not a central olodo. Anyway sha, maybe because of all the reading and mentally
teleporting myself to another world constantly, I didn’t realize on time that I
was the only one without boobs, and the only one who was not menstruating at
that time. It was as if we all went on one long holiday with zero boobs and
looking like bamboo sticks; but everyone returned 2+ months later with curves
and brassiere (those white cotton ones with lace at the top), and Always
sanitary pad. Some even had boobs that could feed a whole nation..ahn..ahn.
Everyone except me.
On resumption day, we would check out each other’s provision
cupboard stylishly to see what we all brought and those of us besties would
merge our provisions together because in boarding school, provision alliance
was the key to surviving until the end of the term. I saw the tins of Peak Milk,
Milo, Cabin Biscuits & what not, yes….yes, but what were these fuke fuke
green and white sanitary pad packs prominently displayed in the cupboards? I
swear I believe each girl did this so that anyone passing by would know she had
gone through this transitional rite of passage phase. Everyone except me that
is.
Upon realizing that I appeared to be the only one without an
Always sanitary pad and a white brassiere, I cried myself to sleep almost every
night. I then decided that I would join this elite group of girls by all means.
I spent every moment I had eaves dropping on conversations about boobs and
periods and hips and how to grow these things. Then one day I heard some girls
talking about an insect that spins round and round on sand, and you can’t
really see it unless you dig for it. All you see while it spins is the circular
movement in the sand. For the life of me, I cannot recall its name. Until I
heard this gist, I had never heard of this insect before but by the description,
I knew I had seen those circular shapes in sand before but never gave it a
thought. Apparently, you take the insect
from the sand, and you put it on your chest where the boobs ought to be and let
it hang out there for a bit. Repeat on the other side of the chest because you
know we don’t want one boob now abi. Then you discard of the insect.
When my dad came to pick me up for the holidays I was super
elated to hear we would be spending the weekend at our country home in Ondo
town before headed to our Lagos home. I knew there was no way I would find that
insect in Lagos because there was no sand like that where I lived so Ondo was
the place to find it.
I found this insect under the palm trees in front of our
house. I took it to the bedroom and sat staring at it, trying to sum up the
courage to put it on my chest. I picked it up many times and thought to myself,
Savannah you must do this thing otherwise you will graduate from secondary school
without boobs. You will be the only person in the assembly hall writing WAEC
with no boobs. Is this how you want to go down in history?
The more sensible part of me remembered her father is a
Pharmacist and mother a trained nurse; haven been exposed to many talks on
health & medicine I should not try this because my parents will kill me
should I catch some disease from this thing riding on my chest.
The latter prevailed. I returned the insect to its abode.
Then 2 days before school resumed I had a brilliant idea to
cut into pieces an old Ankara cloth that belonged to my mum. I cut it into
round shapes, took a couple of her bras and started practicing. I would stuff
my bra. There was no way I was returning to school without boobs. No way at
all. I returned to school and no one even said anything about my new boobs and
the fact that there was nothing there when I showered in the presence of other
girls as was customary in my school, but there was a soft rise under my uniform
when I was fully dressed. I went through all this trouble and these people did
not even notice! Hiss.
Then one day the Senior Prefect whom I had been secretly
dating showed up in a classroom where I used to go hide to read a novel in
other to escape corporal work. He then decided he wanted to kiss me for the
first time. He kissed me lightly and then his hands gradually moved from my
shoulder trying to proceed to the boobs. Yepa…mogbe…my eyes flew open kia kia
at the realization of what was about to happen, and I ran. I ran from that
classroom like Forest Gump and didn’t stop till I got to my hostel. I’ve never
run that fast in my life, not even on Inter-House sports day. Touch my boobs
and then find out they are pieces of cloth?? I don’t think so, not in this 1996
abeg.
Lolll.....
What stories do you have??
Xoxo
Savannah
1 comments:
Write commentsFunny Geh. lol.
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