I hope?

I’ve sort of realized a sad truth about myself.

The toxicity I harbor stops me from truly getting comfortable with others.

Yet i feel maybe its just a lame excuse for myself.

I’ve been at home for close to a month now, and the loneliness is beginning to set in.

The Boredom feels like a whisper in my ear, urging me to occupy my mind with anything at all.

The Contrast being is that if I'm surrounded by people, Why then do i feel so alone?

Who do i yearn for? What do I desire?

I question my intentions, I’m doing all these different things, yet I have no one to tell.

Which is partly my fault.

I find myself driving away people once they finally uncover who i am.

Despite everything, This Hollowed feeling in my chest.

I love regardless, I hope, I dream, I think, I laugh.

Joy emanates from my heart, and all i want to do Is hold tightly to those who care for me.

Note: This is not a cry for help abeg🙏🏾

I watched Season 5 of Steven Universe today, read a book about the importance of educators and mentors and honestly i feel like living all over again. Yet there is guilt, while i do all these things, the world often feels like its going to shit.

sha sha,

also,

Schools been eating me alive, It don’t feel good either. After examining my previous posts, I’ve realized my page is mostly self-criticism. On some “Woe is me” Typa thing, but honestly I don’t feel that way at all, i don’t need to prove that either. (Apologies as id be using my inner narrator to write this post)

But what i would say is that my belief remains that in order to truly change the world at large i must first change as an individual. Walter Rodney primarily believed that freeing the mind from colonial education and cultural myths is a necessary step before physical and economic freedom can be won. And while that’s more of a socialist mindset, I've found ways to adopt it to myself as an individual. I don't believe I have the right to demand a better world if I'm unwilling to become a better person myself. My criticism begins with me, because I should be my own first standard.

Sha to reiterate, i write for mostly me. Constant state of growth and reflection, yeah? But my flaws are what make me human. I hold these principles closer than my right lung. Wierd as it is.

But enough down to the other stuff🥹

I have stated my fear of stagnation before, I fear staying in one place more than death itself. That feeling of dread, its uncomfortable to me, its slow, it gives me too much time to think. Ive preferred to do things quickly and move on to the next stage, learn enough within a short amount of time so i can pass and get tf out.

As much as id love to blame the school system for this mindset, I understand that i too share some of the blame for it. Sure they’re at fault cause fr 4 months isn’t enough time to truly grasp the concept of something. Yet, should i have spent time outside school aiming to understand those subjects? I don’t know, I was way too young. Alls i knew was the gripping fear of romance and caramel flavored ice cream. I don’t gat time for all of this.

Yet the thing about life is if one truly wishes to be good at something, Repetition is key like maddd😓, a habit is formed in 21 days and all that trash. You’d have to do something constantly for it to stick to you.

Example being when i was still at school, everyday at around 8:30 or so id take my ear piece and go outside the hostel for a bit to listen to music and play subway surfers city( superior to subway surfers btw). The night breeze was so cool during that time.

Whenever i didn’t do these things my heart felt hollow and incomplete.

What really inspired this post was when a senior at the firm asked me a question regarding appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme court and Court of Appeal. It was something so simple, even the sections from the constitution blanked from my mind. I was so ashamed, I realized in the moment of noting down the questions that i was so obsessed with progress and moving forward that i neglected my foundation. It's stupid. I was so afraid of standing still that I forgot standing still is sometimes how you reinforce the ground beneath you.

It really sucks fr.

I wondered how many of my classmates share this thought process with me, finish a class, dump it and move to the next stage. Worked for secondary school, its not working now.

Ive also thought about what exactly contributed to reaching this conclusion, Eckhart? Kendrick? My Grandma constantly telling me “Uche gi Adighi mma” (that woman is spiritual fr, she might’ve been insulting me😂) or maybe its something Ive known but refused to accept.

Whatever the hell it is, i wont deny the fear i have, the fear of not knowing.

This ends on a mostly happy note as I've decided to patch up this shaky foundation, plus i picked up writing fiction. I'm so excited about world building and maybe one day ill post the ones I've finished so far on subby.

Kind of realized why my grandparents named me Ijeoma.

Gods help me i don’t self-observe myself to death or isolation. Sha sha I’m craving yam and egg sauce so guess what’s for breakfast😛

also which one be scan for ai detection abeg?????

Song describes exactly what this post is. Btw I love Erykah🥹🥹😭

A few more

What’s the best way to start this? Should I tell you how it all began? Throw in a few sob stories from my childhood, add a moral lesson or two, and call it a day?

Lately, I’ve been beating myself up because I realize how much of my personal life I share on here. Sure, I’ve said this is my space, my publication, and I can do as I please, but it’s hard ignoring the voices in my head telling me otherwise.

Anyways, I have a lot of essays I wanted to post here, stuff I’ve learned about, like the interview involving Nnamdi Azikiwe and Ahmadu Bello, the tragedy of queer love in relation to a few books I just finished, and so many others.

But every time I write something academic, it feels incomplete. Like I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m just another random kid on the internet. It seems so much easier to rant about my personal life than to talk about things that actually inspire me. I’m ashamed I thought this way, but my opinion on all these topics feels irrelevant.

This isn’t even the core of this post.

I want to talk about ambition and how dangerous it is when that’s all you see.

I’ve been biting off more than I can chew as of late, and to distract myself I threw myself into work, school, and other people. It’s been a constant “I don’t want to think about me, tell me about you instead.”

And I think part of why I keep myself so busy is because I don’t actually like what I hear when everything goes quiet. When there’s no assignment, no conversation, no distraction, just me and my thoughts it’s uncomfortable. It’s like I’m constantly trying to outrun a version of myself I don’t fully understand yet.

I don’t think I’ve allowed myself to just be happy in a long time.

Anyways I’ve also really gotten into movies. They became an escape, a way to distract myself from everything around me. But art always has a way of reflecting reality.

There were a few that made me realize how much I’m hurting myself, distancing myself from other people just to focus on a goal, on a future that isn’t even sure.

I’ll only talk about two of them now though 😛

Now the first one is Soul. It came out in 2020 and I’m only just seeing it. The main character is this high school band teacher who always believed that he was destined for a great music career, and that once he finally got that, everything would be right in the world.

I don’t want to spoil the movie for y’all, so I won’t go through the whole plot (also I’m lazy), but yeah him getting his break doesn’t make everything rainbows and puppies.

Okay, so he does get a chance to finally prove himself to the music world. But then he dies and in such a stupid way too. He wasn’t looking where he was going and fell into a borehole.

Through this whole elaborate scheme he stole from a child, he finds his way back to life and finally gets his big break. You’d think after achieving his lifelong dream he’d finally feel good.

WRONG.

After the show, when the adrenaline wears off, the spotlight fades, and the applause is nowhere to be found, he feels nothing.

