Before You Go ❤️

As at when I was supposed to drop this post, it was still supposed to be July somewhere in the world. Unfortunately, this site refused to work and you’re getting it now. Knowing this, read this post with July’s mind.

In 2020, I started a blog post I never got around to finishing… until now. In it, I wrote, "I wonder if I'm still single not because I haven't met the right person yet but because I am not the right person yet”.

Over the years, this sentence has found its way back to me at the most unexpected moments. Almost as if it has been patiently waiting for me to finally understand it. Like a question God kept placing back on my desk because my first answer was incomplete. It is easy to believe that we are still single because we simply haven't met the right person. However, what if there are still parts of us learning what it means to become the right person?

For a long time, I thought I knew my answer. I actually know I'm a catch. I'm thoughtful. I love loudly. I buy gifts just because. I celebrate people like it's my full-time job. I will remember your favourite snack after you mention it once and somehow convince myself that buying it for you is a perfectly reasonable financial decision despite having ₦2,673.13 in my account in this economy. If I love you, you will never have to doubt it.

Beyond the obvious, I've also done the quieter work on myself. I've been to therapy. I've confronted uncomfortable truths about myself, cried through sessions I thought would be easy, unlearnt unhealthy patterns and chosen healthier ones. I've learnt to apologise where I need to, healthier ways to communicate and have become more intentional about the people I entertain and the patterns I tolerate. I choose better now.

So, if you asked me whether I was ready for love, my answer would have been yes. Confidently. Not because I thought I had achieved emotional perfection, but because I genuinely believed I knew myself. Then life reminded me that healing has a funny way of revealing itself in layers. It is never as complete as we think.

You see, I was recently reminded that I still have abandonment issues. The funny thing is mine don't look the way you expect. I don't blow up your phone if you don't reply. I'm not checking your last seen every thirty seconds. I don't cling or beg people to stay. My abandonment issues wear a blazer and heels. They have excellent communication skills and look organised, functional and emotionally intelligent until closer inspection.

No matter how much I love a person and how deeply they matter to me, I can live without them. That sentence sounds mature until you realise it comes out a little too naturally. When I was younger, I was incredibly good at keeping malice. Honestly, if there were an Olympic game for emotional detachment, Nigeria would have the gold medal easily. Once I decided I was done, I was done. Of course it hurt so bad and sometimes I cried so hard, but then I would give myself a motivational speech (some might call it bullying) that basically amounted to, "You're embarrassing yourself. Stand up. You'll survive”.

Without fail, I always moved on.

For years, I admired that about myself. I called it resilience. I called it moral strength. I thought it proved I wasn't dependent on anyone. Lately, though, I've started to wonder if I misunderstood and it was simply a survival mechanism. I've now realised there's a difference between being okay if people leave and preparing for everyone to leave. A huge difference between protecting your peace and protecting yourself from vulnerability. One is security while the other is simply survival. The unfortunate thing about survival mechanisms is that they rarely stay where they were born. Eventually, they become beliefs.

Somewhere along the line, I became really good at convincing myself that nobody was indispensable. I believed, like Peyton Sawyer from One Tree Hill, that everyone leaves. It sounded empowering to my ears, but it was also a little lonely. I learnt to leave emotionally by convincing myself that I'd be absolutely fine when it happened.

Unfortunately for me, intimacy isn't just loving someone. It's also allowing yourself to need them. It's giving someone enough access to your heart that their absence would actually disrupt your world. It's trusting that every goodbye isn't inevitable. That is far scarier than I care to admit.

Therapy taught me how to communicate. It taught me boundaries and red flags. It taught me not to confuse potential with reality. To differentiate exciting and intense chaos from love. It reminded me that chemistry is wonderful, but that compatibility is what sustains a relationship. Healing, on the other hand, is very humbling. Just when you think you've passed the course, you get another test you did not see coming. Mine was discovering that beneath all the healthy communication, emotional awareness and self-assurance was a girl who still subtly believed she should always be prepared to lose the people she loved. One who received love while quietly preparing for its funeral. Healing was me discovering that a wound I never realised I had was still making decisions for me.

That was difficult for me to accept. Not because I felt like it made me broken, but because it reminded me that growth is not a final destination. It is an ongoing invitation to know yourself more intimately. Healing, I've learnt, isn't becoming someone with no wounds. It's becoming someone whose wounds no longer dictate their response.

Am I ready for love? I genuinely think I am.

Am I the right person? I think I'm becoming her.

Not because I've achieved emotional perfection. That doesn't and cannot exist. Perfection is a myth. I say I'm ready because I know myself better than I ever have before. I know my wounds. I know my triggers. I know where fear disguises itself as wisdom. I know when hyper independence starts masquerading as strength. I know that my instinct to move on is often my instinct to protect myself from disappointment. Knowing these things means I get to choose differently.

So maybe I am still single because I haven't met the right person. Maybe God is still writing a story I can't yet read. Maybe He's gently showing me that while I've become very good at giving love, there's still room for me to become better at receiving it. Maybe it is Him, in His infinite kindness, revealing the parts of me He wants me to work on before I ask another to hold them.

As I have found out, love isn't only about finding someone safe enough to trust. It is also about becoming someone brave enough to trust them. When love comes, I don't want to be only capable of giving it; I also want to be courageous enough to receive it. To believe it. To rest in it. I want to stop rehearsing its ending before it has even begun.

Perhaps that is the real work. Perhaps that is what that statement from 2020 has been asking of me all along. Not to be perfect without any wounds. Just to be someone who knows them well enough that they no longer get to write the story.

For the first time in a long time, I think I'm ready to do it.