Every Father's Day, the internet fills with beautiful stories.

Stories of dads teaching their daughters how to ride bicycles.

Stories of fathers waiting up at night until their children get home.

Stories of bear hugs, life lessons, and men who made the world feel safe.

I read them the way people stare through bakery windows.

Happy for those who have them.

Unsure what they taste like.

I don't know a father's love.

At least not in the way people describe it.

My father was a storm cloud in human form. Angry. Distant. Unreachable.

I spent more time fearing him than knowing him.

At fourteen, I left home.

Too young to know where I was going.

Old enough to know I couldn't stay.

Life, however, has a strange sense of humor.

The father figures who appeared afterward wore collars instead of wedding rings.

Pastors.

Priests.

Men who spoke about God.

Men I thought were safe.

Some of them left wounds where guidance should have been.

And for a long time, I believed fatherhood was simply another word for disappointment.

The list of men who should have protected me reads longer than the list of those who actually did.

And yet...

This isn't a sad story.

Not today.

Because somewhere between surviving and becoming, something unexpected happened.

I became a parent.

And when my son arrived, I waited for someone to show me how to do it.

A father.

A mentor.

A village elder.

Anybody.

No one came.

So I learned to carry both titles.

Mother.

Father.

The one who nurtured.

The one who protected.

The one who comforted nightmares.

The one who fought dragons.

I became the soft place to land and the wall that wouldn't fall.

I packed lunches.

Paid bills.

Wiped tears.

Made impossible decisions.

Held my breath through fevers.

Stayed awake through worries.

And somehow, without realizing it, I became the kind of father I spent my whole life looking for.

Not because I was a man.

But because fatherhood was never about being male.

It was always about showing up.

There was a time when I thought having no father would leave a permanent hole inside me.

The kind of hole people write books about.

The kind therapists circle back to.

The kind that explains everything.

And maybe it did leave a hole.

But life has taught me that empty spaces are strange things.

Sometimes they become wounds.

Sometimes they become windows.

Mine became a window.

Because when nobody teaches you what love looks like, you become a student of it.

You notice the small things.

The neighbor who checks if you've eaten.

The teacher who believes in you.

The friend who remembers your birthday.

The stranger who offers kindness when they have nothing to gain.

You begin collecting tiny pieces of love from unexpected places.

And eventually, those pieces become enough to build a home inside yourself.

I used to envy people who could call their fathers when life became overwhelming.

People who had someone to say, "Don't worry, I've got you."

I couldn't relate.

I've always been the person saying, "I've got it."

Even when I didn't.

Especially when I didn't.

Strength became my native language.

Not because I wanted it to be.

Because it had to be.

I learned how to keep moving with a breaking heart.

How to smile while carrying grief.

How to build a life with empty pockets and stubborn faith.

How to become my own emergency contact.

For years, I wore that strength like a medal.

Now I realize it was also armor.

Heavy armor.

The kind that protects you but makes it difficult for anyone to hold you.

Including God.

Funny enough, God and I have a complicated relationship too.

People talk about Him as Father, and I smile politely because fathers have always been difficult for me.

I love Him.

I do.

But I have trust issues.

When life falls apart, I don't run toward Him.

I disappear.

I become my own rescue mission.

I carry my burdens alone.

I solve problems nobody asked me to solve.

I exhaust myself trying to save myself.

Then, when the dust settles and things are finally okay, I show up like a child who missed curfew.

"Hi, God."

And somehow He lets me in every single time.

No lecture.

No slammed door.

No folded arms waiting for an explanation.

Just room at the table.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Maybe that's the closest thing I've ever known to a father's love.

Not perfection.

Not control.

Not fear.

Presence.

Steady presence.

The kind that remains even when you run.

The kind that waits without keeping score.

Maybe that's why our relationship has always felt complicated.

I know how to survive.

Trusting is harder.

Surrendering is harder.

Being helped is harder.

Sometimes I think God watches me the way parents watch toddlers who insist on carrying things far too heavy for them.

I imagine Him saying, "You can let me help."

And me replying, "No, I've got it."

Then stumbling under the weight.

Then trying again.

Then stumbling again.

We laugh about it now.

Well... He probably laughs.

I'm still working on it.

But I think He understands.

After all, He knows exactly where I learned it.

He knows what happens when the people who are supposed to catch you become the people you have to recover from.

And still, despite everything, life gave me my son.

My greatest responsibility.

My greatest joy.

My greatest mirror.

Children have a funny way of revealing things about us.

There were moments I looked at him and suddenly understood what protection should feel like.

Moments I watched him sleeping and thought, "I would move mountains for you."

Moments I would have taken every pain he carried and placed it on my own shoulders if I could.

And every time that feeling appeared, I had the same thought.

So this is what it feels like.

This is what they were supposed to do.

Not perfectly.

Not flawlessly.

Just wholeheartedly.

My son didn't just make me a mother.

He introduced me to parts of my own heart I had never met.

The tender parts.

The patient parts.

The protective parts.

The parts that stayed soft after everything that tried to make them hard.

And maybe that's my favorite miracle.

Not that life was easy.

It wasn't.

Not that people suddenly became good.

They didn't.

But that after everything, my heart still chose love.

That after every disappointment, it still found reasons to hope.

That after every father who failed me, I still learned how to stay.

So today, on Father's Day, I don't have a tribute to my father.

I don't have stories about fishing trips or bedtime talks.

I don't have memories that fit neatly into greeting cards.

What I have is something stranger.

Something I never saw coming.

I spent years grieving the father I never had.

Only to discover that the greatest father figure in my life was being built inside me all along.

The little girl who went looking for a father grew up and became one.

And honestly?

That plot twist deserves a Father's Day celebration too.

Maybe I shouldn't admit this out loud, but I've made peace with the half-hearted things.

Not all of them.

Just enough of them.

The truth is, I know what wholehearted love looks like. I know what it feels like to be chosen intentionally, to be remembered without reminders, to be cared for without having to earn it first.

I know.

But I also know the world we live in.

A world where everyone is rushing somewhere.

A world where people are fighting battles they never talk about.

A world where attention is scarce and tenderness is rationed.

A world where people often give only what they can spare.

And sometimes what they can spare is very little.

A compliment here.

A check-in there.

A conversation that almost goes deep but turns around at the last minute.

A friendship that lingers at the edges of your life.

A love that never quite learns how to stay.

Breadcrumbs.

That's what people call them.

Tiny pieces scattered along the path. Just enough to keep you following. Just enough to keep you hoping.

Maybe I should be angry about it.

Maybe I should demand more.

Maybe I should walk away every single time someone offers me less than I deserve.

But if I'm being truthful, I don't always want to.

Because not every breadcrumb is manipulation.

Sometimes it's simply all a person has.

Sometimes the friend who only checks in once a month still thinks of you when your favorite song comes on.

Sometimes the person who struggles to express affection is fighting a lifetime of silence.

Sometimes people care deeply and show it poorly.

And sometimes people care shallowly and show even less.

I've learned to tell the difference.

I've learned not to mistake crumbs for a feast.

I've learned not to build a home inside temporary gestures.

But I've also learned that there is no prize for rejecting every imperfect thing that comes your way.

So I'll take the small compliment.

The "I saw this and thought of you."

The random message on an ordinary afternoon.

The brief warmth.

The fleeting kindness.

The imperfect affection.

I'll take it for what it is.

Nothing more.

Nothing less.

Because somewhere along the way, I realized that gratitude and discernment can exist in the same heart.

I can appreciate what you've given me while still knowing I deserve more.

I can smile at your small offering without mistaking it for abundance.

I can enjoy the moment without building my future on it.

And maybe that's what growing up is.

Not becoming cynical.

Not expecting less.

But learning how to receive things honestly.

To call a drop of water a drop of water.

To call an ocean an ocean.

To stop confusing one for the other.

So if all you have for me today is a half-hearted compliment, I'll probably smile and say thank you.

Not because you've swept me off my feet.

Not because you've earned a permanent place in my life.

But because kindness, however small, is still kindness.

And in a world that often forgets how to be gentle, even the smallest softness deserves to be noticed.

I'll keep making room for the people who love loudly, fully, and without hesitation.

But until they arrive, I won't spend my days starving beside a table that still holds a little bread.

I'll take the half-hearted things.

And I'll leave room in my heart for the whole ones when they come.

Because I've learned that receiving a little is not the same as settling for less.

I've learned that gratitude does not cancel discernment.

I've learned that I can appreciate what is offered without forgetting what I deserve.

After all, a single candle is not the sun.

It cannot warm the whole world.

It cannot turn night into day.

But it still makes the dark a little easier to walk through.

And until I find the people who arrive with sunlight, I will not despise the candles.

Somewhere along the way, many of us learned that our worth is something to be proven.

Not felt.

Not owned.

Proven.

We learned to smile when we were exhausted, to show up when we were unraveling, to keep producing, creating, working, serving, building, and achieving even when our souls were quietly begging for rest.

We learned that applause sounds a lot like acceptance.

And so we perform.

We perform competence when we're confused.

We perform strength when we're hurting.

We perform certainty when we're terrified.

We perform happiness when we're barely holding ourselves together.

The world often rewards the performance. It claps for the polished version of us. The productive version. The resilient version. The version that somehow manages to balance every responsibility without ever admitting that carrying so much is heavy.

But there comes a point when the performance becomes a prison.

When you can no longer tell where the mask ends and where you begin.

When every achievement feels strangely empty because even after reaching it, you still feel the need to prove yourself again.

And again.

And again.

Maybe this is for the person who is building a life while still trying to build themselves.

The one carrying responsibilities that no one fully sees.

The one answering messages while carrying unanswered questions in their heart.

The one who studies, creates, works, dreams, serves, leads, nurtures, and gives so much of themselves to the world that they forget they are a person before they are a performer.

Maybe it is for the woman who has spent years being strong for everyone else.

Maybe it is for the man who was taught that strength means silence and that vulnerability is weakness.

Maybe it is for anyone who feels guilty when they rest because somewhere deep inside, they have mistaken productivity for purpose.

The person who feels like every day must justify their existence.

The person who believes they must earn softness.

Earn love.

Earn belonging.

Men carry performances too.

The performance of having all the answers.

The performance of never breaking.

The performance of being providers, protectors, problem-solvers, and pillars, even when they are tired themselves.

Many suffer quietly because they were taught that asking for help is weakness and that pain should be hidden behind strength.

But exhaustion does not care about gender.

Neither does loneliness.

Neither does the human need to be loved without conditions.

We all deserve spaces where we do not have to perform our worth.

But hear this carefully:

You do not have to be exceptional to be worthy.

You do not have to be productive to be valuable.

You do not have to be strong every day to deserve respect.

You do not have to turn every pain into a lesson, every struggle into a testimony, every setback into a comeback story before you're allowed to be seen.

You are allowed to be unfinished.

Allowed to be uncertain.

Allowed to have seasons where your greatest achievement is simply making it through the day.

The flowers do not bloom every month of the year.

The ocean does not apologize for its tides.

The moon does not explain its phases.

Yet somehow, we expect ourselves to remain constantly full, constantly bright, constantly available.

We expect ourselves to perform humanity instead of simply living it.

There is a sacred kind of freedom that comes when you stop auditioning for your own life.

When you stop measuring your worth by how useful you are.

When you stop introducing yourself through your accomplishments and begin recognizing yourself through your existence.

