Dear Lord,

You’re all I want to want

Do y’all know this song…🎶

I don’t want anyone else,

I don’t need anything else,

You are my one thing

Give me Jesus

You can have all this world

Worship is such a beautiful thing. The way the words come alive and grip our hearts is so powerful.

Lately, I’ve been learning in a new way that worship is sacrificial and sometimes the cost is singing out loud when my mind hasn’t really accepted what it is I am saying.

Sometimes the words don’t feel true. They don’t feel original. I don’t feel as radical as the person holding the mic singing from their belly.

I wrestle with the lyrics and how much meaning there is in every line. I reduce my volume lest the angels catch me saying “I don’t need anything else.”

I withhold the worship that doesn’t feel honest. The words that don’t make sense. The verses that evoke questions and hesitation.

But what if that’s our true sacrifice of praise? Our acceptable worship?

Because I want a boyfriend so how can I say I don’t want anyone else.

I need a new phone so how can I say I don’t need anything else.

But is the declaration about my needs or about my priorities? Is it about what life still has to offer or about the source of my ultimate satisfaction?

When I sing this song I’m reminded of what Paul said

“Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ”

‭‭Philippians‬ ‭3‬:‭8‬ ‭

Worthless. Everything else cannot measure up. Not that I don’t want them for I have learned to not be pretentious about my needs because faith filled expectations is better than false contentment. But that when I have these things they will never fill the God-sized hole in my heart. They will never satisfy.

So I learned to tell my heart to keep singing. For if the song is not an expression that He is all I want then maybe I’m expressing a desire for the desire of Him.

He is all I want to want.

I will teach my heart to want the Lord and when I don’t feel like I want him I will humble myself to declare that He is all I want to want.

I want to want Him. Because I am so fully aware that there is such completion in him that causes everything else to fall away.

I want to reach a point in my life where I don’t shy away from the reality of my struggles as a human constantly trying to attain the divine.

The reality is that I wouldn’t always feel like it. I wouldn’t always be wrecked by His goodness and fall on my face in surrender.

But what matters more than where I am is my appetite for where I ought to be

The hunger for hunger must remain alive. I must want to want the Lord.

Isn’t it comforting that Jesus promises satisfaction for my hunger.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” — Matthew 5:6

Don’t write yourself off from experiencing the transformative power of worship when the words don’t match your internal state.

Worship itself is prophetic. We do not just say what we feel but we speak ourselves into how we should feel, calling forth those things that are not as though they were.

Our reasonable response to the sufficiency of Christ is to say, take everything and give me Jesus. He is all I want.

May the Spirit always bear within us that we are children of God, our feelings not withstanding.

With love,

Chinelolum.

Author’s note 💌

To address the elephant in the room for all my long time readers, I did in fact fall off with my Dear 99 series. I will explain sometime but I will also pick it back up. If anything the Lord is teaching me to stop quitting on things. It will be back and it will be better by God’s grace ❤️

Thank you for reading.

Who would’ve thought that you’d feel so seen by some random artist you barely ever listen to or even the ones you have on repeat but never really thought able to give language to the things your heart is holding in such poetic and specific ways.

My epiphany tonight was brought by Miley Cyrus’ wrecking ball

A line from the song hit me like a ton of bricks as I shouted, hey siri, what song has the lyrics:

I never meant to start a war,

I just wanted you to let me in.

Siri said, “here’s what I found on Miley Cyrus’ wrecking ball” and I was like aha there we go…

That line is such an apt description of the things I want to say to the people I’ve felt slip away from my desperate grip. One minute we were attaching, settling into each other and the next we’re at war, fighting, all because I wanted to be let in.

It’s almost like the places I’ve wanted to be are the places I’ve been least welcomed or worse, the places to which my access gets abruptly revoked. Leaving me wondering what a cruel fate is dealt to the ones who love like I do — intensely, as though it’s life and death.

And maybe Miley has a point…

Instead of using force, I guess I should’ve let you win

Intensity has proven to be unimpressive over and over again and that’s quite a bummer for the part of me that could’ve sworn it is the one thing everyone wanted. Or rather, the one thing she wanted.

But of course I think like that, having been wounded by neglect as a child, I’m now an adult that places immense value on attention and passion and the things that seem to connote the presence of love.

But if Miley was right at all, then something more moving than intensity just might be surrender: letting them win.

Because showing up to the fight is how you start the war you didn’t mean to. Trying to push past their resistance is what turns your love into pressure and makes you a nightmarish villain in their story.

Accepting that this person may not be equipped to let you in and gracefully letting go is much more peaceful than your desperate cries and pleas for access.

All that work and what did it get you? Coming in like a wrecking ball, incredibly certain that you’d break their walls. At the first sound of a crack you get excited never bothering to check what really broke.

You feel something real, something raw, and you think it must be their beating heart underneath those bricks but honey it’s your blood, your sweat, your tears, pouring out violently from your own shattered heart.

All I wanted was to break your walls, all you ever did was wreck me

So now you’re walking away with your tail between your legs because you ruined it. You tried to rush it and eventually snuffed the life out of it. You wanted to have it your way and now you’ve pushed them away.

