The Journey

I have vivid and happy memories of my childhood. I am the last of seven children and undoubtedly my mother’s favourite. We had an inseparable bond borne out of the unfathomable chemistry of maternal love and perhaps the challenges she encountered in having me. We were happy.

I still recall driving her to the airport in the autumn of 2010 to catch a flight to Nigeria following her annual summer holiday in England. She kissed me, reminded me of how much she loved me, and then ambled through airport security gates taking one last glance at me as I stood there watching her. On that very day, she wore a flowery blue dress and blue sneakers. She looked frail but unfairly beautiful. Little did I know that was our last moment together. 

She passed away that Christmas after a bout of illness. I recall speaking to her before she passed. She asked that I come to see her, if only for a couple of days but I had made holiday plans which I chose to honour and promised her that I would come once I returned from my holiday. I was too naive to heed the departing call of my mother to share in her final moments. 

I was in Rome when I got the numbing news she had passed away, and everything around me stood still, literally. For the first time in my life, I felt vulnerable, lost and empty. My protector had passed, my compass was lost and my world felt void. The next time I saw her, she was lying lifeless in a mortuary. I was distraught, disheartened and inconsolable. I blamed myself for not being by her side when she needed me most and carried that burden of guilt on my heart from then on. 

The years that followed were tumultuous, I spiralled into an emotional breakdown. It affected my relationships and attitude towards life. I became unhappy. 

Everyone tends to tell you to man up - “Ómò Akín ní è, ma so jo” (you’re the son of a courageous person, never show weakness!). So I masked it the best way I could to numb this persistent pain I was feeling. I bought a new home, new cars and anything within reach that I thought could make me happier. Unbeknownst to me, I had to bring my unhappy self with me to the new home, my unhappy self drove the new cars and my unhappy self owned the new material things. Once the novelty of those things wore off, I was always left with my unhappy self. 

It took me several years to realise my happiness wasn’t dependent on something outside of me, my happiness is an inside job. In the time it took before I began my journey of self-realisation, I had hurt several well-meaning people because I was hurting. But there was only one person I couldn’t get rid of - Myself. Then it dawned on me that I had to reckon with myself and change. I had to meet “Me” where I was, shake hands with “Myself” and begin again. 

The world around us is built to strip away the truths that come to us in moments of solitude. The distractions that surround us are disguised to help us bring solutions to our lives, but instead, they simply distract us from knowing our true ‘Self’, our greater ‘Self’. 

It is hard to maintain the clarity of truths we find in solitude amid the masses and myriad things that distract us. Great is He/She that can. For when you do, everything becomes clearer and you find the pathway that leads to joy and fulfilment in life’s journey.  

Several years after her passing, I became bold enough to sit with myself, to look inward, and go on a self-discovery journey in search of enlightenment and life’s meaning, some of which I intend to share with the world. 

“I found Me, I am happy”.