I am writing this at 9:23pm on the 7th of Feb, 2022 because I can’t hold it in. Not only my words, my tears too. I just read a message that someone sent to me in February 2020. I neither recall reading it nor responding to it. What is worse is that my response sounded so happy. One thing I know is that I was definitely not. As I read it, it occurred to me that I have not come to terms with what happened that year. Like every bad memory I have, my brain seems to have fogged it. I know how I felt, though. I felt lonely and lost and was sure that no one cared. But that message, as I read it with clear eyes this night, proved that thought wrong. I still don’t want to talk about it. The events of 2020 and early 2021, I mean.
However, I promised myself that I would be more vulnerable this year. One reason is that I am simply tired of holding so many emotions in and almost exploding. I want to be angry and not have to “watch my words”, else… I want to be happy and not worry that it will make someone sad, another person angry, or one person suspicious. I don’t want to act like everything is fine when nothing is. Likewise, I don’t want to feel ashamed of being hurt, as my brain is telling me to be right now. You will be mocked, Olamide. Okay, let me be, then. I am tired. Truly, though, I don’t know how to be vulnerable because I am used to being guarded. Because being not guarded means that I have given room for mockery. I will stop here and hope that I am able to unpack all of this someday. I wish myself the very best, as I always have. Someday, I hope to look back at moments like this to see how Lami has grown from a quirky girl of 12 (my earlier significant memory) through teenagehood and kinda adulthood to where ever she is when she reads this again.
I hope that I will have the courage to post this.
9:51pm.