For You...

Where do people think up lyrics like these? Gosh I was just listening to an album given to me like almost 10 years ago, one of those wedding CDs. Everytime I play this song I have to have it on repeat. I cannot get enough of it. If love can truly be like this wouldn't we all be in pure bliss?


For you- Kenny Lattimore

For you I’d give a lifetime of stability, anything you want of me, nothing is
impossible
For you there are no words or ways to show my love or all the thoughts
I'm thinking of
'Cause this life is no good alone since we've become one I've made a
change
Everything I do now makes sense, all roads end, all I do is for you

For you I share the cup of love that overflows and anyone who knows us
knows that I would change all faults I have
For you there is no low or high or in between of my heart that you
haven't seen
'Cause I share all I have and am, nothing I've said is hard to understand
And all I feel I feel deeper still and always will all this love is for you

Every note that I play, every word I might say, every melody I feel
Are only for you and your appeal
Every page that I write, everyday of my life would not be filled without
the things
That my love for you now brings

For you I'd make a promise of fidelity, now and for eternity
No one could replace this vow
For you I'd take your hand and heart and everything and add to them a
wedding ring
'Cause this life is no good alone, since we've become one you're all I know
And if this feeling should leave I'd die and here's why
All I am is for you

Everything I do now makes sense, all roads end and all I do...
Is for you
Only for you

This love

One day I will write the story of this love
But it’s a long long story
I will write it when I know the end
Then the story will be told from beginning to end


It’s a long long story
One of so much joy and so much pain
One day I will write the story of this love
But it’s a long long story

Wolverine, My Love...

The thought of watching 'Wolverine' got me really excited. I remembered vividly how much I enjoyed X-Men 3 a few years ago. It was Busola and I and we sat at the very first row of the cinema hall because it was packed full with people. I think it was the premier night at silver bird, Lagos. The special effects and the special powers displayed by the mutants in x-men have always been applaud worthy. I just remember a crowd full of people, giving commentary and applauding all through the special effects, action-packed filled scenes. It was definitely the best movie I had seen that year. This time it was Ifeoma who invited me to see the movie, it was a planned all girls outing and I thought it would be a great way to spend the May day holiday.

The great thing about my love for X-Men is that I never read any of the comics. My brother used to collect them but I always found the characters so mutant looking that I figured it would have nothing intriguing to offer. So for me, I have no expectations on what should happen or how things ought to be based on the comic.

Wolverine, a man after my own heart. In this movie sub titled 'X-Men Origins', we are taken back where I believe it all began, however the focus is on Wolverine’s life. We are shown the beginning of his mutation and his discovery of who his real father is in what appears to be a fight between his mother and her drunken lover.

The highlight of the movie is when Lagos, Nigeria is chosen as a location for a secret operation. The crowd in the cinema applauded. Lagosians so proud to be featured in a Hollywood blockbuster. I guess I was unaware of the script because I really got more than I bargained for. We are shown how Wolverine's mutation came to manifest. He has the mutation of a wolf; its strength, speed, claws but there is just one thing that shouldn’t be; his heart. For a man with a wolf-like mutation, he does not have a heart to match. At several points in the movie we see him make some emotional decisions. He lacks killer instincts. His heart is larger than life.

It’s amazing how two people from the same family can go through the same experiences yet react to it differently. I guess it’s the same way you have children raised by an abusive parent and one child turns out exactly if not worse than the abusive parent and the other child is the complete opposite. We see this happen with Wolverine and his brother who both go through the same traumatized path but one brother reacts like the world owes him blood. He thirsts for it and from the beginning to end he seems to be on a killing spree while our man Wolverine wants none of it and goes into hiding to rid himself of the gruesome memories of a sordid past.

It makes me realize how different people are. How circumstances and interpretations of our environment can affect our reactions to our environment. Taking examples from my own experience, I have seen how I have interpreted the environments I have worked in and how much it affected the personality I adopted in each environment. I have worked in two environments where I was considered introvert to the surprise of those who know me well. In retrospect I know that my behavior was pretty much governed by my interpretation of both environments which I registered as hostile in my mind. And based on my personality type rather than fight for relevance, I retreated into a shell that I came out of only when I was out into what I deemed a friendlier environment. Now I have done a bit of research and work on understanding behavior particularly as it relates to the work environment. I consider myself an extrovert with introvert instincts. Now let me explain. I am extrovert because I consider myself social. I enjoy good company and good conversation. My idea of fun has people in it. Now I have introvert instincts, what do I mean? In as much as I love good company, I enjoy my own company. I spend a lot of time with myself, reading, writing and doing things alone. In fact sometimes my desire to be on my own is so strong that I would deliberately avoid all opportunities of social interaction when I am experiencing my alone moments. I guess we all are a bit like that sometimes?

