Author: Miss Injairu

I looked at her, elated. I guess it was pure admiration I had for her. She had so much love to give. Her gaze told it all, behind those eyes there was a burning and a yearning I couldn’t fathom. It was a brave yet delicate gaze.

Clearly those beautiful hazel eyes had cried the most tears. Was it really worth it? I asked her… She pauses for a minute and then continues, “I honestly dislike that question,” haha! her honesty was so pure..and I was also counting the number of times she had used the word “honestly” since we started that conversation. She says she disliked that question because, she couldn’t help but get agitated at how people viewed being selfless as being stupid. ” and yes it was all worth it, every other time I sit down with myself, looking back I appreciate that at the end of the day I never made any heart bleed, I gave the best I could. It’s about my conscience, it’s about me. I wasn’t dumb.”

“If love ever crosses your path again would you still go for it?” She gave a stern yes. “I would still, fortunately and unfortunately people like us still exist.” I dug deeper for me to understand what she entirely meant with ‘people like us’. Boy!! This girl had been through it all. It’s always the pure ones that go through the most pain. I thought to myself as she continued with her narration.

She had other amazing ambitions. But somehow she had to pause a little on her journey, she needed to heal the wounds and patch back her broken pieces. Now she has beautiful scars. The scars she has, and trust me others are physical scars, they all have a deep story behind them. She is family oriented. It has been her childhood dream to one day have a beautiful family. She has her reasons why. Very valid and deep reasons.

She was a pure soul. Too real to be in this ruthless world. The cruelty she had endured, I went numb just listening to her. And for a minute I appreciated the heavens that I wasn’t like her. Though I honestly admired how she stripped naked when it came to her emotions. She expressed them with a genuineness that I’ve never heard of before.

Her vulnerability was powerful. I envied her here. That is something most of us will never have the courage to try. “But I guess I scare them away” She thought loudly to herself and I joined her in those thoughts, probably that was true, like how I would never want to go deep with my emotions, like how I preferred just being on the surface, maybe that’s how everyone else she had met on her journey was. Scared.

“But I am tired, my heart is weary now” she said as she moved from the spot we had been sitting on for what felt like an eternity, the wind was now becoming too massive.

She would chew in her sleep. I found that insanely hilarious. Even when she chewed in her sleep, she would still do it with modesty.

Occasionally when I was young, she would snap at me one too many times. No, do not get that wrong, she loved me so much. I learnt almost everything from her. I do not toss and turn when I’m asleep, I sleep so carefully. If I was to share a bed with you, trust me you’d wake up to confirm my presence. I promise you it wasn’t always like that. She instilled that in me, haha impolitely. As a kid I would wrestle in my sleep. Sleeping on one end of the bed and waking up on the other end. Holy molly if you happened to share the bed with me, your first stop in the morning would be the hospital. I was extra. Dear future husband you have her to thank for that. Several pinches here and there from her day in day out and I got back on track.

The first thing you’ll notice when you walk into my room is how carefully I fold my clothes, I kid you not. That’s still her. This one wasn’t a tough one for her to achieve, lol no! I’ll spare you the nitty grities on this one.

My early memory with her only goes back to when I was six. I do not recall much either. I later learnt that before that she was in and out of the hospital. She was a fighter. All the days leading from there I would spend every minute I could afford by her side. Trust me it’s not every day that she would enjoy my annoying presence. It’s only now that I’m realizing how much I was in her space. I can be clingy at times. I adored her. Most of the time I would do things just to win her acknowledgement.

She was a natural. The minute she walked into a room with her sparkly beautiful smile, people would just be drawn to her.She had a golden heart. Let me not start describing her smile because we might camp here for eternity.

