This is how we, single ladies are stepping into the new year

I can smell 2018 from my chill zone right in my father’s compound where my future husband will come and sweep me off my feet. I know some of you are now sneering up and ‘mschewing’ like an angry Nigerian mother-in-law, thinking no one will ever sweep me off my feet.

Let me annoy you more. The same way I smell 2018 is the same way I smell marriage next year; just don’t laugh at me when the year comes to an end with me still sitting under a mango tree in my father’s compound. Dear fellow women (of ‘marriage age’) celebrating 2018 in their fathers’ homes, assemble here. I want to tell you how to celebrate it elsewhere next year.

The greatest mistake we make as the year begins is to make resolutions and force them down people’s throats, especially the people who are our aspiring husbands. In this generation, no single man wants his dreams connected to someone else’s.

So when you are still dating, avoid talking about ‘we’, especially if he hasn’t even taken you to his home. We always have great plans for ourselves and the moment we let them out to our visionless men, all they do is sit pretty as they drag us behind. Don’t let these men know your destination; they will take you to a different place. What I am actually trying to ask of you is to keep your resolutions to yourself and only let your success speak.

Secondly, let us pull away from the fellow women who carry so much negative energy. If anyone decides to talk behind your back, give them that same back so that they talk to their hearts' content. Who told you that if you fight them they will stop talking? They will find even juicier stuff to talk about. Act like a rock, a huge one for that matter. In fact, assume you are the great Kit Mikayi! The more people talk about you, the more attractive you become.

I can’t go on without mentioning love; let us love ourselves more this coming year. You are not Eve and he is not Adam; no one is going to take the two of you into a garden and make you one. Love must develop and it must start from within. Love everything about yourself; from your job to your smallest toe nail. If he loves you with a ‘but’, cut him out of your life.

When you have an oval face and he keeps talking about a round-faced child, let him walk his equally round legs and get himself a round-faced woman who will give him the assurance of a round-faced baby. Don’t allow him to stress your already overworked ovaries. Neither should you give yourself room to try to rearrange the geography of your face.

Lastly, let’s all walk into 2018 with our lungs at ease. Who lied to you that shouting yourself hoarse until quarter past midnight on New Year’s Eve will guarantee you a ticket to a stress-free year? If anything, it will only make you wake up with a sore throat then you will start wishing people a blessed 2018 with a voice that suggests otherwise.

Before you engage gear five in January, ensure you life’s vehicle goes up to gear 12. You cannot start the year at its climax. Smell the year from far as I am currently doing, feel it, get it, embrace it and live it!

This is Beryl, reporting live, from under a tree in my father’s compound, hoping to touch the heart of an equally special human being reading this live from under a tree in his father’s compound. Wait, on second thought, I hope he has his own compound. No, this is not my 2018 resolution, I am just thinking aloud.

Happy New Year future husband!