Put Your Pain In Perspective 🫂

Bushbaby did not cry more than me in October. 😂

“Hauwa, make the pain stop. Please”

My friend’s body was racked with sobs. I watched her writhe in pain, contorting her body into the devil’s dance and squeezing my left hand past breaking point. It was her third time in the hospital that month. Each time, she would walk out of the hospital only to be back in a week. There was absolutely nothing I could do but be there, so I stayed.

Forget my friend for a minute and let’s focus on me. 

I know most of the people here tapped that ‘subscribe’ button due to the ridiculously unprovoked schnanigans shenanigens shenanigans (wo, I can’t spell it but you get) I get up to. 

However, from today’s title, you already know this letter holds a different kind of energy. Today, I write for different reasons. For different people. Today, I write for the people in pain.

October has been a hard month for me. It was heavy. It felt like my world stopped. Omo. Bushbaby did not cry more than me in October. I would start crying and my mother would look at me like this. I’m not joking. 😂

Me: (sniff in sadness)

My father:

Getting out of bed became quite the chore. Responding to my messages became even harder. I completely surrendered my social media to someone else for a bit because omo, I cannot die.

Last week, someone said “Hauwa, you’re such a hard woman to reach.” and he was right, I had completely withdrawn myself. My friends would invite me out and I wouldn’t turn up because it felt like I was just postponing my grief, so I sat in my own pain.

You know the kind of pain I am referring to. 

The disappointment you feel when your passport comes back and you find out your visa had been denied. Or the piercing pain you feel when you have to let the love of your life go and be with someone else. Or the one where you watch things happen for all your friends and it feels like you’re stuck. Or the one that smacks you right in the gut when you hear back from the scholarship board and find out you didn’t get it.

That overwhelming disappointment. Yes na dat wan. 

Now, I have written all this story and you’re just like, “Hauwa, wetin con be solution”

Omo. I no know o. I say I have been crying like bushbaby and you’re asking me for solution. If I know, won’t I use it?

Lmao. Ela.

One think I do know is watching my friend trash about that bed, eventually succumbing to sedatives strong enough to put down a horse put my own pain in perspective. Watching her beg for a way out of her pain put my own pain in the backseat. 

Yes, I had felt an overwhelming sense of disappointment but here’s someone who would trade that with me in a heartbeat.

I suddenly felt deeply ungrateful. I could get another scholarship, another visa, be available to more opportunities. I could even love again. But my friend? She was fighting for her life.

It was the same way I felt when I found out Rico Swavey had passed. A man so young and full of life had just gone. I tried to picture the level of pain his family members felt at the news. I thought of their pain and compared it to my own. Mine paled and withered in comparison.

Look, I know that any kind of pain is valid and you should be allowed to feel your pain as deeply as you need to but while you give yourself that grace, also remember that you have a lot to be grateful for. 

I am not better than Rico or my friend in the hospital, yet they have been dealt way worse cards. So why can’t I wipe my tears, wash my face and stand toe to toe with my pain?

I don’t just write for myself. I write for you too. I know your heart is filled with disappointment and you are constantly searching for a way to turn off the pain. Unfortunately, I can’t turn it off for you but I can promise you that what is coming is better than what has passed.

I don’t want to end this letter on a sad note so let me attach the message of my latest toaster.

I present you with Pastor Fidelis.

Can you see what I am dealing with? Tell me why I will not cry. Chioma is collecting G-Wagon and I’m collecting I love you from Pastor Fidelis Agbonosomhi. 

Tell me why I will not cry! Why is my own always like this?

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