I have been thinking about this question for a while now, and the older I get, the more difficult the question seems to become. Love is such a big word. We use it for so many things. There is the love of Christ, the love we receive from family, the love between friends, the love we have for the people we care about, romantic love, and even the love we are supposed to have for ourselves.

Everybody says they want love.

Everybody says, I love you.

People marry because of love. People leave because of love. People stay because of love. People forgive because of love. People sacrifice because of love. And sometimes, people destroy themselves because of love.

So what is it?

What is this thing we keep calling love?

I think I have spent a good part of my life trying to understand it. I have always been someone who dreamed about the big love. I remember writing about it in my diary. I have always had these big fantasies about what love would look like for me one day.

The funny thing is that I did not grow up in an environment where I saw a model of love that I wanted to copy. I did not grow up looking at a perfect picture of love and thinking, Yes, this is exactly what I want.

If anything, I grew up not completely knowing what love was. So I became a child with a lot of fantasies about it.

I imagined what mine would look like when I grew up. I imagined being deeply loved. I imagined being chosen. I imagined someone who would see me and somehow just know me. Someone who would stay. Someone who would care. Someone who would want to grow with me.

And because I wanted so badly to understand what love was, I became eager to experience it. When I started dating, if someone looked at me and told me they loved me, there was a part of me that immediately wanted to understand what those words meant.

What does your love for me mean?

What does it look like?

How far does it go?

What happens when things get difficult?

But over time, I started realising that a lot of the people saying I love you did not necessarily know what love meant either. Some people loved you but did not know how to show it. Some loved you but would not go the extra mile for you. Some loved you but knew when to let you go. Some loved you and would fight for what you both had. Some said they loved you and still treated you unfairly. After experiencing different versions of what people called love, I started wondering if I really knew what love was at all.

Maybe I had been calling many things love because I desperately wanted them to be love. I remember having a conversation with a friend about one of my past relationships. I was telling him about some of the things this person had done for me, and in my head I was thinking, Oh my God. This person really loves me. I have never been loved like this. And my friend looked at everything I was describing and said something that honestly made me stop.

He said, Those things are not love. Those are normal acts of kindness that every human being should have.

I was like, what?

It really made me think.

Because what happens when you have been deprived of certain things for so long that when someone finally gives them to you, you mistake them for extraordinary love?

What happens when basic kindness feels like a miracle?

What happens when someone listens to you and you think, This must be love?

What happens when someone checks on you and you start imagining forever?

I think this is where it gets complicated for people like me.

I don't know how to do casual. I love deeply. I love fast. And sometimes my love can consume me.

One good conversation with you can make me start liking you. One good act of kindness can make my heart start imagining a future. As funny as this sound that's how our hearts behave sometimes, it has no control

So I have become very careful about the people I let into my space. Because when I love, I don't know how to do it halfway. And maybe that is also part of why I have spent so much time trying to understand love. I know how deeply I can feel it, but I am not always sure that what I am feeling is love. Sometimes I wonder if what I am feeling is really love, or simply attachment, loneliness, the excitement of being seen, or the hope that I have finally found what I have been searching for all these years.

I know one thing, though. Love is not everything we see all around us. That does not mean genuine love does not exist. I believe it does. I believe there are people who have experienced a kind of love that is real, deep, and beautiful. I just don't think it is as common as we like to pretend it is.

And perhaps this is why I still believe in the kind of love I have always fantasised about. The kind of love that feels almost like the movies.

I know the movies are fictional. I know real life is not a script. I know there is no perfect person who comes into your life and suddenly everything becomes easy. But I don't think dreaming about beautiful love makes us foolish.

For the romantic ladies who have always imagined Prince Charming coming to sweep them off their feet, I just want to say this: Maybe it will not happen exactly like the movie.

But beautiful love exists.

Love like a storm, Too loud for quiet rooms, Too wild for careful hearts. I believe there is love that can find you exactly where you are. Not where you pretend to be. Not the version of you that has everything together. Not the version that is easy to love. The broken version, The confused version, The version that is still learning.

There is a kind of love that can look at all of that and still say, I want to grow with you.

There is love that sees you.

And I don't mean the kind of person who constantly tells you, I see you. I understand you. I'm here for you, but disappears when life becomes difficult. I mean someone who actually sees you.Someone who can be on the other end of the phone when neither of you has much to say and still makes you feel like you are not alone. Someone who notices when something is wrong before you explain it. Someone who wants to understand you, not just have you. Someone who prays with you and wants you to become better. Someone who wants you to become everything God has said you should be. Someone who doesn't see your growth as a threat to their place in your life.

Because maybe love is not just about how someone makes you feel. it is also about how they make you feel about yourself.

What kind of person are you becoming around the person you say you love?

Because someone can give you butterflies and still make you feel terrible about yourself. Someone can make you feel wanted and still make you feel insecure. Someone can say I love you and still make you question your worth. And maybe that is one of the things we need to talk about when we talk about love.

We have made love so much about the way someone makes us feel.

The butterflies, The excitement, The calls., The texts. The attention, The chemistry, The intensity.

But what happens after the excitement?

Because maybe love is easier to recognise when things are good. The real question is: what does love look like when things are not good?

And I don't mean that love requires you to stay in every situation.

Sometimes you can love someone and still have to leave. Sometimes loving someone does not mean allowing them to keep hurting you. Sometimes love means letting go or setting a boundary. Sometimes love means admitting that two people can love each other and still not be good for each other.

So maybe love is not simply staying.

love is not simply leaving.

love requires wisdom too.

I think about my father whenever I try to understand love.

If there is one love story in my life that I still cannot completely fathom, it is the love my father had for me.

That man was love.

He did not just tell me he loved me. He showed me.

He cared. He provided. He worried about me. He looked out for me. He wanted me to be better. He wanted me to become more. He could see me without me saying a word. He could look at me and know something was wrong. And I don't think I fully understood the depth of his love for me until he died.

There are some things you don't understand while you are still experiencing them.

Sometimes you are living inside a kind of love and you don't realise how rare it is. You think everyone has it. You think it will always be there.

Until one day it isn't.

And then you look back and realise, Oh. So this is what love looked like.

Maybe that is why I have such a complicated relationship with romantic love. Because I know what it feels like to be deeply cared for, and yet I have also spent years trying to understand what romantic love is supposed to look like.

I have had fantasies about soulmates too. I once told someone that I believe when you meet your person, you will know.There is just this knowing. Not necessarily because everything is perfect, but because something in you recognises something in them. I don't think there is anything wrong with hoping that love can be beautiful.

I don't think we should become so cynical because of the things that have hurt us that we stop believing in good things altogether.

And this is not only for women.

Men want to be loved too.

Men want to be seen too. Men want someone who notices when they are not okay. Men want to be able to put their guard down somewhere. Men want to be chosen. Men want someone who believes in them. Men want someone who can look beyond what they provide and see the person providing it. I think sometimes we forget that men are also human beings with soft places. We tell men to be strong, to provide, to protect, to figure things out. But who loves the man when he doesn't know what to do?

Who stays with him when he is struggling?

Maybe men and women are not as different in this as we think. Maybe beneath all the different ways we express it, many of us are simply asking the same question:

Will you stay when you finally see all of me?

I don't think I have the perfect definition of love.

Honestly, I am still searching.

Maybe that is what this whole thing is.

An attempt to understand the things we spend our lives searching for.

But I am beginning to think that love is not just a feeling. It is not just the butterflies or wanting someone. It is not just saying I love you.

Maybe it looks like two imperfect people deciding that they want to keep learning each other, it looks like grace, friendship, family, the love of Christ, the kind of love that finds you exactly where you are and does not leave you there

I don't know.

I am still learning.

But I know I don't want to call everything love anymore.

I don't want to confuse attention with love, or kindness with love, or chemistry with love. I don't want to confuse suffering with love. I don't want to believe that being chosen by someone automatically means I am loved by them. And I don't want my wounds to convince me that genuine love does not exist.

Because it does, it is rare and it takes lots of work, it requires two people who are willing to grow, it requires God.

But I still believe there is a love that sees you.

Being Seen Not just being loved.

Being seen.

Because I am beginning to realise that those two things can exist separately.

Someone can love you deeply and still stop noticing you. Someone can know that they love you and assume you already know it. Someone can become so familiar with you that they stop paying attention to who you are becoming. And that is one of the quietest ways relationships change.