I kid you not here, I’m yet to meet anyone who has a soft skin like she did. Her completion was a beautiful shade of caramel. Trust me I would give the world to have one of my daughters bearing that shade of dark ..dear future daughter haha okay don’t always take me seriously but I’m also not kidding. 😸😅

At one point when I was a teenager in form two (there’s something about form two that we are yet to discover). I could swear with my breath that I thought she hated me. No, she wanted the best for me and I am glad I learnt that early enough. And when I did, like a typical teenager, I bought a card. On the front it was written with a very beautiful font in blue and the words read, “Dear sister“. Inside I wrote “You are the best sister God ever gave me (attention please, I love all my sisters) you are my role model in almost everything and I know I haven’t been the best and for that I am writing this to apologize for all the times that I have disappointed you, ps: I love you to the moon and back.” I think down there somewhere I dedicated Justin Timberlake’s song “Mirrors” ..haha still a typical teenager of my days.

I thought the card probably meant nothing. A few months after her burial ceremony, when I’d at least mastered some capacity of going through her things without breaking down, I found the card.

She had kept it so well. Even the white envelope I had it in. Still with the funny graphics in touch. The card mattered to her. Probably the words in it meant something to her like they did to me. I held the card to my chest and I started grieving anew. I had so much love still towards her that I wanted to shower her with.

She was an angel this one. She treasured any little thing someone would give her. That is something worth taking home.

Up to now we are still clearing her things. Most of which, gifts she would receive from people. Gifts that I am aware that the people who gave her, never imagined she would hold them that dearly. Hey dear I hope you kept that sparkly beautiful smile, for me I am still trying to match your modesty. Still trying to ditch the rugged trousers that you hated, still trying to be a lady, hang on I’ll tell you more about me later. Adios.

Hey, so here we go again, happy new year 2023. Trust me I am not mocking you here. I am being brutally genuine. It just came to my realization that, I spent the better part of this month focusing all my energy and thoughts on how much I want to ensure my mental health is healthy (trust me I am aware of what I’ve done there). So to everyone I wished a happy new year at the start of January, trust me I just did it out of the modesty of replying back…no trust me that is not supposed to be as rude as it sounds.

Give a girl a break, on 31st December I had a bad melt down. I fell in tears. For a million reasons I was really scared of stepping into 2023 with all my mess. I said a small prayer amidst my tears, then I slept. The previous year was quite a rollercoaster. I do not know whether everyone else is being utterly honest about this, just a weird coincidence that everyone I interact with has something to say about how their mental health was rudely tested in 2022. Well okay, let me grant you all the benefit of doubt peeps. Let me assume that it was a wave that everyone was supposedly meant to go through. Luckily we survived the wave, just like how we survived COVID.

So yes I noticed all my energy has been entirely focused on making sure that I keep my mental health in check. It’s only now that I’m diving into 2023. I’m not the kind who comes up with resolutions. My anxiety cannot handle all the pressure that comes with working on resolutions. But this one has to be quite different, that’s why I am focusing almost all my energy on mental wellness. That’s my goal. Heaven knows how much I was in survival mode last year. That’s a pretty much ugly place to be stuck at. You just live. No motives. I honestly never got anything good done in 2022. I’m not here to boast about how much unproductive my year was. I’m just here to remind myself that I should learn from it. I’m getting the hang of being self aware and catching myself every other time I am about to fall into old bad habits. Clap for a girl. Follow suit!! don’t just clap. Let this be a year that we do not go about teaching people about mental wellness. We are informed enough up to this point. So yes, I think my reasons for bringing my wishes late are validated. Cheers.

I started with accepting that he’d dived into a space of resenting me. I had seen it coming, so accepting didn’t hurt so badly. Plus I had promised myself not to do the pity party thing again. I had approached the entire situation from a totally wrong perspective, I knew it from the start. It was easy knowing that because I had decided to take a different course from the moment I’d called my previous relationship quits. I really wanted to be alone for some time, not for any selfish reasons, not for the freedom to hop from Jack to Kevin but to really work on myself, sounds so cliché right? As cliché as it sounds, it would have been the greatest thing I would have done to myself. Getting out of that shell, a shell I had allowed myself to be stuck in for so long.