He worked years of his life dedicating everything he had toward advancing, and when he finally gets it, his heart isn’t full and the world still feels the same.

And that scared me more than anything not the idea of failing, but the idea of succeeding and still feeling empty. Because what if I get everything I think I want, and I’m still… me? like i don’t suddenly feel like this hero or whatever, like im just myself?

He asks Dorothea, this jazz star, “So what’s the next thing? Is this it?” She laughs and tells him a story:

“This fish walks up to the older fish and says, ‘Hello, I’m trying to find the ocean.’

‘The ocean?’ says the older fish, ‘well you’re swimming in it right now.’

‘This?’ says the younger fish, ‘this is water, I’m looking for the ocean.’”

And it’s like… yeah.

We all dream of how life will be once we finally achieve that one thing. We sacrifice happiness chasing it. But honestly, how you’re feeling right now isn’t that different from how you’ll feel once you do have it.

Maybe the problem isn’t ambition itself. Maybe it’s tying your worth to what that ambition produces.

Mid-post pause. I’m not saying ambition is a bad thing, it’s amazing. Drifting through life with no goals isn’t fun either.

What’s dangerous is when ambition morphs into obsession, when your goals become all you can think about, to the point where you forget to take care of yourself. When you start isolating yourself from the people who love you the most, all for some future where you think everything will finally fall into place.

But in addition to his ambition, another reason Joe believed jazz was his life’s calling is because his father was also a well-known jazz musician. Joe felt like he had to live up to that reputation.

It’s like another part of obsession, trying to meet some imaginary standard the world has set for you.

And as much as I try to deny it, I am my father’s daughter. I find myself wanting to be just like him when I grow up apart from the frequent bursts of anger.

We all try to imitate our parents, but the paths they took aren’t the same as ours. We might reach the finish line a little later than they did—and that’s not a bad thing.

The other thing I watched was Master of None.

It starts off as some regular satire, funny, chaotic but it never shies away from heavy topics.

My favorite character is Denise. She’s one of the wisest in the show, always acting as the voice of reason among her friends. When I first saw her, I was excited like FUCK YEAH, lesbian representation but beyond that, she’s just so coollll.

In season 3, we see a whole new side of her. She’s now a successful writer, married to Alicia, living in this quiet, warm cottage far away from everything. They feed chickens, i want that😭😭

She is literally living my dream life😔

The first episode is just them being in love, planning for a baby, building a future together. I was smiling like a fool watching it.

But then Alicia has a miscarriage.

And everything changes.

The warmth in their marriage fades. Alicia is grieving, and all she wants is for Denise to be there for her. But Denise is too preoccupied with her work writing her next book, maintaining her success, chasing more.

She pulls away when her partner needs her the most. Im guilty of doing that too, my selfishness is a double edged sword at times.

Watching her felt like watching a future version of myself if I’m not careful. Not evil, not heartless, just slowly choosing work over people until there’s no one left to choose.

You can already guess where this is going.

Alicia’s had enough and they get into this big argument, Alicia wishing Denise would care about her more, fight for their love. Denise is only concerned with getting that bag, staying on top, keeping the house and never going back to her old desk job(Real😣)

Eventually, everything falls apart.

Alicia angrily leaves the house and they both end up cheating on each other.

Denise sells the house too many memories and ends up back at square one, sitting on an empty mattress, talking to her mom on the phone.

And it’s like… life is so cruel.

Or maybe obsession is.

She put in all that work, dedicated years of her life, only to end up right back where she started.

And she’s not completely innocent either. Imagine your own mom having to go through your assistant just to talk to you.

That part hit me hard.

Because if I’m being honest, I see myself in her.

I’ve reached a level of obsession with doing better, getting more to the point where my mentality became: I don’t care how I get the success, as long as it’s mine.

It also reminded me of something my mom said to me when I was fourteen:

“You can run around with all those other people who tell you lies. But at the end of the day, I’ll still be at the bottom of that ladder waiting for you.”

At the time, it felt manipulative (I just wanted to sleep over at my friend’s house 😭), but there’s some truth in it.

You can’t ignore the people who helped you climb the ladder for the people you meet at the top.

So I guess the point of all this is: there’s a difference between knowing something and actually living it.

And maybe that’s the part that scares me the most not that I don’t know better, but that I do… and I still might choose the same path anyway.

Maybe growth isn’t about suddenly becoming better. Maybe it’s about catching yourself in the middle of the mistake and deciding, this time, to do something different.

I don’t know if I’m there yet.

So I guess moral story of today, there’s sha a difference between knowing something and putting it to practice. Like am I doomed to learn and repeat the same mistakes?

To quote Joe:

“I’m just afraid that if I died today, my life would have amounted to nothing.”

So yeah, I might be the problem. Which is… unfortunate, because I was really hoping to blame life, my parents, capitalism anything but myself.

But here we are.

I see it now the way I overwork, the way I avoid, the way I convince myself that the next achievement will finally fix everything. And maybe it won’t

I don’t know if I’ve figured it out yet.
But at least I’m self-aware😛

That changed in secondary school. We had this system where the best students would be called out and rewarded with chocolates. In a boarding school, that was a big deal, something everyone wanted. But for some reason, I didn’t. I avoided that stage like my life depended on it. I would literally run from any situation that might put me in that position.

And the funny thing is, I knew I was capable. I knew that if I just tried a little harder, put in a bit more effort, I could be one of those students. But instead, I chose to shrink. I dimmed myself on purpose. I told myself it was better to stay lowkey than to attract attention I didn’t know how to handle.

So I settled into that mindset, just do enough, don’t stand out, don’t be seen. It felt safe.

Until it didn’t.

By senior secondary school, it started catching up with me. I could see it clearly how much I had held myself back. People I knew I could keep up with had moved ahead, and I was trying to close a gap I had created myself. My foundation wasn’t as strong as it should have been, and for the first time, “just getting by” wasn’t enough.

But even with that realization, I didn’t fully change.

I carried that same mindset into university. Still lowkey. Still doing the bare minimum to survive. Still avoiding anything that would put me in the spotlight. I convinced myself I could quietly make my way through.

But this school doesn’t reward invisibility. If you actually want to get ahead, you need people. You need lecturers to know you, to guide you. You need senior colleagues to help you understand what they’ve already gone through. Sometimes, you even need non-teaching staff. And none of that comes from sitting at the back, keeping your head down, and hoping everything works out. Sadly, I learned that the hard way😭

You can’t build connections or access opportunities when you’re hiding.

And I’m starting to realise that this doesn’t just show up in my academics, it shows up in my relationships too.

I’ve learned to hide myself there as well. To not be too upfront about how I feel. To go along with things, to accept situations as they are without questioning too much. On the surface, it feels peaceful no conflict, no confrontation, no risk.

But it’s only fine until it isn’t.

