Heartbreak, grief, and choosing myself again.
12mins read . Heartbreak series . November 11, 2026
I have had very rough days and nights up until now, and I still feel sick. Fighting back the tears that flow as I pick up my laptop to write for the third time in a row about my hurts. The second time was at midnight on the 17th.
It’s a different thing and a different, fresh feeling that unravels. And as someone who laughs when going through their own phase of life, I said, “If I was a famous writer, I would have written a book off this feeling, made loads.”
And I quickly said to myself, “My aim is to also write out what people can’t be bold to say, to express, or to even think about.”
I have found myself shutting down thoughts in the face of uncertainty.
First of all, grief has made me feel things differently. Just like I expressed in my writing, the dead take a part of us with them. It is absolutely true, and the more I realise, the more I have very fresh, mixed feelings about everything happening to me at this moment.
I don’t know who I am, and I sure damn know that me before my mum’s passing would not be bothered about heartbreak this much.
And it’s just a tough cycle of feelings that never goes away. It’s a strong one, particularly the one that I still can’t quite put into words. But let me release everything in my writing.
I genuinely want to be vulnerable, but not vulnerable in the fact that I would take back a liar, all in the name of wanting to have a relationship. Nah, I won’t be doing that, and I would remain alone. Like whenever I boldly say, “I might not be getting married.”
Betrayal is now associated with grieving my mum, and it’s a really tough situation to put myself in. I am crying my eyes out. I have had little to nothing to eat.
I have just been trying to get my space back to how it used to be: clean, bright, and sweet-smelling.
It has been a huge pile of mess, just like my mental state has been. While I was doing that, I obviously had to do my laundry, so I sat down sorting my laundry out, and I found a thing of his. It immediately disrupted whatever healing and feel-good point I had reached.
And thank God I was on a video call with my friends, who were trying to brighten me up. I didn’t think much of it, but it sure did make a mark, and it was the type that I couldn’t ignore. So while I was actively speaking to my friends, laughing and joking, I wanted to reach out. That’s someone who was slowly becoming a part of me.
The anger, the hurt, the pain are still very much there, but I just texted. And I really should not have, because I was on a 0.5 mood, and it dropped to minus hundred.
And lucky for me, it was the time my friends thought I was good, so we all ended the call. But it was a fake smile from my end and a very tight chest.
I just wanted to get a response. I just wanted him to say something. I knew it was not going to change my mind about ending things. But emotional pain destabilises you in a way that you just create things in your head and mind to soothe it. Sometimes you end up doing whatever you can at the moment for relief.
I unblocked him to send the message, and I hoped to get a response back in about an hour or thereabouts. But I didn’t, so I took it as, “Oh, probably no more responding to me.” And he has realised that “she isn’t going to accept me back,” and there’s no point in all of the apologies because he has maybe, in his own way, tried everything he can.
Got older people involved to contact me from his side, and maybe they have told him I was rude to them and he should stop contacting me. I know how older people can be with respect.
So I respect that, and I felt bad for how things went. I just stopped replying, not because I decided to deliberately ignore their messages, but because I genuinely was overwhelmed.
I was ill: tight chest, not eating well, sore throat, lack of sleep, confusion, numbness, and a whole load of symptoms. I didn’t want to add to people around me panicking. I just put my phone aside, and even my family and friends couldn’t reach me, and they were worried.
So I didn’t just ignore his people. I ignored mine too.
But they probably won’t know that and would never know. And being an avoidant, after that I felt a bit of relief. Relief that wasn’t full but was enough to keep me a tiny bit better for whatever I was to feel that day.
So I decided to just leave the messages as they were. I even missed my kilishi delivery message. Anyone who knows me knows I won’t miss a kilishi delivery for anything. Kilishi is like money to me.
So that’s how I left messages untouched. And it wasn’t until after I texted and didn’t get a response, when I thought I was going to get one, that I had so many thoughts running through my head. And the major one was, “Oh, he probably thinks I disrespected his mum,” because after I checked the messages, I noticed that his mum had sent me a voice message.
I didn’t even listen to it properly, just got past two seconds before I closed my WhatsApp again. And there was no point responding anymore because I would have to start explaining, and it would probably make me feel much worse than I already did, because I wouldn’t be getting a response back. I knew that for sure, so yeah.
The guilt I carry for appearing disrespectful, which isn’t my fault.
My behaviour didn’t lead to everything being this way. But while feeling everything I was feeling, I asked why this hurt me more.
Meeting someone for about a month or two won’t hurt as hard as being with someone for two years, only for the relationship to go down bad because of the other person’s character, while your mum was slowly deteriorating from chemotherapy till her passing away, while also dealing with heartbreak. It’s fucking hard.
I had to sit with the grief that broke me into being a stranger to myself, to slowly getting better. And I use the words “getting better” casually, like it isn’t gold to me.
But that aside, I knew the pain that came with everything that heartbreak caused me. I was losing my mind. Everyone thought I was distant. I was losing my mind deeply.
