Before You I was ... writing everything Down.

One of the poorest decisions I have ever made in my life and I have shockingly made many, was destroying all the diaries from my youth.

They were several diaries, dating from secondary school - Form 3, all the way up to when I got my first job.

In those days, at the beginning of the year, companies released diaries or journals. It was always a race to covet the nicest-looking ones or the ones made for the biggest companies. Having a nice diary made you look classy, like you were an ajebutter.

Some girls who went with their families on summer vacation had the girly ones with cartoony pictures and little silver padlocks.

They looked so cool.

For me, each year, guaranteed, I had Shell, Chevron and NNSL diaries, all from my Dad. I’d carefully choose the one with the most writing space and give away the rest.

I spent so much time writing in them.

At first, it was about punishments - daily, gruesome punishments at school. I attended a military school and I don’t think there was a single day we were spared by those soldiers.

We did frog jumps. We picked pins, one finger on the floor, one leg up in the air. We crawled on our knees on the tarred parade ground like we were at war.

Maybe we didn’t realise it then, but we were not treated better than prisoners of war.

I wrote about my teachers. Sgt Akpan, who I know will never make heaven because of his wickedness. I’m sure every time he punished us, the devil would shudder and say, “Meehn, this guy is even more wicked than I am.”

I wrote about my best friends - Segun, Ike, Joshua and Kemi. We learnt to breakdance on the yam ridges we were supposed to make for Agricultural Science. We learnt the lyrics to Paid in Full by Eric B. & Rakim.

I wrote about the day a bully in our class caught us poring over Dauda the Sexy Guy magazine and threatened to report us to Sgt Joe, the evil “twin” of Sgt Akpan. Those two were probably Siamese twins separated at birth, they were so evil.

The bully proceeded to blackmail us for the rest of the school term into doing all his schoolwork.

I wrote about how unsure I was about taking my GCE. About my friends and their crushes, and how, ironically, all the good-looking boys were like brothers to me. I never understood what the other girls saw in them.

My diaries sympathised with me when the seniors started punishing us because we were now “big girls,” graduating from pinafores to skirts and felt the need to cut us to size. The girls they found the most attractive were punished the most. I never understood how that worked in their minds, or why one particular senior punished me every time he laid eyes on me, until one day his friend mercifully intervened.

After secondary school, my writing changed.

It moved from incessant complaints about punishment to conversations with friends, fun times and everything in between.

There were the parties we snuck out to after telling our parents we were going to the corner shop, and the tongue-lashings when we were found out.

Friends we made who knew our other friends from different places. One friend would have a date and every other friend would accompany her. I will never know whether it was about safety or just mischief.

I would say the latter because we could trust those boys with our lives. We knew everyone in their families and they knew ours too.

I’ll never forget one of the guys asking a friend out on a date and we accompanied her.

We were six girls in total.

He didn’t protest when we all filed into his car like that Volkswagen advert of the 70s.

When we got to Terris Burger in Surulere -the venue for the date, he told my friend not to bother getting out of the car.

He simply went in, bought a single burger and handed it to her.

The rest of us didn’t even feel any shame. We were just happy to be there.

Then came my first crush.

I won’t say too much, but he looked like Ralph Tresvant. Maybe even more handsome. Skin as dark as polished cocoa butter, perfect white teeth. And maybe he knew he had perfect teeth, he always had a smile on his face. I never saw him frown, not even during their fasting period.

And that cute little stutter.

I, on the other hand, had a straight face every time he was near. We never really spoke much to each other, maybe some random gist whenever I came to see his sister. But so many times, from the corner of my eye, I caught him stealing glances at me.

It was just something to always look forward to.

Then they moved away.

And I received a really long, well-written letter telling me I was his crush.

Funny enough, he wasn’t part of my circle or anyone my friends knew. He had been right there under everyone’s nose. Hopefully, he never reads this.

Then, ah, university. Life after university.

And everything in between, up until life became too serious for scribbling in diaries.

Everything neatly documented in my beautiful handwriting.

And then one day, after I got married, I went back to my Dad’s house and, while clearing my room, on the spur of some unexplainable madness, I burnt all my diaries.

Every single one of them.

Mehn.

Worst decision ever.

What I destroyed was the chance to meet the girl I was when all these were actually happening. To read her excitement, her foolishness, her anger, her secrets, the things she thought were the end of the world.

I would give anything to read her version of my life again.