Unbreakable

chapter 10

Learning to Live Again

After returning home, I slowly started living my life again.

But everything felt different.

Life did not feel normal at first. Coming back from Lagos changed many things about me. My lifestyle had become very different, and adjusting to my old life in Kaduna was not easy.

I went back to school again, but even simple things became difficult for me. One of the biggest struggles I faced was eating.

In Lagos, I was used to eating very little food. Sometimes I ate only once a day, and sometimes there was no food at all. Because of that, my body had already adapted to surviving on very small portions.

When I returned home and started eating more food again, it felt strange to my body. During my first and second weeks back, I noticed unusual things happening to me.

I would wake up suddenly at night for no reason. Sometimes I woke up around 2 a.m. and could not fall asleep again until early morning. Other times I woke up around midnight and stayed awake for hours.

My mother noticed these strange changes in my body and began to worry about me.

It took me almost five to six months before I fully adjusted to my new life again.

Another thing that worried me was how my body was developing.

I noticed that my body was not growing like other girls my age. My younger sister had already started developing breasts, but my chest was still flat.

Sometimes I felt ashamed and confused. I did not understand why my body was developing slower than others.

Later, I learned that sometimes people grow and develop at different times. Some develop earlier, while others develop later.

At that time, I did not know this.

I also noticed changes in the way things worked in our home.

Before I left, I used to wash my own clothes regularly. But after returning home, my older siblings sometimes added my clothes to the laundry when they were washing theirs.

One day, I brought out my clothes to wash them myself, but my sister told me not to worry about it.

I explained to her that I was used to washing my clothes every two days. But she laughed and asked me a simple question.

“Where are you coming from?”

I replied quietly, “From my parents’ house.”

She smiled, patted my head gently, and said, “You are home now.”

That moment stayed in my mind.

I also noticed that the compound looked almost the same as before.

The floor and the walls had not changed much, but some things looked newer. The walls had been repainted, and the surroundings looked cleaner.

The street where my mother’s shop was located was still the same street I remembered growing up in.

Many things remained familiar.

But some things had changed.

There were new tenants living in the compound, and some new families had moved in with their children.

It felt strange seeing new faces where old ones used to be.

One day, I remembered some of the tenants who used to live there before.

There were families with children who played around the compound, and many of us grew up together in that environment.

I even remembered some of their names clearly.

Thinking about them made me realize how much time had passed.

Many things had changed in the compound, but some memories remained exactly the same in my mind.

One thing I will never forget about that compound was the way everyone knew each other.

Neighbors talked together, children played together, and everyone shared the same space.

Even though life had been difficult for me, returning home made me realize how much I had missed that sense of belonging.

I felt grateful to finally be home again.

And even though I was still healing from everything I had experienced, I slowly began learning how to live normally again.

Step by step.

Day by day.