I once heard a man tell a story about his wife that stayed with me. He said his wife used to send him pictures of herself. Sometimes she had just done her nails. Sometimes she had gotten dressed up. Sometimes it was just a random picture of herself.And he would respond.

You look beautiful.

So fine.

I can't wait to get home.

He noticed her. He made her feel seen.

But as life became busier, his responses began to change. Sometimes he would say, I'm busy right now. Sometimes he would respond much later. Sometimes he wouldn't respond at all. And eventually, she stopped sending the pictures. Nothing dramatic happened. She didn't sit him down and say, You don't love me anymore

She knows he does. She just stopped offering those little pieces of herself. One day, they were sitting in the same room. She was across from him, watching something on Instagram and laughing. And he looked at her.

He called her name, and when she looked up, he said, You look so beautiful. She immediately said, Stop. I don't look beautiful. I look horrible. And something hit him.

He realised that somewhere along the way, he had stopped seeing his wife. He still loved her. That wasn't the problem. The problem was that he had become so familiar with her that he had stopped paying attention.

He had stopped noticing the little things she used to share with him. He had stopped saying the things he once said so freely. And without even realising it, she had learned to stop reaching for his attention. So he looked at her again and told her that she still looked exactly like the woman he married. Beautiful. You can see how bright she blush after those words And a few hours later, she went into the room and took another picture of herself.

I think about that story a lot. Because we often assume:

She knows, He knows, they know.

And maybe they do. But knowing does not make hearing it unnecessary. Maybe the people we have loved the longest still deserve to hear what we assume they already know, they still wants to hear that you think they are beautiful, They still deserves to hear that you appreciate them. the person who has been beside you for years still wants to know that you notice them. Because being seen requires us to keep paying attention. It requires curiosity.

Not just when the relationship is exciting, but even after familiarity settles in. Even after the butterflies become ordinary. Even after life becomes busy. Even after you have known each other for years. I don't think being seen is something we achieve once and then keep forever.

We have to keep seeing each other. that is part of what love is. Not simply knowing that someone matters to you, but continuing to notice that they do.

I don't have the perfect definition of love. Maybe nobody does. love is too big to fit into one definition. I know there are things I no longer want to call love. I don't want to believe that being chosen automatically means being loved. And I don't want to believe that because some people have loved badly, genuine love must be hard to find. genuine love is not just about finding someone who loves you. it is finding someone who keeps seeing you. just as importantly, learning to keep seeing them too.

A love that knows you.

A love that challenges you.

A love that prays with you.

After everything, that is what I am really searching for. Not simply someone who will say they love me.

But someone whose life makes me understand what those words mean.

What does your love look like?

Please. Can we talk about financial literacy in real-life, personal situations for a second?

Do you, for one second, think about the fact that some people earn ₦50,000 to ₦100,000 a month?

Because before you tell somebody to save 20% of their income, invest, build an emergency fund, have multiple streams of income and cut unnecessary expenses, can we first talk about what the person is actually earning?

They have rent to pay,Transportation, Food, Family, Responsibilities, Data, Bills. Where exactly does the financial literacy want to start from?

And somehow, they're expected to make all of that money stretch neatly across thirty days because someone on the internet has said they need better financial discipline.

Nigeria is hard.

And I don't mean that in the casual way we say, “Nigeria is hard.” I mean it is genuinely becoming difficult to survive here.

Some months one small health issue is enough to completely destroy whatever financial plan you had. One malaria. Or a family member health Just one stupid Sickness and before you know it You have spend ₦70,000 trying to treat yourself, run tests, buy drugs and do all the things you're supposed to do to get better.

So tell me again about how I should have had an emergency fund. Sometimes the emergency fund is the money I was using to eat. Sometimes the savings I had painstakingly put away for six months is what pays the hospital bill. Sometimes the money I saved for rent is what pays for an emergency. And then someone comes online and says, “You need to be more financially literate.”

My dear, we know that we should save, we shouldn't spend unnecessarily, We know we should budget, invest more, have emergency fund.

But sometimes the problem isn't that we don't know what to do with money.

Sometimes, there simply isn't enough money to do all the things we know we should be doing.

You have ₦80,000.

Rent is there.

Transportation is there.

Food is there.

Data is there.

Family is there.

Bills are there.

Something breaks.

Somebody needs help.

You get sick.

And somehow, you're still supposed to save from that same ₦80,000.

And I'd even like to assume that if you're somehow able to meet some of your responsibilities while earning that little, you're eating one square meal a day with a sprinkle of prayers, faith and hope.

This is the part of the financial literacy conversation that annoys me

The conversation is often so disconnected from the reality of the average person. Because financial advice sounds very different when you have someone sponsoring you.

It sounds different when your parents are paying your rent. It sounds different when someone sends you money every month.

It sounds different when you can call someone when your car breaks down.

It sounds different when ₦30,000 is not the difference between eating for the next few days and not eating.

It sounds different when you have a safety net.

Then you're comparing yourself to somebody who is literally being sponsored.

Why?

Why are we doing that?

It really grinds my gears when people compare themselves to people who are completely out of touch with reality.

You're telling somebody that ₦15,000 is too expensive for a plate of food, and they're telling you,

“Ah, it's cheap now.”

“It's normal.”

Normal for who?

You're telling somebody how ₦30,000 is too much for Uber, and they're telling you,

“Oh, it's normal.”

Again, normal for who?

Because there is a huge difference between what is normal for someone who earns ₦500,000, ₦1 million or has somebody financially supporting them and what is normal for someone trying to survive on ₦70,000 or ₦80,000.

And I'm not saying don't aspire to more.

Please, aspire, Dream, Build, Invest, Make more money, Learn, Grow.

But let's stop pretending that everybody is starting from the same place.

Let's stop making poverty look like a personal failure. Let's stop telling people that if they were just more disciplined, they would somehow be able to magically make ₦70,000 do the work of ₦200,000.

Financial literacy is good.

Having structure is good.

Having discipline is good.

Saving is good.

Budgeting is good.

All of these things matter.

But you cannot budget your way out of poverty, my dear. You cannot.

At some point, income matters.

At some point, the conversation has to move beyond “cut your expenses” to “how do we increase your income?”

Because there is only so much cutting you can do.

You can't cut rent to zero.

You can't cut transportation to zero.

You can't stop eating.

You can't stop paying for data when your work, school or business depends on the internet.

You can't tell your family that you're practising financial discipline, so everybody should please stop needing things. Life doesn't work that way.

And sometimes, when you don't have sponsors, when you don't have family money, when you don't have somebody you can call when things go wrong, you are not building wealth.

You're trying to survive.

That's the reality. And I'm not taking myself out of this conversation either. Because the only thing some of us are truly literate in is survival.

We just know how to survive. We know how to stretch ₦10,000.

We know how to remove one thing from a shopping list and add another. We know how to eat what is available. We know how to postpone what can be postponed.

We know how to hustle.

We know how to pray.

We know how to hope.

We know how to wake up the next morning and somehow figure it out again.

That is a kind of financial literacy too.

It may not be the kind that gets taught in personal finance books, but it is the kind that comes from living. So when you talk about financial literacy, please put the average man in the picture.

Put the person earning ₦50,000 in the picture.

Put the person earning ₦70,000 in the picture.

Put the person earning ₦80,000 in the picture.

Put the person earning ₦100,000 in the picture.

Put the person paying rent in the picture.

Put the person taking public transportation in the picture. Put the person sending money home in the picture. Put everyone in the picture.

Because if your financial advice only works when the person has enough money left over after meeting all their basic needs, then you're not really talking about financial literacy.

You're talking about financial privilege.

And there's a difference.

It is so annoying seeing some of these conversations because then somebody will say,

If you're not thinking about the average man, the average Nigerian, the person who is genuinely trying to make ends meet, then I genuinely think you're not making sense

Because sometimes people don't need another lecture about budgeting.

Sometimes they need a better-paying job.

Sometimes they need opportunities.

Sometimes they need support.

Sometimes they just need enough money to breathe. So yes, let's talk about financial literacy.

Let's also talk about poverty, Let's talk about the economy, Let's talk about what it actually costs to live, Let's talk about the average person.

Again I say Because you cannot budget your way out of poverty. And pretending otherwise doesn't make you financially literates.

For a long time, there was a certain order to life. You went to school, got a job, got married, had children, built a home, and settled into the life everyone expected you to have. There was a timeline attached to adulthood, and deviating from that timeline came with questions.

“When are you getting married?”

