Recently, me and my boyfriend broke up a little after 2 years together. For some reason, because I didn't fall apart, I thought I came out of it unscathed. I didn't realise I was reeling until after I stopped reeling. I didn't suddenly become a completely different person, it was more subtle. It was the way my interactions changed and there was this self imposed lightness in my relationships with new people that just wasn't real. Slowly, slowly, I started to be myself again and I realised all the shit I'd been doing. In a way, it was funny. In a way it wasn't. At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter in the big scheme of things. Any relationship I inadvertently ruined was probably going to fall apart anyway.
But it made me think of identity and how it changes. It took me years and many lessons in self esteem to discover my identity. But it seems like just when you find it, you have to find it again. After uni, I went on a journey to find myself. I ended up in London in a job I absolutely loved and friends that felt like an extension of myself. I ran, I ate, I spent lots and lots of hours walking around and listening to music and sometimes had street parties with people I barely knew. Life was perfect, but it had to end and I moved back to Nigeria.
Everything was immediately different. My style had to change- messy quiffs and ripped clothing were generally frowned upon. My friends were no longer an extension of myself. I had to completely re-learn everything. My identity was in complete freefall. I started to re-shape a new identity, then I got into a serious relationship- before now, I had entered commitment only halfway but this time i entered it completely. With that too, came a new identity.
Law school, nysc, a new job, a new city, a new life plan and an old relationship and yet again, I have to re-shape my identity. But it gets easier, some things don't change. I've found a way to still be me, even when I'm re-finding my identity.