I

photo by Anete Lusina

“Where I’ll go and where I’ll belong are the choices I’ll make to assure my being a life of comfort. I’ll take my hands and walk towards what’s best for me; I’ll push because I want to and because I can.” - Nnenna

I once wrote a poem at a time when all I knew to be was lost in sadness and my smile. A mirror of my reflection, two realities fusing themselves together. Holding on to this poetry, it felt unbelievable but real. Once in a while, I touch palms with the body of this written poem and rub against it. It was mine, something I could name, I could play with and not feel ashamed.  

I read the poem filled with love but it painted pain. The poem was unbelieving of a tomorrow, achievable and free when it truly can be.

How do I begin this?

There was a time when the house opposite mine seemed more comforting than the walls I grew up in. In the house was a woman who loved to garden; she knew how to make such a small space look lovely; she had a medium-sized fish tank in her living room, and she’d show me how to feed and talk to the fish. She knew how to make use of lights that seemed to make the room warm. She had a cat with which I created a bond. I was so excited, sharing the discoveries her little home held as well as my fondness for the cat. It felt right to play with it and I was so happy, until the day I had to learn to let go because my late grandmother told me cats were witches out to get people, out to kill and destroy, and even if I didn’t understand how a cat could hurt anyone, I listened to what I was told, and that was the first time something wrong felt so right that it hurt to have shut that love out. 

It was under the shelves in the dark of my parents’ house that understanding waved at me while I was still thinking about the cat, but I was too blind to notice it, and I was too scared to accept that just maybe they weren’t right to have judged the cat that way. Part of me retained some of the encounter I made with understanding, but time went on to dispel it because life was a teacher I hated the recognition of. 

I have seen so much of life from a tiny glimpse

Different from what it paints for all of man to see

The world full of beauty without insights

It has no foundation to groom you into a person

Neither does it possess the assurance of reflection outside of what you know for yourself and of yourself

Yet it bears life lessons… 

There’s a lot of wonder in a supposed reality called the world. The world is a beauty to behold, yet it suffers mentally. This makes the world a place full of complex questioning. That’s how life had spun so much of my emotions over the concept of experiences because my emotions were a Ferris wheel that my past rode with glee in my memories. 

It was during my formative years when I called pain my home. I was defeated by the complexities life sprung at me; everything my mum told me about the world and about life was in contrast to what I saw outside. The world wasn’t kind to me as she said it would be; I trusted people with my secrets and they laughed at me because of my trust; my kindness was bullied and hurtful words were thrown at me to replace my courtesy. So, nobody heard me speak my truth. I was the liar, the troublemaker, the girl born to break her family’s home. I was laughed at for not knowing why I was touched by a pedophile; I  was called a prostitute when I didn’t even let any man touch me, and so my thinking went dark, and without hope in sight, parts of me soon said goodbye. I bullied myself for every mistake. Replaying all experiences that caused me pain, my feet danced to the rhythm and my soles took in all the beats. My heart tore just one inch more with every day that passed, and the pace it followed ruined every ounce of existing faith I had. I shyly hid behind the tracks because I was afraid to say the things I wanted: people made it seem like I had nothing to say that was brilliant. I faded in the shadows so much that life appeared to me as a wholly bad occurrence. It was like being kidnapped and locked in a basement: your life is no longer yours and all you have left for company is a small ray of light to keep your fears out. But when the light’s no longer there, everywhere in the basement becomes a threat, and so you have to learn to adapt, because somehow, somewhere in your mind, you’re not ready to give up the hope of finding an escape. You try and keep trying because trying is better than not making an attempt at all, but I didn’t make any attempts. I let the basement dictate what was to become of me, and, just like the cat, I was judged and cast out. 

All that pain increased because I had exposed my energy to the world I knew as a child. A forgiving and loving world, one that hides all the lies from your eyes. I guess the pain I always acknowledged was a better shadow of what the world is, a deluded reality. 

I had stayed thinking someone would see me, someone would save me, someone would come for me, all the time ignoring my own voice crying for me, stretching towards me, because I thought “just a little more time, someone is coming,” so I drowned myself in the pain some more. It was fine until it wasn’t. 

I laugh. 

Doubt?  

She revolved around my why’s. 

I thought life shouldn’t be handed excuses; in fact, life actually shouldn’t have existed because its existence to me had no importance. I liked the concept of life better in a fairytale, rewarding and refreshing. 

The comfort in my dark thoughts was their relatable and repeated pattern. When I had the darkness, it was easy to laugh at hope as a joke. Hope was always confident — she came with so much assurance — but then there was little to everything she worded out; all that trust turned to garbage constantly, so I gave up listening to the world. But that anger was my being. I had forgotten who I was and who I wanted to be; I accepted things as they were, didn’t ask too many questions, compelled myself that this was the right way; this was better since it’s what worked for everybody. I let the pain control me; I didn’t wait to breathe to see if my breath was worth me acknowledging in the first place. I had forgotten that life was a spring delight to look at and a teacher there to guide you, to teach you, to open your mind. Life would expose you to the best of yourself, so you could give more to yourself and do more for yourself. 

As I grew, I saw things differently. I knew the world would learn to appreciate me once I appreciated myself. That's when understanding waved again, and this time I said “hi”. I had unlocked a newer vision of what life meant to me, peaceful in my contention but still angry at the pain visible within me. Somehow, though, there was a chapter slowly closing all the pain to allow me to acknowledge myself, the anger now the knowledge of my experience. It was while I lay on my bed in the dark every night that I traveled within to ask myself if I liked where all my pain carried me and “no” was my answer. 

I took time to shape all that pain from my childhood into a mirror. And it was through my reflection that understanding rebranded me in discovering that the world's interpretation of me wasn’t of me but of my circumstances. I bettered my thoughts, and I slowly knew I was getting somewhere when I felt lighter within. I realized that I liked taking things at my own pace: I liked my space, good music, my books and my words. All that pain is not me, it was a reminder of the damages I hugged onto because they were familiar. 

This realization led me to see that life in that picture of journeying was mine. 

I not theirs. 

Their words shouldn’t have defined and dictated who I choose to be and how I express. And so I began to realize that what I liked was what they saw to be weird. I like the moon and the stars accompanying the night with a soothing ambiance because I see the moon’s beauty away from the fears people mention it carries. I love to dance to the music in my head; I love cats; I love nature — one of my favorite features of the world — I love smiling at my own responses and jokes; I like the purity and truest intentions laced with my shining teeth. I can’t believe I had to hide that smile from myself. 

This insight introduced a ritual where I make sure to indulge myself in the things I want to do from time to time, and it freed my thoughts. This ritual led me to be more patient with myself and all I do. What my mouth can’t speak, I respond with my hands and mind. Everything life taught me in those times and in these moments, I allow to help me build the real version of myself. Kind and of free spirit, smart and strong, thoughtful and adventurous, born out of nature to love nature, an artist embracing all of her creative elements. Truly becoming. Truly I-dentified. 

From now till the bell rings, whenever that may be, I’ll be here, really listening when I speak.