“Your mates are already married.”

“You're getting old.”

And for many people, those questions were enough to make marriage feel less like a personal decision and more like an achievement they were running late to accomplish. But something has changed.

People are beginning to question the idea that there is one correct timeline for everybody.

This generation seems increasingly interested in becoming people before becoming someone's spouse.

People are taking the time to understand themselves. They are thinking about discipline, emotional awareness, personal values, priorities, boundaries, childhood experiences and the kind of person they actually are.

There is more conversation around healing. More conversations about self-awareness. More people are asking themselves difficult questions about the lives they want instead of simply accepting the lives that were handed to them. And maybe that is one of the reasons marriage is happening later.

People are building.

They want financial stability. They want independence. They want careers. Some want to reach certain heights professionally before settling down. Some want to be able to provide for themselves before taking responsibility for another person. And honestly, can we blame them?

The economy is not exactly making adulthood easier.

The cost of living keeps increasing. Housing is expensive. Feeding a family is expensive. Raising children is expensive. Building a life with another person requires more than simply being in love. Love matters, but so does stability. And then there is another reality we cannot ignore: the normalization of relationships outside traditional marriage.

The baby-mama and baby-daddy culture exists. Cohabitation has become normal for many people. Some couples live together for years, build a life together and have children without ever formally getting married.

Having children outside marriage is no longer met with the same level of shock and judgment it once was.

Whether we agree with these changes or not, they are happening. And they have changed the way people think about marriage. For some people, marriage is still the ultimate goal. For others, it is one part of life, not the definition of life. And I think that distinction is important.

Because marriage is not the only evidence that a person has succeeded. A woman being unmarried at 35 does not automatically mean her life is incomplete. A man being unmarried at 40 does not automatically mean he failed at adulthood. Someone can be single and financially stable. Someone can be single and deeply fulfilled. Someone can be single and surrounded by meaningful relationships, purpose, friendships, family, faith and work that gives their life meaning. Marriage can be beautiful. But marriage is not an award. It is not a certificate that says, “Congratulations, you finally made it.”

And this is where I think societal pressure becomes dangerous. When we grow up being taught that marriage is the ultimate milestone, it becomes very easy to confuse marriage with achievement. We start looking at someone else's wedding pictures and thinking they are ahead of us. We see someone having their second child and suddenly feel like we are behind. Someone buys a house, someone gets married, someone announces a pregnancy, someone gets promoted, and we begin measuring our own lives against theirs. But life is not a school where everyone is supposed to get admitted in the same year and graduate at the same time. There is no universal timetable for becoming who you are supposed to become.

Some people will marry at 24.

Some at 31.

Some at 38.

Some may never marry.

And while we should be careful not to romanticize singleness or pretend that everyone who delays marriage is doing so because they are consciously choosing self-development, we should also stop assuming that everyone who is unmarried is lost, unserious or waiting to be rescued. Sometimes people are simply living.

They are figuring themselves out.

They are building careers.

They are recovering from things they don't talk about.

They are learning how to manage money.

They are discovering what they actually want in a partner.

And perhaps that is one of the biggest differences between this generation and the generations before us.

We are asking more questions.

Why? Some of those questions will lead people to better decisions. Some will lead people to mistakes.

Some people will use “finding themselves” as an excuse to avoid responsibility. Some will genuinely use their twenties and thirties to build healthier, more intentional lives. Both realities can exist at the same time.

But the bigger conversation is not whether this generation is getting married too late. we should be asking why we became so obsessed with the idea that everybody must arrive at the same destination at the same time.

Marriage should be a choice, not a panic response.

People should not be choosing life partners because they are terrified of being the only unmarried person at the family gathering. They should not be marrying because their parents are getting older and demanding grandchildren. They should not be marrying because their friends are moving on and they feel left behind.

And they certainly should not be marrying simply because society has decided that their age has made them overdue. There is nothing wrong with wanting marriage.

There is nothing wrong with wanting children.

There is also nothing wrong with wanting to build yourself first. Maybe the healthiest thing this generation can do is learn that there is a difference between being behind and simply being on a different path.

Marriage is beautiful when it is entered with intention.

But so is a life built with purpose.

So if this really becomes the generation with the highest number of unmarried people in their 30s and 40s, history will not simply remember us as the generation that refused to get married. it will remember us as the generation that started asking what a fulfilled life actually means. And maybe, just maybe, that question is more important than the timeline we were given.

At some point, I almost gave up. But I just kept telling myself that one day, my writing would get to the people it was meant to get to. When I joined Substack, I didn't want my writing to just be there without it meaning something to people. I didn't want to see 50 likes and no one actually relating to what I was saying. I wanted people to be able to read something I wrote and say, “I understand this.” I wanted people to see things from the way I was explaining them. I wanted my writing to actually connect with people. And one thing I've learnt over time is consistency. Just keep showing up. Someone recently asked me on Substack because they had just joined and wanted to know how to go about it.

And I told them one thing: Just keep showing up. Sincerely. That's honestly it for me. There were posts where I was the only person who liked my own post. But I never gave up. I kept showing up. I kept posting. I kept writing. And today, I'm here celebrating 200 subscribers.

I know 200 might not look like a lot to some people, but to me, it is actually something big. Because I remember when there was nobody. Now there are 200 people who have subscribed to my writing. 200 people who have decided to stay and read what I have to say. I remember seeing someone post on Substack that they didn't want 1,000 or 3,000 people following them without actually engaging with what they post. They would rather have 10 people who genuinely read, react and relate to their work. And I could relate to that so much. That's the kind of community I want to build. Not just numbers. I want people who actually connect with what I write. And I think, so far, I've found some of those people here. So, to everyone who has subscribed, thank you.

To everyone who stayed, thank you.

To everyone who has read my posts, reacted, commented, shared or restacked my posts, thank you.

You guys are really the real MVPs. 😂❤️

And to the person who is still at zero subscribers, or two, or three, and you're wondering if anybody will ever notice your writing just keep showing up. You never can tell when your people will find you.

Because they will. Just keep showing up. ❤️

We get older. We leave the house. We go to school. We get jobs. We make friends. We fall in love. We become adults. And because we can talk about what happened without crying, we assume we have healed from it.

But sometimes the child grows up while the wound doesn't. It follows us quietly.

It shows up in the way we love people. In the way we receive affection. In the way we react when someone gets too close. In how quickly we detach when someone threatens to leave. Sometimes trauma doesn't make you cling to people. Sometimes it makes you believe you don't need anyone. You become so good at surviving alone that needing people begins to feel unnecessary. You become so accustomed to disappointment that losing people no longer scares you. Someone can walk out of your life and, instead of asking them to stay, a part of you simply says, I've survived worse. And perhaps that is one of the most complicated things about childhood trauma. It doesn't always announce itself as pain. Sometimes, it looks like strength.We learn what love is before we are old enough to question it Children don't have the emotional vocabulary to understand everything happening around them. They don't know how to say, This environment is shaping the way I will understand relationships for the rest of my life.They simply experience things.

They watch, They absorb, They learn.

A child who grows up around inconsistency may learn that love is unpredictable.

A child who experiences conditional affection may grow into an adult who believes love must be earned.

A child whose vulnerability was mocked or punished may become an adult who finds it difficult to open up.

A child who was repeatedly disappointed may become an adult who expects disappointment before it happens.

And sometimes, the most painful part is that we don't even realize we are carrying these lessons.

We simply call them our personality.

“I'm just independent.”

“I'm not emotional.”

“I don't get attached.”

“I don't care if people leave.

”Perhaps.

But sometimes, there is a story underneath those statements.

Sometimes independence is a survival strategy

There is nothing wrong with being independent.

Being able to take care of yourself is a beautiful thing.

But there is a difference between knowing you can survive alone and believing you must always survive alone.

Some people become so accustomed to handling everything themselves that receiving help begins to feel uncomfortable.

And when someone offers to help, they may reject it not because they don't appreciate the person, but because somewhere along the way, depending on people stopped feeling safe.

This is how survival can disguise itself as strength.

You become proud of how little you need from people.

You don't realize that sometimes, the ability to need nobody can also become the inability to let anybody in.

And then there is the difficulty of receiving love

We often talk about people who don't know how to love.

But I think there are also people who don't know how to receive love.

Someone loves them, and they don't know what to do with it. Someone is kind to them, and they become suspicious.

Someone consistently shows up for them, and instead of relaxing into the safety of it, they begin waiting for the other shoe to drop. Someone says, “I'm here for you,” and a part of them wonders how long that will last.