And all you have left is your noble intentions, begging them to keep the narrative intact.

To tell everyone that all you did was love them and you’ll never stop doing so. And when they ask why you had to leave you want them to make it sound less selfish than, “I had to save myself.”

So you play Miley’s verse on repeat…

Don’t you ever say, I just walked away, I will always love you

I can’t live a lie, running for my life,

I will always want you.

How cruel is it that your bleeding heart is still holding onto the receipts of this love that wrecked you so?

And I guess that’s why you grieve and grieve and grieve because you never hit so hard in love. Or as Miley put it…

We clawed, we chained our hearts in vain We jumped, never asking why

We kissed, I fell under your spell

A love no one could deny.

With love,

Chinelolum.

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Muahh 💋

Safety is a word I now use so often and a feeling I can almost perfectly describe but it wasn’t always like this.

This regular boy showed me the irregular workings of what it’s like to feel at home with a person. To rest your head on their shoulders and not wonder if it’s too heavy. To sit, breathe, and exist in every way you’ve once apologized for.

What was most intriguing and dare I say divine was how somatic the experience was. I know that my creative mind can exaggerate the ordinary and elaborate the “bare minimum” but my body? My body is no liar.

So you can imagine the awe I began to have for this boy who could inspire such an honest feeling that my body finally agreed with my mind.

My body, as stubborn as it is, approved of him. It unclenched around him.

I didn’t know how much anxiety was trapped in my bones until I hung out with this boy who seemed to calm my being. And the part that always gets me is the quality of sleep I used to have because of it.

He would hug me and his scent will cling to my clothes, and become like a sedative that knocks me out as soon as my head hits my pillow.

We’ll sit in silence, in the warmth and stillness of each other’s company and I’ll start yawning. Six times in a row.

I’ve heard in movies and read in books of a love that makes you sleepy. But a first hand experience? Unmatched.

When whatever we shared began to dwindle and fade, I agonized so much. People often asked what it was that I’ll lose if I let him go and I couldn’t really answer that question without sounding like a simpering girl.

The way our relationship unraveled caused me so much pain I didn’t know what to do with myself but give in. I cried and grieved and cried again. But the real source of the ache was watching those moments of safety and comfort be overwritten by the heartache and despair.

I could no longer remember what it was like to be safe and I would’ve done anything to get it back. I felt so exposed, so rejected, and forced to shrink again right when I was getting used to the permission to be authentic.

I liked to believe he felt safe with me too but I don’t know if there’s anyone on the planet who experiences life in such vivid detail like I do.

So maybe I was good company. Good for a laugh and stimulating conversation. But my laugh wasn’t his lullaby. My presence wasn’t an anchor.

Yet instead of feeling so sorry for my loss, I had to ask myself honest questions. Was he the custodian of safety or has the novelty of it all convinced me that there will never be another like it?

I began to wonder if this feeling he evoked was truly so foreign or if I had just never given it language.

What I have made to be this grand epitome of romantic feelings is really just the aftermath of being loved well. A love I never allowed myself to feel or believe I deserved.

I was talking to a friend on the phone and we had such a good talk that I felt all warm and fuzzy inside. That right there is safety too.

My mom sends me a message of how happy she is that I’m doing so well and it lights me up because truly there is love at home.

My girls check in on me and love to hear my little stories. One of them recently told me that I am not hard to love and it quite literally altered my brain chemistry.

I am safe now. I may not have always been, but I am now. I don’t have to keep reaching for something I already have. Especially not from someone who doesn’t really offer it anymore.

Maybe I was unacquainted with safety because I was ever so resistant to love.

So in a time when I was facing the giants of abandonment due to the loss of a friendship I cherished, of course I clung so tightly to this boy who made himself some sort of reminder of what it was that I deserved.

But lately, I have been allowing myself linger in the feeling of being loved. Not just the feeling but the knowing too. I have become my own reminder that I am loved.

Loved by God. Loved by people. And the cherry on top: loved by myself.

Oh how I truly love the girl that I am. Oh how I adore the woman I’m becoming.

I am letting love land and that’s what’s making the world of difference. It’s no longer breezing past me. It’s not floating around my head. It’s settling in my heart. I have somehow made room for it.

I desire it. I believe in it. I receive it.

And maybe all that pain I was forced to feel broke down the walls of my heart such that as the pain came in, so did the love. And the latter is more important. More permanent. More freeing.

Once upon a time I learned what it was like to step fully into love. The lover wasn’t mine to have or keep. But the love? It’s mine. All mine.

In the words of Mitski

“Nothing in the world belongs to me but my love is mine, all mine.”

With love,

Chinelolum

Thank you for reading. Like. Share. Stay a little longer if you care.

Muuaahh 💋

This is what I mean when I say, I have articles I think belong to Medium but I am testing the waters now. Be nice.

Long read ‼️

Someone recently asked me what friendship means to me and I had no definitive answer. Yet I started to wonder if my lack of a definition around this concept is subtly fueled by my reluctance to actively pursue it.

If I don’t know what it means then surely I’m not vested enough. I’m a meaning maker. If anything truly matters to me, dictionaries will be written in its honor. I will explain as thoroughly as possible, coming at it from every angle.