Because the moment something goes wrong, the moment someone hurts me, I realise I don’t even know how to process what I’m feeling. I don’t know how to express it, how to channel it, how to stand up for myself. I’ve spent so much time avoiding discomfort that I never learned how to deal with it.

And that’s when the silence stops feeling like safety.

It starts to feel like being trapped in a prison of my own Desires

Looking back, this has never just been about relationships. It’s a pattern. I’ve been running from responsibility for as long as I can remember. I’ve been comfortable being “someone who could do more” instead of actually being someone who does more, because trying means risking failure, and failure means being seen in a way I can’t control.

At some point, doing just enough stops being a strategy and starts becoming a cage. It limits growth, connection, and even self-understanding. It keeps you in a place where you are always capable of more, but never actually reaching it.

I am starting to realise that I cannot keep living this way.

Because there is a difference between surviving and growing, and doing just enough will only ever help you survive.

And Im tired of spending everyday of my life surviving

Note: Re-listened to Mr Morale And the Big Steppers, Re-read A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle and realised there's something fundamentally wrong with my world view. It's starting to affect my relationships and my work/life balance, so i shall attempt to step out of my head and into the real world.

"Tired of this shit, tryna really live
'Cause if you don't work, you don't eat, young man (nah)
So every single day, I'm going hard as I can"

~Favorite lyrics from Life Is Beautiful By 2 Chainz, Larry June and The Alchemist.

We wrote a paper earlier this week. The lecturer had never come prior to this test, we didn’t even know how he looked like. But he came for the test, The officer in charge of my department blamed us for not being prepared for this exam and as students, the bottom of the food chain, we had to sit for an exam with nothing and I mean nothing in our heads.

The exam wasn’t bad. It was a borrowed course so I didn’t worry too much. I took what happened as just the regular occurrence in this school. My mother called me 5 days later and I recounted the experience for her. It wasn’t that I was complaining, It just a normal thing.

My mother was pissed, tells me that why should we write tests when we haven’t had a single class with this man. She asked me why the department even allowed us to sit for the exam knowing the man was basically disappearing lecturer (sends hundreds of pdfs and you only ever see him during exams).

I simply told her that it’s just how things happen and we had no say in the matter. I’ve already given up. The school says something, makes a random decision. I’ve taught myself to just shut up and take it because once again I have no say in the matter.

The next day, she called again and asked for the lecturer’s name so she could follow it up with the school. I didn’t understand why she was making such a big deal out of it. I found myself begging her to leave the man alone.

It has happened. It has happened.

And then it hit me, I’ve complained about this exact mindset before. I’ve criticized people for accepting things as they are. Yet here I was, doing the same thing.

Why am I protecting my oppressor? this man is one in the wrong, yet I’m protecting him. Then my mother dropped the bomb that led me rethinking my life.

“This is the problem with Nigerians, bad things happen to us and instead we choose to shut up.”

This man committed a wrong, just randomly showing up for an exam, nothing in our heads for a 25% grade test yet because I don’t want problems, I don’t want to be disturbed so I just shut up and keep adapting like the rest of Nigeria.

But back to my point, everyday Nigerians experience injustice one way or another and instead of speaking up, we shut up in fear of being punished by the powers that be.

You enroll your children in a public school, yet there aren’t any teachers in that school, sorry about that either pull your kid out of school or put them in extra lessons. Don’t make a complaint to the governor of your state.

The public transport system in your state is in shambles, either get a car or learn to walk everyday, don’t make a video questioning the government and demanding they do their job.

You’re going to a federal school but there are so many strikes that paying tuition is pointless. Well sorry either forget this certificate and learn a skill or you pay that tuition fee If you want to enter campus.

To be a Nigerian is to be in a constant state of adaptation, at whatever speed the government and outside forces demand. It doesn’t matter if you complain, it’s falling on deaf ears.

Yet once again, the people aren’t just victims in this story. Nigerians just like me are fine with complaining but doing absolutely nothing to change these systems. In fact we uphold these systems hoping one day we’ll be in those positions of power.

I listened to Lauryn Hills, MTV Unplugged 2.0 and a came across the song “I find it Hard to Say”

But what you fail to see, is all the consequences.

You think our lives are cheap and easy to be wasted

As history repeats, so foul you could taste it

Make i rant small. I understand T-pain wants to revive that old port in abi na Lagos or Delta but borrowing from the United Kingdom such a large amount on top of the already massive national debt is not the way. It feels like this government is so invested in etching their names into the history books or living forever, that they do not realize future generations or even us right now will be the ones paying back their debts. Sha, e go be.

Circling back to my reason for writing this post, there was a line Ms Lauryn Hill said that was like a wake up call for me

And while the people sleep, too comfortable to face it.

Your lives are so incomplete, and nothing, and no one can replace it.

Its so much more easier to sit down and complain about societal issues than to actually address those issues. A tweet or two is enough.

There’s no way you can be a Nigerian living in this country and be unaware of the serious sickness that ails this country. Because of this awareness, most feel powerless and look for things in their life they can control, searching for distractions, tribalism, religion, homophobia, misogyny. Omoh, the list long. But we turn against each other instead of the idiots on top that want to use us and open bank account in Morocco.

Honestly, I’ve strayed a bit, but i’ve realized my own form of advocacy has often been to post a note or two and call it a day. But if I’m being honest, I feel powerless most of the time when it comes to these issues. I’ve always believed activism had to be something big that I had to take on the system head-on, almost single-handedly.

But I’m starting to realize that real change doesn’t always look like that. Sometimes, it lives in the small, everyday actions, the quiet decisions to speak up, to question, to refuse to accept what is wrong.

Advocacy shouldn’t be limited to the four corners of my phone screen. It has to exist in how I live, what I tolerate, and what I choose to challenge every single day.

Maybe I don’t have to change everything at once. But I can start somewhere and that, too, is a form of resistance.

I’ll end this with wise words from probably one of my favorite historical figures.

In response to Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe telling him that they should forget their differences and strive for a better Nigeria, he had this to say;

Note: I couldn’t even go into how much of a bad ass radical Jesus was:(

Also, I listened to Father time by Kendrick Lamar throughout this week, ill just add my favorite lyric

“ What’s the difference when your heart is made of stone?

And your mind is made of gold?

And your tongue is made of sword, but it may weaken your soul?”

cover image artist @seligrey_

So, technically I did promise y’all a new post, but ive been procrastinating it. Mostly because the person that made me feel that way is no longer in my life, and honestly i’m happier now with my current partner. However, the show must go on.💔

This whole thing started maybe August of last year, i went for a party with my friends, i was drunk and barely standing but still very much conscious of my surroundings. This guy walks up to i and my two other friends and asks for my number, of course i said no. I’m drunk not stupid.

I grabbed my friends and moved outside, the mumu then follows us outside like its not him were running from. Honestly i was sobering up and slightly scared, the last thing i needed is a creepy guy following me around at 11:36pm. So he asks for my number again, and my friend Motun gives him, her excuse being i should “live a little”, watch who you call your homies cause this babe could have set me up with a serial killer.