Because before you were a professional, an entrepreneur, a creator, a student, a writer, a singer, a dreamer, a provider, a caretaker, or a leader..

you were a human being.

And that is enough.

You were never meant to spend your life convincing people that you matter.

You matter.

Before the success.

Before the healing.

Before the breakthrough.

Before the next chapter.

Before the world notices.

You matter now.

As you are.

Not as you could be.

Not as you were.

Not as you hope to become.

Now.

There will always be another goal to chase, another standard to meet, another version of yourself waiting on the horizon.

But if your self-worth is always living in the future, you will never get to experience it in the present.

And what a tragedy it would be to spend your whole life becoming someone while never allowing yourself to simply be someone.

So release the performance.

Let your shoulders drop.

Let your heart unclench.

Let yourself be seen without the costume of perfection.

The people who truly love you are not waiting for your next accomplishment.

They are waiting for you.

And if no one has told you lately, let this be your reminder:

You do not owe the world constant excellence.

You do not owe anyone endless resilience.

You do not owe life a flawless version of yourself.

But you do owe yourself honesty.

You owe yourself rest.

You owe yourself kindness on the days when you fall short of your own expectations.

And above all, after everything you've carried, survived, built, lost, learned, and become..

you owe yourself some grace.💚

I feel like dying begins from either too little or too much.

Too little appetite.
Too little sleep.
Too little socializing.
Too little of everything.

Too much appetite.
Too much sleep.
Too much attachment.
Too much trust.

And the list goes on and on.

Every single thing we do somehow leads us toward the same destination.

DEATH!

Whether consciously or unconsciously.

And as I grow older, I realize that the most unstable and fleeting attribute of a human being is emotion.

People either love you because you appeal to their emotions and fit into their ideologies,

or hate you simply because you don't.

And this is why I could never be friends with people who say things like, "Let's leave sentiments aside and be logical," as though logic itself isn't influenced by emotion.

As though the need to be logical isn't, in itself, a sentiment.

A ridiculous thing to say.

I've also realized that people only see and understand things through the lens of what they know—or what they refuse to know.

Through their knowledge.

Or through their ignorance.

And when ignorance joins hands with close-mindedness, no amount of explanation matters.

You can hand a person the truth wrapped in gold and place it gently in their palm, but if they have already decided what they want to believe, all you'll ever accomplish is talking to a wall.

The last 48 hours have been traumatic.

Heavy.

Crushing.

Filled with emotions I cannot successfully put into words.

Weeks and weeks of going around in circles.

Weeks of hoping.

Weeks of trying to find a way.

And finally, when I thought there was one...

I realized I had been wasting my time.

The cruelest part wasn't even the disappointment.

It was the realization that somewhere deep down, I already knew.

I just didn't want to accept it.

Because acceptance often feels like grief.

And grief feels like losing something you never truly had.

People often say the worst form of heartbreak or betrayal comes from a spouse.

But I raise you friends.

The ones you called family.

The ones who sat at your table, knew your fears, knew your wounds, knew your story.

I raise you the church.

The very earthly church of Jesus Christ.

Because there is something uniquely devastating about being wounded in the place you went seeking healing.

There is something indescribable about being harmed by people who speak the language of love while practicing the opposite behind closed doors.

If this has ever happened to you,

I swear you'll never fully recover from that pain in this lifetime.

You may survive it.

You may learn to function again.

You may even laugh again.

But a part of you will forever remember the sound of that door closing behind you.

I used to think "the first cut is the deepest" was one of the dumbest phrases ever spoken.

Until I realized how everything circles back to the first cut.

The first betrayal.

The first abandonment.

The first day you realized your heart could hurt that much...

and you still didn't die.

Every pain afterward somehow finds its way back there.

Every disappointment knows the route.

Every betrayal knocks on the same door.

And suddenly you're not just mourning the present.

You're mourning every version of yourself that ever bled from the same wound.

As someone most people perceive as "weak" because I'm emotional,

I can confidently say that many of them would never survive the first deep cut that broke me.

For the longest time, I believed I was weak too.

The crying while explaining myself.

The sensitivity.

The softness.

The way words stayed with me long after everyone else had moved on.

I thought it was weakness.

Until people started taking advantage of it.

Until I realized that people often mistake gentleness for helplessness.

They mistake kindness for permission.

They mistake patience for an inability to fight back.

The last 48 hours taught me something I probably would never have learned in a thousand years if all of this hadn't happened.

I used to believe I would always be the girl full of love.

The girl who refused to let her past define her.

The girl who remained soft in a world determined to harden her.

The girl who kept choosing grace.

Who kept choosing understanding.

Who kept giving people the benefit of the doubt.

But every single time people hurt me, they used my pain as an excuse.

"I didn't mean it that way. You're too sensitive because you've been hurt before."

"It's all in your head."

"You're bleeding on me."

The whole time, you knew exactly what you were doing.

You knew.

You saw the damage.

You saw the confusion.

You saw the pain.

And you were going to use my past as an excuse anyway because accountability requires courage—and you are a coward.

You tried so hard to make the world see me as the villain.

As evil.

As unstable.

As difficult.

Meanwhile, everything you accused me of was nothing more than a projection of who you truly are.

You wanted my reaction to become evidence.

You wanted my pain to become proof.

You wanted my heartbreak to become your alibi.

And that's the part that disgusts me most.

Not the betrayal.

The cowardice.

So you thought that would break me because you assumed I was soft.

Weak.

Fragile.

Lol.

Lol.

Well, I am still here.

Standing.

Sane.

Thriving.

Breathing.

Existing in spite of every prediction you made about my downfall.

Where you thought it would end for me,

I used my pain to build an edifice.

A fortress.

A monument.

A reminder that survival is its own form of revenge.

And now it stands between me and people like you.

People who mistake access for entitlement.

People who mistake love for weakness.

People who mistake kindness for surrender.

For years I thought strength looked like keeping the door open.

Now I know that sometimes strength looks like locking it.

Sometimes healing looks like walking away.

Sometimes self-respect sounds like the word "No."

And sometimes the most loving thing you can do for yourself is stop offering explanations to people committed to misunderstanding you.

So, no.

I no longer desire to be the one who loves regardless.

The one who bends until she breaks.

The one who fights endlessly to remain soft just so everyone else can remain comfortable.

I will never be that girl again.

Yes, I broke.

But not into meaningless pieces.

Not into dust.

Not into something unusable.

I broke into raw material.

I picked up every shattered piece of myself and began building something stronger.

Something wiser.

Something that finally belongs to me.

And no,

I will never forgive you.

Never.

Not because I'm incapable of forgiveness.

Not because I want revenge.

But because some wounds don't require forgiveness to heal.

Some wounds require distance.

Some wounds require truth.

And some wounds require remembering exactly what happened so you never walk willingly back into the fire.

I survived the cut.

I survived the bleeding.

I survived the grief.

And that is all the closure I need.

Fear in Nigeria is no longer something that happens to other people.

It is no longer a headline you read, shake your head at, and move on from.

It has become personal.

It has entered our routines.

It has changed the way we wait, the way we pray, the way we love.

A child being ten minutes late is no longer just lateness.

An unanswered call is no longer just an unanswered call.

Silence is no longer neutral.

Travel is no longer ordinary.

A phone ringing at the wrong time can make your stomach drop.

A delay can send your mind racing toward places it should never have to go.

This is what insecurity has done to us.

It has taken violence beyond the forests, beyond the highways, beyond the headlines—and planted it inside our homes, inside our relationships, inside our nervous systems.

Now we live with it.

I know because I carry it too.

Every single time I step out of my house, I look over my shoulder.

Not once.

Not twice.

Again and again.

As though danger has a face I might recognize if I look hard enough.

As though evil might announce itself before it strikes.

As though vigilance alone can save us.

It cannot.

And maybe that is the cruelest part.

That no matter how many prayers we whisper…

No matter how many times we check in…

No matter how tightly we hold the people we love…

There is still that terrible possibility.

That something could happen.

That someone may not come back.

That a normal Tuesday can become the day your life splits into before and after.

So every morning when my son goes to school, I say an extra prayer.

Not because I am overly dramatic.

Not because I am paranoid.

But because this country has taught parents to pray over school gates like battlefields.

Because children have been kidnapped.

Toddlers have been taken.

Teachers have gone to work and never returned.

Families have tucked their children into bed and woken up to nightmares they never imagined.

And so I pray.

I pray when he leaves.

I pray while he is there.

I pray until he returns.

And if dismissal time passes by even a little…

My heart begins to race.

Because lateness is no longer just lateness.

Not here.

Not anymore.

If my sibling stays out a minute longer than usual, fear starts whispering.

If my mother does not answer her call, panic rises in my throat.

If my friend says they are traveling, I count the hours until they check in.

If someone I love disappears from social media for too long, my mind starts writing tragedies.

That is what insecurity does.

It does not only kill people.

It kills peace.

It kidnaps normalcy.

It turns ordinary delays into emergencies inside your head.

It teaches your body to expect bad news.

It makes your phone feel like a weapon.

It makes silence sound dangerous.

It makes mothers pray harder.

It makes families hold their breath.

And yet, while Nigerians live like this—watching the clock, clutching their phones, saying extra prayers, rehearsing tragedy in our minds

our leaders seem already consumed by the next election.

Campaigns.

Primaries.

Power calculations.

Political alignments.

Promises.

Always promises.

As though Nigerians are not drowning right now.

As though this country is not bleeding in real time.

As though parents are not sending children to school with fear folded into their lunch packs.

As though people are not being crushed by insecurity and hunger at the same time.

Fuel prices keep rising.

Cooking gas keeps becoming more expensive.

Food prices keep climbing.

Rain falls in 2026 and entire neighborhoods lose power for days like darkness is a public utility.

Bills rise faster than hope.

Survival has become expensive.

And still, we are told to stand on a mandate.

Stand on what?

A politician should not campaign with promises.

A politician should campaign with results.

Results people can feel.

Results people can eat.

Results people can see in their homes.

Results that keep children safe.

Results that keep roads secure.

Results that keep the lights on.

Results that make life less punishing.

Because what exactly are Nigerians being asked to celebrate?

That we survived another day?

That we made it home?

That our phones finally rang back?

Nigeria has become the kind of terror we used to watch on television and say, God forbid.

Now it is here.

Not just in kidnappings.

Not just in killings.

Not just in the news.

But in the way we flinch when a loved one is unreachable.

In the way mothers pray at school gates.

In the way siblings panic over lateness.

In the way silence now feels suspicious.

In the way darkness after rainfall feels normal.

In the way hunger keeps tightening around households already gasping for air.

This is what insecurity has stolen.

Not just lives.

Peace.

Ease.

Trust.

Sleep.

Ordinary joy.

The simple luxury of waiting without fear.

And in a few days, Children’s Day will come.

There will be speeches.

Bright clothes.

Photo opportunities.

Hashtags.

Celebrations.

But somewhere in this country, a mother will still be praying that her child comes home alive.

Somewhere, another family will still be staring at a phone that will not ring.

Somewhere, another child will go to school while a parent quietly fights back fear.

So what exactly are we celebrating?

Children?

Or the luck of children who made it home?

This cannot continue.

We cannot keep normalizing terror.

We cannot keep adjusting to horror.

We cannot keep clapping for speeches while the country burns underneath us.

We cannot keep trading our futures for slogans.

Nigeria belongs to Nigerians.