So why haven’t I done my due diligence with this thing called friendship?

Deep down I have a desire for it. I dream of a communal life. I am in fact a very communal being. I know what it’s like to find home in a person; a person of your choosing and rest in the room they made just for you. I envision a future of hosting—having friends over to wine and dine with me. Game nights. Interventions. Friendsgiving. Galentine. Movie marathons. I want to be surrounded, but more than that, I want to be seen in my “self-sufficiency” and be held regardless. I want to love people, even need them, and not feel like it’s a betrayal of self.

I may not have a definition but I have a framework. In an attempt to categorize the people in my life i decided to build a table. Two columns: interactions and connections.

It’s pretty self explanatory and I’ve found it to be much more organized than your typical inner and outer circle version. I soon realized that a friend could be an interaction sponsored by proximity. Roommate. Classmate. Same dorm. Same schedules. Work buddy. Anyone with whom I spend enough time to know but not connect with. Such people don’t necessarily fill my cup, know my passions or see my unfiltered self. They are the least satisfying yet often present ones.

It’s quite a practical way of keeping people “in their place.”

However I believed connection was the true destination. Not just another column, but the place anyone who wants to truly matter to me must aspire to reach. The place I hoped certain people will attain. Yet, the same place I kept people out of. The part of myself I kept under lock and key because true connection comes at the cost of surrender and vulnerability. The very things I can perform but not sustain.

Connection easily became an idol and a poor prerequisite for true friendship.

I have met amazing people. People who most likely deserved a chance to be known. People who may have been safe enough to let in. But for chasing that high of connection, that instant click that makes you latch onto someone and call them your person, I have given up too quickly on such people.

Three encounters in and I conclude that there’s nothing here. And three is generous. Sometimes all it takes is one off vibe and instead of accommodating the thought that I may have caught them on a bad day, I put them in the interaction tab with zero prospect that they will ever be more.

But as I grow— a growth that has come with so much pain and a margin for great risk— I’m learning to add a third column: Benefits.

There are people out there with whom I may never feel connected. For some the connection might be very subtle, not obvious enough to stop me dead in my tracks and make me brim with emotions. And yet my life will still be richer with said people. They may offer fresh perspective to things that I wouldn’t even think about if not for them. They may be the sharpening iron that fine tunes certain things about myself. They may be wardrobe inspiration or a physical reminder of the beauty life is filled with. They may be people with whom I can dilly dally and make the memories that ought to come with my college experience. But more importantly, they may love me.

And couldn’t I use some love in my life?

This thing about connection has been selfishly oriented in a way that I would rather not admit.

It’s so much about me. My feelings. My choice. My safety. My fears.

But what about them? What about how they feel about me. Why is it suddenly irrelevant that they want to get to know me, just because they don’t pass my silly self-protective vibe checks?

Connection is so deeply important. A quote I recently saw on screen said, “The entire universe, down to a single atom, is built on trying to find order through connection.”

Yet chasing that connection has become yet another quest for control. If I choose you, because my judgment is so sound I will less likely be hurt by you. Or if I choose you then I can abandon myself to pledge allegiance to that choice. I want to be chosen yet I reserve the right to disqualify people before they can choose me.

But can I relinquish control for a bit and humble myself to care about their choices too?

And this is not a campaign for pity friendships: reluctantly befriending people with whom you share no common ground because you are not brave enough to be honest with them.

Rather it is a humbling realization that connection just might be the exception, not the rule.

Refusing to see the value people stand to offer if I let them get closer out of a need to feel a certain type of way first will eventually make me miss out on some great friendships and even greater stories.

What if my loneliness is by design and fear is the underlying theme of this campaign for connection?

What if I can be discerning without blocking my blessing?

Can a relationship be worthwhile before it feels profound?

Who might enrich my life, and whose life might I enrich, if I allow the relationship to develop?

I have always been the selective type but what if I’m now taking shortcuts into friendship? What if I haven’t defined friendship because I haven’t answered the question of what I’m willing to do in pursuit of friendship when the ease that instant connection offers is missing?

If I want a communal life, then surely I must be willing to participate in the unglamorous labor of making one: initiating conversations, extending invitations, remembering details, following up, tolerating awkwardness, and allowing familiarity to fester.

And maybe I may scrap the table altogether if it means allowing a relationship remain undefined long enough for it to reveal what it can become.

I don’t have to know what someone will become to give myself permission to get to know them. Friendship thrives in participation, not in prior analysis, no matter how accurate. They don’t have to be the love of my life to be someone I enjoy knowing.

I certainly do not have all the answers, but I have a challenge for myself to define friendship and find an approach to it that doesn’t involve giving up before I even try.

With love,

Chinelolum.

Thank you for reading this essay. I hope it gives language to some of your own growing pains like it did to mine.

Like, share, stay a little longer if you care.

Muahhh 💋

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I turn 20 soon, and for the next couple of days, it will be my entire personality. 20!? It’s so incredibly surreal.

