Navigating heartbreak while grieving my mum, and the peace I had before giving love another chance.

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9mins read . Personal . October 19, 2026

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Oh shit!!!!!! Where do I start from? Lol.

I really don’t know how best to start expressing myself writing this, but this must be what Beyoncé felt when she was writing the Lemonade album after Jay-Z was cheating on her.

SAD!!

I know.

So she went to the studio to cook Lemonade for us. So yeah, I get it, Bey.

I am in my Lemonade mood. “Hold up, they don’t love you like I love you. Slow down, they don’t love you like I love you.”

That’s a lyric from one of the songs on the album titled “Hold Up“, and it’s the one that came to my mind.

I think I was young when the album came out, and I was excited, singing to another woman’s pain. Not knowing the full details of the album, even though there were rumours and nothing was verified, that could genuinely be someone’s feelings. I just confirmed I was 16, lol.

Even though there were rumours that the album was due to the heartbreak from her husband, I didn’t even see it that way.

I was just excited to watch the videos, especially the “Hold Up” video where she was walking around swinging things. It was exciting for me.

It’s now I realise that, chai, that woman was really going through it. No wonder she was expressing herself in the video and smashing things.

Heartbreak will shatter you internally like that sometimes.

Also, Adele’s 30 album was after her divorce, I think, and that was fire too. Even tho that wasn’t linked to betrayal. But it was still relationship pain.

Sometimes you need to go out to get your heart broken to have a reset so you can choose yourself all over again.

Only to fall in love later and out of love.

Rinse and repeat till you die or you decide, “Fuck it!!!!! I’m too old for this shit.” Or maybe we will find genuine love after 75 years of age. Lol.

But yeah, it’s really crazy out there. I wonder why I am always surprised, because the earth is a jungle anyway. But the animals in the jungle will hit you with a different type of fresh hurt every time.

I really wonder why the same things hurt differently.

The last time I was in a relationship was four years ago. Deep sigh.

But the aftermath of the hurt was on a different level because, when I was dealing with my heartbreak from a relationship, my mum was slowly dying from cancer. I had to watch her deteriorate completely to finally passing on while also dealing with heartbreak.

That’s the kind of pain I wouldn’t want anyone to experience.

My mum dying is a different type of pain that I still carry with me to this day, one that led to my diagnosis of PTSD and chronic depression.

I still can’t put into words how heavy losing a parent is, because it comes with a fresh layer of pain every day, especially if they were the centre of your world.

Most days I just wing it. The pain is still there. Not like I don’t feel it, but it has become a part of me. The heavy days are heavy, while the mild days are mild. But yeah, it’s painful.

Then that, combined with dealing with a romantic relationship heartbreak, all in the same timeframe. It really was a killer combination. And sadly, I had to experience that.

Sometimes I ask myself how I survived those difficult times. It was crazy. Happiness was like water in a very dry, hot desert.

I am trying to picture myself then to see if there was a day I genuinely smiled, but no. There was none. And if any, I probably had a genuine laugh once in four months or even less. It was really difficult.

Oh, that was also when I moved from my suicidal country, Nigeria, to the UK, and it was just a wild period. Everything was running fast while I was being choked up by life.

Life had me in bondage.

Crazy, crazy times.

So after all of those, I took a break from the expectations of love, and I was just trying to get my mental state better because it was shit.

I started to pray. Tahajjud was steady, and yeah, I got better. Alhamdulillah. But I still struggled, and that made me agree that life is indeed full of ups and downs, like a bumpy road.

In between trying to survive, I met someone who was my type, and we actually had good conversations, banter. But I didn’t even wait around to find out what would be the end of us, and I also didn’t even give room for whatever was to happen between us.

And with the way things were going from my own end, it felt like I was going to grieve into him because I genuinely hadn’t sat with myself to deal with the grief of losing my mum. So I just stopped entertaining whatever was cooking.

It was a really long time for me, mehn.

Really sad moments.

The other guys who were speaking to me, oh, poor them. They didn’t mean a tiny bit of a thing to me. I just saw them as clay figures, nothing more.

Sincere apologies, mehn. It was where I was at then, and I wasn’t even communicating well with my friends. Why would I communicate with men who maybe wanted to come and play a few tricks, lol?

Hell no!!!!! So a lot of them died down, and just two people were consistent. It wasn’t until about two months ago that I tried to see if things could work, but they sadly couldn’t. Got a fair share of heartbreak from reaching out to them.

Healed, bounced back.

The thought of what could have been hurt till it didn’t anymore.

Grieving my mum, I was always so angry. Nothing made sense to me.

They wanted to be there, but I didn’t even notice that till I had a clear head to see things.

So I went on Hinge, which will be my last time ever, saying, “Let me see what’s out there again.”

Everyone always has a thing to say about me being single, so I said, “Let me level things down and stop being too guarded.”

Prior to that, I had been on Hinge. I would just delete the app the next day or forget about it. Then, when I remembered, I would just delete it because there was no point responding to a weeks-old conversation on a dating site. And even outside of a dating site, people tried to make me meet people. I just couldn’t be bothered to put in effort.

My relationship was Mario Kart and Fortnite. I would rather be home playing games, eating and singing to myself than trying to build a bond with someone. That’s what I said to myself.

People would ask me why I was still single, and I would constantly have no reason for that because I felt at peace with myself. And it’s about time I start avoiding people and gatherings that ask me questions that alter my peace of mind.

Being in a relationship wasn’t a part of my plan this year. I deliberately didn’t include it because I had enough of the fairy-tale love imagination bullshit, and I was all about myself and things that genuinely made me happy.

Well, I decided to try. And me trying was probably never meant to be because, if it was, I would not be this hurt.

I should have left myself that way because it has been a mixed experience. Some good, bad and funny, and other unknown words. But in between, I was mending my broken heart, lol.

It was a summer of bitter sweet experiences that, whenever I think about them, I laugh, and I am never trying that anymore. But the real deal is this most recent one.

For someone with quite a tiny share of heartbreak, I thought nothing would move me anymore, but I was wrong. Very wrong. And I realise that I’m not as tough as I think I am. It might not even be a matter of being tough or not. What will hurt you will hurt.

Last night, 4am, I think, because I put my phone away. Drowning in the betrayal I put myself in. I was thinking, “When was all of this going to end?” With the tightness in my chest. My leg was aching at first, then I couldn’t feel any emotions. I was happy to be that way, but hurt at least.

But I couldn’t sleep for days. Then it was Tuesday, 4am, that I referred to as last night, that I said to myself while looking in the mirror that I was going to feel every type of pain that comes with the heartbreak instead of avoiding it. Because, mehn, it was a very painful, tight chest.

Then I just laid flat on the floor. Then I said, “Wait, is this not the “Yakubu manage, You will feel it like you want to die, but you will not die.” viral meme video that I just said to myself ? But in a different way”. LOL

Then I started to laugh. The ability to make fun of myself in hurtful situations.

I can’t really remember what else I thought about because I didn’t want to write immediately, because I was terribly weak. But I’m good now. Ready to create a big gap between me and men.

Lol, I’m just joking. I bet I’m texting my friends on the group chat, “I think I like him,” in two weeks, lol. But I doubt it.

Another viral video I laughed about in relation to the situation was, “Men, my ass, I’m done.” Lol.

The price of choosing yourself is very difficult. While staying in a bad situation is also difficult. But the best type of difficult setting is to choose yourself.

Every time I tell myself it’s going to be fine, I pause and I ask myself, “Are we really doing this again? Like, really? I thought we said we were done.”

I really wish I was done trying. All of this hurt is not a good feeling in any way.