And if leaders will not remember that, then Nigerians must.

Get your PVC.

Protect your vote.

Vote with memory.

Vote with anger.

Vote with wisdom.

Vote for results, not rehearsed promises.

Vote for leaders who understand that governance is not campaign season, it is responsibility!

Demand security.

Demand electricity.

Demand economic relief.

Demand schools that are safe.

Demand roads people can travel without fear.

Demand a country where mothers do not pray like they are sending children to war.

Because a nation that cannot protect its children is already in crisis.

And a people who stop demanding better become prisoners of what they tolerate.

Enough.

Get your PVC.

Vote wisely.

Hold leaders accountable.

And remind them that Nigerians are not asking for miracles.

We are asking for what should never have become luxury in the first place:

Safety.

Light.

Food.

Peace.

A country that does not terrify its own people!

Its not too much to ask!

She reads messages in the glow of midnight and lets them die there,

blue-ticked and embalmed.

She does not explain herself. She does not draft paragraphs in her Notes app trying to sound less needy, less angry, less human.

She simply disappears.

I think about her often.

Usually at 2:13 a.m., when the room is too quiet and my thoughts have taken off their shoes and started pacing.

Because the truth is, some people leave your life like fireworks—loud, dramatic, impossible to ignore.

And some leave like carbon monoxide.

No sound.

No warning.

Just a slow theft of oxygen until one day you wake up and realize you’ve been gasping in a room you swore was home.

Nobody tells you that grief can look like embarrassment.

Nobody tells you that heartbreak is not always crying on bathroom floors with Adele in the background. Sometimes it’s checking if they watched your story.

Sometimes it’s typing “haha” when you mean you broke something in me and I don’t know if it’ll grow back right.

Sometimes it’s brushing your teeth beside a face in the mirror that looks suspiciously like yours but feels like a stranger wearing your skin.

Healing, they say, is nonlinear.

Cute.

Healing, in my experience, is looking absolutely fine while internally hosting a knife fight.

It is laughing at brunch and then choking in traffic because a song you forgot existed starts playing.

It is deleting their number and still knowing it by heart.

It is surviving things that should’ve made you mean.

And maybe that’s what nobody writes about enough.

the violence of remaining soft.

Because bitterness is easy.

Cruelty is efficient.

Indifference is fashionable.

But softness?

Softness is insurgent.

To keep your heart open after people have used it like a revolving door is a kind of rebellion nobody claps for.

And I know what you’re thinking.

This is where I tell you I’ve mastered it.

This is where I say I’ve healed.

This is where the music swells and I sip tea on a balcony in linen pants, fully evolved.

But no.

Last week, I stalked an old conversation like an archaeologist of my own humiliation.

Read words that once made me blush and now made me laugh in the same way bruises change color before they disappear.

And somewhere between scrolling and self-betrayal, I realized something terrifying.

I wasn’t looking for them.

I was looking for the girl who heard Ezenwanyi and believed it.

The girl who mistook being deeply adored for being deeply kept.

The girl who thought beautiful words were proof of permanence.

The girl with the easy eyes.

That girl who mistook potential for promise.

That girl who thought love was a place you arrived at instead of a thing you built with both hands.

I missed her more than I missed anyone.

And that’s the plot twist no one prepares you for:

Sometimes the heartbreak isn’t about losing them.

Sometimes it’s about meeting yourself afterward and not recognizing who survived.

For reassurance.

For peace.

For the familiar sound of someone saying your name like they still mean it.

The familiar sound of someone calling you by a name that made you feel ancient and adored.

Ezenwanyi.

A name that did not just sound like affection but like recognition. Like being seen in a language deeper than English. Like being held with reverence.

And isn’t that the cruel trick of love? The way a single word can become a home in somebody else’s mouth..and later, an ache you cannot translate.

But survival is strange.

It sneaks in wearing ordinary clothes.

It looks like making breakfast.

It looks like washing your hair.

It looks like laughing too hard at something stupid.

It looks like buying fruit with your own money and remembering your body deserves sweetness.

It looks small until one day you notice..

you have not checked if they viewed your story.

You have not reread old messages.

You have not built altars to what left.

Because people do not leave all at once.

That is a lie people tell because it sounds cleaner.

People leave in fragments.

First in the way laughter gets shorter.

Then in the way conversations become negotiations instead of refuge.

Then in the silence after a fight.

That terrible silence.

The kind where nobody hangs up but nobody speaks.

Where your breathing sounds too loud.

Where pride sits in the room like a loaded weapon and you wait..God, you wait!

for someone to say something human.

Anything.

But silence can be violent too.

And then it hits you.

Not like lightning.

Like morning.

Quiet.

Unannounced.

You were never waiting for them to come back.

You were waiting for you.

The version of you that laughed without checking if love was still in the room.

The version of you that did not measure affection in silences.

The version of you that heard “Ezenwanyi” and glowed..

not because someone said it, but because somewhere deep down, she believed she was worth reverence.

And baby!

you did come back.

Not all at once.

Not dramatically.

Not in a movie-scene kind of way.

But slowly.

In fragments.

In laughter that returned without permission.

In mornings that stopped hurting.

In songs that no longer sounded like grief.

In mirrors that stopped feeling like interrogations.

And maybe that is the holiest part of survival:

not that love found you.

Not that they came back.

Not that you got closure wrapped in pretty words.

But that after all that silence,

after sitting in rooms where love felt like absence,

after learning that some people can call you sacred and still fail to hold you gently,

after becoming a stranger to yourself in the wreckage..

you still found your way back.

To your own voice.

To your own softness.

To the woman who did not stop being worthy just because somebody left.

And when memory passes by now, as memory always does, I do not reach for what is gone.

I touch my own chest like a roll call.

Still here.

Still soft.

Still becoming.

Still Ezenwanyi.

Not because someone loved me once.

But because I remained long enough to love myself back.

And that?

that is not heartbreak.

That is resurrection.

Not because I am naïve. Not because I think humans are perfect.

But because I know exactly what cheating does to a person.

And I do not think people speak enough about the destruction that comes after betrayal. The kind that does not leave bruises on the body but leaves permanent fingerprints on the soul.

I remember the first time I got cheated on.

I could swear my heart stopped beating.

Not figuratively. Not poetically.

I mean I genuinely felt something inside me collapse in real time.

I never imagined in my life that I would be cheated on.

I was the “traditional woman.” The kind Nigerian society praises.

I could cook. I was soft spoken. Homely. Respectful.

I never spoke unless I was spoken to. I gave my man “peace” in every way most Nigerian men define peace.

I never checked phones. Never cared for passwords. Never moved suspiciously.

I simply wanted to be a wife and a mother.

That was all.

Then one day, the news broke.

My man had gotten someone in my church pregnant.

And suddenly the world became unfamiliar.

My heart stopped beating. And if I’m being honest on a deeper level, I do not think it has ever beaten the same way since that day.

The strangest part was that I could not cry.

I tried.

God knows I tried.

I wanted the kind of cry that empties your chest and leaves you shaking on the floor, but my body refused.

I just sat there numb… asking myself why.

Why her? Why me? What did I do wrong?

And like most women who get betrayed, I blamed myself first.

I was ashamed.

Not even angry at first. Just ashamed.

Because somehow cheating has a way of making the victim feel like the failure.

Then I started stalking the woman.

I wanted to understand what made her special. I thought maybe if I discovered the thing she had, I too could become worthy enough to keep.

She was lighter than me, so I bleached my skin.

She was slimmer than me, so I punished myself in the gym trying to disappear into a smaller body.

I made my hair like hers. Tried speaking like her. Tried softening myself into her shape.

I abandoned pieces of myself hoping loyalty would finally find me attractive.

But the cheating did not stop.

It happened again. And again.

Different women. Different shades. Different heights. Different personalities.

That was when the truth finally hit me.

It was never about the women.

Because I had exhausted myself trying to become every type of woman imaginable and it still was not enough.

I changed my appearance. Readjusted my beliefs. Betrayed my own morals. Shrunk myself. Bent myself. Silenced myself.

Yet the cheating never stopped.

Until one day, with whatever dignity I had left, I finally found the courage to leave.

And I wish I could say leaving immediately healed me.

It didn’t.

Because there’s something cheating does to a person that I genuinely do not think they ever fully recover from.

First, you doubt yourself.

Then you blame yourself.

Then you pity them. You create excuses for them because accepting the truth feels too unbearable.

Then eventually… you begin to pity yourself.

And the final stage is rage.

Not loud rage. Not movie-scene rage.

The kind that quietly burns through your innocence.

Because betrayal changes you.

There’s a particular silence that follows cheating.

Not peaceful silence. Not restful silence.

The kind that sits beside your bed at 2am and forces you to investigate yourself like a crime scene.

Suddenly everything about you feels wrong.

Your body. Your skin. Your voice. Your personality. Your femininity.

You start wondering if maybe you were too soft. Or not soft enough.

Too ambitious. Too boring. Too emotional. Too unavailable.

You start amputating pieces of yourself hoping the next version will finally be lovable enough to keep.

That is what cheating truly destroys.

Not just the relationship.

It destroys the mirror.

Because after betrayal, you no longer know if what you are looking at was ever worthy to begin with.

And the craziest part?

Cheaters will watch you destroy yourself and still ask why you changed.

I used to think cheating was just sex.

It isn’t.

Cheating is psychological violence.

It is watching someone trust you with their entire heart while you slowly poison their reality behind their back.

It is lying with precision. Deleting chats. Creating stories. Saving names under false identities. Coordinating deception.

People call cheating a mistake but I disagree completely.

There is nothing accidental about betrayal.

In fact, I believe cheating requires more effort than loving one person properly.

Because loyalty is actually simple.

But cheating? Cheating is calculated.

And what terrifies me the most is realizing that somebody can look you dead in the eyes, pray with you, hold your hand in church, kiss your forehead, call you “my love”… while actively betraying you behind your back without trembling.

That realization changed me forever.

For a long time, I became haunted by women who did not even know they were haunting me.

Women with brighter skin. Softer voices. Tiny waists. Different accents. Different beauty.

Every woman became competition. Every room became an audition.

Cheating turns love into survival.

And I think that’s the part nobody talks about enough.

People always focus on the cheater. Never the aftermath.

Never the woman sitting on the bathroom floor wondering why she suddenly hates her own face.

Never the way betrayal rewires your nervous system.

How delayed replies start feeling like danger. How “I’m out with friends” suddenly sounds threatening. How your body remembers lies even after your mind tries to move on.

I genuinely think cheating kills something inside people.

Not always their ability to love.

But definitely their innocence.

The version of you that loved without suspicion? Dead.

The version of you that believed loyalty was natural? Dead.

The version of you that thought love alone could protect you from humiliation? Buried.

And that is why I can never romanticize cheating.

There is nothing glamorous about traumatizing someone who trusted you with their tenderness.

Nothing attractive about disloyalty.

Nothing entertaining about making another human being question their worth.

While people joke about cheating online, somewhere tonight somebody is bleaching their skin because they think being lighter will make them easier to love.

Somebody is starving themselves trying to resemble the girl they got cheated on with.

Somebody is abandoning their authenticity trying to become more digestible.

Somebody is losing themselves in real time.

And the heartbreaking thing is…

It still will not stop a cheater from cheating.

Because cheating was never born from your inadequacy.

It was born from their emptiness.

Empty people consume people.

