Letter from a contributor #2 – Keeping your joy

Hello Outlier,

I’m a living testimony. They tell you a lot about moving to London — how the cold eats into your bones, and your nose smarts against the wind, how the transportation is very good and how converting prices to naira (my home currency) will give you a heart attack. They however don’t tell you about the struggle to keep your joy.

I never imagined I’d even ever need to hear it. I used to be the happiest human I knew, ever empathetic, steady making jokes, going hard at both work and play.

Then, I moved.

Quit my job, packed a couple of outfits (and two pairs of trainers lol) and sashayed to the abroad for school

It was hard.

Very hard.

It’s still hard.

I’m actually still not sure on the best way to articulate how intense the feeling of loneliness hit me – chest constricting, headache inducing, tear duct expanding loneliness.

Studying in the library, reading a page five times, and realising that I wasn’t retaining any information.

Waking up in the middle of the night, scared shitless – scared that I would fail, and worse, I would fail alone.

I was upset at myself for coming to the UK, and not adapting as fast as I thought I would. Days were slurring by, the same dull rhythms – wake up late, struggle to shower, hustle for space on the tube, and a couple of dull greys and surly faces later, I’m in class, a sea of rapt attention-paying heads and then me, asking myself what in God’s name I’d gotten myself into – go home, worry myself sick and find it hard to sleep, rinse and repeat.

I was upset till I wasn’t. There’s no out-of-this-world encounter that I can say changed it all. Just a willingness to try. To say hi to a person a day, to smile at the TFL worker whilst tapping my card, to buy a cupcake for the quiet girl in class at lunch, to ask about my housemate’s day, and even better – to talk about my day.

It’s in learning to be small again, to be curious again, to be teachable again.

I also think it’s realising that all this while, I’ve been waiting to finally adapt, to wake up one day — and feel like I belong.

Thing is, that day never comes. It’s a series of falling and rising, and falling and rising some more, and that’s okay. Time is both limited and infinite depending on which end of the spectrum you’re looking at.

The way I see it, you can opt for the limited time approach by living each day like it could be your last, putting in your best and choosing to find joy in the little things or you can assume that you’ll always have tomorrow – an opportunity to restart and choose to treat yourself with a little kindness. My friend says ‘Again, we begin anew’.

You could also do both.

Bottomline is your joy is yours, and no one can give that to you – if you don’t even want it. Bottomline is (and I can say bottom line twice, because I can) you keep your joy by deciding to keep your joy.

I still feel intense loneliness now and then. I still second guess myself, and my growth rates. I however understand that my life is a gift, and I get to decide what to respond to, and how.

I get to decide to keep my joy.

(Disclaimer – versions of these may have/may appear on my medium)

Your girl,

Nnedi