From battery issues to the screen to the panel, it was a fix-today-spoil-tomorrow situation for me.
And you know what's worse? Spending the holiday in a home where even the youngest member (of eighteen years) had an iPhone. Seeing them surfing between TikTok videos and Instagram reels was more hurtful. If they weren't making TikTok videos, then they were watching movies, or taking pictures.
That was all that mattered to them. Yet I couldn't even afford a decent Android phone. They thought they were flaunting luxury, but I was seeing assets in different hands poorly maximised.
At that time I was still building my oratory skills. And I knew full well that I needed a good phone to put my videos out there. Yet, the very thing I needed was something that served as an escape route from boredom for my cousins.
Was I jealous? Not as much as I wished they were doing productive things with their phones. But I kept managing my phone, praying for a miracle somehow.
I remember vividly a fateful day I was watching some videos on spoken word poetry, I had just picked up my notepad to jot down some vital points when my phone went blank. I was surprised. Long-pressing the side button to turn it on, the phone refused to come up. It remained that way, showing me its blank screen yet getting warm.
I just found a quiet spot and withdrew there, allowing my thoughts to take over. Just then, Rejoice's phone rang (Rejoice was eighteen). She didn't show up to take the phone. When it rang for the third time, I lost it.
“Rejoice!” I screamed. She had to run into the bedroom panting like she had been chased from wherever she was.
She stood before me, waiting for me to speak. My chest was welled up with heavy words. I struggled hard to swallow them, but before I knew it, I spat them out.
“Do you not know that your phone is supposed to go everywhere you go? It's called a handset for a reason!”
She was startled. One minute, I was scolding her for always using her phone, now I'm saying the opposite. She just gave me a long, confused stare, picked up her phone from the bed, and left.
That was just one of the many frustrating moments I had using the faulty phones. When I was to travel back to school, I pleaded with Sara, my age mate, to gift me her Android phone that she was no longer using. The phone was not in good condition, however, it was ten times better than mine.
She gave me, hoping I came out of my bad phone days shortly. But things got worse when I arrived at my place, and I learnt that the phone was missing.
I cried my eyes out that night.
“Who did I offend that has vowed to punish me?”
“Is it a crime to desire a good phone?”
Unfortunately, there was nobody to console me.
The next morning I woke up to find myself on the tiles, my hair scattered over my face. When I shot a stare at the mirror, the reality of the previous night flooded my mind.
Back to square zero.
No phone, no means of fulfilling your dreams.
Just face reality.
What you wanted to be was only a mirage.
The words so dominated my thoughts that I felt too helpless to object to them.
The remaining months ran by quickly. Before the end of the year, I got an opportunity to explore my oratory skills in a talk show program. Yes, my mind was there to remind me of my phone challenges, but somehow, I thought I could give it a try.
That was how public speaking led me through that season — ‘phoneless’ — yet growing. I missed appointments on some days as the means of communication was poor. I saw other opportunities slip through my palm. But I was willing to keep going.
Maybe, somewhere in the stars, though not visible enough to see, it was written that I would be what I was made to be.
In February this year, I was gifted the kind of phone I've never used in my life before. I remember my friend's words to me before it came.
“You don't worry too much. A good phone will come, and that will be the beginning of handling big phones.”
As I unwrapped my gift and danced around my house, his words kept ringing in my head.
Who said what I wanted to be was a mirage again?
Well, give me a few years, and you'll be wowed at how much I've grown.
That was what I told myself as I sent an invitation letter to our first guest for the year.
Image Source: ChatGPT