They devour loyalty. Devour innocence. Devour softness. Then move on searching for another soul to feed on.

But somewhere between my rage and my healing, I learned something terrifyingly beautiful:

Faithful people still exist.

Real love still exists.

Not performative love. Not social media love. Not “couple goals.”

I mean the kind of love that protects your dignity even in private. The kind that does not humiliate you for temporary pleasure. The kind that understands loyalty is not confinement — it is reverence.

And maybe that is my final revenge against betrayal.

Not becoming bitter. Not becoming cruel. Not becoming the very thing that broke me.

But remaining soft without becoming stupid. Loving without abandoning myself. And walking away the first time disloyalty introduces itself.

Because some people are not lessons.

They are warnings.

So may cheaters find themselves.

And may the honest lovers… the gentle lovers… the ones who still tremble at the thought of hurting another human being…

May they find each other.

May real lovers meet real lovers.

The first time I realized healing wasn’t beautiful, it was in a room full of people who used to feel like home.

We were laughing. Or at least, they were.

I was watching.

Watching how easily they spoke over me now. How my silence had become normal to them. How I had slowly shifted from being seen to being… accommodated.

Not rejected. Not exactly.

Just… reduced.

There was a time I would have ignored it.

Explained it away.

They’re just tired.

It’s not that deep.

You’re overthinking.

I had built entire emotional systems around making other people’s behavior make sense even when it cost me clarity.

Even when it cost me myself.

---

But something had changed.

Not loudly. Not dramatically.

Just enough that I could no longer unsee it.

Later that night, one of them texted me.

“You were quiet today. Hope you’re okay.”

And I stared at the message longer than I should have.

Because I didn’t know how to explain that I wasn’t quiet.

I was… absent.

Not physically. But in every way that mattered.

Healing didn’t start with strength.

It started with a discomfort I couldn’t ignore anymore.

There was a friend I loved deeply.

The kind of friendship that felt like history, like safety, like something permanent. We had built a rhythm,calls, check-ins, shared frustrations about life. I was always there.

Always.

Until I realized something I wish I hadn’t.

They only reached for me when they needed something to hold onto.

Never when I needed the same.

The shift wasn’t explosive.

It was quiet.

I stopped being the first to call.

They didn’t notice.

I stopped over-explaining my feelings.

They didn’t ask.

I pulled back just a little.

And suddenly, there was nothing left to hold the connection up

That was the day I learned something painful:

Some relationships are not mutual.

They are maintained by the person who cares more.

Healing, in that moment, didn’t feel empowering.

It felt like loss.

Like watching something you thought was real dissolve the second you stopped trying to keep it together.

And then there was love.

The kind that feels consuming at first.

The kind you convince yourself is deep because of how much you’re willing to give.

I chose them.

Over signs I didn’t want to read.

Over the quiet voice in my chest that kept asking, “Why does this feel one-sided?”

Over the moments that didn’t quite add up.

I chose them again and again..

until choosing them started to feel like choosing against myself.

I was soft with them.

Patient. Understanding. Available.

I became the place they came to when they needed comfort. When life felt heavy. When they wanted to be seen without having to give the same in return.

I didn’t mind.

At least, that’s what I told myself.

Because loving them felt like purpose.

But slowly, something started to ache. Not in a way I could explain.

Just a quiet realization settling in:

I was not being chosen.

Not fully.

Not intentionally.

Not in the way I was choosing them.

I was… convenient.

Familiar.

Comfort.

Like something warm you return to when you need it—but don’t think about when you don’t.

And still, I stayed.

Because I thought if I loved harder, they would see me.

If I gave more, they would meet me there.

If I became everything they needed, I would finally become someone they couldn’t lose.

But that’s the thing about one-sided love.

It doesn’t grow.

It stretches.

Until it becomes something unrecognizable.

When they left, it wasn’t dramatic.

No grand ending. No honest closure.

Just distance… and then denial.

And when I tried to make sense of it, when I reached for clarity

I was made to feel like I had imagined everything.

Like I had asked for too much.

Like I had misunderstood something that was never really there.

Like I had forced myself into a place I was never invited into.

That kind of ending doesn’t just break your heart.

It distorts your reality.

And for a while, I believed it.

I questioned myself.

My memory.

My feelings.

I replayed everything, trying to find where I had gone wrong.

But the truth was quieter than all the confusion:

I had loved someone who only wanted to receive love.

And when they were done, they let me carry the weight of the ending.

And then there was family.

The place you’re told love is supposed to be unconditional.

The place where, somehow, conditions still find a way to exist.

I learned early how to be the “easy” one.

The one who doesn’t argue.

The one who adjusts.

The one who understands—even when no one takes the time to understand her.

It made me lovable.

It also made me invisible.

There are things you don’t question when you’re used to them.

Not being listened to.

Not being defended.

Not being considered.

You don’t call it pain.

You call it normal.

Healing started the day “normal” stopped feeling acceptable.

It wasn’t a big confrontation.

No dramatic speeches. No final words.

Just small decisions that felt heavier than they should have.

Saying “no” without explaining.

Not answering immediately.

Choosing myself in ways that felt unfamiliar… and slightly wrong.

Because when you’ve spent so long being who people needed you to be,

becoming someone who chooses themselves feels like betrayal.

Even when it isn’t..

The hardest part wasn’t losing people.

It was sitting with the silence that followed.

No messages.

No check-ins.

No one asking where I went.

And realizing…

Maybe they didn’t lose me.

Maybe they just stopped benefiting from me.

That realization didn’t come cleanly.

It came with anxiety.

With overthinking every interaction.

With patterns I didn’t know how to break.

With the urge to go back—to fix, to explain, to make things make sense again.

Healing, for me, has looked like catching myself in those moments.

When I want to shrink.

When I want to chase.

When I want to make myself easier to keep.

And choosing—slowly, imperfectly—not to.

That kind of work is quiet.

No one claps for it.

No one sees the restraint it takes to not return to what once felt like home.

That kind of realization doesn’t harden you.

It softens you in a different way.

A quieter one.

I started paying attention to how I felt around people.

Not what they said. Not what they promised.

But how I felt after.

Drained or safe.

Questioning myself or grounded in who I am.

And slowly—so slowly it almost felt like nothing was happening

I began to choose differently.

Not perfectly.

Not always bravely.

But intentionally.

Healing, I’ve learned, is not just about letting go of pain.

It’s about letting go of roles.

The fixer.

The understanding one.

The one who stays no matter what.

Because sometimes, the version of you that survives certain relationships

is not the version of you that gets to keep growing.

I still think about those people sometimes.

Not with anger.

Not even with sadness, the way I used to.

But with a kind of clarity that didn’t exist before.

They weren’t all bad.

But they weren’t always good for me.

And learning the difference changed everything.

If healing has felt lonely for you, if it has felt like losing more than gaining, if it has made you question whether you’re doing the right thing..

You probably are.

Because real healing doesn’t just restore you.

It rearranges your entire life.

And sometimes, that rearrangement comes with empty spaces.

Spaces where people used to be.

Spaces where versions of you used to live.

For a long time, I was afraid of those spaces.

Afraid they meant I had lost too much.

Afraid they would stay empty forever.

But something unexpected started to happen.

Not all at once.

Not in some dramatic, life-changing moment.

Just… quietly.

I began to feel lighter in ways I couldn’t explain.

Safer in my own thoughts.

Softer with my own mistakes.

Less desperate to be understood by people who never really tried.

And in those empty spaces—

I found myself.

Not the version shaped by who needed me.

Not the version that overgave to feel worthy.

Just… me.

And for the first time, that felt like enough.

I don’t think healing makes everything perfect.

I don’t think it erases what happened or who you were in those moments.

But I do think it gives you something gentler.

Something steadier.

A quiet kind of hope.

The kind that whispers:

You won’t always feel like this.

You won’t always question yourself this way.

You won’t always have to shrink to be loved.

And maybe one day—

love will find you in a way that doesn’t confuse you.

Friendship will feel mutual.

Family will feel softer, or at least, less defining of your worth.

Maybe one day, you’ll look at the life you’ve built and realize—

it became beautiful again.

Not because everything went right.

But because you finally chose yourself enough… for it to.

Let's talk about God for a minute.

As a kid, I had a perspective about Him:

a mighty man seated on a throne with white beard, white clothes, fire in His eyes, fierce and fearful, with angels surrounding Him with swords ready to fight. It didn’t help that I had read about cherubs and seraphs

I was afraid of God.

Every time I went to church, it was mostly out of fear, not reverence. I had no relationship with the big guy. I didn’t just want to get in His bad books; most importantly, I didn’t want to go to hell.

It didn’t help that my earthly father was fierce. My relationship with him wasn’t that great. His words were “yea” and “amen,” and I saw how everyone bowed to that.

I had my reservations, but I was just a kid.

I was the “quiet” one, the seeming “dumb” one. I was always mostly quiet, in my own thoughts. I was withdrawn. I really don’t know where I picked that up from(maybe i do)

I always felt odd, left out, unimportant, and just… off. I could swear I didn’t belong there.

Even as a child, I often dreamt of escaping. I had a picture in my head of a place where I felt safe—not necessarily because something bad was happening at home every day—but there was just something about my earthly father and how he let things slide when it came to me.

When I was bullied in school, at home, by my aunts… when they constantly compared me to my sister—she was the “smart” one, the one who always stood out, the witty one, the beautiful one. She looked like my mom—her nose pointed, dark skin. The exact clone of my mother, a very beautiful woman indeed.

I was always judged for being “too emotional.” When they bullied me, I cried and stayed away instead of talking back. I was “weak.” My ears were big, my eyes were large, and my nose? It wasn’t as pointed—and that was one of the criteria of beauty where I grew up.

I never heard the last of these things. I was constantly criticized for the features I had no control over, and somehow my earthly father didn’t see a problem with all that bullying—even though he noticed the tiniest speck of sand after you swept the house, he suddenly didn’t see all that shit happening to me.

But when I took third positions in school, he was quick to remind me how other kids didn’t have two heads.

All of these I didn’t have a problem with because I had a plan to escape. I just knew.

But I digress.

This was my perspective of God: a man who didn’t really care that much about me. As long as I obeyed Him, I would never come under His wrath, and that was all the information I needed. As far as I was concerned, I was going to follow it to the letter.

I never lied. I made very conscious efforts. In school, I never cheated or stole. I was a goody-two-shoes kid—this was primary school, a little into junior secondary.

Even though I was perceived as weak, I had a very strong mind and I knew exactly what I wanted. I knew where I was going, and I wasn’t going to lose sight of it.

I gave my life to Christ at every altar call, in case I had unknowingly forfeited it. I was “serving” in so many capacities as a teenager—drama, choir, whatever it took—but it was all performative, out of fear of hell and the big guy.

I had so many bad experiences as a teenager, and I felt I was being punished for something I must have done or thought secretly because I knew the big guy could hear my thoughts.

The days I cussed my dad out in my mind, wished my aunty broke her legs, or felt happiness for something bad that happened to someone who wronged me—I accepted these bad things as “punishment,” even though they hurt me, some even leaving scars for life. But I took it. “I deserve it,” I said.

I left Lagos at 14, almost 15.

I wanted to go to school far away from home. At least that was what I said.

But that was my first escape plan.

Did it work?

I had nowhere to stay and left everything to chance.