My early teen years are quite a blur, but the later ones were lived in such vivid detail, as though I compensated for the times I spent coasting, disconnected from who I really am. And who am I if not a lover girl?

For someone who would do anything to have a life full enough to keep her from her fears and feelings, you’d think I don’t have time to think about love and other distractions. But something in me can’t help but constantly return to the existential question of what it takes to love and be loved.

They say the deficit in our souls is a compass that points us to God. It is in fact the adventure of a lifetime to search out the tangible satisfaction that seems to exist only in the most intangible relationship we’d ever know. I guess that’s why we need people; to give some dimension of attainment to this quest. “Love God, love people,” the two historically go hand in hand.

Maybe because a true encounter with God’s immaculate way of loving pushes you to become a conduit of that love. Or it could be that the sanctity of what it means for your neighbor to be the closest representation of the image of God is realized when you find yourself looking for this God of redeeming love. Oh, what the world would be if we looked at each other like we’ve caught a glimpse of God.

I’m also starting to think love should come with Bluetooth, since all it makes me want to do is feel connected. Words sometimes fail me (shocker, right?) to express what it’s like to yearn for closeness. I have found it to be my biggest indicator of attachment when my system feels compelled to exist in someone’s space; feel the warmth of their skin, bask in the light of their gaze, hear the sound of their voice, and oh learn every note of their scent… woody, musky, powdery.

A magnetic pull, a shivering sensation, a quiver in my lips, a tremble in my knees; I’m weak, I’m overcome. What is happening to me? I panic. Love is a victory march, but am I the conqueror or the conquered? Or both, because I am a walking paradox of truth contradicting the lies I tell myself. Lies like I’m better off alone.

It’s funny how I spent my teenage years collecting evidence of my indestructibility. Shoot me down, but I won’t fall; I am titanium. Only to watch all my defenses crumble as body and spirit united to remind my soul that I’m human—as human as they come.

And in all this, there’s been nothing as comforting as the consistent revelation of a God who can handle my humanity. If there’s one thing I will take into my twenties and inscribe on my heart for the rest of my life is the knowledge of just how unrelenting Abba’s love is for me. For every time my heart was awakened to love, there were hints that something divine was happening right in front of me. It’s taken me a while, but I am finally concluding that the things I once thought were weak are really just holy. Softness, tenderness, and expressions of passion or delight are not an “Achilles’ heel”; they are the ingredients of my becoming.

To nurture, to comfort, to give everything in service of love, and to be unashamed of my dire need for a life filled with love is my one true purpose. So I keep praying that I stop buying into the fallacy that there’s a price in pretense, and the ones who hide it best are the victors. The prize of life is love, and love is life itself.

This is a story of a love awakening.

With love,

Chinelolum.

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Muahhh ! 💋

I’ve always wanted to be untouchable, desperately so.

Lately, being untouchable looks like not wanting to be loved in return.

I really wish for a world where I have no desires of my own, no needs for you to meet, no voids for you to fill. I want to be completely capable of “unconditional” love. I want to miss you and not wonder if you miss me too. I want to reach out first, send reels, tell you random things that happen in my day, without wondering why you don’t do the same. I want to be so satisfied in getting to love you that I don’t need you to love me.

I wish modern love were not so hinged on reciprocity.

I am good at playing pretend. I easily convince myself that I want for nothing and have no care. It’s to a point where I completely shut out your own experience of me. I don’t hear you say it back when I tell you that I love you. I decide that the best thing is for me to have absolutely no idea about your feelings towards me. If I’m speculating at all, it will be pessimistic. I will start strong with assumptions like you’re tired of me, you want to be left alone, I’m smothering, I’m annoying, I’m excessive, I’m undesirable…

But amidst all the hard work I put into this game of pretense, I still face reality. Random nights when I’m cozy in bed, hoping sleep will take me so that I can make it through another day of lying to myself, I lie awake instead. A wave of sadness and hunger and strange melancholy washes over me. All that inner suppression finally catches up to me, leaving a bitter taste in my mouth and a sting in my eyes.

Weakly, as one who’s been defeated, I say, “I want to be loved back. I really do.”

I wish I were titanium, but when has metal ever loved someone?

I am human; soft, intricate, tender, and in need of love.

I have to ask questions like, “What are we?” because something in me needs a guarantee that you will participate in this little love fest of mine.

I want you to look for me, to reach for me, to demonstrate that my love is not just welcome but desired.

And sadly, it hurts when I realize that you’re choosing to stay away from me under your misguided notion of “space.”

I want to respect your wishes, but I can’t stop your choices from hurting me

I am so mortal, so human, not steel, certainly not titanium.

I want to be observed, then witnessed, then experienced, and cherished for a lifetime. I want to be held like I’m delicate because I am. I am fragile in ways I am only just starting to learn.

I want to love you so much so that your inability to love me back wouldn’t be a problem, but unfortunately it is. Love was not designed to be one-sided.

And I used to say, “Ugh, I’m so needy, it’s disgusting.” Now I say, “I deserve loving; there’s nothing wrong with that.”

Because who even taught us to be so ashamed?

With love,

Chinelolum.

Let this be a gentle reminder that needing love is part of being human.

