KÄRLEK

I was born in 1989; a cross between a shining star and a guardian angel my mother said. I grew up in an average family home and I had what would be considered a normal upbringing. Even before I became fully conscious of self; before I had the words to be, I strongly desired the extraordinary over ordinary. I studied Economics and Business Management but I wanted to be a supermodel living in New York so I left home at 19. Home was a small city in Nigeria called Portharcourt. I left home with a one way ticket, $300 and a heart full of dreams. I failed at that and moved back to my small city with a tired heart and no savings. I moved ahead filling my time with my next dream of greatness. I started a spinning studio; but I failed at that also. In 2014, my sister died and she took the optimistic part of me with her to the grave. I broke in ways that no verb can describe. I became a passive being. Going with the flow. I did not put any conscious attention to anything; how to be a person or how to love or how to fight for a dream or how to have passion. I let it all go. I was just a body with no soul. Looking back now, I felt as though I was sleep walking for years without waking up once. That is the best and simplest way to describe this to a third party.

The day that something ridiculously significant changes in your life will be a day just like any other. The sun will still rise in the east and set in the west. You will wake up just like any other day, stretch while reaching out for your phone to check your socials, you will log in to twitter to find a private message from someone that is a stranger to you and that message will bring light and hope back to you. You will not know it at the time when you click send to your reply, but it will. This was me in the last quarter of 2017.

El is the first born of 3 children, she is the daughter to a traditional man and woman from a lineage of deep tradition, she is the sister to twin boys but also mother to same twin boys, she is confidant to her father and protector of mother. None of these things listed is who she is fundamentally as a person but these are roles that she has held on to dearly at one point or another, the ones assigned to her through the years starting right from young childhood to mid adulthood. She was someone that was made to be an adult right from when she was a child. She wears these badges with honor even though beneath some of them, there is thorn that cuts deep. She is a creator of worlds through her words and changer of realities through her actions. She is an inspiration to many far and wide and a home to few. My name translates to 'Shelter' but she is the one that shields and protects me when need be, the one that reminds me that I am myself on the days that I forget. On the day that I met El, I had slept walked for so long that my real self was forgotten and my sleep self had become the forerunner in my existence. She taught me to think again, she asked why for everything, she asked why for things I did not realize I could even ask why for. She told me I could love my family as they are - which I deeply do but still create a chosen family of people that are more like me. People that I would never need a mask to be close to. Is that even possible? A maskless me? Yes is the simple answer. She taught me to stand still when all there was to do was to run. I was forced to learn emotional intelligence because I met her. She taught me to breathe again after I had held my breath for years. I saw her achieve things that made her mentors surprised it wasn't them.

Music is an essential part of life so I’m almost always listening to music; as I write this, I’m listening to a playlist called ‘4 us’ compiled for El for her chosen family and that amplifies who El is as a person. She created a playlist for us to listen to on sad days and happy days and just there days and in listening to the songs that skip from one to the other; I find so much similarity in this here playlist and in who she is as a person in how one song can go from a dancehall song to a classical song to a traditional song and then to just beats and no words. Isn’t that life? A little bit of everything. We are this and we are that and all of it is perfectly ok. You are ok. I am ok. This is not to say that El is a saint because if day and night ever lived in a person then it would be in her. She can break just as perfectly and precisely as she can heal. I’ve seen this, I know.

El is a writer. Her trauma led her to turn to words and in words she found herself and in finding herself, she is now creating worlds for people like her. Through her writing, she is creating the world as she would want it to be. A big safe world house with a large dining table and all her chosen family devoid of suffering, sexual abuse, depression, drug abuse, anxiety, families that break their own; devoid of all suffering for all people. Safe spaces, safe worlds, chosen family, love. In finding herself and in then finding me, she made me find myself too. El wanted to become a writer against all odds, and so she did, she wanted to be published so she did that too, she wanted representation and then she got that, she wanted to write a book so she did even when her brain caused a chemical imbalance in her and she was terrified, anxious and depressed, she wrote right on, she wanted a publishing agency and she got that too. In living her life to the best of her capacity, in showing up even when the sun does not rise in her, she's writing her reality and it is magical to witness. She does not try to be inspirational, she just is. She does not write for the glory, she writes to survive. So she also inspires me now to dream, to show up, to do, one day at a time and when I am unable to, she reminds me that it is ok to break, to fumble, to rest, to make bad decisions from time to time, she holds my hands and reminds me that she is walking with me one step after the other and when I'm ready to, we can begin to walk again.

This is 2020 and my life has more light than it did before El. I am no longer sleep walking, I’m demanding more from the world, I am writing my own life the way I desire it because I know now that it is possible to, I am a shinier version of who I was, I am dreaming again and I am pursuing said dreams, I am now also an inspiration to some, I am asking for more in love and in friendships, I know now that I can choose what is a healthy love and what isn’t, I know now that I am never stuck; that I can always choose a different yes. A few days ago, I stumbled and I reached out to El and she wrote back to me saying ‘ I know it feels like everything is being upended but it’s not, nothing is final, even the things we choose we can un-choose. You’re still you, so believe in yourself, ok? You just need to remember the inside of your own personal head and that’s ok. Take the time off, remember what you want and what you need; then give that to yourself no matter where you are, you’re doing more than okay”. This is who I am blessed to call my person every single day and if there was ever a gift that kept on giving, she is the gift.

She is my chosen family and I'm hers