Not enough words to describe what I felt and what I still feel about everything.
I got better. My bubbly self was back, and I said to myself that I wasn’t going to be in a relationship. But people throwing their well-meaning advice here and there made me actually, actually try. And when I tried, what did I get? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
That’s why this feels very hurtful and personal to me. It’s like slowly watching yourself get better, be happy, only to betray yourself again. So I have to go through all of the phases I went through to make me happy, which wasn’t funny. It was pure pain.
Days when I’d be helpless, staring at a bottle of thick bleach. Days when my days off were for me to cry and hope for better days, which I didn’t see. I can’t even begin to write the gory things. But it was bad.
Then you let your precious self go, only to betray yourself. When all you had was only you. It was only me and my prayers.
I tried to see if I had any form of comfort from people, but I didn’t. I acted like I was okay. Even on days I didn’t look it, I still didn’t say a thing about how I felt. So it was just me.
My grief and my way forward. I actually did get better, and my mistake was not holding on to the me that had only me. Just like people say, people make it better, but it’s still your pain to carry, your grief.
I feel like I betrayed myself, who fought so hard, really, really hard to be better. And maybe I didn’t deserve it, but I know I deserve it.
When will I get better from this? I sincerely do not know. It just hurts more than everything did hurt in the past. Why didn’t I leave myself alone? Why did I try?
I know myself better. I should have held on to her who fought so hard to smile, but I betrayed her. I let her go, and now it’s billions of emotions and uncertainty about how to move on from what she dragged herself into.
When will the tides be clear? I really don’t know. But for now, everything hurts. It hurts so bad that I can’t feel; I just know I am hurting. I am laughing and crying, mixing things up.
I feel more worried now because I have bigger responsibilities with a deadline to meet. And during my last phase of sadness, I knew the world doesn’t wait for you to snap back. It just keeps going like you are not a part of it, till you decide to catch up.
No looking back to even pause. It moves fast. So do the people who cause you pain.
Some pain feels deeper.
To people, it’s just another man acting like men do. But for me, it’s deeper: a betrayal to myself, reopening a wound I thought had healed.
But you really never heal from grief. It destabilises you and hits you where you don’t imagine it would hit you from. At least now I know to never try again.
I bet the person who made me revisit grief is very okay. Probably watching football or playing a game and being happy while I am on my laptop, crying my eyes out.
Feeling all different types of feelings I shouldn’t allow myself to feel. But because I betrayed myself, I have to deal with it. Which hurts more because, included in everything I have processed before, is betrayal.
Would I be trying to get to know someone again?
HELL NOOOOOOO!!!
What a tough setting. I do not hold any grudges whatsoever. At my point of anger, yes, I would hold grudges, and I did hold grudges. But as I slowly ease down to being better, they will die down.
I am human too. I can’t always be perfect around people, and I would hope they forgive me. I just pray I do not hurt anyone as bad as this. AMIN.
I feel better getting to this point of expressing myself. But I know the next second could be me feeling the betrayal freshly again, with my chest tight. But whichever way, I hope when I revisit this part of me, it hurts less than it did at this moment of me writing this.
I haven’t eaten all day. I feel weak. A finger could toss me down. Some hurts are deeper than just a surface-level understanding of how it hurts.
Do I want him to read this? Absolutely. Yes and no, because deep down I want things to get better or for us to pick it up from where we ended things.
But boundaries need to be set for the standard I set for myself, regardless of how I feel. And this is how painful it feels to choose yourself over and over again.
I hate the lack of honest closure that comes with human relationships going sour. I still need to speak my mind, which I am doing, but to the person who made this all happen.
But sadly, that doesn’t happen in the human world. Hopefully, it happens in the animal world. That’s why they live as they live, but yeah.
As an African who was raised with respect, sincere apologies to those who felt disrespected. It’s like that sometimes when you are fighting for you.
And to the person who made me revisit grief strongly and unexpectedly, even if today I don’t wish you well, trust me, I do wish you well when I get better. It’s life, mehn. I didn’t guard my happiness as much as I should, knowing fully well it’s just me and me.
Peace!!! Even though it’s chaos at the moment, peace still.
“So, surely with hardship comes ease.” — Qur’an, Surah Ash-Sharh, 94:5.
Sadly, that’s how life is. Even though I want ease with ease. But yeah, PEACE!!!
See you on judgement day, lol. If you can stock up my house with mana when we get to heaven, we can negotiate forgiveness. Lol.
And quick update: I got the conversation I wanted, and after it, I discovered that it was good while it lasted, from my end. The genuineness in everything that made me happy while we created memories still holds that. And it made me realise not everything deserves to be long to be good.
Would it still hurt me? Oh yes. Writing this final part is a sad one. It’s human nature to want good moments to be eternal, but sadly, life isn’t that way.
“NOT EVERYTHING DESERVES TO BE LONG TO BE GOOD.” — AYOMIDE, 2026
LMAO!!!
I fucked around and found out again.
Leave a Reply