It isn't necessarily that they don't want love.

They may want it desperately.

They just don't know how to exist inside it.

Because love requires vulnerability.

And vulnerability requires trust.

And trust can be difficult for someone who learned early that the people closest to you can also be the people who hurt you. So they keep one foot outside the door.

They love you, but they are already preparing for your departure.

They care about you, but they have rehearsed life without you.

They want you close, but they are afraid of needing you.

And when you eventually leave, they may look completely unaffected.

Not because you meant nothing.

But because they have spent years teaching themselves that they will be okay without you.

Some of us learned how to leave before we learned how to stay

There are people who can walk away from relationships with remarkable ease.

The moment something feels wrong, they are gone.

The moment they sense rejection, they reject first.

It can look like confidence. Sometimes it is.

But sometimes it is fear wearing confidence as a disguise.

Because if you have already experienced abandonment, rejection, neglect, or betrayal, leaving first can feel safer than being left.

If I leave first, you cannot leave me.

If I don't become attached, you cannot hurt me.

If I don't expect anything from you, you cannot disappoint me.

These are not always conscious decisions.

Sometimes they are instincts we developed when we were too young to understand what was happening to us.

And the difficult part is that the thing that once protected us can eventually become the thing that prevents us from experiencing the intimacy we actually desire.

Childhood ends. Sometimes the trauma doesn't.

Growing older does not automatically make us emotionally older.

We can become adults with jobs, responsibilities, relationships, bills, degrees and beautiful lives while still carrying beliefs formed by a much younger version of ourselves.

The child who was never allowed to speak may become an adult who struggles to express their needs.

The child who had to grow up too quickly may become an adult who finds it difficult to ask for help.

The child who learned that affection could disappear may become an adult who constantly questions whether they are truly loved.

The child who was hurt may become an adult who cannot understand why being loved feels frightening.

And sometimes people around them don't understand.

They see the reaction but not the history behind it.

Someone who says, “I'm fine,” even when they clearly aren't. But there is usually a story behind the behaviour.

Not an excuse. A story. Understanding that distinction matters.

Our trauma may explain some of our patterns, but it doesn't mean we have to remain trapped inside them.

Healing doesn't always look like forgetting

I don't think healing means reaching a point where nothing that happened to you matters anymore.

Some things leave marks. Some experiences change the way you see the world permanently.

But perhaps healing is learning that what happened to you does not have to dictate everything that happens next.

It is learning that not everyone who loves you will hurt you.

That needing someone doesn't make you weak.

That receiving kindness does not always come with a price.

That vulnerability is not the same thing as helplessness.

That someone leaving does not mean you were unworthy of being loved

Healing can be learning to stay when your instinct tells you to run.

It can be saying, “I need help,” when everything inside you is screaming that you should handle it yourself.

It can be allowing someone to care for you without immediately questioning their intentions.

It can be learning how to give love without constantly protecting yourself from the possibility of losing it.

And sometimes healing is simply noticing the pattern.

Because you cannot change what you refuse to see.

Maybe we are not as unaffected as we think

There is a particular kind of strength that comes from surviving difficult things.

You become resilient.

You learn to pick yourself.

You learn that people can leave and you will still wake up the next morning. You learn that you can lose things and keep going.

But survival can teach us something dangerous too.

It can teach us to measure everything by whether or not we can survive it.

Maybe you really have survived worse.

Being independent does not mean you should never need anyone. Being strong does not mean you should never be held.

And being able to live without love is not the same thing as being healed enough to receive it.

Perhaps growing up isn't only about becoming old enough to leave childhood behind.

Perhaps it is also about going back to the parts of ourselves that never got the chance to feel safe there.

Because some of us became adults who are very good at surviving.

We know how to leave.

We know how to endure.

We know how to say, “I'll be fine.

How to receive.

How to let someone love us without waiting for the moment they hurt us.

Maybe that is another part of healing not just learning how to survive what happened to us, but learning that our past does not have to be the only language we understand for love.

We look at where they are, what they have, what they are becoming, the doors opening for them, the recognition they are receiving, and suddenly, we begin to question our own journey.

Why am I not there yet?

Why does it seem like everyone is moving forward except me? Why am I not being noticed?

Why does their life seem to be progressing while mine feels stagnant?

God, what is happening with me?

These questions are not always born out of jealousy. Sometimes, they come from weariness. From waiting. From watching people around you receive the very things you have been praying for.

And if we are not careful, comparison can make us overlook everything God has already done in us.

There will be moments in our walk with God when things will not make sense. There will be seasons where you will feel unseen, unappreciated, delayed, or even forgotten. There will be moments when you look around and wonder why someone else's journey appears easier than yours.

But we must remember this:

Your journey was never designed to look like someone else's.

We have different paths, different seasons, different assignments, different battles, different lessons and, ultimately, different destinations.

What God is doing in another person's life is not a measurement of what He is doing in yours.

Sometimes, we become so focused on what others are receiving that we fail to recognize what we have been receiving all along. We become so distracted by another person's celebration that we forget the things God has been building in us quietly.

And perhaps that is one of the most dangerous things about comparison: it can make a blessing feel small simply because someone else seems to have more.

You can be having a beautiful season with God and still allow one unpleasant moment to make you question everything.

One disappointment.

One unanswered prayer.

One rejection.

One missed opportunity.

One moment of feeling unseen.

And suddenly, you begin to forget the lessons, the growth, the grace, the strength and the blessings that came before it.

But one unpleasant moment should not be allowed to rewrite the entire story.

Life will give us many reasons to lose focus. There will always be something happening around us that can make us question our direction. Someone will be celebrating while you are waiting. Someone will be getting married while you are still praying. Someone will be getting promoted while you are still trying to figure things out. Someone will be receiving recognition while your efforts seem invisible.

And it is okay to ask questions.

It is okay to say, “God, I don't understand this.”

It is okay to admit that you are tired.

But while asking those questions, we must be careful not to abandon trust.

Because delay is not proof that God has forgotten you.

Silence is not proof that He is absent.

And someone else's progress is not evidence of your failure.

We all have different journeys.

Some things will happen quickly for some people and slowly for others. Some will receive their reward in ways that are visible, while others will spend years being shaped in places nobody sees.

But the destination is not determined by how quickly someone else gets there.

So perhaps the question is not, “Why am I not where they are?”

Perhaps the better question is:

“What is God teaching me where I am?”

There is freedom in realizing that you do not have to compete with another person's timeline.

You do not have to rush because someone else is ahead.

You do not have to despise your portion because someone else's portion looks bigger.

You do not have to question your worth because someone else received the recognition you hoped for.

Your journey is yours.

And if God is leading you, then even the seasons you do not understand can still be part of the story He is writing.

Keep walking.

Keep learning.

Keep trusting.

Keep your eyes on Jesus.

Because everybody has a journey, everybody has a process, and everybody has a destination.

Your journey is not mine, and mine is not yours.

And perhaps the greatest peace comes from finally understanding that you do not need to measure your journey by the milestones of another person.

You only need to remain faithful to yours.

I think we have misunderstood healing.

We speak about it as though it is a destination. A place we eventually arrive at after enough time, enough tears, enough prayer, enough distance from the thing that hurt us.

We say, I have healed. As though healing means the memory no longer aches.

As though the past becomes harmless once enough years have passed.

But what if it doesn't?

What if there are things we will carry for the rest of our lives?

Not because we are refusing to heal.

Not because we enjoy living in the past.

But because some things leave behind a kind of grief that does not completely disappear.

I have come to believe that there is a difference between healing and forgetting.

There is a difference between moving forward and leaving everything behind.

You can move forward and still look back sometimes.

You can build a beautiful life and still grieve the life you never got to live.

You can become a completely different person and still wonder who you would have been if certain things had never happened to you.

And I think we should be allowed to say that.

We should be allowed to admit that something hurt us without immediately being told that it is time to let it go.

Sometimes, we are so desperate to prove that we have healed that we begin to lie about how much we were hurt.

We turn deep wounds into lessons.

We turn grief into gratitude.

We turn painful memories into inspirational captions.

And suddenly, we are no longer allowed to say,

This broke something in me.

Because everyone wants the healed version of the story.

Nobody wants to sit with the part where it still hurts.

But healing does not always make the pain disappear.

Sometimes it simply changes our relationship with the pain. Maybe the wound is still there, but it no longer controls every decision we make.

