To me, I believe that being sad is part of human life because there is no way we wouldn't see something that would make us sad, and that is because it is a phase we have to pass through in life.
I don't have much to do whenever I am sad because my mom made me believe that avoiding people when I am sad would only worsen my mood, and that's why I don't like staying away from people whenever I am sad.
Hanging out with people around, talking to my loved ones, and having people around cheers me up when I am sad because when I talk to them, I will pour out my mind, which is enough to lighten my mood.
Something happened to me some time ago, which makes me sad more than I have ever been in my entire life.
The image was captured by me
There was a time when I was so sad to the extent that I couldn't interact with the people around me, and I didn't want to avoid them because they would suspect that I was depressed.
When I opened my shop, I was lucky with sales, and even when my boss visited me, she was happy. She said that I was lucky that people started patronizing me immediately after I opened the shop.
The sales went on for a while, and I was expecting people to change because I didn't want to expect too many sales, which would break my heart if I didn't make the sales. A year passes and doesn't drop until my neighbor decides to switch from catering to being a hairdresser, just like me.
At first, I didn't realize she was meeting my customers behind my back to plait hair for them; all I just noticed was that she stopped playing with me like she always did, which made me think she was going through something that she didn't want to share.
Another thing I noticed was that my sales dropped in the shop, which I thought was normal because it can't keep going just like that, so I decided to buy some lady's stuff like slippers to keep pushing, but instead of making sales, I was running at a loss because people would buy materials from me and then call my neighbor to come make the hair for them, and they wouldn't still pay for the slippers as well.
So one day, my neighbor came to borrow a picking comb from me and a big comb as well. I thought she wanted to comb her hair, not knowing she wanted to retouch her hair for someone who had purchased hair from me.
My shop image
When I was closing, I didn't see her inside the shop, so I asked her apprentice, and she told me she went to make hair for someone in the next compound where I was expecting a customer. I started having a bad mood immediately after the girl said that, so I closed and went home.
The next day, I asked her jokingly where she went, and she lied that she went to the toilet. Then she proved to me that she had been taking my customers behind my back, but there was nothing I could do because I couldn't report her to anybody since there was nothing anyone could do about it, which made me sad.
During December, she took almost half of my customers by going to their houses to make hair for them at a cheap price so that they wouldn't consider coming to my shop. Along the line, she disappointed one of them, so the woman came to me, begging that she was traveling and that she needed to make her hair.
I was patient enough to ask why she came so late because she had priced the hair from me before, so she explained that my neighbor had negotiated with her, but she didn't show up.
Immediately she said that my eyes were full of tears because this lady was ready to take all the customers away, while she was laughing with me. After that day, I didn't go to the shop for one week because I didn't want to face her or argue with her about anything, but then I felt like asking her why she did all that.
The image was captured by me
The sadness lasted for a while because I didn't see any reason why I should open the shop while my neighbor had taken all my customers, but after a week I resumed work. All I did while I was sad was be close to my husband and make sure we talked more so that I could feel good and go back to work.
So talking to my loved ones makes me feel better whenever I am sad, instead of staying away, which would make me feel more sad.
