Being myself is something I so much love, and not exposing how I feel is just the way I've been born.
I have stayed in a house with a friend who we had lived together for years and even from childhood. We went to the same secondary school but different universities. When I was done with my polytechnic, he called me to join him in where he worked in Lagos State. Although we had departed for a year, we still had conversations through messages and calls.
After deep thoughts and some thorough thinking coupled with the fact that I have searched for a job and not seen one, I decided to give him the idea of going to join him in Lagos. I started in the school he was teaching.
After some time being with the school, the principal had to call me about some issues. Those issues were personal issues that I felt I should keep within me, although my friend and I had been sharing things and words. Anytime he had anything to say, he would not hesitate to spill it to me.
Somehow, he got to know about what the principal had told me personally. He called me and asked if I had heard such a word from the principal. I did not hesitate to say “No”, just because of what I would call nature.
After a few days, he called me again and said, “Why are you so secretive?”
This is what I have never discovered in my life even though it has been happening truly, but I never see that coming.
He said, “You have never, for once, related any issue related to yourself to me being my best friend, but I have always related mine to you”.
After that day, I was just trying to open up to him in some aspect. One day, I was a little sick but was just managing it. I never told anyone I was sick, just because I felt it was not that serious. To me, I did not see it as keeping a secret but was just trying to manage my condition. I went to school and after teaching for some moment, I went to my office to relax. I took paracetamol, which was my national cake and best drug. Anytime I was sick, and even up until this moment, the first drug to run to was paracetamol. I took it and was a little fine.
I stood up from my office after relaxing for some time to have my second class. Likewise, I saw him teaching a particular class, in which I waved at him. After that class, I went again to my office to relax. He came to meet me just for us to gist as usual but was surprised to see me sleeping. “It's unlike you. Why are you sleeping? What's the problem?” He asked, but I just answered normally, “Nothing, I wanted to relax a bit”. He left just to let me relax.
Three days later, the sickness got worse, and I was unable to get up from the bed. He drew closer and felt my body with his hands. This was when he opened up to me that I was a wicked friend. “You are dying deep inside of you but refuse to open up to me, your best friend? You are a wicked friend*.
I later apologized to him for not telling him. I told him that I was just trying to observe if it would subside and was thinking it would just suppress after taking paracetamol.
He took me to the hospital and my surprise, it was typhoid fever after undergoing the test.
After that day, I tried to be myself and always tell him things instead of hiding them from me.
To be sincere, I didn't know that I was secretive or the type that does not open up about what was bothering me until that day he voiced it out to me.
Before I got married, I had to learn a lot because it is what I must learn to have a proper married life. There was a day I had an issue in my workplace. I did not bother to tell my wife about it, just because of the way I felt about the matter. I felt it was something I could just handle without someone's advice, but when the case became worse, my wife got to know about it and began to blame me for being so deep in terms of mind. She said, “If you keep something like that or even anything at all from me, I will leave your house.” After hearing that statement, I had to be forced to change for good.
I'm now opened up to my wife and even to the extent of telling her anything that happens to me.
I never knew that was something that could cause trouble. Not only that, but I only thought I was doing something normal, but when my friend told me, my eyes were opened. Also, my eyes were opened the more when my wife made that statement.
