What exactly is pain? How do you feel emotional pain?
Sometimes, we might not really understand some subject until we experience it.
Some people have told me that, I am tough, I think I can be, maybe I am. Okay, let’s tell some quick stories.
Sometime in 1993, my mum received a call on our landline telling her to come to the NYSC office in Akure, Ondo State. My brother was serving in Kebbi State. It was a strange call. She was already nervous. We were home alone, so we drove down to their office. As we got there, people started coming out to look at us, I knew something was wrong so did my mum. All I could think of was, I can’t drive. How do I get the car back home? My mum was already crying with no news yet.
I kept on assuring her that there was nothing wrong because I needed her to be able to drive the car back home. The NYSC officials followed us back home to give the bad news of my brother’s demise to our neighbours which I overheard and I simply just walked away. All along, my mum was already in loud tears. In all of these, I didn’t cry even though I was his favourite sibling. This didn’t feel abnormal to me until I went to my sister’s school, FUTA and gave her the news and she immediately burst into tears. I miss him but I didn’t feel pain.
Story number two: I lost my dad and another brother in a Kano riot. I was my dad’s favourite. He loved me to a fault …story for another day. The incident occurred during my NYSC service year in 2004. My financé now my husband invited me to some elderly neighbour’s house to break the news. After the news was broken, I remember asking him if that was why he brought me to his neighbour’s house. I simply said he could have told me straight up. I didn’t cry until he was being buried. I actually miss him but I didn’t feel pain. In fact, I remember someone asking me on my wedding day whether it was because my dad was not there, was why I did not dance very well. I don’t know, but I didn’t feel pain.
Then came a relationship that I poured the whole of my being into, I believed in this individual, I made every supporting case and I had not a single distrust in the individual’s integrity. I didn’t even allow any gossip about this person. Eventually, I was proven wrong. For the first time in my life, I felt pain. I was pained. I wanted tears to drop but I still didn’t cry, I was PAINED. I truly understood what pain was.
I’m someone who is always conscious of my soul’s well-being so I needed to get this pain out as quickly as possible. I have chosen long ago never to abhor hurt. I asked for the help of the Almighty and also did the following:
1. I took time to reflect on the good things I did in the relationship;
2. I confronted this individual stating what I know and what I have done in times past;
3. I requested an apology; and
4. I chose to take the apology and move on.
Pain exists but life goes on. We must choose to move on if pain arises.