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Muahhh ! 💋

It’s an occupational hazard. You don’t just walk into burning buildings expecting to leave untouched. The smoke clings to your clothes. The heat settles into your skin. Sometimes you save the house. Sometimes you don’t. But one thing is certain: you never leave exactly as you arrived.

Somewhere along the way, I became an emotional firefighter.

Not because I like chaos. Not because I romanticize brokenness. Yes, I admit that I enjoy the warmth and the daringness of doing something dangerous. But eventually, I became so familiar with the smell of smoke that I stopped asking why every relationship began with a fire.

There was always something.

A past relationship that hollowed him out.

A version of himself he no longer recognized.

A fear of commitment he couldn’t quite explain.

A wound he was still carrying.

A war with himself that started long before I got there.

And because I have always believed that understanding is one of the purest forms of love, I stayed.

I listened.

I understood.

I softened.

I held space.

I became remarkably good at loving people in the middle of becoming.

Until I realized something humbling: firefighters get burned. Despite their expertise and training.

Not because they don’t know what they’re doing.

But because fire doesn’t care. It is reckless and out to destroy everything it touches.

I don’t want to do this anymore.

I don’t want to keep arriving at burning buildings convinced that if I’m patient enough, kind enough, understanding enough, eventually the fire will go out, and someone will finally have enough of themselves left to choose me.

I’m often too busy clearing the smoke and the ashes, that I forget to ask whether this building could become a home I could actually live in.

You see I’ve started to notice the trend.

Meet a man at war with himself > Feel seen because aren’t I a woman so acquainted with battle > Build emotional intimacy > Become the safe place where he can lay down his armor > Learn: about the woman he loved before me, or the heartbreak that changed him, or the fear that keeps him from trying again > Absorb: tell myself that understanding his reluctance is the kind thing to do > Wait until it hurts incredibly > Leave a little too late > Repeat.

It’s almost mechanical now.

And the most painful part isn’t that they never cared, it’s that they often did.

They laughed with me.

They trusted me.

They let me see parts of themselves they kept hidden from other people.

There was light.

There was laughter.

There was love.

But still not the choosing. That’s the part I’ve never known what to do with.

If they had treated me poorly, I could have left angry.

If they had never cared, I could have dismissed it.

Instead, I am left holding something much heavier: the knowledge that someone can genuinely appreciate your presence while still being incapable of building a life with you. What a devastating thing.

Maybe because it reveals something deeper than the question “Why wasn’t I enough?”

Because much of that question doesn’t belong to the people I’ve loved, but to the little girl who was left wondering why her father didn’t choose her? (here we go again)

For a long time, I thought I just wanted affection. Until I got it and realized, it’s nothing without being chosen.

Affection says, I enjoy you.

Choosing says, I am willing to stay and build with you.

Those are not the same thing.

I’m tired of being useful.

Tired of being the person people heal beside.

Tired of being emotionally safe enough to confess everything to, but never emotionally significant enough to risk something for.

Tired of being worthy of vulnerability but not worthy of commitment.

So, I don’t want to do this anymore

I don’t want to hear how much you loved her.

Or how afraid you are of losing me.

Or how, if only we’d met at a different time, things might have been different.

I don’t want to keep mourning a man who is still alive with all the agency in the world.

I don’t want to be handed the aftermath of someone else’s war and told that love looks like waiting for the dust to settle.

Because maybe it does for some people, but it doesn’t for me. Not anymore.

I wanted to make room and be compassionate.

But that compassion has quietly become self-abandonment—the kind that asks me to survive on potential. Even worse to see myself as potential too; almost but not quite worthy, not quite enough.

I can understand why you’re afraid.

I can understand why you hesitate.

I can understand why your past still follows you.

None of that changes what it feels like to stand in front of someone who looks at you with tenderness and still cannot say yes. Someone who runs around in circles, expecting you stand perfectly still, awaiting their return.

Understanding has never been the problem. Staying has.

I thought because I could see the fire, I ought to stay and fight it.

But maybe I was just supposed to notice that the house was already burning.

I don’t have to become a firefighter standing in the ashes wondering why saving everyone else always seems to cost me pieces of myself.

I’m not saying I need a perfect person, or someone without scars.

I just need someone who isn’t asking me to love him through a battle he’s still choosing over us.

Because firefighters get burned.

I want to hold you with tenderness, but firefighters get burned.

I want to give you all the love I know you deserve, but firefighters get burned.

I want to witness your becoming as you rise from the ashes like a phoenix, but firefighters get burned.

And I am not even a firefighter, just a lover girl.

I can’t keep running into every fire I see.

You shouldn’t either.

With love,

Chinelolum.

Lover girls and boys alike, you have nothing to prove by hurting yourself.

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Muahhh ! 💋

I’m not an artist but I know this much—if you mix red with white, you get pink.

Are you a red flag? No. My flag is pink.

I have red flags, we all do. But then there is my white flag—the flag I fly in surrender.

I’m aware of my red flags so first, I try to save my lover from myself.

They call it sabotage; I call it mercy. You don’t need to come any closer. I know what you see and I can tell you it’s a facade. It’s carefully curated to hide every flaw like a perfectly blended concealer.