Maybe we still remember, but the memory no longer owns us.

Maybe we still grieve, but we have learned how to keep living alongside the grief.

And perhaps that is enough. Because there are things healing cannot give back.

It cannot return lost years.

It cannot rewrite certain memories.

It cannot introduce us to the versions of ourselves that never got the chance to exist.

It cannot undo what someone did.

It cannot make us unhurt.

And perhaps we need to stop asking healing to do what only time can teach us to accept.

Some things cannot be changed.

Some people cannot be made into the people we needed them to be.

Some chapters will always have painful endings.

Some versions of ourselves will always be missed.

And that doesn't mean we have failed at healing.

It means we are human.

I think healing begins with honesty.

With being brave enough to say,

This hurt me, This changed me.

There are parts of this I may grieve for a very long time.

Without shame.

Without rushing to attach a lesson to it.

Without forcing ourselves to find beauty in something that was genuinely painful.

Perhaps healing is not becoming someone who was never wounded.

Perhaps it is becoming someone who no longer has to hide the wound.

Because maybe the goal was never to get everything back. Maybe the goal is to build a life so full that the things we lost are no longer the only things we can see.

There will always be things healing cannot give back.

And perhaps we don't have to pretend otherwise.

Perhaps we can grieve them. And then,

with the grief still somewhere inside us,

we can keep going.

One says, “Dad was so strict.”

Another says, “Really? I never experienced him that way.

One says, Mum was always there for me.

Another quietly wonders, “Why wasn't she that way with me?”

Sometimes, the question isn't whether your parents loved you.

Sometimes, the question is:

Which version of your parent did you get?

I remember hearing someone tell a woman that her father loved her sister more than her. When she spoke to her sister about it, her sister couldn't understand. To her, their father had been strict with everyone.

And that stayed with me.

Because two children can have the same parents and still have completely different childhoods.

One remembers protection.

Another remembers pressure.

One remembers affection.

Another remembers distance.

One remembers encouragement.

Another remembers constantly trying to prove they were worthy of the same attention.

And sometimes, neither child is lying.

They simply experienced different versions of the same parent.

Birth order can sometimes shape this too.

The first child often arrives when everything is new. Parents are learning for the first time careful, anxious, attentive, sometimes overly protective.

Sometimes, that first child receives a kind of attention later children don't.

Then comes the next child.

By then, the parents have learned some things. They are more experienced, life may be busier, and because this child seems “fine” or “strong enough,” they may receive less attention.

Comparison replaces attention.

“Look at your sibling.”

“You should know better.”

The child who is always expected to be okay can eventually become the child nobody checks on.

And then there is the last child.

Sometimes, the parents are simply tired. They have learned to loosen their grip, and rules that once seemed non-negotiable become negotiable.

Leniency takes over.

And suddenly, siblings are not only growing up with different personalities.

They are growing up with different parenting experiences.

Then there are the labels. This one is like me, That one takes after their father.

We sometimes forget that children are not characters we are assigning roles to.

When a child is repeatedly called “the difficult one,” they may eventually believe difficult is who they are.

When one is constantly compared to another, they may grow up feeling that their sibling's existence is proof of their inadequacy.

“Why can't you be more like your brother?”

But what if your brother was never supposed to be your motivation?

What if you were simply supposed to be you?

Parents, your children do not need you to love them identically.

They need you to see them individually.

Fairness doesn't always mean giving every child the exact same thing. Sometimes, it means noticing what each child needs and meeting them there.

One may need reassurance. Another may need correction.

Another may need affection. Another may simply need someone to ask, “How are you really doing?”

And to the sibling who grew up wondering whether your parents loved your brother or sister more:

Maybe they didn't know how to love you in the way you needed. Maybe their capacity was limited.

Maybe they were parenting from what they knew, inherited, survived, or were taught.

That may explain it….But it does not define your worth.

The love you did not receive in childhood is not evidence that you were unlovable.

And perhaps one of the most beautiful things about growing up is realizing that you don't have to spend your life waiting for your parents to give you what they couldn't.

Some of what was missing can be rebuilt.In friendship.

In healthy relationships. In community.

In the way you learn to speak to yourself.

And someday, perhaps, in the way you raise your own children.

Because healing isn't only about acknowledging what happened to us.Sometimes, healing is deciding:

“It ends with me.”

Because children don't only remember whether their parents loved them.

They remember how that love felt.

And perhaps the question we should ask ourselves isn't only:

“Did my parents love me?”

But:

“Which parent did I get and what kind of parent will I become because of it?”

For many feminists and women, patriarchy has become almost synonymous with oppression. And I understand why. In many societies, including Nigeria, men have traditionally occupied positions of authority, while women have often been expected to submit, follow, and remain in the background. For many women, this isn't merely a concept they have read about. It has been their lived experience.

So when they hear the word patriarchy, they hear inequality.

But what if, before we decide what patriarchy has become, we go back to where the idea of the man as the head of the family began especially from a biblical perspective?

In the beginning, God created Adam and Eve.

He did not create two people without purpose. He gave them responsibilities. Adam was placed in the garden and entrusted with the responsibility of tending it. Eve was created as his companion and helper.

From the very beginning, there was an order of responsibility.

But I think somewhere along the way, we began to confuse leadership with superiority.

And I don't believe the problem is simply that men lead.

My concern begins when leadership becomes a reason to silence, limit, control, or overlook women.

Because there are countless women whose gifts, intelligence, wisdom, and capacity for leadership have been diminished simply because of cultural expectations about what women should or should not do.

As a Christian, I believe the Bible teaches wives to submit to their husbands. I don't reject that teaching.

But I also don't believe submission means that a woman's voice, potential, intelligence, or value suddenly disappears.

A woman can submit to her husband and still be wise.

She can honour his leadership and still have a voice.

She can support him and still contribute.

She can be a wife and still lead, build, create, teach, influence, and excel in the areas God has gifted her.

Leadership and dignity should exist together, not compete with one another.

And perhaps this is where we need to rethink what biblical leadership actually means.

When we hear the words head, leader, or authority, we can easily interpret them as, “This is the person who controls everybody else.”

But biblical leadership was never supposed to be merely about having the final word.

Look at Abraham. God didn't call him simply to become a powerful man. He gave him a responsibility to become the father of a people and to teach his household to walk in righteousness and justice.

Look at Joseph. His position of authority eventually placed him in a position to preserve lives during famine.

Look at Moses. Leadership meant carrying the burden of an entire people.

Again and again, the men we see leading in Scripture were given responsibility alongside authority.

And I think that distinction is important.

Because authority without responsibility is simply privilege.

If a man says, “I am the head,” but sees that position only as a reason to be obeyed, served, and respected while he takes no responsibility for the people entrusted to him, then what he has is not healthy leadership.

It is privilege without accountability.

But responsibility without authority can also become a burden.

So when we talk about patriarchy from a biblical perspective, I think we have to be careful not to reduce it to “men are above women.”

That isn't the whole picture.

The man was expected to carry responsibility for his household. He was expected to provide, protect, teach, guide, and take responsibility for the way he led.

And Scripture doesn't present women as invisible either.

Deborah was a judge and leader in Israel.

Esther was a queen who used her position and courage to save her people.

Abigail demonstrated extraordinary wisdom and intervened to prevent David from making a terrible decision.

Priscilla was involved in teaching and explaining the faith.

And the woman described in Proverbs 31 was hardly a woman sitting quietly in the background. She bought land, conducted business, managed her household, provided for her family, and was respected for her wisdom.

So perhaps the biblical picture is bigger than simply:

“The man leads and the woman follows.”

Perhaps it is about responsibility, partnership, service, wisdom, and accountability.

And this is where my question about patriarchy begins to change.

I'm not asking:

“Should men lead?”

I'm asking:

“What kind of men are we asking to lead?”

The man who sees leadership as a privilege to control and oppress?

Or the man who sees leadership as a responsibility to serve?

The man who demands respect simply because he is a man?

Or the man whose character makes him worthy of respect?

The man who uses authority to silence?

Or the man whose authority creates safety?

The man who says, “I am the head, so you must do what I say,”?

Or the man who understands that being the head means he has been entrusted with something he must be accountable for?

Because perhaps this is where the conversation about patriarchy should begin.

Not with men versus women.

Not with whether women should be silent.

Not with whether men are superior.

But with responsibility.

If we are going to talk about the authority men have historically been given, then we must also talk about the responsibility that should come with that authority.