I left Lagos with my friend.

straight to my village at first, until she said she had a friend near my proposed school and we could stay there for a couple of days.

The first night there, I found out these were all boys. She said we were safe. Even though I was scared, I didn’t show it—because by almost 15, I had seen 99, what was 1 I couldn’t see to make it 100?

I tried to settle in, uneasy, but it was what it was.

Everything looked okay at first, and the boys seemed welcoming. They even said, “Don’t be afraid, you are like our kid sister.”

That left a bad taste in my mouth.

because all my life, everyone who ever said I was safe with them made me feel the most unsafe—but okay, maybe they were different and I was just projecting.

So I bathed and wore a jeans and top. I didn’t need to wear a bra—I was flat-chested. Everything was going as planned until my friend and her “friend” stepped out at 9 pm and promised to be back at 11 pm. I immediately tried to sleep in the corner I was curled in, avoiding any conversation with the boys in the room.

Then I felt it—a dirty, cold hand trying to reach into my top to fondle my breasts. I froze.

PTSD.

I had just been sexually molested less than a month ago by my mother’s Catholic priest, and that memory was still fresh.

I was so afraid, but I was very sure I would have to die first before someone else took advantage of me.

So I jumped up, visibly angry. He acted shocked, then begged, “I don’t know what came over me. I’m sorry.”

I curled up in the corner and tried to call my friend—she didn’t pick up. All this went on until 1 am. I sat up, eyes heavy, tired, scared. I tried to call her over 100 times that night.

And that was when it happened again.. this time, he saw that I wasnt even moved by his apology..(he begged me to atleast help him masturbate as he had "blue balls" and could die from it)

I was 14 but I wasnt dumb bro.

He tried to beat me into agreeing to sex..

He slapped me a few times and I didnt bulge.. I was waiting for the tiniest loophole so I could attack him..

I was ready to die that night.

I was ready to die that night!

He tried for almost an hour, then stepped out and locked me inside. At first, I felt relieved because I needed to catch my breath. I ran to the kitchen to find anything to defend myself. I found only four forks, which I tucked into my jeans, and hurriedly started packing my bag—and my friend’s.

That’s when he returned—with five other boys. They ordered me out onto the balcony. They started to threaten me, telling me they were cult boys, showing guns and axes. I knew I was done for. I was terrified. They gave me only two choices: allow their friend to rape me or be sent out on the streets that night with my bags to see how many other men would assault me.

What was my sin?

Being a girl.. having a vagina.

I cried, literally broke into pieces.

They asked me to kneel and gave me a few hot slaps. My tears were hot, rolling down my cheeks and into my mouth, tasting like death.

For context, there was a cult war at the time.. a rival cult had killed a point 1 and everywhere was hot and unsafe.. there were constant gunshots even as they spoke..

They took my phone and asked me to call my parents to say my last prayer..

I had heard of cultism..but I always thought it was exaggerated.. bro, it was underreported.. these men are brutal..

What was my sin?

I gave them an international number . It was a family member, chigozie, he was in Venezuela at the time.. I lied that he was my dad..

I knew I was going to die.. but I wanted him to tell my mom himself because he was reasonable and matured and he'd have said it in the calmest ways possible..

So they started to call him and it kept going to voicemail..

They asked for my mom's number and I told them that I was infact lying. That I was an orphan..

The leader got mad and hit me. “So your papa don die, and you give us him number?” I remained silent.

Then he yelled, “Dey go!”

Dey go where? I said loudly, almost rudely..

"I say dey go! Carry your bag dey go, make i know whether them no go fvck you tire before 4 nack"

This was real.. this was fucking real..

They had my phone..

I only had my bag..

They didnt even let me wear my footwear..

Just barefooted ..

So I turned my back.. every step down that stairs were the heaviest steps in my almost 15years of living.

My life flashed before my eyes..

All my dreams.

I thought about my mom..who was really sick at the time too..

I thought about my sister..what she was going to think after they told her I was dead and was still how I died..

We're They ever going to tell her?

What if they never found my body?

What did I do to deserve to die like this?

And that was when it hit me..

A really loud voice.. from something I had heard in passing..

"If you were the only one in the world, jesus would have still come to die"

"God doesnt want to give you a car, or a job, God wants to give you his word in your spirit"

It was pastor Chris Oyakhilome..

I was so sure..

My mom used to watch him on Sunday evenings..

It was a healing program.."Atmosphere for miracles"

It usually started with him singing a song "look and live my brother live"

I remembered, like he was right in front of me..

And I started to scan the word of God I knew in my spirit.. (the ones I memorized to win the memory verse competitions)

NOTHING!

NOTHING!

While I walked to the gate.. I knelt there and said a small prayer..

"I have heard that you'd have died for me if I was the only one in the world, now im going to die..like a thief.. what is the value of your blood then? If I have to pay for the sins I didn't commit, what is the value of your blood?

I have never felt loved by you, but I want to ask yout to save me from this and if you do, I will look for you and I will serve you, please don't let me die like this"

I opened the gate.

It was dark.. really dark..

Should be 3/4am idk..

They keep yelling from the balcony..

"Dey go!"

So I closed the gate and started going slowly..

My heart pounding into my chest..

"Our father who art in heaven ,hallow be your name"

I whispered as I left..

I walked a while and sat close to a dump..

Maybe I didnt sit.. I just stayed there bending.. closed my eyes..

Waiting for the worst to happen..

I dunno how long I stayed ..eyes closed.. held my bag tightly

And that was when I heard my name..

"We have been looking for you"

I opened my eyes and saw my friend and her friend

I cried.. I sobbed, I screamed..

Out of fear, relief, grief..everything..

I followed them.. back into that hostel but they took me to a different room..

I know you might wanna judge my friend.. but she was also 15/16 idk..

I stayed up till it was bright.. I got on a bus and went straight back to my village..

I returned back to school..and I joined the BLW campus Fellowship..

This time I served..worshipped..but not out of fear of punishment.. but out of love of the one who truly saved me..because he thought I was WORTH saving..

Oh I found God that night..

Not as a "king" who's unreachable

As a friend..

As a savior..

Sometimes I have flashes of that night and my hands shake..

Sometimes nightmares and I wake up sweaty because only knew the horror it was that night..

Beaten like a thief!

Io Wonder what would havw become of me if i was raped by multiple men or even killed..

God really thought I was worth saving..

I know you have questions like “why didnt God save her before it gets to that point” but the scriptures says

Jeremiah 39:18 (BSB): "For I will surely rescue you so that you do not fall by the sword, but your life will be spared... because you have put your trust in Me".Isaiah 43:1-3 (GNT): "Do not be afraid—I will save you... When you pass through deep waters, I will be with you... I am the Lord your God... who saves you".

How will he save you if dont even get into trouble in the first place?

Afterthe fall of Adam, everything in this world became programmed to work against us.. thats why christ actually came to REDEEM us..

But

I really think God is a girl dad..

Not the kind of dad I grew up knowing

But the dad I had in my dreams and fantasies who always saved and defended me..

The compassionate dad.. the one who doesnt see my crying as weakness ..

The one I tell EVERYTHING! Including that boy that I love and wanna date..

I tell him about my fuckups and ask him to help me because I dunno where to go from there..

Many times I have failed..

As a human being.. but Big man never cast me away..

I am deserving of his love and thats why he sent his son to die for me..

So many times, humans have made me feel unworthy, dirty, undeserving.. and does it hurt? Like hell..

But how did i keep standing tall after all that happened to me?

His love.. his love..

When people ask me how I can still love deeply regardless of the hell I've been through, my response will always be that "HE TAUGHT ME"

Even though he's a consuming fire, his love pierces even the darkest nights and shines his light..

So its okay if you don't think I deserve anything..

Thats not your call to make.

My daddy doesnt need your opinion when it comes to me..

I'm his special case..

And thats everything I need.

If I were you, id be very careful about me..

My daddy is not your mate.

🫠

I could say I’ve been “busy” and leave it at that, but that would be lazy..and honestly, not even half the truth.

I’ve been trying to run three brands at once, hold motherhood together with one hand, and with the other… piece myself back from a relationship that felt like it stretched me past recognition…

Healing, they say, is soft..

Nobody tells you it can also feel like slow, deliberate torture..

The kind that doesn’t end when you expect it to..

The kind that just hums quietly in the background while life keeps demanding things from you…

And life has been demanding!

Especially here.

Nigeria right now feels like one long group chat where everyone is typing, nobody is replying, and somehow the bills are still due. Money is soo tight.. Not just “things are expensive” tight, but “you start calculating your existence in transactions” tight..

Every decision becomes a small negotiation.

Every outing, a silent budget meeting with yourself.

You start to notice how conversations have changed too..

Friendships now orbit around survival. “Have you eaten?” hits differently.

“Are you okay?” is rarely answered honestly..

We are all managing something…rent, expectations, family pressure, dreams that are starting to look like luxuries.

And relationships… whew!

Love in this economy feels like a risk investment. People are tired, guarded, trying not to pour from empty cups while still craving something real. So we meet each other halfway, or sometimes not at all. We misunderstand more. We retreat quicker. We say “I’m just focusing on myself” when what we really mean is “I don’t have the capacity to be hurt again.”

There’s also this quiet grief we don’t talk about enough..

the version of life we thought we would have by now

. Not in a dramatic way. Just a subtle, persistent awareness that things are… harder than they were supposed to be.

And yet.

Somehow, life continues in between all of this.

We still laugh. We still find ways to celebrate small wins..

fuel in the car, light staying on, a good meal, a random alert. We still show up for each other in the ways we can. There’s a kind of resilience here that doesn’t even announce itself anymore. It just… is.

I think that’s where I’ve been living lately.

Not in sadness, not exactly in hope either. Just in this middle place. A bit detached, a bit observant. Feeling everything and nothing at the same time. Doing what needs to be done, even when it feels like too much.

Maybe that’s what this season is.

Not a breakthrough. Not a breakdown. Just… continuation.

If you’re here too, navigating money, relationships, stress, expectations, healing, all at once..I SEE you. Truly. There’s nothing wrong with you for feeling tired. There’s nothing wrong with you for not having it all figured out.

We’re all just… adjusting.

And maybe that’s enough for now

Every day comes with a new challenge. Not the motivational “level up” kind of challenge. I mean the kind that makes you stare at the ceiling at night wondering if this whole country is one big social experiment and we’re the test subjects.

Let’s start with the heat.

Not the normal “it’s sunny today” kind of heat. I mean the type of heat that makes you feel like the sun specifically woke up and chose your compound for personal revenge. The kind of heat that turns your room into a toaster the moment the light goes off.

And of course, that is exactly when electricity will disappear.

Because electricity in Nigeria behaves like a toxic relationship. It shows up unannounced, stays briefly, gives you small hope… then disappears again without explanation.

One minute you’re charging your phone, the next minute everywhere just goes KPA! darkness!

At this point we don’t even say “the light went off.” We say “they’ve taken the light.” Because it really feels like someone somewhere is physically carrying it away.

Then comes the generator dilemma.

Should you put it on?

Do you have fuel?

Can you even afford fuel?

Because petrol now behaves like imported perfume. You check the price today, blink twice, and it has increased again tomorrow.

Then there’s food.

Ah yes. Food oh! the basic human necessity that has now become a luxury lifestyle.

You go to the market with confidence. You even make a list like a responsible adult. But by the time the trader starts calling prices, your list quickly becomes a suggestion.