Another interesting thing is the romance in the story, not your typical happy ending, as what seemed like pure bliss ended as deceit and betrayal. However, I wonder, must there be romance in almost every story line. It seems there must be some sort of it in one form or the other. I must have underrated the role of romance in life. Man, woman, love, chemistry, biology , tee hee hee.

Writer’s block! Let’s end on this note ‘may we all find love of a far more lasting kind’

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Please do not read if you do not want to know what happened in the movie:

I just saw this movie 'the curious case of Benjamin Button' last night and it really made me think. My sister had actually recommended it to me last week. When I texted her yesterday to tell her I was going to see it the following text dialogue occurred between us.

Me: Off to see curious case
Sister: Take your sleeping bag with you...
Me (at the ticket counter): Should I see seven pounds instead
Sister: No see curious case
Me (as soon as I had bought the ticket): Just got the ticket
Sister: Enjoy and don't snore too loud
Me(as I got seated in the cinema): Lying down ready to snooze

After the movie, as I got home I texted my sister (who lives in London by the way)
Me: I liked it, sad though
Sister: lol trust you to like it. Just saw notorious it was ok what you'll expect innit?
Me: Sad making me reflective, life is too short
Sister: Really? Well what can you do?

The story in a nutshell is about Benjamin, whose mother dies at his birth. He is abandoned on the same night by his father because he looks abnormal. He is raised by a black woman who is the care taker of an old people's home. Benjamin we discover has a condition which makes him age backwards. So he was born in his 80s and we watch him grown younger and younger throughout the movie. The movie revolves around Benjamin and various relationships with different people coming and going into and out of his life.

When I got home, I googled the movie and read the reviews. While most people agreed it was a good movie overall, majority felt it dragged at the middle with the beginning and the ending being the best bits. I guess that's what my sister was referring to when she said 'take your sleeping bag'. But I didn't find it boring at all. I watched intriguingly all through until I felt myself going up and down with emotion.

Now I am a romantic at heart, I love to see people in love, there is nothing in the world that gives me more joy than seeing two people, a man and a woman displaying affection. no matter the mood i am in the image of two people being happy together always puts a smile on my face and immense joy in my heart 'cause the feeling I get is overwhelming, one I cannot put in words.

Anyway, I felt joy in my heart in the scenes when the leading man (Brad Pitt) and leading lady (Cate Blanchett) finally become a couple and moved into their own home. For all those happy scenes of a couple in love and all the laughter that filled those happy scenes, I felt my heart overrun with joy and the loveliest of feelings. But my joy did not last long. Within minutes I was in tears. All the joy turned to sorrow and loss as our leading man Benjamin decides it makes more sense leaving his wife and one year old daughter rather than have his wife raise 2 kids (him being 1 of the children given his rare condition) or worse still to have his daughter growing up with a playmate instead of a father. For the rest of the movie, we watch Benjamin become a shadow of the character we have grown to love, he slowly dwindles back into time. We watch him develop backwards into his 20s, then to becoming a troubled teenager and child and till his death as a baby. I just wept for the last half hour of the movie. It's an unusual story I know but there's a lot to learn.

To me it's a story about a lot of things. Love, friendship, fear, acceptance, self pity, pride, youthful exuberance, kindness, fate, faith, laughter, sorrow, loss, beauty, vanity, hope and lastly but nowhere least…A story about Time. An invaluable resource that depletes by the second.

I have been thinking about this movie since last night. Even through my sleep and when I got up this morning, I have been thinking about it. I have been thinking that life is too short. And time keeps on ticking regardless of how you decide to live your life. Not like I haven't always known this but sometimes certain occurrences push the reality in your face.