Because leadership is not merely the privilege of being followed.

Leadership is the responsibility of carrying, serving, protecting, guiding, and being accountable for those entrusted to you.

And perhaps the question isn't whether men should lead.

Perhaps the question is:

What kind of men are we asking to lead?

We say, “I'm tired,” and assume it's because we worked too many hours today.

Maybe it is.

But sometimes, I don't think we are tired because of what we did today.

I think we are tired because we have been standing for too long.

Standing through disappointments, financial struggles, unanswered prayers, uncertainty, rejection, and the pressure to become something while life keeps reminding us that we are not there yet.

We wake up every morning and do it again.

We work. We hustle. We create. We apply. We learn. We show up. We try again.

We tell ourselves that one day, all of this will make sense. One day, we'll wake up and finally be living the life we've spent years working toward.

One day, money won't be something we constantly worry about. One day, we will be able to afford the things we want without calculating what they will take away from something else. One day, maybe we will finally breathe.

But what happens when you keep working and “one day” keeps moving further away?

That's the part nobody really talks about.

We've been taught to believe that hard work eventually produces a beautiful life. So we work harder. And when it doesn't happen, we assume perhaps we haven't done enough.

So we do more.

Until one day, we realise that we are exhausted—not because of the work we did today, but because we've been fighting for our lives for years.

There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from constantly trying to improve your circumstances.

You aren't lazy. You aren't unserious. You aren't without ambition.

You're simply tired of having to fight so hard for things that seem to come naturally to other people.

Tired of calculating everything. Tired of postponing the things you want. Tired of always having to figure it out. Tired of being strong because there is nobody else available to be strong for you.

And perhaps one of the loneliest parts is needing help and not finding it.

Sometimes, you don't want another motivational speech about how resilient you are. You don't want to hear that your breakthrough is coming.

You just want someone to say,

“Come here. I've got you for a little while.”

But what happens when nobody comes?

You keep going.

That's what many of us have become very good at keeping going.

Even when our bodies hurt. Even when our bank accounts don't reflect the amount of work we've put in. Even when the dream we've been praying about still looks blurry.

We keep showing up because stopping feels like failure. And sometimes, we're afraid that if we stop, everything will fall apart.

So we keep standing.

Until our bodies are begging for rest and our hearts are begging for evidence that all this effort is actually leading somewhere.

I think about how many young people are living like this.

People working, studying, building businesses, supporting families, trying to become financially independent, healing from things nobody sees, and carrying responsibilities they never expected to carry.

People trying to build the life their younger selves imagined while barely having enough energy to get through the present.

And the hardest part is that sometimes you can be doing everything right and still not see the results you hoped for.

You can be disciplined and still struggle.

You can be hardworking and still be broke.

You can be talented and still be overlooked.

You can be honest and still be disadvantaged.

You can pray and still have to wait.

You can keep showing up and still not see the life you're working toward.

That doesn't mean your effort is meaningless.

It means we need to stop pretending that effort makes the journey painless.

Sometimes, becoming costs more than we expected. Sometimes, the distance between where we are and where we want to be feels unbearably long.

And sometimes, what we need isn't another reminder to work harder.

Sometimes, we need help.

Real help. A hand. An opportunity. A person who sees our potential and makes room for it. Someone who doesn't just tell us to be strong but actually helps us carry something.

Because strength is beautiful, but having to be strong all the time is exhausting.

I'm beginning to believe that the goal of life shouldn't be to prove how much suffering we can endure.

We should want more than survival.

We should want a life with enough room to breathe to experience joy, love, rest, mistakes, growth, and all the ordinary things that make us human.

And maybe that's what many of us really mean when we say we want a better life.

Not necessarily luxury.

Not necessarily millions.

Just a life where every day doesn't feel like a battle. A life where an unexpected expense doesn't destroy your entire month. A life where you can help the people you love without becoming empty yourself. A life where your dreams don't feel like distant places you visit only in your imagination.

I don't know exactly when the life we are working toward will arrive.

I don't know when the prayers will become answers or when the sacrifices will finally make sense.

But I know this:

You are allowed to be tired of standing.

You are allowed to admit that you need help. You are allowed to rest without calling yourself lazy. You are allowed to want someone to hold you for a while.

And maybe, sometimes, resting isn't about giving up.

Maybe it is about remembering that we were never meant to carry everything alone.

The Bible tells us to cast our cares upon God because He cares for us.

I love that because casting our cares on God doesn't mean that the moment we pray, every problem disappears.

Sometimes, we cast the care and the situation remains.

The bill is still there.

The uncertainty is still there.

The unanswered prayer is still unanswered.

Tomorrow still has its own troubles waiting for us.

But something changes in us.

Casting our cares on God is an act of trust. It is like resting your weight on someone because you believe they are strong enough to hold you.

You may not know how tomorrow will work out, but you know you don't have to carry tomorrow tonight.

Resting in God doesn't mean every trouble has been settled.

It means that even when the trouble isn't settled, you don't have to face it alone.

It gives you the courage to get up tomorrow.

It gives you strength to continue.

It gives you permission to breathe.

So perhaps, after all the standing, working, hoping, and trying, we need to learn how to rest too.

Not because we have stopped believing in the life we desire.

Not because we are giving up.

But because sometimes the strongest thing we can do is put down what we cannot carry, place it in God's hands, and trust that even when we cannot see the way forward, He can.

Maybe we haven't arrived yet.

Maybe the life we're working toward is still taking shape somewhere beyond what we can currently see.

But tonight, we don't have to figure everything out.

We can rest.

We can breathe.

We can cast our cares on the One who cares for us.

And tomorrow, when we are ready, we can stand again not because we aren't tired, but because we know we don't have to stand alone.

Personally, I believe dating should be intentional. To me, dating is not merely about emotions or chemistry. It is a season of discernment a time to discover whether two people are truly compatible for the lifelong commitment of marriage.

I often ask one question:

Who are you dating?

Not because of status or appearance, but because the person you choose to marry will influence almost every part of your future.

Can this person be trusted with your heart?

Can they raise children with wisdom and love?

Will they encourage your growth instead of limiting it?

If one day you're no longer here, would you have peace knowing this person is raising your children?

Those are difficult questions, but they matter.

Marriage doesn't begin on the wedding day. In many ways, it begins in the decisions we make while dating. The conversations we avoid during dating often become the conflicts we face in marriage.

As a Christian, I also believe marriage is more than a legal contract or a romantic partnership. I see marriage as a ministry. It is two people choosing to build a home where love, character, faith, and purpose can flourish.

That is why I don't believe marriage should require either person to abandon the purpose God has placed on their life. A healthy marriage should create space for both husband and wife to become more of who God has called them to be, while together raising children who will also fulfil their own God-given purpose.

One quote that has stayed with me says:

"A broken relationship is better than a broken marriage."

I think there is wisdom in that. If, during dating, you discover that your values, direction, or vision for life are fundamentally incompatible, it is better to acknowledge that honestly than to hope marriage will fix what dating has already revealed.

Ultimately, healthy marriages don't happen by accident. They are built through intentional choices long before the wedding ceremony.

And when we build healthier marriages, we create healthier families. Healthier families raise healthier children. Healthier children become healthier adults.

For me, that's why this conversation matters. Parenting doesn't begin when a baby is born. In many ways, it begins with the person we choose to build a life with.

"I grew up seeing things I really never want to be like."

Some of us learnt love by watching people who did not know how to love each other. We learnt parenting from parents who were trying to survive more than they were trying to understand. We learnt conflict through raised voices, affection through silence, and discipline through fear.

Long before we became adults, we had already made quiet promises to ourselves.

When I become a parent, I will never speak like this.

When I have a home of my own, it will never feel like this.

We were children making vows in rooms where no one knew we were paying attention.

The truth is that every generation inherits something. Some inherit wealth. Others inherit trauma. Some inherit healthy love. Others inherit wounds disguised as tradition.

But inheritance is not destiny.

Growing older has taught me that I have a choice. I can become a continuation of everything that hurt me, or I can become the interruption. I can repeat what I witnessed because it is familiar, or I can build something unfamiliar because it is healthier.

Changing the world rarely begins with loud revolutions. Sometimes it begins with a parent who apologises to their child. A husband who refuses to raise his hand because that is all he ever saw growing up. A mother who chooses conversation over humiliation. A daughter who decides that love should never feel like fear.

Healing is not pretending the past never happened. Healing is refusing to make someone else's future look like your past.

