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It’s that time of the year when everyone goes berserk for love, when people who really do not love you take advantage of you because it’s Valentine’s Day.
Love is in the air, seize it, but in a wholesome self-loving way. Its okay if you are described as selfish, it’s only once in a year anyway. Don’t wait up for anyone to pamper you, do it for yourself.
Being a woman, I find that we eat the last scraps of food, we give until we are ourselves, empty of everything, drained, irritable, unloved, until we find ourselves losing our minds because no one thought about us. It is time to love ourselves. Give yourself a treat, eat out at a restaurant and if no one is going to cook for you then cross your leg and find a restaurant which you love and can afford. If nobody takes you to this restaurant, take yourself, get a friend to escort you, one you can laugh with and cry with and have an excellent afternoon with mouth-watering dishes.
Also remember that your body needs taking care of, so go out there and get a massage. I do every six weeks and it gets my mind and body in a slow-down relaxed state.
But then who says you cannot be feted by your children or by your husband. It’s a day to request it. Don’t be shy. Just tell them you would love to be given tender, loving care. After all, you care for everyone throughout the year. Tell them you believe it is now your turn to be loved. It will be hard for them to say no.
As for the men, give yourself a pedicure and manicure. Get yourself a good pair of shoes, a watch or a good suit. Take your family to lunch and pamper yourself with a family outing. We find that men often get nervous about how school fees will be paid, how their family will feed, and when they will complete that house in the village. As a result of this, the men in Africa tend to be afflicted with stress-related, non-communicable diseases including but not restricted to diabetes, hypertension and other heart-related diseases. Life expectancy for African men is quite low and Nigeria is on the lower rung so you do need to take care of your selves a little more.
This valentine oh you African men, give yourself a gift of a medical check-up. Love yourself, take care of that body. Begin to take it easy. It is given to a man to pile up the stress. Get even with life, learn a sport, slowdown, and learn to paint, love your family. Like I say every year in this season of love, it’s not a time to be promiscuous. The consequences will remain with you for the rest of your life.
For both men and women there is always the opportunity to give yourself a veritable gift to enrich your mind, to inspire you, to make you a better person. Scour through a bookshop, buy yourself good books. Lazy around your house, spend the day doing nothing. Horse around with your children, when last did you do homework with them, take them to a park. Love yourself in a way that you don’t believe you can. Let your children cook for you; even if it’s all salt and one yam, floating in oil. Let them mess with your hair. Let them massage your feet even if you feel crappy when they do it. Let them draw a portrait of you where you look like Dracula; admire it frame it and hang it.
Many years ago when I was a young television personality, my first daughter who was then six years old (she is a lady now) wrote out a newscaster’s script and read it in front of a mirror. Hilarious as it was then, we cuddled her and kept the piece of paper in a special place on my reading table. It was love; pure, unadulterated. She wanted to be like me. Today she is a microbiologist and financial inclusion specialist and a beautiful child, but she is not a newscaster. This was love at its best between mother and daughter. Today she looks at that dog eared, yellowing piece of the newscaster’s script she wrote many years ago and wonders how she could have ever wanted to be a newscaster. For me, I am just grateful for that moment, crystallized in love, abandon and trust.
Love is in the air, go on, go ahead and love yourself. Women, go out and buy that expensive perfume or fabric for yourself, men, gift yourself with a health check. Both of you, pamper each other.
Go on, no one said you couldn’t love yourself!
By: Eugenia Abu