After my previous relationship ended, at that moment when reality sunk in, I knew I had a lot of working on myself to do, It didn’t come as great a deal, for once I was putting myself first, and again I repeat, there’s totally nothing selfish about putting yourself first. It was such a toxic space I had been in, and it’s only hitting me now how much I really underestimated the intensity of the damage. I had known for so long that I was supposed to end it, but I’m just me, I continuously thought to myself, “try a bit harder, try some more maybe at one point things might miraculously take a good twist.” Each passing day I paid attention to that silent voice inside my head beckoning me to just continue hurting in hope for a change.

I really did some massive work of giving another human being the chance to hurt me, physically, emotionally and psychologically. Trust me no exaggerating, I had the physical and emotional wounds to nurse, quite a task if you’d ask me now, but I didn’t realize it then. Eventually I managed to corner that silent voice inside my head. I finally called it quits, yaay. It was liberating just to say the least. The scars I had amassed were supposed to serve as lessons. For a while they did.

The one problem that I’ve discovered about myself is that, I go through lessons, harsh lessons, critical lessons that leave me so worked up and beat, and I end up wasting those lessons, I never put them to practice. See that student who forgets literally everything, no not really forgets, but ignores and sits on everything they’ve learned and eventually throws the books away, now that’s me. ”I’m done with giving my best to people, it’s time to give that best to myself” so I thought to myself. Again it was honestly very liberating to think of that.

I came up with a plan, a list of things that I really needed to work on. I kept on swearing to myself” don’t you dare get into any relationship whatsoever until you are really back on your feet, emotionally, psychologically and financially”. I was strategically very honest on the financially bit. I wanted to really have something on me, like the ability to get an uber for myself without asking for the money from the son of man like “hey don’t worry I can get my own ride and pay for it,” more of having my cake and eating it, hehe! no pun intended, or the ability to have my own space, a place that I was personally paying for, a safe space for me and my stupid thoughts without being subjected to any prejudice. Ever since I was a kid I always desired to be an independent woman, life has its way of playing us foul. My desire still lives on though, because I’m so certain it’s going to happen either way.

I thought I had it all figured out. It was such a beautiful moment alone, peace had taken over. I kept asking myself why I never realized that being out of relationships came with some good benefits. I had my equilibrium so balanced at that time. No constant need to check my phone, no insecurities and the most amazing bit was there was no pain at all, no hurting. So I told myself “fuck relationships I was probably designed to be on my own”.

Fast forward, before a month elapsed I was already in another relationship, yikes yes “bitchy right?” not only bitchy but also very unwise. I can’t really figure out how in such a twinkle I had forgotten all the promises and the beautiful plans I had made for myself. It hurts to think of that now.

Some wounds hadn’t even healed, yes both the physical and the emotional wounds. I ain’t pulling your leg when I talk of the physical wounds, I had some good deal of scratches and wounds that were slowly turning into scars. Apart of me feels like, probably I didn’t realize it, but I wasn’t good at being alone, I was afraid of being alone, for reasons I haven’t really summed up. There I was again getting my sweet self into another relationship. Everything happened so fast. I don’t want to say it like “in the heat of the moment” no, I had the choice of using my brains but I simply chose not to. I don’t really know what demon had possessed me. I don’t really know if it’s right for me to say that I acted on emotions and the pain of disappointment. What I know is that history did repeat itself, I made the same old mistake. Or I thought there wasn’t really a time frame for one to land herself a prince charming and I had landed myself one so I wasn’t going to risk watching him slip away. The joke is on who again? Though there are those of us who were just born lucky, cupid got them before they were born.

Yes, I did really repeat the same mistake from my past. The difference here was with my past I had the confidence, I had the security to deal with anything, I still had it together, moving on to this I was empty and spent so I literally depended on the other party to pick up my broken pieces. It’s only now that I’m realizing that. In spite of going against my plans I was also rendering myself powerless. Never let a person know too much about yourself because take it from me they are sure going to use that against you when the time is right, for me nowadays I pass as a fool, everything I say or do is considered baseless. Story for another day though.

