The courage to have courage

The courage to have courage.

I'm going to bare my soul here. Not too much, mind you. Too often
people have used my rare sincerity against me. They are forgiven, but
not forgotten, wherever they might be.
It has been like peeling an onion when I look back at the time I've
been given so far. Been on suicide watch a couple of times. I guess
you can say I'm on suicide watch right now. It's a unique type of
suicide. I kill who I am when it seems to get in the way of who I have
to become. But that's for another blog. *Reminder to self :)*
In my short life, I've patted myself on the back for my contributions
to the art of expression. According to numerology, I'm a 'one'.
According to personality profiling, I'm a melancholic/choleric.
According to my parents, I'm a good reason to be proud. According to
my siblings, I'm an odd type of savant (in a good way :) ). According
to my friends, I'm...well, I've been very different. I think peculiar
was the word my ex-girlfriend used 2 fridays ago. I take a lot of
getting used to. According to my enemies, I'm the reason hate (be it
overt, covert, slight, strong, calm, passionate, civilised, wild, etc)
was defined as a foundation for certain relationships. According to
God, that is defined, but the pleasure is in the journey to
discovering what he thinks ;).
The courage to have courage for me, in my humble opinion, is to
recognise fear & challenge it. Call it out by its name & let the Judge
of life decide if you will stand or not. He's been kind to me. I could
write a psalm to that, but not quite yet. Have to make do with a blog.
When I was preparing for my JAMB exams, I was taking the diet for
medicine. That was Chemistry, Physics and Biology. I did some soul
searching & asked my parents if they thought medicine was a good
course for me. I was proficient in Biology (thank you, Sir David
Attenborough) & my mom said I had good bed-side manners. My mother
told me, "You do what you want to do. Our approval is meaningless if
you're unhappy. If you do it for your father, when he dies, you'll
still live with yourself."
When it was a month to the exam, I switched to engineering suddenly.
I felt it was open enough for me to change to another course if I
stopped 'feeling' it. I passed. Got on the merit list. Number 69 (I
LIKE NUMBERS). When I gained admission into the University of Lagos to
study Chemical engineering. 3 years down the line, I realised that I
hadn't died yet. I was still trying to please my folks by being
something I wasn't. In my 4th year, I committed suicide. I left to
study Mass Communication at Babcock University. The ironic thing was
that I was such a natural at it. I dated a girl I became was obsessed
with. She dumped me for my closest friend. I was killed (technically,
it was suicide because she was so hot, I was so not. We're friends
now. Don't ask about the guy. I don't talk about him. Not even after 2
bottles of anything).
Everytime I die, I'm reborn closer to who I have to be. It's not
suicide that's as important as the courage to do it. It's not the
courage that's as important as the courage to have the courage to do
it.
I'm not fearless. I still harbour some fears like being alone, being
broken beyond repair, having nothing to do to make me stand out, being
unmarried, being taken for granted... I will have to die to them to
live fully. But I'm on the way there. If you doubt me, understand that
I've accepted that I'm living in a lesson. I'm resigned myself to the
fact that I will have to concede myself to dying in each of these
fears to live more. I understand this at every given time. I pray my
courage doesn't fail me. The courage to have courage.

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