Growing up was one difficult challenge, but despite all these challenges, I loved life to the core. That was why my mindset back then was to survive at all costs. That cost of survival can come at the detriment of one's freedom, health, and life, but the good thing about survival is that some of the price we get to pay is mostly worth it.
If a person can beat cancer, recover from an almost irrecoverable health situation, raise their financial levels significantly enough to change their life, beat their addiction, improve their health, or come out from an almost impossible state of poverty, deprivation, or depression, then what one must've sacrificed would have been worth it.
However, the beauty of life, the thoughts of progress, and the dream of attaining a position of freedom, untethered and unbothered by our previous ails can be worth it.
I was born into a dysfunctional family and the problems of having to survive, made me lose my voice as a person. It was difficult for me to tell the person next to me about my travails, and that's because I grew up in an environment where the things you say; your complaints, travails, or whimpers might not solve your problems, it's either you fix it, or it drowns you.
I blame this dysfunctionality as the main reason for my brother's demise, and anyone who feels I'm doing the "blame game" might be right.
However, when things are recurrently happening in your life, you enter into that detective and reflective mood in an attempt to understand the cause of your problem.
Because of my inability to verbally express my issue, a lot of people in my extended family took me as a destitute, lazy, or irresponsible person. I mostly carry that burden of people having to see me as a bad person, and the reason for this is that I feel that talk can be cheap.
Trying to explain to people who might not understand me, might just be futile.
While I was partially wrong, I still feel that sometimes, we can manage to tell people about our ails and woes and they'll still never understand or get it from your perspective, so what is the point anyway? I lacked expressiveness as a teenager, but that was because I felt my survival depended on the will of my creator and my ability to care for myself.
Survival is an instinct,
.....and sometimes our background, experiences, and how we choose to improve our knowledge is what mostly makes us cultivate some unique ways to survive.
I just got off the phone with one of my uncles, and he wanted me to explain everything that had to do with me, the death of my brother, and how everything seemed to have plummeted to this deteriorated condition.
After explaining things to him for 26 minutes of teary eyes and shaky voice. He couldn't believe himself, he immediately began to regret how he'd treated me for the past 15 years. He said I wasn't vocal enough to speak with him 15 years ago about personal and family challenges, and that if he had known, maybe he would have reacted differently.
He was imagining where I got all that strength to withstand the criticism and the terrible treatments he and his brothers meted out to me all these years, and I told him that if it wasn't for my brother's death, I'd still not be able to talk about this. Maybe it was time indeed for me to be vocal about my struggles, but I hated being treated with pity, I Iike people to see me as a strong person, undefined by my challenges and problems.
After everything, I feel it's time I start letting people know of my struggles and weaknesses.
Having my brother was one of my strongest motivations to hide my challenges and pain while maintaining a smiling front.
He's no more, and in almost one month now, a lot of people have seen me cry in unimaginable ways, for someone who has hardly shed a tear in front of anyone, I feel tired of wearing that veil of strength. My conversation with my maternal uncle is a reminder that maybe I shouldn't have tried to show that everything was good when I was practically falling apart, and maybe this caused an irreparable and irreplaceable damage.
Interested in some more of my works
Is it Easy To Make Money?
Nigeria: A Unique Business Market & Industry
Virtual Bank Apps In Nigeria: An Experience Of Gamification
How To Find The Next "BIG" Meme Coin
Personal Finance: Achieving Intentional "Saving" Goals
Playing The Survival Game: Human Nature In Introspection
"Un-PAYING" The Debt You Owe
