WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW WHEN ‘GOING THROUGH A LOT’

Two weeks ago was our dinner party; that night girls get to think that they are the Princess of Swan Lake and the ethereal magic of makeup and skincare routine transforms your regular course-mate into a demigoddess that can pose as an IG influencer. Girls flash skin here and there and their watery thighs showed through the slit gowns while the guys do their best to look like Prince Harry, just not as much spice to take the spotlight off the girls. 

It was my first dinner night (actually waited to be in my Year 3 to attend one). The night was blurry but I held close to my heart the memory of the young man with a white Tee that had aesthetic designs on it. He had enough fat on his arm, finely toned, black and ‘just there’ (the statement girls make when a guy doesn’t meet Prince Charming’s standard but isn’t an ogre). I had seen him around, a lecturer’s help, in fact, the youngest lecturer help we knew. He saw me with my head resting on a round table outside the hall, trying to slip into oblivion in order not to bite my tongue at the regrets I had over coming to the event. There was nothing magical about the event than sweat and makeup. I wanted to go home but it was 1.00 am already. 

Was it pity or interest he showed when he gave me the key to a room to sleep in? I don’t know. I wasn’t planning on renting a room; the party was still in full swing, so who would want to sleep? I was the only one slowly drifting away from that gathering of sweaty bodies. The key felt like salvation, and with salvation there were no loopholes. 

That’s what I thought.

 I could take a rest of thirty minutes and quickly slip away, what harm could happen when I was with the key? 

I thought wrong. That night, I was molested without mercy. The magic of the night suddenly brought chills to my skin as his body weigh down on me, his naked flesh to mine. That night was the worst day I had experienced in the last two years. 

Guess what? Two days after that was my exam, the evening of that day I had a job to deliver. For a single girl that wants to ‘make it’ in life, not delivering that job would mean starvation. But I was traumatized. I went home to my bed, trying not to cry, sleeping throughout the day and refusing to answer calls. Yet, I had a job to do and exams to prepare for. So I did, I took my head down, got to my computer, did my job even if I came in three hours late and the next day I was back to reading my book. 

I once heard a statement, ‘life is not going to wait for you while you are going through a lot’. I might as well add to that statement; ‘life doesn’t care about you going through a lot’. It’s cruel, but then again, never has life been fair. The poor keeps getting poor and the rich……

There is a philosophy that tells us to take time to heal from our traumatic experience, but ‘choosing to heal’ doesn’t mean an absence of motion. You can read this article and say, ‘not everyone is like you’, or ‘not everyone can quickly move on’. Yes! Yes! Yes! Who am I to think people are made of krypton and carbon? Being stripped and threatened at death doesn’t sound like an easy feat, and it isn’t, especially for a girl who is fighting against a man who is twice her size. Yet, life will move past me at the speed of lighting if I decided this was going to weigh me down. 

Life doesn’t wait for you while you’re going through a lot. 

Call it toxic positivity or not, but I can promise you, while you battle with the decision to let people love you or battle anxieties depression; people will leave, people will grow, opportunities will knock and they will fade into darkness. You decide if you want to close your eyes to them. 

This isn’t some mantra to pretend that your anxiety isn’t real, your trauma isn’t great and your issue isn’t significant. No. They are extremely valid. There is no day I sit in school and forget someone had chosen to subject me to an object of gratification. Hiding within a dark room and not doing anything will give him the upper hand. 

This is a mantra for you to heal but keep moving-keep taking opportunities and in between them find time to take solace in peace and the fundamental truth that rule your life. For me, it was my spirituality and realizing I am loved despite the event that happened. It was having friends who told me they love me and it wasn’t my fault. But more importantly, it was my decision to not let an event hold me back. 2023 is an amazing year and there will be setbacks. The truth is; you’re bigger than it. But only you can decide that.  

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