I know you see my expressiveness and you expect that to translate to vulnerability, but it doesn’t. I use words to pretend like I’m open, but am I? I simply choose the words that tell you just enough to satisfy you but barely scratches the surface of how I truly feel.

I don’t want to be spoken to half the time, and no I don’t expect you to read my mind. Just read the room and use the door. I’m not hard to impress just very easy to irritate. I don’t know how to show affection nor receive same. Loving is not my comfort zone, isolation is. Participating in the vulnerability of what it takes to love is a task I’ve considered not worth my time nor peace.

I’ll cringe at all your gestures and be embarrassed on your behalf. What are you doing trying to hold me, why are you staring so deep into my eyes? Do you really expect me to let you reach my heart? Do you fancy yourself someone who can walk through walls?

I know these things, but I still want love. So, what do I do? I raise my white flag. I surrender. I suppress myself to make room for you. I am too much, but I am also very good at being less.

I so much long to love that I forget everything that might possibly be wrong with me and make it my one mission to be right for you.

I have so much love to give but what if I don’t know how? What if my deep-seated fear of intimacy will always get in the way? What if my heart will constantly see you as a threat and enlist my body to fight you like a virus?

So, I do the next best thing—raise my white flag.

I watch a YouTube video, I ask ChatGPT. When I remember the One who is love itself, I pray. I educate myself in all the ways possible, just so I can love you.

I practice, I calculate, I figure it out. It’s not automatic, it’s not natural, but hey I’m doing it. I call, I text, I smother. I pour out everything I have until there’s nothing left over.

I am so desperate to deny myself to please you. There’s no such thing as I don’t want to. If I want love, I must want to.

I must be vulnerable—bare my guts out to you. I must listen and hold my sharp tongue. I must let you lead no matter how unwise I think you are. I will be a door mat if I have to. It sounds extreme but I’ll truly be anything you want me to be as long as it proves to me that I love you.

It is I who needs convincing. I need to collect evidence that my abandonment wounds won’t always get in the way. That I am capable of staying, giving and receiving, despite my daddy issues. I need a solid argument when this goes to the court of my history. The defendant is love, the prosecutor is fear, and my case is this: love is not a threat. It never has been.

So, I’m a pink flag, flawed enough to be red, desperate enough to be white but desperation has never been a real fix, so here we are in the in-between.

I want love deeply, but intimacy scares me, so I keep swinging between pushing people away and abandoning myself to keep them.

Pink is the fusion of passion and surrender, for the ones who feel too much and yet struggle to show it authentically. The ones who do not love at all or must erase themselves to even love a little.

But everyone wants green. So how does pink become green?

How does someone driven by both love and self-protection turn into someone capable of a sustainable, reciprocal love? How does one stop running when staying is like self-inflicted torture?

I guess we’ll find out one day. Until then I sway between stubbornness and surrender.

With love,

Chinelolum.

Author’s note: The “white flag” represents the difficult choice to lower one’s emotional defenses and become open to intimacy, which an unhealed heart will likely confuse with abandoning oneself. This is not an endorsement of self-erasure or remaining in an unhealthy relationship. Love should not require anyone to become smaller, silence their instincts, or abandon their boundaries. Surrender can be healthy when it makes room for autonomy, safety, and the needs of both people.

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Muahhh ! 💋

If you see that I’ve started what seems like a series, say a prayer that I stick to it because I almost never do.

Anyway, I’m back with more thoughts.

Honestly, taking my newsletter seriously will often require me to put all my mini paragraphs into one post, instead of waiting for them to become full articles. Sometimes a sentence is all I got and I like to believe it’s still worth sharing.

~ Solitude has always been one of my strong suits.

I am very good at being alone and while it looks effortless, I actually go out of my way to interact with the people in my life, even my own mother. Sometimes it’s because I have nothing to give—no wit, no humor, no story, as is often expected of me. I’d hate to be the girl who’d rather perform for people, chasing the high of their attention, than sit in my room. But in the past couple months, I’ve began to see the beauty in good company. Life is better with people in it and isolation is not the flex I once thought it was. I have powered through hours of cooking, workouts, and errands simply because I had a friend on the phone or right beside me. I also enjoy sitting quietly with a friend or sleeping off on calls because there’s something deeply soothing about shared silence.

I can do it alone, but I’d rather share it with you. Solitude should be an option, not my default setting. I shouldn’t always want to be left alone, but I should be able to enjoy my company if need be.

~ I’m just a tired babe.

It has come to my attention that I am perceived as someone with endless energy. It doesn’t help that I now have a routine of going to the gym after work so of course everyone sees me as super girl. Guys, it has to be God because I don’t know where else the strength could possibly come from.

Weeks like these past few ones subtly remind me that I have sickle cell because my fatigue is through the roof, I’m sleepy no matter how many hours I get at night, and I can’t seem to lift as heavy at the gym. In fact, I can barely walk a long distance. Unfortunately, sickle cell doesn’t have the PR other chronic illnesses have, so it’s hard explaining it to people. When I say I’m tired, I mean it on a very deep level. Will I show up? Yes. Will I go about my day? Absolutely. But it doesn’t take away from the fact that I rarely ever feel truly energized. At least gone are the days when I used to skip meals because how was I even functioning on such low fuel? To finish it all off, I am a woman and apparently, all the talk about hormones and their impact on energy is true. God help me.

