THE WOMAN I AM BECOMING

For a long time, I thought becoming stronger meant becoming someone who no longer felt pain.

I thought strength meant waking up one morning and no longer caring about the things that had hurt me. I thought it meant forgetting the disappointment, the loneliness, and the moments when I had questioned my own worth.

But I have learned that strength is not the absence of pain.

Sometimes strength is waking up while you are still hurting and deciding to keep going.

I am slowly becoming that woman.

The woman I am becoming is not perfect. She still has fears. She still has days when she doubts herself. She still remembers the things that broke her heart.

But she is learning not to allow those things to define her.

I am learning to speak to myself with kindness.

I am learning that my body does not determine my worth. My relationship status does not determine my value. Being unemployed does not make me a failure.

I am more than the things I have struggled with.

I am a daughter. I am a sister. I am a friend. I am a woman with dreams, talents, and a future that has not yet been written.

There are still things I want for my life.

I want to work again. I want to become financially independent. I want to continue writing. I want to create something that belongs to me.

I want to wake up one day and look at my life with pride—not because everything went perfectly, but because I never gave up on myself.

I also want to learn how to enjoy my own company.

For so long, I believed happiness had to come from another person. I thought being loved by someone else would make me feel complete.

Now I understand that another person can add happiness to your life, but they should never be responsible for creating your entire sense of worth.

I want love.

I still believe in love.

But I also want peace.

I want respect.

I want honesty.

I want communication.

And most importantly, I want to remain myself while loving someone else.

The woman I am becoming knows that she cannot control how other people treat her. But she can control what she accepts, how she responds, and where she chooses to put her energy.

She is learning to let go of what she cannot change.

She is learning to stop chasing people who do not choose her.

She is learning that saying no does not make her difficult.

She is learning that protecting her peace does not make her selfish.

And she is learning that starting over is not failure.

Sometimes starting over is courage.

I don't know exactly where my life will take me from here.

I don't know when the next opportunity will come.

I don't know what my future relationships will look like.

But I know one thing.

I am no longer willing to give up on myself while waiting for someone else to believe in me.

I will keep trying.

I will keep writing.

I will keep dreaming.

I will keep becoming.

Because somewhere along this journey, the girl from Biafra became a woman who finally understood that her story was worth telling.

And this is only the beginning. ❤️