I literally feel the weight of it on my mind. I was again stucked in between the piercing pains of my past, and the gleams from the narrow path in front of me. The scary scars it always left me with have subconsciously sentenced me to a perpetual tear-soak-foam, bitterness and host to a wide range of hurts, self-repudiation, and ultimately, stagnation.
For the longest, I’ve insecurely always glided to comfortably consoling myself into receiving the meager-worth peace, happiness and joy that life excessively had in store for me. Arrrghhh! Not again. I was a burden on myself; the mastermind of my ordeal.
I must confess, I had a weakness for letting people go. This isn’t about un-forgiveness. It’s about realizing and acting on the fact that some people’s season or time was up in my life; and they had to go.
I woke up so mentally and emotionally burdened one Saturday morning in February 2017. Perhaps, the stress and hurt (hmm… story for another day) from the previous day, spilled into that day, and forced me to do the unbelievable. Even I, could not believe myself.
Without premeditating it: that morning, I just picked up my phone, going through my contacts, I realized that I had a little below 900. ‘What in the world?!’ I was alternating smiles, hurts and un-responsiveness, as I went through the names. For the greater part of that impromptu peruse, I shook my head in dismay. When I finished, I realized that I still had the numbers of three deceased persons on my phone: two of my junior secondary school teachers, and a distant relation; who passed away in 2008, 2011 and 2012, respectively.
After a deep-breathe, I retraced those names and deleted them. This was when I received sense – my eureka-moment you may say. I learnt something profound from that singular act. It was as though, my mind separated itself from my body, and engaged my body in a conversation.
Instantly the word ‘redundancy’ popped up in my head.
Dear reader, permit me to drive you through that conversation.
Conscious mind: You have successfully deleted three contacts because they are deceased. Well done!
Me: I know right….thank you.
Conscious mind: ‘What about the other dead people?’
Me: What? That’s them out – deleted.
Conscious mind: I mean the living-but-dead people in your live?
Me: You lost me here.
Conscious mind: I’m talking about those who haven’t contacted you and you haven’t contacted over a year…two years…even over five years?
This hard-knock snapped me out of this limbo. It actually dawned on me that most of my contacts were those from the far-past, that I really didn’t need anymore. Please, I don’t mean you don’t need people from your past; only that a good number of them aren’t relevant in your present and future. Such can only remain as your sweet old memories; not part of your life.
Like arrows fired into me, I traced and deleted all of those not-contacted contacts. The first lesson I learnt from all that was happening that day was that in Jesus, I have the power to undo so many things I don’t want in my life. Secondly, the deletion freed contact space; it quickly came to heart that, I can also apply this to the people in my life.
Some of these people have been in my life for over a decade: some were once blessings to me – who later ceased to be; others were, and are still blessings; others have only perpetually brought me pain, hurts and regrets.
I quickly implemented to my dear life the realization that: when I free myself of negative people, I free my heart of pain, hurts and regrets. So, those who ceased to be blessing, I quietly let go, by distancing myself from them and their influence. Those who were responsible for luring me into pains, hurts and regrets, I texted, and officially dismissed our unproductive and unfruitful voyage.
I then decided to focus my time, energy and strength to those who are still blessings: I started by appreciating their efforts and commitments to my life, via texting. I also implemented these to places, situations and activities/events.
My life started to feel lighter and more peaceful!
IJB Writing Team 2