My heart has been broken by little things like losing my earpiece, not being able to eat my favorite chocolate and by poor internet connection. It has also been broken by the bitter betrayal of a friend and the loss of my favorite teacher. All in all, my heart has been broken. And with each brokenness, I reached a point where I learnt the ways of my heart; observing how it becomes moulded with each experience. I try to savour the sour taste of heartbreak, to feel the weight and listen to Nyashinski or Kelly Clarkson. And my heart has healed. Oh, how beautiful can it get? With every healing came the ability to love again, to buy another earpiece and to take a bus to Abule Odu so I can buy KitKat at Shop direct. Even the past no longer has a hold on me. It has even been while since I cried. Am I just looking for a reason to be sad? Maybe I don’t want to get comfortable in these new episodes of happiness. But isn’t that what I have always wanted, prayed for? Now it comes and, and I rant again. It’s just that this kind of happiness is paradise, too real to be true. It’s the kind where I’m watching my brother tease his wife about something, and something springs up within me. Or the joy that comes with coming home to family and realizing home is still home and that you are welcome. It is a text from a friend, going to Church in the rain, eyeing the tiger nuts in the fridge and feeling it daring me to eat of it if I can. The effrontery!

Again, my heart is hurting. I see all the evils around me and I hurt. I see the cruelty of humans, the government incapability worsening, yet some of my people still never learn that the biggest corruption is failed promises. Sometimes, I wonder what lies ahead for Nigeria. I wonder what legacy we leave for the coming generation. In all of these, I know that there may not be light at the end of the tunnel but there’s just all the light we need somewhere, maybe hanging above the tunnel or underneath. I feel my heart bleeding at the fakeness of churches, only few are with the spirit of God. People are going astray and the supposed prophets are leading the multitude, only few are real shepherds. I see what the church is turning into, the strange and unGodly doctrines, the deceits, you can no longer find love in churches, only few are abiding in Love. I see people despatching from the God of breathe and it perplex me, because how can you be without your being?

But my heart is also healing because of the joy I find in every little miracle. The miracle of helping a little begger, the miracle I find in overcoming my lateness to class.  The miracle that even though my life has been disrupted too many times, I recover. Some days, I recover fully: I am the sunshine in darkest places, the carefree and extravagant being. Some days, I run away from solace and hide in the webs: the ones that hurt me, the one that reminds me that I am unclean, yet I hide in them and let them rule me, because pain is soothing, sometimes. I am an hurricane, some days I survive and some days, I do not. But it is fine.

I find a lot of miracles in every moment and it heals me. I find God over and over and He heals me. I still see the love and brotherliness in few churches and it gives me hope. People are rising against the government in good ways, the truth is revealing in bits and I still smile that in all of these, my people haven’t lost their humour and drive.

I have learnt this over and and over again and I am still learning; that the heart breaks, and it heals again. And that is just life in all its fullness; you die and you live again.

Elizabeth is an undergraduate, Introvert, liver, dreamer, a lover of literature, politics and food.