I over opened up(ha if that’s a word really, over opened up) to this other guy, let’s call him Chi. Not entirely my fault, I now know that I should not only have engaged my emotions only, I should also have incorporated in some brains. Chi was nice, really nice. A listener, I’m a listener myself so I usually appreciate a person who not only listens to me, but hears me also. It’s really awful that I’m realizing so many important things now. Let me take you back a bit. When I got out of my other relationship, I can say I dealt with so much on my own, I didn’t wallow neither did I have anyone to vent to. I kind of closed off. So here I am, with Chi, a total stranger, and I just felt safe talking to him. So I told him stuff, stuff he was probably better off not knowing but I did spill the beans anyway.

Everything happened so fast, all this time I don’t really know what was driving me, but I honestly felt safe with Chi. For a moment all my fears and pain were numbed. Just numbed. I was thinking to myself of how lucky I just had got. Everything was so nice and sweet as it always is at the beginning. Did I ever stop over opening up you ask, nooo I never stopped in fact it grew bad, how do we call the worst case of over opening up? Ahhaaa. I grew needy, remember I said I left it all to him to pick up my pieces, worst mistake ever. Whichever place life throws you, just try, and make sure you have it in you to pick yourself up, no matter how long it will take you, just gather those pieces together by yourself. Be your only person.

In my previous relationship I somehow had managed to get a hold of my emotions. I cried less, and everything that was thrown at me I received with some sort of maturity, the insults, the beatings and much more. With Chi my emotions have been a mess, I’ve shade so much tears I cannot even fathom. See what happens when you don’t allow yourself to heal? Yes I’ve been an emotional wreck. On top of it all I’ve done a great job of embarrassing myself out of giving it all and not leaving some for myself..I really held Chi on a high pedestal. Every time I lost it, I had this very awesome confidence about him, that he was very understanding man “he gets me,” I constantly told myself, not like I took that fore granted no, I’ve really tried working on myself I can say I really did speed it up with myself, heaven knows how much damaging my previous relationship was. He promised he was going to be patient with me, I promised him I’d make sure to work on myself real fast, see we had a deal. Seems like neither of us kept there end of the bargain. I don’t know how long one can put up with someone else emotional mess, but what I sure know is that healing doesn’t just happen within a fortnight, it’s a process that takes time, especially when you’re doing the healing while trying to work on a new relationship.

Being in a space where you’re entirely misunderstood is another kind of pain. It’s on another level this sort of pain. Especially if you didn’t see it coming in the first place. In my head I had this beautiful view of how awesome things were going to be, he did give the impression of a good man, for that I was determined to give him my best, see me giving out my best again. Now it’s slowly blowing up on my face, in total slow motion, every day comes with its fair deal. How about we just presenting ourselves for who we really are, that way we give the other party the option to choose wisely whether she is ready to have a thing with a total asshole or not. Should I do that thing again? Hanging on with a hope of things taking a good twist? It’s usually easy hanging on when you don’t feel undermined, when in between it all, you feel valued. I know to some extent I am to blame but God knows how much it really hurts. But for Christ sake in as much as I was over opening up, I also did it out of goodwill, I wanted Chi to really understand where I was coming from and where I stood, I thought It would have made things a bit easier. Giving myself time is the only thing that would have made things simpler, so give yourself time.

No more respect, no more spark. He looks at me and his stare is blank, I try searching for some sort of spark in those stares but there ain’t any. Going to bed without one saying a word to the other, not even in my wildest dreams with Chi did I ever see this coming? I can’t even express myself out anymore, at the end of it all he takes it wrong and it ends up bad. I can’t help but think all he had for me was a wild crush, and now he doesn’t know how to tell me that he doesn’t love me anymore, It’s easy for a girl to see through a guy. Does all this hurt, honestly yes, It really kills me to think that I was honestly so wrong about the entire thing. In spite of all the pain going on inside, I’m still not going to sink into that pity party thing. Yes I will allow myself to go through the pain and disappointment, I will go through whatever I will have to go through, but I won’t allow any space to feel sorry for myself, I will be picking my lessons though, hoping this time I’ll learn to put them into practice and again its entirely okay to be wrong at times.