~ Hard conversations

I have had a couple hard conversations with a friend, and they’ve made me realize that when they say communication is key, they really meant that it’s the only way to keep your heart open. Open for love to come in and resentment to go out. Said friend definitely made it easier to express myself but I’m still very proud of how accepting I’ve been of my feelings to the point of expressing them unapologetically. And the thing about having hard conversations is how they ease you into grief, if at all you’d have to grieve. There’s a quiet acceptance that comes with knowing you’ve laid it all out in honesty and courage. Whatever they decide to do with what you’ve shared is easier to handle because now you see that ignorance is no longer an excuse for them. Have that hard conversation today. And that’s advice for me given that there is one conversation I’ve been procrastinating for weeks because you can never really go back after expressing yourself.

This update is long overdue, but your girl is busy surviving in the streets of her 9-5 job.

Thank you for reading this log. If this felt like a walk through a friendly hallway, subscribe so you never miss an entry. And I’d love to know — what’s been living rent-free in your head lately? Leave it in the comments.

Muah!! 💋

“I loved you differently because, for the first time, I could love you and me simultaneously.”

In the rare occasion that I ever told someone I loved them, what I was really saying was, I love me.

I loved the version of myself I became around them. I loved what they awakened in me. I loved how someone else’s presence could soften my edges and coax me out of hiding. I loved the freedom of becoming someone less guarded, less cynical, less afraid. I loved meeting a version of myself that I didn’t know existed until they reflected her back to me. I loved the layers of self I got to unravel because of them. It was always more about insight than intimacy.

But then there was you.
You made me feel both things at once.

I love what you did to me.
The way you stilled me. The way you taught me safety without ever trying to. The way you made authenticity feel less like something I was trying to become and more like who I already am. The way the voices in my head that constantly questioned whether I was too much, too intense, too unsafe, slowly grew quieter because of the way you looked at me and listened to me.
You made me like the person I was becoming.

But I also love you. I genuinely do.
Not because of what you did to me, but because of who you are.
I love your heart—the way it always seemed to lean toward gentleness before judgment. I love your faith. I love your honesty, even when it hurt me.
I love the way you made room for difficult conversations instead of running from them. I love the way you carried people; often putting the spotlight on them.

I really like who you are. Not just your qualities, nor your actions, but your actual entity. Dare I say I admire your humanity. There’s a certain beauty in how you embody your flaws and your pursuit of perfection, that makes me want to be your biggest cheerleader.
And somewhere along the way, my admiration became tender affection.

So, in the end, the feelings were never just about me.
They were never just about you either.
“They’re our thoughts,” you once said.

Maybe that’s why this grief feels different.
It isn’t only the loss of what could have been.
It’s the sudden homelessness of a love that had already learned your name.

People tell you to let go as though love is something you hold in your hands.
It isn’t.
For me, love has always been something I become.
It is the meals I want to cook.
The prayers I want to pray.
The small details I want to remember.
The comfort I want to offer before it’s asked for.
The celebrations I want to make bigger.
The burdens I instinctively reach to carry.

When I love someone, I don’t just feel differently.
It makes me want to live differently.

So, when that love can no longer be expressed in the ways it longs to be, it doesn’t simply vanish. It stays. It slowly morphs into grief. It quietly asks the question I still don’t know how to answer…
If my love can no longer live with you…
Who will house my love?

I had left this piece in my draft because it felt incomplete and I think it’s because love can’t exist in a vacuum. I read a post on here by that talked about prayer as the most beautiful love language. There was a line that said…

And maybe that’s why prayer feels so universal. I think prayer is where that love goes when it has no place left to stand.

Isn’t that beautiful? Here I was wondering where love goes when it cannot be housed by the one it’s addressed to, only to find the answer in prayer. What a sacred answer. That love can be offered at an altar where the incense of intercessions burns so fervently. I think that’s divine, I think prayer will indeed suffice.

With love,

Chinelolum.

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Muahhh! ❤️

Dating has always been such a strange concept to me.

I’ve never understood how people date to “see where it goes.” How they bravely step into such level of uncertainty; beginning something without knowing where it’s headed. Or how people date to get to know each other, because it always begged the question, “What then is friendship for?”

Every conversation about dating seemed to assume that exploration was normal, while I was always somewhere sitting in the corner thinking about destinations, certainty, and how anyone can be so adventurous.

So, I made up my mind that dating must lead to marriage, like an audition for a role. But as soon as one party decides that they do not see a perfect fit, they must walk away cleanly. No interdependence holding anyone back. If you know where this is going, you’d know when it becomes unproductive, and come out unscathed.

It’s not because I believe you should only date who you’d marry; I actually agree to figuring that out along the way, when you have that dramatic epiphany of wanting to do this forever.