Now whether you are aging normally or backwards like Benjamin it really didn’t make a difference. Time still ticked on. There were times Benjamin probably wished he could hold the hands of time but he couldn't and for that reason he made a decision to leave his family. I could hear a lady behind me saying 'that's selfish', but sometimes we all make decisions which we think are the best for everyone especially ourselves. So from my perspective life is too short, so let's do what we need to do now! Procrastination only postpones the D-DAY and the sad thing about time is you only ever get one chance at it. Yesterday is gone and by tomorrow today will be gone too. Every day we have one less day to live and one less day to do all we wanted to do. Even looking at it from the bright side today can be the first day of the rest of your life but the days before are gone already.

It’s also a story about acceptance and love. This thing called love I have found to be a universal language. Be it romantic love or whatever kind of love you want to call it, it still feels great. Now I know that there is nothing that feels better than when you are accepted whole heartedly as you are without any requirement to change who or what you are. That feeling is awesome. I felt it for Benjamin in the movie several times whenever he met someone who accepted him as he was. Although acceptance begins with one's self but even after you have accepted yourself it is still not complete. But when you find acceptance with other people or better still a special person it is a wonderful feeling. I felt the love between the couple (Benjamin and Daisy) over time and years that passsed between them. I even felt the love between him and the eloquent rich lady he had an affair with at the hotel. It just proved the same thing; that we are all seeking the same things at the end of the day... someone to love us as we are. The lady, though rich and cultured was no different from anyone of us. Just another lonely heart, seeking love, seeking acceptance. To love and be loved is indeed the most special place to be in. Some people are indeed special. There are some people you just love forever. They come into your life and you just love them without reason. God help us.

It’s also a story of idolatry, how we love things so much and cannot think of life without those things until they are taken away from us. Sometimes it's a person, a job, a career, for women even our hair, skin, shoes or bags. We hold so much value to them that they become nothing short of a god to us because of the amount of time we dedicate and invest in these things. The way we spend our time and thoughts show us who our gods are. The leading lady Daisy was a beautiful dancer. Her whole life revolved around dancing, rehearsals, shows till she had an accident injuring her legs, then she felt it was all over. Had her invested time or attitude towards dancing been different, her recovery would have been quicker without a doubt but instead it took her years to get back herself. Her body and dancing was her whole life and when it went, she wanted to die with it. I can see this happening around me all the time when we idolise things/people. I have had my share of experiences; once with a car I loved so much I used to talk to it :). Yes it sounds so crazy but I loved it that much. I used to park it in a side street by the station and as I returned back from work every day, as soon as I caught a glimpse of it, I used to talk to it, ask it how it was doing and smile like I had just been whisked to the love zone. I loved it. I really loved that car. Till one day it was gone. I had an accident on the motor way and the car was written off. I was in so much shock, I just took the train home and left the car right there on the motor way. I never saw it again. I didn't drive for over 6 months and when I finally replaced it with another car; I couldn't care less about the new car. My love affair with cars was over. The strange thing is that ever since that accident my driving has never been the same. But what's the lesson here, shockers (accidents, losses,tragedies) in my experience happen for a reason, sometimes I think just to shake us up a little bit and give us a reality check.

I also saw in the movie how one man's monster can be another man or woman's gift. I saw a proud father who had a name and image to preserve. He could not imagine having what he may have deemed as a monster for a child. Yet this same abandoned abnormal looking baby was taken into care by a woman who had been praying for the fruit of the womb. In her eyes it was a special baby. If she didn't face peculiar circumstances perhaps she wouldn't have kept the baby. It’s amazing how peculiar circumstances in our lives make us very sensitive to certain issues. Had we not experienced something first hand our empathy and sentiments would have been at bay. On the other hand, pride and image can be a terrible thing and the very thing guiding our decision making. Decisions based solely on perception of others and our self image. Selfish indeed.

I know a lot of people will be thinking it's just a movie, it's so unreal, I mean I heard people laughing at all the scenes I was sad at ... but in my life I have found reality to be far far stranger than fiction and that art often imitates life and not the other way round.

I guess I love this movie so much because there were so many things to learn from it. I can tell you so much more but I think I have said more than enough. I don't know why this movie touched me in this way because there are other good movies but it's a wonderful thing to have happened to me. Life is way too short and if the movie could propel me to writing it is indeed a wonderful thing because I have always loved to write but can't seem to find the drive to actually do it as often as I would love to, now here and now I am just hoping I will keep up this blog site and write whatever I feel like.

Because the main thing that hit me about this movie is TIME. I will end on this note.

'May the rest of your life, be the best of your life'.