Okay so obviously me and this guy get to talking, after i blocked him for 2 weeks cause did not recognize that number. He tells me his name is Azubuike, na once fear enter my body, i avoid Igbo boys like maddd, the misogyny is always too much, and they’re usually mommies boys another red flag, plus the ego thing with absolutely nothing to back it up. But i was bored and needed a distraction from the pepper my principal was showing me.

Azubuike, cannot carry a conversation to save his life, he was awkward, and was trying too hard to come off “non-chalant”, so i talked most of the time, which is fine, i like being in control. Not in a power hungry way, more like it makes me feel grounded when i take the lead, i know where i stand and i’m more myself that way.

I can’t keep spelling his name so ill just call him Azu from now on.

Azu was solid in a way, comforting to look at, i thought maybe this would be easy, that this wound be safe. Never trust Igbo men sha, i found out we went to the same university so obliviously we made plans to meet.

In school, we started spending more time together, after school, during the weekends when i wasn’t too lazy to go out. At one point i got comfortable enough to share my passions, I talked about my dream of going into politics one day, changing people’s lives has always been a huge thing to me, about how i’d like to have a cassava farm too, I spoke of making formal education more accessible to people in my village, and maybe the whole country if i wasn’t killed by then. When i speak about things that really matter to me, i always make sure to say it carefully so you’d grab every word.

Imagine that while i’m baring my hear out to this fool, he was staring at my boobs.

Now, he wasn’t staring aggressively, just wasn’t paying attention, like my words were not going anywhere. That quiet embarrassment settled in me, the kind that made me feel exposed for caring so much. So, i typical fashion i pointed it out, because how can a man make me embarrassed? Chukwu Aju!

Maybe he thought, he was being suave or something, but i made it clear that him looking at me like that is uncomfortable. I didn’t speak again for the rest of that day, the whole thing was uncomfortable. I try to avoid gender roles in any relationship, there is no man or woman, regardless of physical appearance, its people coming together because of mutual attraction, why complicate it with roles?

But, Azu did not see it that way, during November, he started making comments about how i dressed, November was a very Special month for me, i felt way more in tune with my gender, and with my spirit. Every piece of clothing I selected felt like an act of worship, and the stares, and some compliments i got was like a balm of the wounds my inner child endured. So Imagine this log of wood telling me that I look like a man, and he doesn’t like it. How that one take concern me uncle?

I don’t believe that one person gets authority, and the other a set of instructions. Softness belonging to one person, and strength to another. Love should not have a script, it should be as fluid as breathing. It felt like Azu was pushing me into a role i did not want, control stopped feeling shared and instead felt assumed, something he thought he should have.

Soon after his comments on my dressing, came the sex talk. God abeggg.😭

Sex started hovering around our conversations. Not always explicit, but it was constant, like static in the background. Once that started, whatever attraction I had for him disappeared like completely, I stopped putting energy in the relationship and just left him and his horniness to himself. I no get strength fr

Weeks later, I got sick. A really bad case of malaria, the type that drains the life out of you. So, I had to come to the school clinic to get drugs, I payed for health insurance, let the money not waste. In the natural way things go, since the universe decided i couldn’t catch a break I saw him on my way there.

The first question he asked me, is why i’ve not been answering his messages, I lied and said “i’ve just been busy fr. Its not like i’m snubbing you or anything”. Which is a partly true as exams were next week and i still had one more moot court case, so I was stressed asf. But I still promised to do better. Azu checked in constantly, offered to buy me food, which can never work, as i hate when people buy me stuff. He was trying to take care of me and me, well i dodged him like mad.

I replied slower, gave vague answers about my whereabouts, Letting plans with him dissolve without actually cancelling them. It wasn’t calculated, it was avoidance, the type you choose when explaining yourself feels heavier than stepping out of the way.

And When my body started reacting to my behavior, constant headaches, I could barley eat, my stomach kept turning and i was always nauseous. Which is definitely my gut trying to talk some sense into my ass.

But instead of listening i turned against myself, why do i crave love so badly yet run away when it gets too close?

Why am i pulling away, when someone clearly wants me?

Why cant I just be normal?

I dont want to put a label on it, but ive played around with the term demi-sexual. Which according to a reddit post i read like 5 years ago meant “needing an emotional connection to someone before you can feel sexually attracted to them.” What it means to me is needing connection before desire, Its more of a, I need to understand your mind first before I’m actually interested in you.

Sexual intimacy has always been hard for me, I get super uncomfortable just being physically intimate with people, like i’m not joking when i tell you i cant hold my ex-girlfriends hand for up to 8 minutes, i timed myself. But what scares me is that if i don’t push through this discomfort ill probably end up alone. which in hindsight doesn’t sound bad, but its not good either.

Any ways, not saying i am demi-sexual, but maybe i just hate physical intimacy. And im trying to make up am excuse as to why i feel this way. Cause i know damn well I can hug my friends just fine, but once theres a romantic tag to it, you better stay ten feet away from me.

Sha, me and Azu did not work out. Thank God, he still reaches out every once in a while, whenever his number isn’t blocked.

Second reason why i’m the worse person to date

In the wise words of most of my friends, I am not a romantic person at alll. like there is not a single romantic bone in my body. Azubuike once told me that we should hold hands and walk out like a couple, I swear to god in heaven i did not know when my face morphed. Like i legit turned to this guy and looked at him like

He then tells me that why can’t I be romantic for once, y’all it is not my fault, maybe i just don’t take him serious. I’ve also been told that maybe in my head i’m romantic, but it just doesn’t show in my actions.

Its probably they’re definition of romantic, cause i can do all the love languages, except physical intimacy. Touch me and ill smack you back to your ancestors.

Which is weird since physical intimacy is my no 1 love language, along with gift giving, but i’m the one buying you stuff, do not, and i repeat do not get me things, i mean i’ll use it o, i just don’t like collecting. lemme spoil you instead🥹

Any ways, my baby says i am romantic, so i don’t know what my friends are saying sha. And her word is gospel, so therefore i am romantic😼

Honestly, i don’t know what she sees in me. Not like in a self conscious type of way. I’m good with myself. But she’s so smart, and attentive and herself and wow, She is also suuuuuuper adorable, like its illegal to be this cute. I’d probably bury myself alive if she asked me, I’m saying this in a completely mentally stable way

Okay i was writing this around 3 and it was super serious, the suns coming out and so i am incapable of taking anything serious now. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

I’m sure as those of you that know me are seeing this your like, ahn ahn, IJ aren’t you a lesbian? where did Azubuike come from? my answer is that sadly i do feel attraction to men, but its a thing of shame for me💔 so i honestly just tell people i’m a lesbian, to start explaining my attraction is something i have zero strength for.