Perhaps this is how generations change not because we were raised perfectly, but because we became brave enough to ask difficult questions, challenge inherited patterns, and choose differently.

Maybe the greatest gift we can leave behind is not perfection.

Maybe it is a family tree where the pain finally stops with us.

I was wrong.

The deepest wound is regret.

Because grief, for all its violence, is merciful enough to change. It arrives like a storm, tearing through everything it touches, but eventually, it grows tired. It learns to whisper instead of scream. It settles quietly into the forgotten corners of our lives, becoming a scar we absentmindedly trace instead of a wound that bleeds.

Regret is not so merciful.

Regret never grows tired.

It never lowers its voice.

It waits.

Patiently.

Until the world is asleep and there is nowhere left to run. Then it pulls up a chair beside your bed and begins asking questions no soul was ever meant to answer.

What if you had stayed?

What if you had left sooner?

What if you had spoken when silence was costing you everything?

What if you had chosen yourself before the world taught you to disappear?

What if you had learned to love yourself deeply enough that you never begged for love from empty hands?

And the tragedy is this:

Life never answers.

It simply keeps moving.

The clock never apologises for the minutes it steals. Yesterday never turns around. Time has never once looked back to ask if we were ready.

There are no rehearsals.

No rewinds.

No second versions of the same life.

Only the unbearable knowledge that somewhere, hidden inside the person you are today, lives every version of the person you never became.

Perhaps that is why regret cuts deeper than grief.

Grief mourns what was taken.

Regret mourns what was abandoned.

Grief buries the dead.

Regret buries the living the dreams that never breathed, the words that never escaped trembling lips, the love withheld, the forgiveness delayed, the courage postponed until there was no tomorrow left to hold it.

How heavy it must be to spend a lifetime haunted not by ghosts, but by possibilities.

To remember every door you were too afraid to open.

Every goodbye you never said.

Every I love you that remained trapped behind pride.

Every version of yourself you betrayed just to become acceptable to people who were never going to choose you anyway.

So speak. Before silence becomes your native language.

Love.Before fear convinces you that your heart was made only to survive.

Leave…If staying is slowly teaching you how to disappear.

Forgive. Even if the apology never comes.

Live. Not perfectly but honestly.

Choose the frightening truth over the comforting lie.

Choose the uncertain road over the familiar prison.

Choose yourself before life chooses for you.

Because one day grief may loosen its grip.

One day the tears may stop arriving uninvited.

One day your heart may finally remember how to laugh without asking permission.

But regret...

Regret is the echo of every unlived life.

And some echoes never stop.

I couldn't finish the video…Not because there was blood.

Not because there was violence.

But because there was something far more familiar.

A mother looked at her 22-year-old daughter and called her useless. She reminded her of every failed business, every disappointment, every dream that hadn't worked out. She spoke as though her daughter's existence had become a burden.

The comments broke my heart even more.

I read that sentence over and over because, for so many people, it isn't an insult to their parents.

It's their reality.

We don't talk enough about what it means to grow up in a home where love felt like something you had to earn.

Where your worth was measured by your results.

Where failure wasn't treated as part of life—it was treated as proof that you were a disappointment.

Some of us didn't enter adulthood carrying confidence.

We entered adulthood carrying wounds.

At nineteen, you're expected to have your life together.

At twenty, people begin asking where the money is.

At twenty-two, they compare you to your mates who are "already making it."

Nobody asks whether you're mentally okay.

Nobody asks whether you're overwhelmed.

Nobody asks whether you're trying your best with the little you have.

All they see is that someone else's child is doing better.

Comparison becomes the language of the home.

"Look at your mate."

"Your mate has built a house."

"Your mate is taking care of their parents."

"What exactly are you doing with your life?"

The painful part is that many of those parents never stop to ask what that comparison is doing to the child standing in front of them.

Children become adults who believe they are always behind.

Who celebrate every achievement for five minutes before wondering why it isn't enough.

Who apologise for resting.

Who feel guilty for existing unless they are producing something.

Who panic every time they fail because they were taught that failure makes them unworthy of love.

And then we wonder why anxiety is rising.

Why depression is becoming common.

Why so many young adults feel exhausted before life has even begun.

We've raised a generation that knows how to survive pressure but doesn't know how to live in peace.

The saddest part?

African parents will notice a pregnant child.

They will notice that you lost your job.

They will notice that your business failed.

They will notice that your mates are buying cars before you.

But they may never notice that you've cried yourself to sleep every night for months.

They may never notice that you've stopped believing in yourself because the first voice that ever spoke over your life was one of disappointment.

Some parents think insults build resilience.

They don't.

They build shame.

They build fear.

They build adults who spend years trying to silence the voices they inherited from childhood.

And here's the tragedy.

Many of us are trying to build careers while healing from childhood.

Trying to start businesses while fighting the belief that we're destined to fail.

Trying to love people while recovering from homes where love always had conditions attached.

Trying to become confident after years of being told we would never amount to anything.

Healing doesn't start when you leave home.

It starts when you finally realize that not everything spoken over you was true.

Sometimes the hardest thing an adult has to do is unlearn the voice that raised them.

And that is a burden no child should have to carry.

There is a kind of heartbreak we don't talk about enough.

Not the heartbreak of being rejected.

The heartbreak of rejecting something good because pain feels more familiar than peace. We spend years praying for healthy love. We ask God for someone kind, patient, emotionally available, intentional, and safe. We imagine what it would feel like to finally be chosen well. But then it happens.

Someone arrives with gentle hands instead of manipulation. They communicate instead of disappearing. They reassure instead of confusing. They stay instead of threatening to leave.

And suddenly, instead of feeling safe......we panic.

Because healthy love has a strange way of exposing unhealthy wounds.

Sometimes, chaos feels like chemistry because it is what we've always known. We mistake inconsistency for passion. We mistake anxiety for love. We become so accustomed to chasing affection that when affection is freely given, it almost feels suspicious.

"Why would someone love me like this?"

"Surely they will leave when they truly know me."

"I don't deserve this kind of peace."

Those thoughts don't come from the present.

They come from old stories.

Stories written by abandonment.

Stories written by betrayal.

Stories written by people who made us feel that love had to be earned through suffering.

So when peace finally knocks on our door, we answer it with fear.

Not because we don't want love.

But because we have never learned how to receive it.

Healing is not only learning how to love someone else.

Healing is learning how to stop running from people who love you well.

It is having the courage to believe that your past is not a prophecy over your future.

It is allowing yourself to believe that you are not too damaged to be loved, too broken to be chosen, or too flawed to experience something beautiful.

Many people lose good relationships not because love was absent, but because fear was louder.

Fear whispers, "Leave before they leave you."

Fear whispers, "This feels too good to be real."

Fear whispers, "Go back to what you know."

But what you know is not always what you need.

Familiarity is not the same as safety.

Just because something feels familiar doesn't mean it is good for you.

Sometimes the life you've been praying for feels uncomfortable simply because you've never lived without survival mode.

The greatest tragedy is not always ending up with the wrong person.

Sometimes it is meeting the right person while still believing the lies the wrong people taught you.

Love is not only about finding someone who loves you.

It is also about becoming healed enough to receive that love without allowing old wounds to keep making decisions on your behalf.

Healthy love is not a reward reserved for flawless people.

It is something two imperfect people choose to protect every single day. Perhaps that is what healing really is.

Not becoming someone who never hurts.

But becoming someone who no longer lets yesterday steal what today is trying to give.

If love ever finds you wearing the face of peace instead of chaos, don't run. Sit with the discomfort.

Question your fears before you question their intentions.

Allow yourself to believe that goodness can exist without an agenda..Because sometimes, the very thing you've been asking God for arrives so quietly that your wounds mistake it for something impossible.

And that would be a heartbreaking way to lose a miracle.

A toddler rested on her back while a basin almost as wide as her shoulders sat on her head. She walked carefully toward the borehole not because she was pretending to be a grown-up, but because somewhere along the line, childhood had become a responsibility she never asked for.

I stood there watching her, unable to look away.

The basin looked too heavy. The child on her back looked too young. Yet somehow, she carried them both as though this had become her normal.

And I couldn't stop asking myself: When did this become okay?

When does teaching responsibility become taking away childhood?

Why are so many older daughters expected to become mothers before they become teenagers?

How do families balance survival with protecting a child's emotional and physical well-being?

