My Daddy Longlegs resulted from careful journaling and awareness of what was happening within and without. I gave a lot of deep sighs trying to write this review. In my head, impulses of “I have a lot to write on this” kept shooting like stars, and I knew that a dense mass of something in my chest needed to unwind. I have a lot to say, but each point looks irrelevant, and I can’t articulate it yet.
Have you ever felt like that too? You can feel something happening, but you can’t wrap your hands around it. The Korean Movie Daddy-longlegs crawled in on me like a surprise guest. I wasn’t ready for the truckload of emotions. And journalling helped unwind that dense mass that was getting ignored.
Disclaimer: The movie has nothing Christian about it.
It triggered, quite positively, a reflection on life, and it spurred me to write in the format of a short narration that served as a prologue or backstory. The language was beautiful, it was poetic. Well, you can’t fault me for grabbing the opportunity to get better at writing.
When I was a little girl, my whole world went at a pleasantly slow pace. It was endless days of wanting to be an adult. And the calmness and stability of that little world seemed to last forever. The hopeful days of waiting and the protection from my parents from what the world had to offer slowly faded away. They couldn’t shield me from them forever. And I couldn’t stop growing up at a rapid rate.
Church chronicles, My DAddy-longlegs
My Daddy-longlegs was almost like a public diary entry. My school was resuming after the eight months ASUU strike. And surprisingly, the resumption which we students had been praying, and clamouring about was met with mixed feelings by most of us, I included.
It was like an ultimatum for transition. Instead of the tweet of ASUU’s resumption in two weeks, it was as though ASUU declared that “You have two weeks to readjust your mind to the idea of school”.
And transitioning is always hard. Bukola had to struggle past the stage of trying to do something with her time and life while thoughts of “They’ll call off the strike”, and “They won’t call off the strike” kept dancing in her head in turns. And while that was going on, she managed to create a routine that ensured she wasn’t idle while waiting on ASUU. She did random checks like “So, what have I done with my life for the past one month, 2 months, 4, 6, 7, okay, 8 months?
And like a diary entry, My Daddy-longlegs drifted off course occasionally, from the movie that triggered the contemplation to how God can be Daddy-Longlegs in the proper context, and then to ‘transitioning’.
An odd-looking but perfect salad.
Writing the review was a shy situation similar to trying to view a bride you finally won over as though you’d never seen her before. I was trying to remember why I’d put out something so vulnerable. It was as though my personal journal was out in the open.
It was me trying to be vulnerable with my writing. Whenever I share personal stories, it’s usually in parables. If you are not close to me in real life, you’d think that I was cold.
This is the most vulnerable piece on church chronicles so far. I don’t know, but maybe I’ll ever feel safe writing personal stories one day.
I’m sure all University students have their own stories of how they had to align with the latest news about returning to school. Many were at different jobs, making money, while others were building themselves intellectually, investing in themselves and trying new things—just literally pushing themselves out of the box the situation put them in.
How did this story be a part of church chronicles?
Well, the main character in the story is Daddy-longlegs, as explained in the short dictionary in the story. And it mentioned how transitioning from different levels of the church can be a great task.
Daddy: Literally, just father.
Longlegs: Refers to someone who can easily reach what others would take due process to get. If you’re Nigerian, you probably understand this.
Daddy longlegs: according to the general understanding of the slang, not the spider variant, refers to a rich middle-aged or old man who bestows expensive gifts on a young person in return for companionship.
Daddy longlegs: In this context, means a rich middle-aged or old man (God) who bestows expensive gifts on a young person (me and you). (Companionship is not out of place). And he also has power and influence (long legs).Hearty’s once-in-a-while-dictionary
My daddy-longlegs
So, what aspect of your life is transitioning right now? Can you share your transitioning story? It could help others know that they aren’t the only ones transitioning, and that there’s help during the rigours of transitioning, that they don’t have to do it all alone. That there’s a Daddy-longlegs for them!
And with Lawrence Oyor’s song and Sunmisola Agbebi’s voice, let’s end this with the melodious tune of
My daddy, my daddy
Your baby is singing…
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