Nostalgia

Sometimes, It just hits you out of nowhere.

It could be on a Friday night when you’re trudging back home from work in the bitter cold and you’re suddenly overwhelmed with memories of being gathered around the tables at Bimz garden killing some cold bottles of beer after their awesome vegetable soup and fufu.

You could be on the Jubilee line train heading back to Wembley station from Stratford when you just get this crazy urge to enter a car and drive down to Chevron drive or Powerline or Gbagada to bask in the warmth of family

Sometimes, you could be grocery shopping at the beautiful ASDA superstore and suddenly realize you would give anything to see the joy and delight on the faces of your nephews and nieces when you take them as a treat to the humble Blenco or shoprite supermarket nearby.

It could hit you out of the blue, when an elderly white woman in your new apartment rushes out of her apartment to confront you on your presence in the building. You laugh it off and lightheartedly explain to her that you’re the new occupant of the number 7 flat upstairs. It’s amusing because you suddenly have flashbacks of the security guards at Silverpoint Estate springing to attention and saluting you as you drive past the gates.

Oh yes, you might just be tapping in with your Oyster card on the 83 bus to Golders green and feel the tug on your heart when you recall your frequent Ajah to Igbo-efon Korope route.

And as crazy as it seems, you catch yourself doing a double take at an elderly woman in the mall who looks eerily like your mum. You have to remind yourself of all the posters warning against staring and shake your head out of the reverie as you move on.

Honestly, it takes a lot to do this relocation thing.

Nobody adequately prepares you for the feeling of not being able to freely go about doing things you love and experiencing things you’ve taken for granted all your life. It’s a cautious, guarded lifestyle which takes much to get used to.

Sigh.

It’s not all gloom and doom though. On the flip side, it has taught me to embrace diversity, enjoy lots of crazy new cultures, look for beauty in differences, enjoy relative environmental and economic sanity and frankly speaking, I’m just grateful for all the lessons learned.