“Patricia, change that top… the color doesn’t match the shoes”
These are often my husband’s words and yes 98% of the time those words piss me off.
“What is wrong with the color? Can’t you see the brown tones down the touch of green in the blue dress?” is usually my response and this is followed by the battle of “who sabi blend color pass”
Truth is my husband is a flawless “slay king”, he has impeccable taste in clothing, he knows his designers, his clothes are unique & he is great at accentuating every one of his ensembles with his slim frame. And, yes he is right, I am horrible 45% of the time with my dressing.
In my defense, I have always been a “shirt and short” lady. While I was a teenager, I wore my brother’s clothes and sometimes “slim fit” my dad’s shirt even now my best outfit come from wearing my husband’s clothing; I love to wear his clothes, and I am fortunate to have a rather good stature so, as much as I eat, it doesn’t really shows except for my motherhood belly pouch “certificate”.
To me one needs to feel free and comfortable in his/her outfit, I believe people will love you for who you are and my ultimate conclusion after every argument is “who is looking at me? Who knows me?” but alas I was wrong.
So this morning in my usual manner, my alarm woke me up by 5am unfortunately my little man has ascribed the alarm to his morning feeding but unlike our usually 20 minutes “feed and sleep back” today he was fully alert, even in the dimly lit room, I saw his piercing eyes. That is how he refused to go back to sleep, need I say this disrupted my normal routine.
Between breastfeeding, bathing, dressing him, milk expression, praying & bathing myself, making my son’s daytime meal, getting him to the Crèche; bathing, dressing up & feeding my older daughter, making breakfast, screaming “stop it”, “sit down”, I will beat you and doing the normal house rounds, my daughter and I left home some minutes after 7am.
I decided against driving because traffic was already building up, so with my wig and the oversize laptop bag I borrowed from a colleague (I urgently had to finish up a document at home) we both took a bike and off we went to school, thank God we decided on the bike because the traffic flow as usual was heavy.
Few minutes later we were at her school, I hurriedly dropped her off in her class and I dashed off to where I was to take a “KEKE” to work; I was some few feet to crossing the road when I heard someone call my name, at first I felt it couldn’t be me but to my greatest shock it was my friend from university that was calling. Although I was late, I couldn’t help but squeal for joy because we had both made plans to see several times but we never got around to honor it; even with my time tracking I waited to chat.
“I just dropped my daughter in school and hurrying to work, where are you off to? “ I asked
“I work in Sabo too you know”, he replied
The “too “caught my attention and I asked what he meant. To my utmost shock and embarrassment he said, “Oh Patricia, I see you almost every day, on the bike, while you are crossing, when you take “Keke”, yesterday I even saw you cross the road, you wore black right? But you are always hurrying, so focused on where you are heading, so I chose not to call”
Gosh! As much as this would have sounded pleasant, it was kind of embarrassing, in that moment I looked him up, he was wearing a lovely green jersey, the fabric ooze quality and it fitted perfectly on his body, he wasn’t as sweaty as I was, he was rather relaxed; he looked too calm.
Suddenly, I was conscious of what I was wearing, it was disheartening to realize that I had that hideous laptop bag strapped to my back, I was sweaty, I only forked my hair with my fingers hoping I will do it properly at work, I had a casual slippers on, I don’t even think I creamed my body in my haste but thank God I was wearing one of my favorite dresses, had it for almost 5 years and it still fit (yeah, girl’s “hawt” like that)
At that moment, I saw my husband sarcastic face saying, “didn’t I tell you someone might be watching you?”
Although my friend was gentleman enough to add that it is not easy being a mum and he could see that all the stress was due to so many things I had to shuffle daily, I couldn’t help but imagine how many times he had seen me carrying that mangy bag my husband threatened to throw away if I carried one more time or my favorite “animal skin” flat shoes which I wore till the sole fell off? I hoped he didn’t see me the day I forgot to wear my wig and just went with my “adi mole”. Lol.
We chatted for a while, gradually my self-consciousness had vanished and I was flowing with him like the old friends we were, I think he saw my embarrassment and was only glad to change the topic; he became relaxed too and even helped me flag down a bus, he preferred to bike (lool, talk about being classy even in hustle mode)
As I drove to work, I thought of my husband’s words, the number of times I had combined clothes in my head but never wore because they felt too “dressy”. I thought of the new clothes my husband bought me but still hung in my closet with their tags because I was still angry with my husband for spending so much money on a single top. There and then I resolved to change my attitude because it was the right thing to do and I needed to dress better.
5 minutes later, I was at work and I knew that I could never keep those words, I could be more conscious of what I put on, put a little bit of effort in my appearance, delegate more, try to cut down morning activities in order to save time but I will always be the “man outfit loving mama”……………….
Doyin Rasaq