“Madam how much is this?”

“₦7,500.”

As how?????

You laugh because you think she’s joking.

She is not joking!

Suddenly you start negotiating with reality..

“Okay maybe we don’t need tomatoes this week.”

“Maybe stew is actually a capitalist concept.”

And saving money?

Saving money in Nigeria right now feels like those inspirational quotes on Instagram..

beautiful in theory, almost impossible in practice..

You budget.

You plan.

You remove unnecessary spending.

Yet somehow the money still vanishes before the month finishes. It’s like your account balance is also struggling with the cost of living.

But beyond the heat and the prices, there’s another layer that honestly makes everything heavier.

The fear.

Every week there’s another story about kidnappings somewhere in the country. Another ransom demand. Another family scrambling to save someone they love.

And the amounts they ask for?

Millions.

Sometimes tens of millions.

And the question I keep asking myself is: where exactly are people finding this ransom money?

Because the same Nigerians who are struggling to afford garri are suddenly expected to raise life-saving millions overnight?

Is there a secret WhatsApp group where emergency ransom money is being shared? Because at this point I’m not understanding!

And then today I saw videos of women happily collecting Ramadan packs while boldly declaring that this same government deserves a second term.

I actually had to replay the video because I thought maybe my ears were buffering.

Like! My ear dey pain me?

Second term?

For this same experience we are all currently surviving?

This has to be a joke… right?

Because sometimes I genuinely wonder if we’re all living in two different Nigerias.

One Nigeria where people are sweating through nights without electricity, calculating the price of rice like it’s foreign currency, and praying their loved ones travel safely.

And another Nigeria where everything is apparently working well enough to deserve an encore.

At this point I don’t even know whether to laugh, cry, or just lie down on the floor and let the heat finish the job.

Because honestly, I am tired.

Tired of the heat.

Tired of the darkness.

Tired of calculating every single naira before spending it.

Tired of opening the news and seeing another story that makes your chest tight.

Sometimes I just sit quietly and ask questions that nobody seems able to answer.

When does it end?

When does surviving stop being the national lifestyle?

When will ordinary Nigerians finally have enough to breathe without constantly worrying about the next bill, the next price increase, the next headline?

When will we actually live instead of just managing crisis after crisis?

Because right now it feels like we are all contestants in a very long survival show.

And nobody seems to know when the season finale is coming!

A friend once told me something that should have sounded like a compliment.

“You are someone who gives people peace,” they said. “I don’t know if it’s age or experience, but you’re very peaceful. Sometimes it almost feels like pretence.”

This is not the first time I’ve heard that.

People say it often, almost like they have discovered something admirable about me.

Peaceful.

Calm.

Easy to be around.

But every time someone says it, something inside me tightens.

Because I know what that “peace” actually is.

And it is not what they think.

For a long time, I thought the same thing too. I thought I was simply someone who loved harmony, someone who hated conflict, someone who wanted the people around her to feel safe.

But the truth is much uglier than that.

My peace was never natural.

It was trained.

I learned it early.

As a child, I was the strange one. The one constantly compared, corrected, reshaped.

“Look at your big eyes and your big nose. Too big for a girl.”

“Your sister is more beautiful than you.”

“Your sister is smarter than you.”

“You cry too much. You’re too weak.”

The voices came from everywhere..family gatherings, living rooms, casual conversations that adults assumed children did not understand.

But children understand everything.

They just don’t know what to do with the understanding.

So I grew up learning that my existence required adjustment. That something about me was always slightly wrong and needed correction.

Home was not always a place of safety. It was a place where silence was survival.

Where you swallowed your feelings before they could become a problem for someone else.

Where you learned to smile quickly so no one would accuse you of being dramatic.

Faux happiness became my specialty.

If I kept the peace, people stayed.

If I kept the peace, people tolerated me.

If I kept the peace, maybe I wouldn’t be alone.

Because loneliness had been my first companion.

My biggest dream as a child was simple: one day I would have a family of my own. A place that finally felt safe. A place where I didn’t have to escape from myself.

So when I met a man who wanted me, I thought that was enough.

He didn’t love me.

That truth was as clear as water.

But he wanted me.

And at the time, I believed wanting was greater than love.

What I didn’t understand was that he wanted me for the same reason everyone else had always kept me around.

The peace.

You know how men say they want peace?

Most of the time what they actually mean is they want someone who will tolerate their chaos without protest.

Someone who will swallow their anger.

Someone who will shrink quietly so their world remains comfortable.

That was me.

When he said my skin was too dark for his liking, I bleached it.

When he said I was too fat..

while I was barely a size ten..

I began strict diets and punishing workouts.

When he criticised the way I spoke, the way I dressed, the way I laughed, I corrected each one like a student desperate to pass an exam.

I told myself this was marriage.

I told myself this was compromise.

I told myself this was how women kept their homes intact.

After all, I had seen the women before me do the same thing. Mothers, aunties, neighbours..

women who endured quietly because peace in the household was more important than their own comfort.

I had promised myself I would never become them.

And yet somehow, I did.

Because I was terrified of going back.

Back to the loneliness.

Back to the voices.

Back to the version of myself that had never been enough.

So I became the perfect wife.

If he said sit, I asked how low.

If he said stand, I asked how high.

I lowered my eyes when he spoke. I softened my voice. I removed every possible reason he might have to be angry with me.

I was peace.

And still, it was not enough.

Because peace built on silence eventually becomes permission.

The insults turned sharper.

The anger turned heavier.

And then one day the violence arrived.

The first time, I told myself it was a mistake.

The second time, I told myself he must have been under pressure.

The third time, I stopped trying to explain it.

But I stayed.

I stayed because leaving meant admitting that everything I had sacrificed had been meaningless.

I stayed because I thought enduring was strength.

I stayed because I was still trying to keep the peace.

Until the day something inside me broke.

Not loudly. Not dramatically.

Just a quiet, final realization:

This peace was killing me.

So one day I fought back.

Not for victory.

Not for revenge.

Just for survival.

I hid a knife in my room.

Every morning I woke up ready for war.

Every night I went to sleep hoping there would not be another battle.

The woman I had become was someone I barely recognised.

And one day I understood something terrifying.

If I stayed, I would either die there..or become someone capable of destroying another human being.

Neither option felt like life.

So I left.

I left the house.

I left the marriage.

I left the version of peace that required my destruction.

Now when people say they want to love me in a way that feels like home, something inside me panics.

Because home, to me, has never been a place you settle into.

Home has always been a place you escape.

So when people say I bring them peace, I wonder what they actually mean.

Do they want me because of who I am?

Or because my peace still looks like a sacrificial table where other people can lay their chaos while I quietly disappear?

So many bad things happened to me last week.

One after the other, like life had a checklist and I was the only item on it. Every time I thought I had reached the end of it, something else arrived..another blow, another disappointment, another quiet moment where I had to sit down and ask myself if breathing was supposed to feel this heavy.

And just when I thought the worst had passed…when I was finally trying to catch my breath…the weekend arrived with its own surprise.

The worst of them all.

But you know what’s even worse than the bad things themselves?

Having to smile through them.

Having to still show up for other people.

Having to listen to their stories, encourage them, reassure them.

Having to laugh at jokes and nod at conversations while something inside me quietly collapses.

Because somehow, protecting other people’s feelings becomes another responsibility. Another role to perform.

And I honestly don’t know what to call that.

Is it bravery?

Or cowardice?

Is it strength?

Or just plain stupidity?

Sometimes I feel tired in a way that sleep cannot fix. Tired of explaining, tired of narrating my struggles, tired of repeating the same story to different people.

Not because I want sympathy.

In fact, I’ve learned that human sympathy has a time frame.

From experience, I’d say it lasts about five conversations.

The first time you talk about your problems, people care. Truly. They listen closely, their voices soften, their eyes fill with concern.

Maybe the second time too.

But by the third time, you can already feel it shifting. The empathy begins to thin out. Your pain slowly becomes an inconvenience in the room.

By the fourth time, the message becomes clearer..even if no one says it out loud.

“You’re an adult. Get a grip. We all have problems.”

And the fifth time?

The fifth time is something worse than anger or judgment.

It’s apathy.

A quiet indifference wrapped politely in phrases like “It is well.”

And suddenly you realize the conversation isn’t really about your pain anymore. It’s about how quickly you can stop talking about it.

So eventually, you stop.

You learn to carry your storms privately.

Sometimes I wonder if God enjoys watching me cry.

Maybe I look cute when I cry. Maybe there’s something amusing about my brokenness. About the way I sit on the edge of my bed some mornings, struggling to breathe through the heaviness in my chest.

Maybe He admires the performance.

The way I wipe my face, step outside my room, and transform into the happiest woman anyone has ever met.

Maybe my life’s tragedies are just scenes in a story He finds interesting.

I don’t say this out of hatred.

I love the big guy.

And this is not anger either.

It’s something stranger than anger.

It’s numbness.

The kind of numbness where you somehow feel everything at once.

And sometimes, in those quiet moments when the weight of everything presses too hard against my chest, I find myself wondering:

If someone prays to die… does that count as suicide?

Because what is the point of living when it feels like everything is already designed to work against you?

Maybe there is an answer to that question.

Maybe there isn’t.

Right now, I don’t know.

Right now, all I know is that I am tired.

Not the kind of tired sleep can fix. Not the kind that fades after a weekend away.

I mean the kind that sits on your chest at 3 a.m., heavy and merciless, pressing down until even inhaling feels like a privilege you have to earn.

Have you ever been beaten down by life so relentlessly that you forget what it feels like to stand tall? So consistently that “better days” begin to sound like a myth told to children?

Just when I think I have reached the peak of sadness, I wake up to discover there are levels to this shii.

Depths beneath depths.

Rooms inside rooms.

And every morning for the past three months, I have opened my eyes hoping today would be lighter ..

only to find that the weight has learned my name and decided to stay.

I kept telling myself it would pass. That I would wake up and everything would be fine. That time, that loyal healer everyone talks about, would do its job.

It has been three months.

I am beginning to doubt that everything will ever be fine.

Life has not just been hard in one way ..

it has been hard in every way.

Heavy in my responsibilities.

Heavy in my expectations.

Heavy in the silent battles I cannot even name out loud.

It feels like every area of my life is demanding strength from a body that has nothing left to give.

I am carrying things I cannot speak about.

Things that sit behind my ribs like secrets made of stone.

My eyes are sore from crying about realities I cannot explain to anyone..

From conversations I rehearse in my head but never say..

From fears that would sound dramatic if I tried to voice them.

For months my heart has been breaking while I have had to show up for life as if it isn’t..

I have had to handle responsibilities with swollen eyes.

I have had to answer messages with steady hands while mine were shaking..

I have had to be strong in rooms where I felt like collapsing.

Explain to me how you tell someone you love them first… and months after they have fallen completely, helplessly in love with you, you confess that you are not capable of reciprocating. That you are not emotional. That this..this vacancy ..is simply “how you are.”

How do you become incapable after you were the one who unlocked the door?

Growing up, I was taught that honesty was a virtue. That kindness opens doors. That loyalty builds empires.

No one told me these qualities would also make me easy to wound.

No one warned me that loving honestly would feel like handing someone a blade and trusting them not to use it.

You said you loved me first.

I tried to push you away at the beginning. I did. I know myself. I know what happens when my love wakes up ..

it consumes, it protects, it stays. I was afraid you would abandon me in the middle of loving you.