Sexuality is fluid, gender is fluid And my ship is sturdy enough to sail the seven seas. I don’t really bind myself to a label, all i know is i’m queer asf and i’m good with it😛

Amaarae is a blessing to this godforsaken world.

May we all stand for the national anthem🫡

There’s a swelling shame that lives inside my mind,

I look around at all the others and leave myself behind.

I measure, I compare, and somehow I come small,

Like confidence once so loud refuses to answer when I call.

I used to walk with ease, In courage I could trust,

A knowing sowed so deep in my bones that said i was enough.

But lately I feel myself shrinking, quieter than before,

I search my heart for certainty and find an empty floor.

God, I hate this feeling, being seen yet feeling bare,

Like all the light I carried has folded back within.

They’ll tell me I’m special, that my presence holds weight,

But insecurity still finds me, patient, slow, and late.

My Mother tells me I am Enough, that I’m beautiful and brave,

That talent lives in my hands, that I don’t need to be saved.

She tells me stories of the girl I used to be,

So fearless in her knowing, so loudly and freely herself.

She speaks of her like someone I willingly lost,

Yet I nod along, pretending I don’t feel the hurt.

I’ve been on this Journey of learning for so long,

But even strong hearts stumble, even sunshine must wait for rain,

Bad days come uninvited, good days find their way back too,

And sometimes all I don’t need proof, that i’ve already made it through.

Because when I’m with my people, with those that truly stay,

That nameless heavy feeling quietly fade away.

I might not outrun it, maybe that’s not the plan,

But Ill remind myself to sit with it,

Until I feel like me again.

Note:

Y’all my hands are shaking literally, i’ve never written poetry before. How una take dey do all this rhyming whatever, Omoh sha dedicating this to and all my friends irl.

Cause its them that remind me of how special am just being myself.

Being a girl to them means, You had to have a Instagram page, in which you post consistent, curated pictures. You have to be a Pro at make up, don’t come out here looking like a beginner, You had to be super flirty around guys, you could never show up tired, like ever you give off that effortless vibe, It meant acting weak even when your strong and being strong even when you were completely worn out.

Being a girl feels like a constant performance, one everyone else accepted as normal. Femininity, as they defined it, was rooted in discomfort, pain dressed up as beauty, self-denial masquerading itself as grace.

I remember one day in school, as I was heading out for football practice. One of my roommates commented on how committed I was to sports, a completely normal thing to say. The conversation didn’t even involve her, but another roommate laughed and said, “Yes na, it’s obvious she isn’t a girly girl.”

Lets not mind the fact that the conversation did not involve her at all, but where did ‘girly girl’ come from abeg? I hate that in that moment and for the rest of the day I felt exposed, Insecure. I couldn’t even enjoy the ball I went to play. Something that once felt natural suddenly felt like evidence against me, like I had unknowingly disqualified myself from womanhood just by Loving the hobbies i take joy in.

The insecurity didn’t start there. I’ve always carried it. Not being “seen” as a girl is something that has followed me since childhood. So when people point out my disinterest in boys, my lack of an Instagram page, or the fact that I don’t really bother with makeup, a part of me registers it as failure. As if girlhood is a checklist I keep leaving blank.

The irony is that I don’t even enjoy being perceived as feminine all the time. Sometimes I actively resist it, but the few moments where girlhood does surface, those small, sincere bursts are constantly invalidated. Like I can’t just put on makeup because I want to. It has to mean something. Suddenly I’m being asked if I have a boyfriend(God forbid🤮).

One thing I hate most is being forced into a box, having to chip away parts of myself just to fit an ideal someone else has already decided for me. Each adjustment is small, almost unnoticeable, but over time I can feel myself begin to disappear.

That’s what rigid femininity does, it demands subtraction. Its my mother forcing me into blouses and skirts to go to the market when obviously i should wear jeans and shirt(its not me that uncomfortableness will kill). It rewards conformity and punishes deviation, even when the deviation is harmless, even when it is honest.

The question i ask and will continue to ask is, why can’t femininity be optional? Why can’t it be something one steps in and out of willingly, something that bends with me instead of boxing me in?

My femininity exists, just not in a fixed form. It’s not always soft, or pretty, or palatable. Sometimes it’s loud and rooted in strength. Sometimes it’s quiet, intimate and mine alone. But just because it doesn’t perform on cue, shouldn’t mean its treated as invalid or something to be corrected.

If femininity cannot bend, then it isn’t natural, it’s manufactured. And I refuse to keep breaking pieces of myself just to prove that I belong.

I’ve been listening to Cleo sol a lot these days!

I don’t really have a favorite song right now. My taste moves fluidly from genre to genre. Still, there is one album that has stayed with me, playing on loop for a long time now: Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers by Kendrick Lamar. From that album, the song that resonates with me the most is “Count Me Out.”

In this song, Kendrick explores the idea of finally removing the mask the realization that there is no real need to pretend anymore. Why perform a version of yourself when everyone else is already doing the same? That theme cuts deeply for me, because lately I’ve felt increasingly out of place, unsure of why I am the way I am, or who I’m supposed to be. Maintaining the mask I’ve worn for so long is becoming exhausting, almost impossible.

When I first discovered this album last year, I thought I was experiencing some kind of spiritual awakening. I believed that I was finally seeing the world clearly, that I was becoming better than other people. I wasn’t trusting in God so much as I was trusting in the idea that everything had a purpose, that my suffering meant something. Now, that certainty feels fragile.

I can barely look at myself in the mirror anymore, and that scares me. I don’t know who I am without the mask, and honestly, I’m afraid to find out. I need to cry, to grieve, not just for the person I’m becoming, but for the person I’m slowly letting go of. Yet the environment I’m in, especially at school, doesn’t allow for that kind of space. Even moments of silence are questioned. There is no room to process, no permission to simply exist quietly with my thoughts.

I am changing, and that change terrifies me. I don’t want to look into the mirror and realize that the version of myself I’ve been romanticizing the one I thought was strong and enlightened has actually been holding me back all this time. Coming to terms with that feels like a loss.

That is why the chorus of “Count Me Out”, “I love when you count me out” brings me to tears almost every time. It feels like permission to turn inward, to reflect honestly, and to trust myself even when I am misunderstood or doubted by others. Being counted out doesn’t have to mean being lost. Through self-reflection, I’m learning that growth doesn’t require approval, and change doesn’t mean failure. Even when others don’t see me, I am learning to see myself, and to trust that this process, however painful, is leading me somewhere truer than the mask I once believed to be my truth.

Ps: I wrote this in school, But i had no time to upload it.

Maybe it was yesterday, or the day before, that i saw a picture of my secondary school friends on my phone, and my mind just went, “Oh, I know them”.

Its kind of crazy how i used to laugh and joke around with all these people, and then we just stopped. You see a picture years later and remember the fact that this person was your whole world once upon a time, then life happened and we just never talked again, that is honestly a different type of pain.