These questions have followed me for days because what I witnessed wasn't an isolated incident. I see it almost every day. Children carrying heavy buckets of water. Little girls with babies tied to their backs. Young shoulders carrying responsibilities that belong to adults.

Let me be clear I believe children should be taught responsibility. Every child should learn to make their bed, help around the house, clean up after themselves, and understand the value of contributing to the family.

But there is a difference between raising a responsible child and raising a child who is forced to become an adult too soon.

There is a difference between assigning chores and assigning burdens.

A child should know responsibility, but they should also know what it feels like to laugh without worry, to play without rushing home to care for a younger sibling, to dream without carrying the weight of an entire household.

Too often, we blur that line.

Some families are doing everything they can just to survive. Others are carrying burdens that no one ever prepared them for. Every family has a different story, and from the outside, we cannot always know what led them there.

But regardless of the reason, one truth remains:

Children should not lose their childhood because life became too heavy for the adults around them.

The oldest daughter is not a second mother.

An eight-year-old is not free labour.

A ten-year-old should not carry responsibilities that leave no room for childhood.

Children did not ask to be born. The decision to bring them into this world was made by adults, and with that decision comes the responsibility to protect them not only by feeding and clothing them, but also by preserving the innocence, joy, and safety that every child deserves.

One day, these children will become adults. They will carry memories of what childhood felt like. My hope is that those memories are filled with love, guidance, and healthy responsibility not exhaustion, fear, and burdens they were never meant to carry.

Every child deserves to grow before they are expected to carry the world.

Because little shoulders were never created to bear adult weights.

"The child who never got to be a child....To every eldest daughter carrying more than she should:

You are allowed to rest.

You are allowed to ask for help.

You are allowed to have needs.

You do not have to earn love by carrying everyone else's burdens.The Eldest Daughter Syndrome; The Child Who Had to Grow Up Too Fast

Let's talk about the eldest daughter....

The one who was expected to be responsible before she even understood what responsibility meant.

The one who became a second mother to her siblings, an emotional support system for her parents, and the "strong one" everyone could depend on.

People often say things like:

"You're the first child, you should know better."

"Set a good example for your siblings."

"You have to be strong for everyone."

And gradually, she learns to carry burdens that were never meant for her age.

She becomes mature too quickly.

She learns to put herself last.

She feels guilty for resting.

She struggles to ask for help because she's always the helper.

She becomes so used to being strong that she doesn't know what it means to be taken care of.Sometimes, she carries everyone's problems so much that she forgets she has needs too.

She may struggle with:

People-pleasing

Hyper-independence

Burnout and exhaustion

Fear of disappointing others

Feeling responsible for everyone's happiness

The sad part is that because she's "handling it well," people assume she's okay.

But strength doesn't mean the absence of pain.

Even Jesus understood the importance of rest and boundaries. He often withdrew to pray and rest (Luke 5:16).

And the Bible says:

«"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28»

To every eldest daughter carrying more than she should:

You are allowed to rest.

You are allowed to ask for help.

You are allowed to have needs.You do not have to earn love by carrying everyone else's burdens.

Being the eldest daughter is not a calling to suffer in silence.

You can be responsible without losing yourself.

✨ The child who had to grow up too fast also deserves to be cared for.🔥

We all carry pictures in our minds of a better future, a softer life, a more beautiful ending than where we currently are. Some of these visions come from prayer. Some come from desire. Some come from pain. Some are simply the quiet hopes we have learned to protect because speaking them out loud feels too fragile.

But one thing about vision is this: it is usually perfect in our imagination.

In our minds, vision does not carry weight. It does not sweat. It does not struggle. It does not go through delay, disappointment, or detours. Vision in the mind is clean, polished, and effortless. It shows us the destination, but rarely the journey.

And that is where reality begins to feel different.

Because reality is not only the promise of where we are going; it is also the process of becoming. And becoming is rarely smooth.

Becoming includes waiting. Becoming includes unlearning. Becoming includes starting again. Becoming includes moments where what we see does not match what we hoped for.

Yet, most of us fall in love with vision without preparing for process.

We imagine the house, but not the years of building. We imagine the success, but not the silent sacrifices. We imagine the joy, but not the discipline it requires. We imagine the outcome, but not the becoming.

And this is not wrong. Vision is beautiful. It is necessary. It is often what keeps us going when life feels heavy.

But vision alone can become dangerous when we forget that real life will not perfectly match the picture in our heads.

This is true in many areas of life, including relationships.

We often carry an image of the “perfect person” in our minds. A person who feels complete in every way emotionally, spiritually, financially, mentally. A person who understands us without explanation, loves us without flaw, supports us without limits, and grows with us without struggle.

But real people are not images. Real people are human.

A real person will have habits you do not like. A real person will have seasons of weakness. A real person will need grace, patience, and understanding. A real person will sometimes misunderstand you, even when they love you. A real person will not always match the picture your imagination created.

And this is where many of us struggle.

Because instead of asking, “Is this person healthy for me?” we sometimes ask, “Do they match the version I created in my mind?”

The danger is not having standards.

The danger is confusing standards with fantasy.

Standards protect your values. Fantasy demands perfection.

Standards ask, “Does this align with my life, my faith, my purpose, my peace?” Fantasy asks, “Does this person match the dream in my head exactly?”

And no human being will ever fully match that dream.

Not because people are not good enough, but because people are real.

Real love is not the meeting of two perfect visions. It is the meeting of two imperfect people who choose to build something meaningful together. Something that grows, stretches, learns, and sometimes struggles—but still remains rooted in commitment and grace.

This does not mean lowering your expectations.

It means refining them.

It means learning to separate what is essential from what is imagined. It means allowing room for growth, both in yourself and in others. It means understanding that God does not only give us visions of destination, but also wisdom for discernment along the way.

Because sometimes, what we call “not enough” is simply “not yet understood.”

And sometimes, what we call “perfect in our imagination” was never meant to exist in reality the way we pictured it.

So we learn.

We learn to hold our visions loosely, but our values firmly. We learn to love what is real, not just what is imagined. We learn to give people the grace to be human while still protecting our peace. And we learn that wisdom is not abandoning vision, but maturing it.

In the end, life is not the fulfillment of a perfect mental picture.

It is the unfolding of something deeper, messier, and often more beautiful than we first imagined.

And maybe that is the real gift: not that everything matches our vision, but that life teaches us what was truly worth wanting all along.

​It's getting older and realizing there are conversations you'll never get to have. Conversations about love. About heartbreak. About becoming an adult. About mistakes. About life. You don't just grieve who they were. You grieve who they would have been in the chapters that came after. The advice they never got to give. The hugs you never got to receive. The phone calls that should have happened but never will. And that's the part nobody prepares you for.

​The world keeps moving, but a part of you stays there... wishing for one more conversation. Just one. One more "How was your day?" One more "I'm proud of you." One more chance to say the things you thought there would be time to say later. So if you're lucky enough to still have a parent who loves you, who shows up, who answers your calls, who worries about you, who asks you many questions... Please don't let pride, busyness, or ego rob you of those moments. Call them. Sit with them. Ask them about their life before you existed. Listen to their stories for the hundredth time. Learn them while you still can. Because one day you'll realize that parents aren't just parents. They're the only people who loved you before they even met you. And when they're gone, you'll spend the rest of your life missing a voice that no one else can replace.

I’ve been asking myself a hard question lately

how are people dating partners who don’t go to church… and they’re okay with it?

Not “they’re struggling with consistency.

Not “they’re finding their way.

I mean completely comfortable staying away from the gathering of believers.

And yet, we say:

“I have a relationship with God.

“I pray every day.”

I don’t doubt that. I really don’t.

But I wonder… is that the full picture?

Because somewhere in Scripture, there’s a call not a suggestion

to not neglect the gathering of believers.

Bible reminds us in Hebrews 10:25: “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together…

So what happens when we start treating fellowship like it’s optional?

When did “I pray on my own” become enough to replace

community, accountability, shared worship, and spiritual covering?

This is where it gets personal for me.

Because I’m realizing

I can’t separate someone’s love for God

from their posture toward His house.

It’s not about perfection.

It’s about priority.

And maybe that’s why I’ve been struggling with dating.

Because I’m not just looking for someone who says they love God.

I want someone who shows it

in how they gather, how they serve, how they stay rooted.

And if that means I’ll be single longer than expected…

then maybe that’s a wait I’m willing to honor.

Because I’m no longer interested in convincing someone to grow.

I want to walk with someone who is already walking.