And God, was I wrong?

Because you did not abandon me in the middle.

You waited until I was fully there. Until my walls were gone. Until my heart had memorized the rhythm of you.

Then you said you couldn’t do it.

For months my heart has been breaking quietly ..

not dramatically, not loudly ..

just a steady fracture, like ice cracking under invisible pressure.

I have had no one to explain this to. No one to dissect the cruelty of it with. How do you explain heartbreak without crying? How do you speak of something that lives in your throat like a stone?

You told me I had to stop crying every time you did something that hurt me..

That it should not become my “modus operandi.” As though my tears were strategy. As though pain was a performance.

Do you understand that you say cruel things?

“You write so beautifully,” you once told me.

Now my writing bothers you. Now it “makes you look like the bad person.”

What changed? The words or the truth inside them?

And now you want to be friends.

Friends.

Did I not offer you friendship when we first met? Was that not what I tried to keep it as? You wanted more then. You reached first. You said the words first.

Now that I am shattered, friendship is the consolation prize?

Sometimes I don’t even know if it’s you or just life trying to suffocate me. It feels like the oxygen has been rationed and I am not on the list.

I cannot breathe.

I asked you..

because I needed to know .. was there nothing I could have done differently? Was I not worth compromising for? Was I not worth stretching your emotional capacity for?

“No. This is just the way I am.”

Detached. Flat. Almost inconvenienced by my hurt.

You were so loved-up in the beginning. So warm. So certain.

Did knowing me too well make you love me less? Did my depths exhaust you? Did my honesty overwhelm you? What did I do ? Besides love you in the only way I know how?

Pain is easier to carry when it has meaning. When you can point to it and say, “This happened because…”

But this pain is shapeless. Confusing. It leaves me shattered and hollow, without appetite, without clarity, without air.

It has been months of tears. Months of waking up hoping the ache would have softened overnight. Months of trying to gather pieces of myself that don’t seem to fit the same way anymore.

And I am tired.

Tired of believing love is something safe.

Tired of offering loyalty only to feel foolish for it.

Tired of being told my softness is too much.

This? this is where I draw the curtains on love.

Not out of bitterness, but out of self-preservation.

Because every time I have let it in, it has left marks I still carry.

Love has used me. Hurt me. Scarred me.

And the cruelest part?

Despite everything, my heart still remembers how it felt when you said you loved me first.

So maybe the saddest thing is not that you couldn’t love me.

Maybe it’s that I still don’t know how to stop loving you.

And tonight, as I lie here trying to breathe through a chest that feels caved in, I realize something terrifying:

Tomorrow will come.

I will wake up.

And you still will not love me.

When I’m washing plates.

Or lying in bed staring at the ceiling.

Or sitting in a bus, pretending to scroll my phone.

Then it hits me.

The way they spoke to me.

The way they ignored me.

The way I kept quiet so I wouldn’t look “difficult.”

And the question comes back again, like it always does:

Is this what I deserve?

Not angrily.

Just… broken.

Because I know how I love people.

I know how I check on them when they’re silent.

How I notice when their mood changes.

How I defend them even when they don’t know.

How I give them softness even when I’m tired.

So when I am treated like I’m nothing…

Like I’m easy to forget…

Like my feelings are optional…

It confuses me.

It really, really confuses me.

And then I start doing the worst thing.

I start blaming myself.

Maybe I talked too much.

Maybe I expected too much.

Maybe I’m too emotional.

Maybe I should just be grateful they stayed at all.

And that’s when the second question comes.

Is this what I am worth?

…

You know what hurts the most?

It’s not strangers.

It’s people you were gentle with.

People you prayed for.

People you stayed up comforting.

People you forgave more times than you can count.

Those ones.

The ones who know your heart… and still treat it casually.

That pain is quiet.

But it’s heavy.

You start shrinking without noticing.

You laugh when something hurts.

You say “it’s okay” when it’s not.

You stop explaining because you’re tired of sounding dramatic.

You become easier to keep.

And slowly… you disappear.

I hate admitting this part.

Sometimes I stay because I’m scared to lose people.

Even when they don’t treat me right.

Even when I cry after talking to them.

Even when I know, deep down, that love is not supposed to feel like begging.

I stay because I remember their good side.

I stay because I believe they’ll change.

I stay because I don’t want to start over.

And every time I stay where I’m not valued…

I hurt myself a little more.

Not them.

Me.

But lately… something inside me has been waking up.

A quiet voice.

Not loud. Not proud.

Just tired.

It says,

“You don’t have to keep explaining your heart to people who enjoy misunderstanding you.”

It says,

“You don’t have to accept crumbs just because you’re afraid of hunger.”

It says,

“You don’t have to prove you’re worthy of kindness.”

And when I hear that voice, I cry.

Because I realize how long I’ve been abandoning myself just to keep other people comfortable.

How long I’ve been asking for the bare minimum like it’s a luxury.

How long I’ve been pretending not to notice when someone treats me like garbage.

So… is this what I deserve?

No!

But more than that… I don’t want it anymore.

I don’t want love that confuses me.

I don’t want friendships that exhaust me.

I don’t want conversations where I leave feeling small.

I want to be somewhere I don’t have to shrink.

I want to be loved out loud.

Respected without begging.

Considered without explaining why I should be.

And maybe that starts with me.

Maybe it starts with me believing that my feelings are valid.

That my heart is not “too much.”

That my kindness is not something to apologize for.

Maybe it starts with me walking away… even when it hurts.

Because staying hurts more.

If you’ve ever asked yourself,

“Is this what I deserve?”

I hope one day you answer gently:

“No… and I’m allowed to want better.”

Not louder.

Not angrier.

Just honest.

Like someone finally choosing themselves… for the first time.💚

Now I know it was just convenience.

“Depression is real,” they say, with their eyes wide like toddlers discovering thunder for the first time..

They say it like they invented pain.

Like grief is a trending topic.

Like sorrow is a coat you borrow for one winter and return neatly pressed.

And suddenly the world applauds them.

Suddenly the same mouths that called you dramatic, lazy, ungrateful, weak, “too sensitive,” “too emotional,” “too spiritual,” “too something”

those same mouths have learned a new vocabulary word and they want confetti!

Oh, depression is real now?

It became real the moment it knocked on your door?

Fascinating.

For fifteen years I’ve been drowning quietly in a room full of people who insisted I was swimming.

Fifteen years of smiling through funeral hymns playing in my chest.

Fifteen years of waking up tired of a life that hadn’t even started yet.

Fifteen years of hearing,

“pray harder,” “work harder,” “be grateful,” “stop overthinking,” “others have it worse.”

Fifteen years of pretending the monster under my ribs was just a shadow.

But when it brushed their skin..

just brushed it?

suddenly they became poets of pain. Suddenly they discovered empathy. Suddenly they wanted understanding, patience, soft words, candlelight compassion..

They want the kindness they never gave.

They want grace with interest.

And I am supposed to clap?

No!

I am supposed to nod like we all weren’t there when they laughed at someone crying?

Like we didn’t hear the jokes about therapy?

Like we didn’t watch them weaponize religion, success, and comparison like knives dressed as advice.

Depression wasn’t fake.

Your empathy was.

What makes me cringe isn’t that they’re hurting.

Pain is democratic..

It visits s every house eventually.

What makes me cringe is the performance..

The sudden moral awakening..

The rewritten history where they were always kind, always understanding, always gentle.

No! You were comfortable.

You were comfortable when it wasn’t you.

Comfortable calling survival “attention seeking.”

Comfortable confusing numbness with strength.

Comfortable believing sadness was a personality flaw.

Until the day your own mind turned against you and whispered the same cruel things you once said out loud.

Now you want witnesses.

Now you want softness.

Now you want people to believe you without interrogation.

And here’s the bitter truth: I will believe you.

Because pain is real even when empathy is late.

But don’t expect me to forget the years you called mine imaginary.

Don’t expect me to pretend the hypocrisy isn’t loud enough to echo in my bones.

Some of us learned to breathe underwater because nobody believed we were drowning.

Some of us built entire personalities around hiding bruises no one could see.

Some of us carried storms in our throats so long we forgot what clear weather felt like.

So when you finally feel one drop of the ocean and start shouting, “Water exists!” forgive me if I don’t applaud.

Forgive me if I look at you and think:

Oh, it was fake the whole time because it wasn’t you?

Depression didn’t become real yesterday.

You just finally ran out of excuses to ignore it.

And the cruelest part?

We would have held your hand through it anyway..

We always do.

Even after the mockery..

Even after the dismissal..

Even after the years of being told our suffering was theater.

Because the broken understand breaking.

But don’t mistake our compassion for amnesia.

Don’t mistake our silence for agreement.

Don’t mistake our survival for weakness.

Depression is real.

But your hypocrisy?

Your Hypocrisy is louder!

I wake up ANXIOUS!

Most mornings, it’s 4:37 a.m. or some strange time like that. I don’t need an alarm anymore. My body has learned that peace is temporary and bills are permanent. The first thing I feel isn’t gratitude. It’s pressure in my chest.

I lie there for a few seconds and calculate.

Rent is due in eight days. I’m already short. School fees are overdue. The landlord has been patient, but patience has an expiration date. I owe two friends money. I avoid their WhatsApp statuses because I don’t know how to explain that I still don’t have it.

Then I hear my child breathing beside me, and I get up.

Being a single mother is not inspirational. It is expensive. It is lonely. It is humiliating in ways nobody prepares you for.

People think the hardest part is raising a child alone…

That’s not even the half of it.

The hardest part is carrying the entire weight of survival on your back while pretending you’re not collapsing.

I work. I try. I budget. I stretch money until it feels like witchcraft.. I know the exact price of rice in three different markets…

I know which days bread is discounted. I know how to turn one meal into two. I know how to tell my child “maybe next time” without letting my voice shake.

What people don’t see is the quiet shame.

The way teachers look at you when fees are late..polite but tired.

The way relatives offer advice instead of help.

The way people say, “You’re so strong,” when what they really mean is, “I’m glad it’s not me.”

Men are the worst part sometimes.

When they hear you’re alone, something changes in their eyes. They don’t see a woman surviving. They see access. They see vulnerability. They see a discount.

“Let me help you,” they say.

Help never comes free.

It comes with late-night visits. With subtle pressure. With comments like, “After all I’ve done for you…” It comes with expectations of your body as repayment. It comes with the assumption that because you’re struggling, your standards must be lower.

And when you refuse, they disappear sometimes after reminding you how ungrateful you are.

There are days I consider it. Not because I want to. But because survival makes you negotiate with your own dignity. Then I look at my child and I can’t do it. I want them to grow up seeing strength, not transactions.

But strength is exhausting.

I am tired of making every decision alone.

When my child had a fever at 2 a.m., it was me alone at the hospital. Me alone signing forms. Me alone calculating if I could afford the full prescription or just part of it. There is no “let’s discuss it.” There is no backup income. There is no emotional partner to split the fear with.

It is just me.

And when I break down, I have to do it quietly. In the bathroom. In the shower. In the car. Because children should not have to carry adult worries.

Sometimes my child asks innocent questions that feel like knives.

“Why don’t I have daddy here?”

“Why can’t we move to a bigger house?”

“Why can’t I go on that trip with my classmates?”

I give soft answers. Age-appropriate answers. Safe answers.

I never say: “Because I’m drowning.”