Maybe that’s why I hold onto people the way I do, cause i’m afraid that if i loosen my hold on them, they’d probably leave. I miss people from years ago, even friends from primary school whose voices I can’t even remember, yet some part of me aches for words not said, conversations not shared.

At times, I’ll find myself trying so desperately to hold onto every single friendship i have, doing my best to make myself available for them, checking in regardless of how busy I am. Because it baffles me, you once told me i’d be your kids godmother and you think you can just walk out of my life, just cause were drifting apart?

I don’t know what to do or how to resolve this issue, I reach out, schedule a whole hang out, i’ll even invite some of your friends so you don’t feel too lonely, we’ll all have a good time, take pictures, then its back to radio silence. Am I not good enough? Is it something I did?

Or do they simply not want to try.

I’ve Been really into Afro Jazz as of late and by a complete miracle i stumbled upon this artist Ojurere, There’s a song in his EP, All for You, titled ‘Never Forget You’, and at first i thought it was a romance song, just for me to really look at the lyrics and its all about platonic relations. There’s a particular lyric that honestly describes where I am;

“What should we do were getting older,

So we don’t drift apart oh brother.”

I love all my friends so much, to the point they could probably call me at 2 am in the morning to talk about a show they just finished and ill gladly stay up just to hear them.

It doesn’t matter how long its been since we last spoke, I hope they don’t refrain from texting me or asking me to go out, simply cause we haven’t talked in a while. I wish they knew how much each and everyone of them means to me, how much I would give for them to smile.

Because, regardless of how much time has passed, It doesn’t change the fact that they hold so many different parts of me.

God, I sound so foolish, I’ll convince myself that there’s nothing wrong with loving people wholeheartedly, But maybe the real foolishness is pretending that I don’t care.

Either ways, I hope that in some part of their hearts, they think fondly of me too. Because regardless of how much time has passed, I can’t forget people, that once made life worth living.

My relationship with religion is like a see saw, or would it be better to compare it too a scale? Main point is one day I’m dedicating my entire being to whichever god caught my eye, the next day, I hear someone praying and my face morphs into a very unintentional scowl.

But maybe the ancestors want to show me something with how frequent religion has been appearing in my dreams. Now the dream in question;

Picture me, however you want to, alone in a bright white room, I’m watching the creation story according to genesis, but this time Adam isn’t the hero of this story, everything was leading to Eve, she was the star of the show, made all the decisions, chose which fruits to eat, what part of Eden they would stay that day. Adam was more of a follower, moving according to the will of Eve, sure he was made first, but he was carved from dirt, Eve was carved from flesh, already anointed from birth.

Then It happened, The serpent offered the fruit to Eve and she ate of it, and something in my mind clicked.

My sexuality and gender expression is like the forbidden fruit to Eve.

Stay with me.

I still don’t have a good relationship with my true self, even after all these years, I find myself hiding this part of myself, ashamed of who I am. Nervous whenever the topic came up. I think of this shame often, this need to pretend to be what I’m not, afraid of what people might think, this deep seated fear that the second those I love find out, their perception of me would change.

I think that’s how Eve felt, she ate of the fruit and discovered this new found knowledge, this unprecedented wisdom, eating of that fruit didn’t just make her realize that she’s naked, It made her realize that she has power, that she doesn’t only exist just to worship a god with an inferiority complex, she has the option to choose. And sure some would argue that god gave her choice, to eat all the fruits within the garden, but why within the garden? Why couldn’t she go beyond, Why must she live within the scope of god’s imagination?

And lets not even talk about how betrayed Eve must have felt when her life partner blamed it all on her, she’s not free on her own part for blaming the serpent. But I still love her, she’s an Icon.

These are the same questions I asked myself, I ate of the forbidden fruit, well not so much as ate, but kissed a girl from church when I was eleven, and Its like I haven’t been able to close that can of worms ever since. I’ve tried to be “normal” as some would define it, but its never worked, I’ve prayed, begged god to take this cup away from me, I’ve even been to bible camps specifically because of this issue(although I was occupied with crushing on a girl there to go for those sermons) but nothing happened I still had these feelings that I didn’t want anything to do with.

The shame Eve felt is the same shame I felt when people would question why am I the way I am, why do I wish when people see me, they don’t think girl? How do I explain the euphoria I feel when my boobs are non-existent but I still look feminine as fuck? Why do I like girls? Why cant i just be normal? I hated it then, and I hate it now. Then I had another epiphany, Why must I live within the boundaries other people have set for me? why must I be happy marrying some man and having 3.5 kids with him? (gag🤮).

The forbidden fruit isn’t what brought sin into this world, sin has always existed, It has always been there, laying dormant like a predator calmly waiting for its pray to reax before striking. I’m of the opinion that the snake is just god in disguise, because that disobedience was necessary to kickstart the bible.

And in that same way, I’ve always been gay, I’ve never really fit in with the gender binary and whatever the hell I was doing with that girl in the abandoned section of the church was the type off disobedience needed to kickstart the person I am.

There isn’t some happy ending to all this where I finally accept who I am, I’m still figuring all this out, but I’m learning so much about myself, and I hope Thirteen year old me would be proud.

I saw you in my father, and maybe for the first few years of my life, that’s why I feared him, because he was you, two sides of the same coin, he acted like you, constantly angry at the world, and maybe shouting and hurting was the only way you’d both knew how to express this frustration with the world.

I still remember you dragging us out of bed to go to church, how you and mama, would wait for us all to get ready. As we marched onward to church, you’d speed past us all, our short legs could never match your long powerful strides, you were so strong back then.

People would stop us on the way to church just to greet you, you’d introduce us as your grandchildren with so much pride in your tone. I would study so hard in school, even at my young age, just so i could call and tell you how well I did, just so I could hear you Flex me to all your friends.

When I saw you smile for the first time, I was seven, we were all gathered on your living room floor, watching African Magic, and you made fun of one of the characters Pawpaw was playing, I saw my father in that smile. I’d wonder after that day, what I was so afraid of.

The first time I went back home after entering secondary school, Mama told me you were sick, But you were going to get better very soon, and you could start taking us to church, I didn’t want you to get better, because that would mean we’d go back to the farm. That year, we walked to church just the grandchildren, It didn’t feel the same.

The third time I went back home, I was in SS2 and I was the only older child around, everyone else was in university. I hated it so much, all the responsibilities was left to me, I was also a teenager going through a phase. My father would nag at me to be up and doing and leave my phone alone, I couldn’t even do anything, there was no network. You didn’t move around much that year, you’d stay in your living room all day, until night when you took your stroll around the compound.

I was afraid of you that year, you didn’t look like the old man I was so used to seeing, you didn’t shout as much, and barely ate, your daughters begged you to eat so you could take your drugs. I never spoke to you then, But i dreamt of you, walking into a foggy forest, everywhere dark, I searched for you, but you just vanished, I think my soul, and yours knew what was going to happen, When I hugged you goodbye that year I squeeze extra tight.

