Jesugbemi is nonchalant.

You may think I don't care, but I really do.

Jul 09, 2023

Many stories about my life start off on a hot afternoon. This is because a great number of the afternoons I have spent on earth are hot. My head boils… literally, my parched throat longs for a cold, teeth-chilling Coke.

On this mildly hot afternoon, the air is joyous - singing, children zipping around with glucose powder in their hands, adults screaming after children zipping around. It is the second inter house competition I am attending in secondary school, and unlike the previous year, I am not dressed in a hideous yellow ball gown with even yellower flowers in my hands, I am smack in the middle of the football field with a drum strapped to my waist and drumsticks in my hands. By my side cymbals crash in sync with my matching footsteps. I am a part of the drumline and I love it. I had never been more joyous.

I look towards the bleachers and see my father recording and I am even happier. For weeks, we practise under the rain or shine creating music routines, dance routines, and whatever routines one can use to dazzle an audience with drums. Days away from the inter house sport competition, the band commander had forced us to watch Nick Cannon’s Drumline as motivation. And boy, were we motivated.

After beating the drums and making music to our hearts content, I find my parents and they show me the recording they made. I am even happier. I then run along to find my friends. I find one of them with her mother and I say hello. The mother leaves and my friend goes, “My mummy said you looked bored while drumming, and it’s true. Did you even enjoy yourself?”

My heart sank. My heart sank so low that I would not have been surprised if I found it right by my feet tap dancing. I did not know what to say at that moment but her words bothered me. A lot. (I mean, I’m recalling this event ten years later.) What did she mean I looked bored? I count that experience as one of the happiest in my young life. Did I not smile enough? What did I do wrong?

After that incident, I got more comments about how bored I always look, about how I drawl when I speak, about how nothing seems to excite me, about how nonchalant I am, and my personal favourite, about how my vibe matches Zendaya’s MJ from Spiderman - zen.

I took this as a big deal, I didn’t want to be nonchalant. I had only seen nonchalant being used as a negative trait. Nonchalant is lazy and lazy people are the world’s worst people. How do I be less nonchalant? How do people see how chalant I am?

Of course my obsession with proving how chalant I was spiralled into anxiety and all its offspring. I constantly worried about my facial expressions. Did I smile enough? Was my squeal chirpy enough? Did my voice send people off to dreamland with how monotonous it was? You know, the usual.

I tried my best to be another person. I practised my squeals and smiles in front of a mirror until my cheeks ached. My tone had to be perfect so I worked on inflections and stress on syllables, I gave myself pep talks before stepping out into social spaces and tricked myself into believing that I was that chirpy, go lucky girl.

Of course, there was only so much pep talks I could give myself, and seriously, my cheeks ached so bad. I was back to square one.

I had a lightbulb moment along the way. Why was I working so hard to prove how ‘chalant’ I was? It was just like selling my soul for public validation. Really. Everybody is different and they own their difference with their full chest. Why would I want to bend and twist and mould myself into something I was not?

Also, I realised that it would be off-brand for me to be so chalant about proving that I am chalant so I decided to stick to the script by being nonchalant. Basically, I did not care anymore.

Now I will proceed to nonchalantly list the things I am chalant about.

Things I am Chalant about

God - Because it is God. My life is basically in his hands so yes, I am very chalant about him.

Writing - I mean, if I didn’t care about writing, you would not be reading this and I would not bother sharing this online. The thing is, I have noticed that I seem to have a stronger writing voice than my everyday one. My writing voice has a strong personality.
You know, writing advice usually goes like, “write like you speak.” I don’t write as I speak, I write as I write. And that is super cool.
Growth - Stagnancy is terrible. You are just … there. Irrelevant. It scares me to death dying without doing as much as I am destined to so I do everything within my power to improve myself. I know sometimes I take it overboard then I start feeling inadequate buuuut the bottomline is that I ensure that I am not stuck.

Family - No stories here. I love my family - nuclear and extended.
It is easier to believe that it is natural to love one’s blood. I mean, according to numerous evolutionary theories, we have no choice but to love our families, and be altruistic towards them because through that our bloodline continues. But I believe my family made it easier to love them since they showed me love first.
Also, I am grateful that I live in a part of the world that upholds tight knitted family units… nuclear and extended.
Nostalgia - Nostalgia is a drug and I may or may not be an addict… just joking. There is this rush when a smell or a song or a picture takes me back to my younger years. Many times I refrain from going through old songs or photos because I can wallow in Nostalgia for hours. I think it’s a bad thing… wallowing.

Finding my people - I know that there are boys and girls out there that are supposed to be in my friend circle but I haven't just found them. I am so chalant about this that I am going out of my way to make new friends even though I am usually nonchalant about meeting new people.

I have decided to stop here since I was getting so worked up thinking about all the things I am quite chalant about.

So yeah… peace out? Or what do the cool kids say these days?

Thank you

Camilo Moreno-Salamanca

and

Steven Foster

for your helpful feedback!