Debt follows me like a shadow. I have borrowed for rent. Borrowed for food. Borrowed for school. Borrowed to pay back borrowed money. The interest grows faster than my salary. My phone ringing gives me anxiety..

Unknown numbers make my stomach drop.

I have sold things quietly. Jewelry. Clothes. Dreams.

I used to have plans. I used to think about traveling, building a business, finishing school properly. Now my long-term plan is just “make it through this month.”

What hurts the most is how invisible the struggle is.

People see you dressed and assume you’re fine. They see you post one smiling picture and think life is stable. They don’t see the argument with the landlord five minutes before that photo. They don’t see you choosing between paying for data to work or saving it for food.

And society judges you like you failed an exam.

“If you had chosen better.”

“If you had stayed.”

“If you were more patient.”

“If you weren’t so independent.”

Nobody says, “He left.”

Nobody says, “He should have stayed.”

The burden always finds the mother.

I am not perfect. I get angry. I shout sometimes when I’m overwhelmed. I apologize after. I carry guilt for that too. I worry constantly that my child will grow up feeling the lack of money, of a father, of ease.

I worry that my exhaustion will become their trauma.

But in the middle of all of it, there are small moments.

When my child hugs me tightly and says, “You’re the best mommy.”

When we laugh over something silly.

When I manage to pay a bill on time.

When I stretch money and it actually stretches.

Those moments are oxygen.

I am not asking for pity. I am asking for understanding.

Being a single mother is not a badge. It is not a trend. It is not a personality trait. It is survival mode that doesn’t switch off. It is loving someone so deeply that you keep going even when you are empty.

Every night, after my child sleeps, I sit in the quiet and allow myself five minutes to feel everything..

the fear, the anger, the loneliness. Then I wipe my face, check tomorrow’s expenses, and set the alarm.

Because no matter how tired I am, morning is coming.

And my child will wake up believing I can handle the world.

So I get up.

Even when I don’t know how I will.

🙂

March did not knock on my door.

She slipped in quietly, like sunlight that finds your pillow before you are ready to wake, like laughter in another room that pulls you toward it without permission.

I knew she had arrived because the air felt kinder.

January had been stern, February Dark.

but March?

March felt like a woman humming while she braided her hair. She moved with a rhythm that said, there is still so much good ahead of you, even if you don’t believe it yet..

This month has always been like that for me.

Not loud. Not demanding. Just… patient. Like a sister who knows your secrets and still brings you tea…

The mornings stretch differently now.

They smell like possibility and roasted groundnuts from the roadside, like clean notebooks and songs that have not yet been written…

The sun rises like it has something to tell me, and I sit there, pretending not to listen while secretly taking notes.

Because March is a storyteller.

She tells stories about women who kept going even when the world did not clap for them. Women who laughed with cracked lips, who danced barefoot in kitchens, who built empires from whispers and thread and prayer.

Women like my mother.

Women like my friends.

Women like me.

Women like you.

We do not always look heroic..

Sometimes we look tired, or confused, or hungry for something we cannot name. But March reminds me that even tired women are miracles walking around in yesterday’s clothes.

And that is enough.

There is something holy about the way women keep loving.

The way we remember birthdays, recipes, apologies, dreams. The way we carry entire futures in our handbags beside lip balm and receipts..

March knows this.

She smiles at us like she has seen all our drafts and still calls us masterpieces.

I like to think March is the month God laughs a little more.

The sky looks brighter, as if Heaven is proud of its daughters..

Flowers push through stubborn soil just to prove that softness is not weakness..

it is persistence wearing perfume.

And everywhere I look, I see women blooming quietly.

A girl starting over after heartbreak.

A mother learning to rest without guilt.

A friend opening her business with shaky hands and brave eyes.

A woman forgiving herself for things she didn’t know better about.

We are blooming in offices, in markets, in classrooms, in prayer rooms, in tiny apartments with leaking taps and big dreams. We are blooming while cooking, while studying, while crying, while laughing too loudly at midnight.

We are blooming even when nobody is watching.

That is the twist March brings me every year..

Joy does not always arrive like fireworks. Sometimes it comes disguised as ordinary days that don’t fall apart. Sometimes happiness is just peace sitting beside you while you eat your rice slowly.

Sometimes it is realizing you are still here.

Still singing.

Still trying.

Still loving.

And oh, what a beautiful thing it is to still be a woman in March.

To wake up with soft strength in your bones.

To forgive yesterday.

To braid hope into tomorrow.

To laugh with your whole mouth open because something inside you knows that life, even with its thorns, is still a garden.

March reminds me that we are not late. We are not broken. We are not forgotten. We are simply growing in directions we cannot yet see.

So I will walk through this month gently. I will drink my tea slowly..

I will say kind things to my reflection..

I will clap for other women until my hands ache.

I will write new songs. I will forgive old mistakes. I will dance in my room like the world is clapping just for me.

Because March came softly, and she brought good news:

There is still light.

There is still laughter.

There is still love waiting for you in small, stubborn places.

And you, dear woman, are already enough.

Even on the days you forget.

Especially on those days.

I LOVE YOU 💚

“They say it takes a village to raise a child.”

But somehow, that village only remembers the address of your home when it’s time to criticize you..

When your child is sick at 3 a.m. and the fever won’t break, you sit alone on the edge of a bed soaked in sweat and prayers. No one from the village is holding the bowl when your baby vomits. No one is counting breaths with you in the dark. No one is pacing the tiles with swollen eyes, whispering “please be okay, please be okay” to a tiny chest rising too slowly..

In those moments, the village becomes a ghost town.

When school fees arrive like an uninvited storm, when birthdays come with expectations, when graduation gowns cost more than your rent..

The village becomes a distant city. Busy. Silent. Blind.

Suddenly everyone has their own children, their own bills, their own excuses..

But the moment your child does something they don’t approve of,

the village returns..loud, united, righteous.

“He still wears diapers at two? That’s not how we were raised.”

“Beat him. He will not die. We didn’t die.”

“She still eats Golden Morn at four? We were raised on eba and soup and look at us now.”

“Change his school. Education at that age is not that important.”

“You can move to a remote place. We grew up in the village and survived.”

Survived?

As if survival is the highest dream we can offer our children.

Sometimes I want to scream

SHUT UP!

Not because I think I’m perfect.

Not because I know everything.

But because I am trying.

Trying in a world that is harder than the one you knew.

Trying in an economy that laughs at salaries..

Trying in a society that wants saints but gives no support..

Trying to raise a child who is kinder, braver, healthier, more whole than I was allowed to be.

Isn’t that the point?

To break cycles quietly.

To heal wounds we didn’t cause.

To say, “The shouting stops with me.”

To say, “My child will not fear my footsteps.”

To say, “Love will be louder than discipline.”

People forget that parenting is not performance art.

It is not a public debate.

It is not a referendum open to every passing opinion.

It is blood pressure rising when a cough won’t stop.

It is selling your favorite dress to pay school fees..

It is skipping meals so your child eats fruit.

It is smiling through exhaustion so they don’t learn worry too early.

It is love that hurts and heals at the same time.

Yes, the village matters.

But a real village doesn’t only gather to judge.

A real village brings soup when the baby is sick.

A real village contributes to school fees without announcement.

A real village hugs you when you’re failing and whispers, “you’re doing okay”

A real village understands that every generation should stand on a higher step than the last.

We are not raising children to survive.

We are raising them to live.

To be safer than we were.

To dream louder than we dared.

To carry less trauma than we inherited.

So if my child still wears diapers at two, or eats cereal at four, or attends a school you think is “too much,” understand this:

I am not raising your childhood.

I am raising their future.

And maybe, just maybe, if you cannot help…

If you cannot hold them when they cry…

If you cannot lighten the load when it’s heavy…

Then the kindest thing the village can do is be quiet. 💚

They always say “we wish we had seen the signs”

But grief, I have learned, is the most talented editor in the world..

It trims memory into kindness.

It crops out the inconvenient parts.

It adds soft lighting where there used to be neglect.

You die once in your body..

You die again in their mouths.

And in that second death, you become lovable.

When you were alive, your phone rang like an abandoned church bell.

You learned to laugh alone.

You learned to celebrate yourself with candles bought from the clearance rack, singing Happy Birthday with a voice you tried to make sound like a choir.

When you were alive, they called you too sensitive.

When you were gone, they called you too pure for this world.

When you were alive, your essays sat unread, dusty as unopened medicine.

When you were gone, they quoted you in captions with broken-heart emojis and perfect grammar.

They stitched halos over the holes they helped carve.

People love to connect dots because straight lines make them look guilty.

So they draw constellations in hindsight and call it empathy.

"She had sad eyes."

"He was crying for help."

"We wish we had known."

They knew.

They knew the way a house knows termites are eating it from the inside.

They knew the way a mother knows her child is lying about being okay.

They knew and chose comfort over confrontation, silence over inconvenience, distance over devotion.

Because loving the living is hard work.

It requires phone calls you don’t feel like making.

It requires listening without fixing.

It requires sitting beside ugly truths that smell like fear and shame.

But loving the dead?

Oh, loving the dead is easy.

The dead don’t ask for rides at midnight.

The dead don’t ruin dinners with panic attacks.

The dead don’t cry loud enough to embarrass you in public.

The dead can be arranged in neat bouquets of memory and placed on Instagram with aesthetic grief.

The dead are polite.

I think of all the flowers laid on graves like apologies dressed as roses.

Petals spelling out sentences no one could form when breath was still warm.

I think of how people cry harder at funerals than they ever loved at birthdays.

I think of how the world suddenly remembers your favorite color after forgetting your existence for years.

Lip service love.

A currency minted only after bankruptcy.

But here is the part no one tells you:

Sometimes the person in the coffin isn’t even the person who died.

Sometimes the one who died was the version of you that kept hoping.

The version that believed kindness would be returned.

The version that thought loyalty was mutual.

The version that mistook attention for care.

That version dies quietly. No funeral. No flowers. No captions.

And then you wake up.

Alive.

Breathing.

Standing at your own funeral.

Yes.

You weren’t dead.

You were just… gone.

You deleted your accounts.

You stopped answering.

You moved to a place where no one knew your middle name or your favorite song or the way you hummed when you cooked.

You buried the girl they ignored.

And suddenly, the world mourned you.

They wrote paragraphs.

They cried on voice notes.

They remembered your articles, your laughter, your “sad eyes.”

They loved you better when they thought you were unreachable.

You watched from a café window, sipping cheap coffee, reading your own obituary written in emojis.

You laughed.

Because finally, they were right about one thing.

The signs were there.

The signs were there every time you asked for help and got jokes.

Every time you said you were tired and got advice.

Every time you reached out and got silence wrapped in busyness.

The signs were there that they loved the idea of you, not the inconvenience of your heartbeat.

So you let them mourn.

You let them connect their dots.

You let them feel absolved.

And then, slowly, you started living again

but only for the ones who loved you while you were loud, messy, needy, breathing.

You planted flowers for yourself.

You read your own articles.

You looked into the mirror and said,

"You are not too much. You are just surrounded by people who were not enough."

And the happiest, saddest truth bloomed quietly in your chest:

You don’t need to die to be loved.

You only need to stop begging the wrong people to live.

So if you ever hear them saying, we wish we had known,

Smile softly.

Because somewhere, someone still alive is whispering the same pain.

And this time, maybe…

you will answer before the funeral.