When I got into university, I learned to love my father, mostly because i saw you in him, but without the traditional masks, I spoke to him more frequently, called every single day, I was too ashamed to call you, I asked my dad questions about his interests, I didn’t know any of yours. Mama called me everyday, she would pray over me, laying incantations on my head, I barely understood a word she said.

“Baby girl, Papa is dead” was what my mother told me as I was rounding up my 1st year exams, I didn’t think much of it then, I thought this was the universe playing a cruel joke on me, and pushed forward with my exams. I didn’t want to imagine a world without you.

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We came home early that year, and went straight to your burial rights, I saw cousins that I didn’t even know existed, and I saw my favorite aunt, She hugged me like she missed me as much as I did her. In the beginning, I was numb, didn’t think much of any of it. I avoided your living room like It was the plague, I didn’t want to feel anything.

Yet, when I saw your body in that casket, something broke in me. The man I once feared, The man I once loved, I laughed with, nothing but skin and bones, the tears didn’t want to stop, when we came out, I saw my father cry like a young boy, I and the rest of my siblings moved immediately to hold him, to feel this grief with him, he kept telling us, “Its okay” and “don’t cry”, yet his voice shook with emotion, I’ve never heard before. When I saw him cry, I think I imagined you, I didn’t let go of my father’s hand that day.

My favorite aunt, didn’t want to see your face, she stayed outside, where you’d usually have your nightly walks, not wanting to see that truly you would never come back, Even I childishly wished that you’d jump out of that casket and shout “why haven’t you attended to the farm yet IJ”, I begged the gods that you would.

You and mama gave me the name, Ijeoma( fruitful/beautiful journey), placing it upon my head that I would live a fulfilling life, That my journey on this earth would not end in tragedy.

After the burial and the thanksgiving where my dad sprayed money on my mother, with a smile on his face despite all that was happening, I couldn’t help but thank you silently for giving me my dad, for encouraging him to be the person he is today. We cut down the farm, and buried you there, I was the third grandchild to pour sand on your casket, We killed a goat after it.

November 5th, I saw the full moon, And I thought of you, wondered how you were doing on whatever journey your soul was on to the next path of life, I prayed for your strength, for your spirit, for the love you hid under your tough exterior. I wish I asked you questions about your childhood, I wish I knew how it was to experience the Biafran war, I wish I knew more about you.

I’m going to the village soon, staying with Mama, and for the first time, you won’t be there. I’ll probably climb into your bed and sleep there, just to feel you once more. I still have the necklace and Goat skin hand fan I stole from you when I was eleven.

I wish you love and luck, and pray that maybe in another life, I could Talk to you, how I’ve always wished to.

Goodbye Papa.

Since I began my Substack journey, I’ve been on a writers block of sorts, like I can write for myself fine and good, but when it comes to writing while keeping in mind that others might consume this content, its like my writing isn’t me, my internal monologue is stiff, my words are way too formal while it appears like I’m trying too hard to be informal, and it feels as if I’ve failed that fourteen year old me, that once dreamed of writing books and poems detailing the beauty that surrounds her, little poems about flowers I found on the way to class, epics that i’d invented for characters in my head. Maybe They’re the one calling me, at least i hope so, cause the other option is that i’m loosing my mind.

Even now, I’m only writing because of this sadness or longing within me, I don’t know how to explain it and I don’t know who tell. What I’ve written before was as a result of joy, I couldn’t even control the shakies i felt these past few weeks, but i feel my most creative, the most me in these somber, slow moments, when Its like I don’t care how fast the world is going.

And even within these moments, anxiety for the future still grips me, I’m tired of it all, I wish I could be free to be myself, to express myself, to make mistakes. But I fear, I’ve passed the age where I can mess up, like there’s a sudden burden on my shoulders that I’m not sure where its from. And Its sadder realizing the person holding me back the most, Is myself

While I was busy complaining that my friends were all growing up too fast, I didn’t realize I was growing along with them. The Irony of it all.

I watched something earlier on this week, and what really stood out to me was, when they talked about humans having two sides.

One side cares deeply about other people, and wants harmony in the community, while the other only cares about acquiring more, the more greedy side of humanity. Maybe I never planned it, and I’m ashamed to admit it, but I don’t care about people as much as i used to, and i can pinpoint where exactly it started. And then I thought it was a result of a spiritual awakening, that I was too “enlightened” for all the people that loved me, wetin ego never do me.

But anyways, now I’m so obsessed with grades, finding ways to make money, that I kind of became the person I hate the most. And now it feels like I can’t go back, I have nowhere to run to.

Yet, I still wait for someone to rescue me, not literally though, if someone ever came up to me addressing this essay, i’ll slice your throat🥰

But now that I’ve put all this down, I feel a hundred times better, I just need to find time to myself, because, If i don’t, the next person to talk to me probably won’t be coming back.

I love this song!

With all the constant attention i needed to provide my siblings while also trying to manage myself so as to not stress my parents out, make myself invisible and learning not to stand out. Imagine my surprise entering into university and realizing i couldn’t just do everything my self and actually had to ask questions and talk to people, Godforbid! is what I’ll whisper to myself whenever people try and approach me and i do a whole 360 degrees turn or is it 180? So for the whole of my first year I had spent it in perpetual loneliness.

But its not like i didn’t have friends, i had them, a good amount, but i was determined to do everything myself, even as i contemplated the meaning of life, went through heartbreak, studying for exams, i did it all alone, and didn’t tell a single soul. It’s not like being alone is impossible, but its hard, stressful and honestly, exhausting.

Worst part about all this, was the tendency for my mind to places of literally no return, like my physical body is here, but you said something that really hurt me so now my mind disappeared into the clouds cause it hates confrontation, and thinks your stupid.

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But this year, something changed within me, like this isn’t some mystical, magical bullshit, like all of a sudden on a random Tuesday, i realized i was doing things I never would’ve thought of doing. I mean, i was suddenly more outgoing, i spent less time trying to formulate answers to questions that people hadn’t said, to just listening to them and giving myself the chance to download their questions and give more appropriate responses, instead of intellectual nonsense.

I wasn’t becoming a “good” person, as I’m very much never that and never will be that, but i was more accepting of those around me, i kind of understood that i shouldn’t just have people that think like me, around me, but i should be more open minded and welcoming to all sorts of people, but if someone says one piece of bigotry around me, I go dash you serious blow(strongly worded response).

However, this wasn’t without it’s repercussions, i changed and that change also affected not just me but my environment, and the kind of nonsense oversabi i went to put myself in needs to be studied, I’ve changed, i’ve changed na how i take join 5 different groups, or is it committee they call them? I joined, applied, did interview for every single one, as per social butterfly

Anyways, i was only chosen for three out of the five, and i was happy with that, they now decided, “yes, let us test these new members with tons of work and meetings”(smiles in bureaucracy), they turn me to slave in my own school. Everything was overlapping, I had meetings to go for, documents to sign, stamp and serve and still balance school with all of this.

