Change

“The winds of change are blowing wild and free. You ain’t see nothin’ like me yet…”


~Adele, Make You Feel My Love   

I feel nothing like the person I was, or used to be. I’m darker inwardly. My insides feel like a hulled coconut, all the water drunk and all the fruit carved out in jagged chunks.


On the road between Ibadan and Lagos again, I appreciate the scenery that has become so familiar to me. The road is treacherous, full of pot holes the size of craters, tractor trailers that see it as normal to park on the road and block traffic and some of the most lush, dense and untouched green forests I’ve ever seen, lining either side

It is comforting to view the land like this, and imagine that it has been this way since the beginning of time. Changing so slowly that no human being can tell the difference until years later as he or she recalls the landscape of their youth.

So much has changed in me since the last time I passed this way, yet, physically, everything has remained the same. I can still ride along staring tirelessly at a sky the color of slate and muted periwinkle. The clouds block the stars tonight, but usually, the darkness plays host to a majesty of dancing lights. The air is fresh, smells like undisturbed earth.

My emotions for the most part come in waves, all or nothing at all and then, when the last of the tide has ebbed, I’m left with the still silence of a vacant beach.

I know this signals what it always does, that I am not at peace. My spirit is in a state of unrest.

For the first time ever, maybe, being here, where I decided to make my home for a while, I feel completely alone. Of course, I still have my friends, which I thank God for everyday, but then, everything else is in a state of flux. I am beginning to see the reason behind the statement “Nothing in life ever really falls apart, it only changes” but those changes sometimes feel like the foundations of the world are about to shift.

K tells me to stop running, which I admit is hard to do when it comes to things I feel that are painful. Much easier to put them in a box and focus on climbing higher, leaving them behind. It seems I habitually forget that even a mountain climber must descend at some point, and what I left in that box, I will eventually see again.

Feel the emotions, handle them, know them so that you can do away with the ones holding you back, she says.

K, to me has always been a warrior woman. When I think of her essence, a tall, armored and very fierce warrior maiden comes to mind with long flowing hair, a contagious laugh and a very big sword. Beautiful to behold but a formidable opponent even on her worst day.

K says that God shakes things up in a major way to give us an opportunity to refocus, not run.

I agree.