Maybe it's time

On healing a broken child.

I met my bestfriend 4 years ago in minna Niger state on a hot sunday afternoon, we were strangers then, me a new student looking for accommodation, she a kind soul willing to take me in. She had come to pick me from the motor park that day, I remember sitting and wondering why the sun was this hot when i saw her pacing the park, looking slightly confused at her phone, clutching her bag. She eventually found me, i remember how she hugged me like we were old friends, i remember how her arms felt like safety, but i remember most her handbag, a large yellow purse that rattled whenever she went in it, i watched her pull out a bottle of water from it, then her keys and handkerchiefs and then later that evening half eaten biscuits and a half drunk bottle of coke and over the weeks several odd and useless things. Soon i realized she had a habit of hoarding things that had little use. At first it had bothered me, but as our friendship progressed and i got to know her, i realized she had had a hard life, one whose edge had always been framed by hunger and want, and hoarding had become her coping mechanism, her defense against the clawing hands of lack. She had picked up this habit when she didnt have anything and yet had not been able to drop it when she eventually had enough. And this got me thinking about the fragility of the human spirit especially in the face of traumatic situations, how much of our daily mannerisms and beliefs are a reflection of the trauma we have faced, how much the hurt of the past has contributed threads in the tapestry of our being, and how unconsciously we carry these behaviours like battle scars. For many people childhood should have been a time of secure love and warmth, a time to be young and dumb and innocent and happy , instead it was a phase of stumbling through life, raw dogging challenges we had never faced before, feeling things we had never felt before without a reassuring hand on our shoulders, without any life manual, for many of us it was the phase of life where our tiny hearts were broken for the first time, and we had to learn new coping mechanisms to survive. But adulthood should be about healing, and i know we never really get a break from this crazy ride but we must find the time to heal our broken hearts, to love our inner child the way it was never loved, we must find time to unlearn all the toxicity, to relax and let our soul catch the sunlight, to lay it all down and bask in the security of having our own backs, to lay down our heads on the shoulders of the people who have proven thier love for us. My bestfriend at that time had not healed, and although she had made enough to never go back to the streets, she had never truly learnt the concept of abundance, she had not fully convinced herself that lack was something she would never face again, and so has a lot of us walking around with habits that have roots in the gnarly ugly past. Healing is trusting yourself , it is forgiving yourself, it is moving foward with the lessons but without the hurt, it is shedding the weight of the worlds cruelty to our younger selves, it is a singular powerful act of self love, it is freedom and i hope we all find it.

Thank you for reading me, it has been a long while and I genuinely miss the calmness of this space, hopefully I am able to put my life in order soon enough so i can come back. But while I'm here, i would love to hear from you, i have missed you, so please tell me everything, and yes, it would be of great help if you subscribed.