Hobbies are not free

 

I don't want to be anything

When I was a little girl, I wanted to become so many things. I wanted to be a journalist one time because Jiire Kola-Kuforiji looked like she was having a swell time reading the news on TV. She looked so confident in the information she was passing to the whole country and boy, did she not look so beautiful?

A couple of weeks later, my mom had me on her legs in a bus as I watched the conductor count the money in his hand. A lot of notes. He was probably a millionaire, I thought to myself. Then, I decided that becoming a conductor wasn't going to be a bad idea. I got home and we turned everything we could find into a moving Danfo bus. Shouting "Owo e da" and holding a bunch of paper notes. 

One day, I overheard the adults speaking and somewhere along the conversation, I realized I had been an idiot all the while. The real cash was in banking. There was a whole machine that counted money because they had so much money to count in one day! What a job! The next time my classteacher asked me what I wanted to become, I didn't blink before saying "Banker!"

 

You see, as a kid I wanted the bag and I knew I had to chase it. The money had to be in the bag, and every other thing comes with the money. At least you got to have your own meatpie and ice cream without begging and throwing yourself on the floor. 

Something else was there though, but I knew it wasn't going to get me the bag I wanted. My aunty in primary school called it a hobby. I had discovered I loved reading and I oddly loved recreating those stories. I loved telling stories to my cousins and their neighbours under the moonlight and they listened with interest. I just made things up in my head and it felt good to say it. It felt even better to write it down.

Here, I became a writer. I wanted to become an author, and so I created books from plain paper and crayons. I could not get glue, so I made a hole in the papers and used a rubber band to hold the sheets together. I was so sure I was going to get published and gave my agency a name. 

It almost sounds ridiculous now, but yes I did that all those years back. 

That wasn't all I did. I also painted landscapes and drew ugly pictures in books. I loved drawing girls in gowns and sometimes, skirts. I especially loved dragging my pencil over paper and shading hair on the head of my images. It impressed me and I was so proud to paint up and call it a hobby. 

Soon, I discovered other things I could do with my hands; knitting, sewing and baking. Each time, my mom would make me feel like a pro. She once took out a skirt I made and showed it to a neighbour because she believed it was pretty. Now that I think of it, the soft laugh the woman gave was not an impressed one. The cakes were not all that bad; I just wasted eggs and sometimes put in too much flour into it at once. The sugar was more than enough to cover up my flaws and I was ready to get at it again.

I had my phase with sports too. I was so good at sprinting and had a good balance on the field. That died as soon as I joined secondary school and was made into a mathematics genius. I did try to rekindle it with tennis, but it's a hard knock life trying to have a hobby.

It seems like ages ago when I last used my hands on craft. Now, I identify as a young adult who lost reason to have a hobby. I can't remember the last time anything interested me outside the chasing money hustle I have since found myself.

I was right when I was much younger; only money matters. When you have enough money, you can afford to have hobbies. Hobbies are not entirely free for adults. You have to be able to afford the time.

Can I sit and paint for hours without feeling unproductive? Or do I have any rights to write for fun when I need to build comfort for myself? 

I still wish to become an author; not of a research paper, but a fiction book about sweet people that lived rent-free in my head more than a decade and half ago. I want to enjoy yoga without the craze for flexibility. I want to have a painting hung up of my fangirls with straight pencil strokes for hair. I want to live without chasing the bag, but that stopped being an option a long time ago.

Now, I wish I could exist without having to set goals and beat deadlines.

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