Two weeks in, tears don already comot my eye, i cried as soon as my last class was over cause i knew where i was going after it, but i dug my own grave, and you should know by now, I get pride like wetin no nice, so how can i back away? What would the ancestors think of me?

But one particular day like this ehn, after serious crocodile tears left my eyes, something just snapped, the selfish mumu, that i had been burying (my first year self) just resurfaced, they get to work, she isolated me, made a list and followed that list until they were done with everything, took a day and a half, then the big madam left and i had nothing to worry about again

Moral lesson? there is none. this is just a rant, what you’re looking for you won’t find here. But sha, now I’ve learnt to pace myself, like sure I’m happy, changing, advancing and becoming a person that can actually slap someone on the road, but at the same time, I should always honor the sweet little baby resting in my soul space, just cause I’m not the same person doesn’t mean i forget my roots

To those amazing people that made it to the end (not including those that skipped, go back and read it better), thank you very much and this is the beginning of my consistency with this app.

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Warning though, it's a bit late and my thoughts are everywhere so the order of my feelings might be strange to say the least.

I haven't opened substack in quite a while, so my words might feel a bit…informal.

For the past 3 weeks I've made considerable effort to ask every single friend i had on a little outing of sorts, not the type where we get drunk in parties or waste money that we don't have, the type where we simply just exist together, talk, buy ice cream insult random strangers as we move down the road, to just be human.

And of all of my thirteen tries, ive been rejected the same amount, and i wondered whether it's me that has craze, to approach all of these people and have been rejected, of course they had their reasons, but why are we all so busy? We haven't even seen life yet, but everyone is busy, too busy to just hang out. Maybe I'm selfish, or it's my ego talking, but no amount of philosophical talk will take away the fact that I miss my friends, miss not having responsibilities, missed when going to work, feeding yourself and your ungrateful cat wasn't a constant thought in the back of my mind.

And then that stupid oneshot came on my feed and now I'm realising even the nostalgia I hold of my childhood, is blocking away how disastrous it was.

My popsie was never around, and when he was, he was a force to be reckoned with, he would scrutinised every single action I made, to the point I was genuinely afraid of existing beside him, at around twelve I learned to shrink myself, make myself smaller, so that i couldn't be seen. All of this so my father wouldn't see me to shout at, so those childish thoughts of running away and starting a life with a new name wouldn't tempt me too much.

Did dissappearing work, no it did not. I became a shy child, a massive difference from the outgoing toddler my mother never failed to remind me I was. But i didn't want to be perceived by anyone even peers, and as such I never had perfected the art of making true friends, or even any friends to start from there.

And now at the age I am, as much as my father has made considerable effort to change himself, won't take away the damage his actions cause the little girl in me.

Now, I'm left questioning a lot of my cravings for intimacy, there was even a song with the lyrics “Fuck me like you proud of me”, and somehow by a miracle I relate with that? I'm not joking, not the Sex part sha, but I need you to express how much you love me with touch, even though i hate when people touch me, I still crave touch, how i take become this kin puzzle abeg😭

I think that's all I have to say for today sha.

I forgot to say what led to the title😭

I swear i was a bit more emotional 35 minutes ago but my current favourite show just uploaded an episode, so I'm in a rush to watch that.

Back to the title, like I just learned, like after everything with my father, that I can make mistakes, that I'm allowed to do that, because that's how humanity has evolved. I've been chasing perfection for so long, not even by my own standards but by the standards of others.

And now it just clicked, you can mess up babe, you can fail, you can learn at a pace slower than other people. Since that discovery, I've just been chilling, like life is just calmer and even my mind is making sense

Okay now I'm done😔

Anyway I was like “shaped like what? This is literally how my ass is” Then she pointed at my hip dips and was like “ Your ass looks squeezed” Squeezed? Then i realised it's my hip dips she's talking about, “ I just have hip dips, It's normal most people have it” Then she told me it looks weird, and i just left cause i hate entertaining conversations like that.

Fast forward to yesterday, the whole conversation just popped in ny head and I realised she was making fun of me, I didn't even know back then. I just thought she was stupid.

Anyway the whole point of this is that I'm getting better at being myself. Cause younger me would've internalised what she said and had sleepless nights cause I keep imagining myself how she would've wanted me to be.

But now, I know myself and I know who I am.

The end.😃

Then a bird flew on top of a building next to the park, i decided I'd watch it and give my mind a break from studying. The sun was out and it was really windy, everything felt real nice. Then a second bird flew to the roof, I can't describe it but i felt a connection with those two birds, i just watched them enjoying their company in some weird way.

The first bird, I'll name Amy was so entranced by the other bird, Christine. Amy could not look away, kept glancing over at her as if trying to will her to come over but Christine payed her no mind, completely ignoring Amy's gestures but for some reason Amy didn't just walk up to her, she just kept glancing at Christine. This went on for about two minutes, then Christine left.

As soon as she left, I just started crying completely, straight up sobbing for Amy. Amy though still stayed on top of the roof, she didn't do anything, just glanced at where Christine once was, as if willing her to come back. She never did though not in the 10 minutes i spent crying. Soon Amy left too, probably sad too.

I know these are literal birds and this wasn't what they were feeling, but it felt like that to me. And it made me think about myself as well, maybe that's why i cried, knowing myself and how much my fear of rejection has made me loose so many friendships and romantic relationships.

I had a crush on a girl, but i didn't do anything about it, just stayed silent yet I stalked her insta, and her friend's insta as well, followed her nearly everywhere although hidden so she couldn't see me. I was completely obsessed with her, one day i got the courage to confess and I did. One day after volleyball club, while it was just the two of us cleaning up. I told her i liked her, she looked at me like i was telling the biggest joke ever, she even laughed. That soft chuckle of hers broke my heart, i told her i wasn't joking. She was like what part of her made me think she had a sliver of attraction for me.

We don't talk anymore, but what she did left a mark on my soul apart from the slight body dysmorphia, i also developed a fear of rejection. I never confessed to anyone any more, if i felt something for someone I'd act like Amy did and simply look at them, trying to will them to come over, even if i did speak to them, i never told them about what i felt for them.

Maybe that's why Amy's rejection felt so relatable, she did nothing and in the end she got nothing. To put myself in the bird's shoes maybe if she said something even if Christine rejected her atleast Amy made an attempt.

For me heartbreak hurts more when you didn't do anything, and the closure i got from my first heart break, which is the above mentioned girl, gave me peace of mind once i stopped crying over her Every. Single. Day. For 3 or 4 good months.

Moral of the story. I should probably stop trying to hide myself and put myself out there even if I do end up getting hurt. It's easier said than done though😔