Yet, I streamlined dating as a road to marriage because my brain needed a way out of the uncertainty. If I pat myself on the back and say this is forever, then maybe I’d stop bracing for a cruel ending of something I’ve always known to come with an expiry.

But lately, I’ve realized that for many people, myself now included, dating is not just about adventure but about permission—the kind that answers the question, “Who am I allowed to be to someone I love?”

I want to date you

I want to be allowed to love you.

We live in a society where brows are raised at mere acts of kindness, intentions are vetted for purity, and boys and girls can’t just be friends.

Titles and labels, as imperfect as they are, are permission in our society. They answer the question, “Who is she to you?” They say, “Oh, this is why she gets to do these things. This is why she has the right to care this deeply.”

For the longest time, I believed friendship should be vast enough to hold the love I have for someone. I wanted “she is my friend” to be enough permission.
But is it? Is the watered-down version of friendship we often end up with enough?

And even though it was, my feelings must’ve outgrown it, or I’ve been asking friendship to carry what was never friendship at all.

When someone asks me in what capacity I’m doing all these things for you, and I have no answer that matches the weight of my affection, is that fair?

Why won’t you tell everyone that I’m allowed to do this?
Why won’t you give me a title that gives me the authority to carry out the duties of my love for you?
How can I love you if you don’t want permit me to?

“Let’s be friends,” and before we know it, you’re asking me to withhold myself because I’m not permitted to love you the way I want to.

Having to trap it all within myself is suffocating.

I can’t just give it to someone else because it has your name on it.

Can you see my dilemma?

And when the life coaches say, “Pour it back into yourself”, I sigh because they don’t seem to understand that loving you fully is loving me too.

So that’s what’s changed.
I’m becoming more open to the idea of dating. Not because I’m suddenly brave. Not because I’m no longer terrified of intimacy. Not because I think relationships are less risky than I used to. If anything, I’m just as afraid.

But I’m beginning to realize that if dating grants permission to love someone intentionally then it’s an odd I’m willing to take.

To let my tenderness become directional instead of constantly wondering whether I’ve overstepped. To devote myself without apologizing for caring too much. To stop shrinking my love to fit a container that can no longer hold it.

Because I’m so painfully aware that the more I get to know you, the deeper I’d want to go in expressing my love for you.

But I don’t want to be the pathetic girl who overplays her role and does too much. A character in a familiar story: she cares more, waits longer, gives more, gets hurt, and looks foolish afterward.

I draw the line at looking foolish because I work so hard to rid myself of internalized shame.

So, this is not about exclusivity, or even reciprocity, it’s about legitimacy.

Love has duties, and duties require a role. Roles don’t create the love, but they authorize what it’s allowed to become; how far it can reach, how obvious it can be.

And in some masochistic way, I often subject myself to the pain of wanting more but never allowing myself to have it because what even is dating? I guess I’m finding out.

So…

I am your friend. A friend who loves you. A friend who doesn’t have permission to love you in all the ways she wants to. A grieving friend. A restrained friend. A friend who can’t become a lover but must not return to a stranger.

A friend, nonetheless.

With love,

Chinelolum.

Whenever I read something relatable, I roll my eyes and scrunch up my nose because how dare the writer invade me so. I hope this piece has you rolling your eyes or scrunching your nose, but please don’t let it infuriate you. It’s a transcript of my heart, not law.

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Muahhh! 💋

I have an irrational fear of hurting people.

Not because I think I’m incapable of it, quite the opposite.

It’s because every time I do, I am convinced I’ve just witnessed the beginning of the end.

It doesn’t matter how long we’ve known each other, how much love has been exchanged, nor how many times we’ve shown up for each other.

One painful moment, one disappointing interaction, one careless mistake, and suddenly I’m bracing myself for the switch.

The distance. The slow replies. The quieter laughter. The version of them that no longer reaches for me.

I’ve realized that I don’t think of love as something that can be repaired. I think of it as something that can only be depleted.

In my head, love is an account.

Every time I hurt someone, a withdrawal is made.

Every misunderstanding. Every moment I fail to meet them where they’re at. Every version of me that falls short.

Debit.

Debit.

Debit.

And because I don’t believe deposits count for nearly as much, I’m constantly wondering how much is left.

Surely this is the mistake that empties the account.

Surely this is the crack that lets all the love leak out.

So, I keep the cracks visible. I never fully heal. I don’t forgive myself because I’m anticipating the day I’ll realize that they never truly forgave me.

If I move on too quickly, then I’d miss the moment they switch up. What if I forgive myself, relax, and then one day I’m blindsided by someone deciding they’ve had enough?

But if I never fully let go, at least I can tell myself I saw it coming.

It’s a strange way to feel safe.

The funny thing is that I’ve never consciously believed people should love me less because I’ve hurt them. I’ve just always assumed they eventually would.

Maybe that’s because I know what it feels like to be on the other side: the one who was hurt.

I don’t know about superheroes, but I believe in villains.

I learned to villainize the people who hurt me because it felt like the safest way to make sure they couldn’t do it again. It’s my kind of justice. It makes leaving easier. It keeps me from romanticizing them. It reminds me of what they’re capable of, so I don’t keep returning with expectations of safety.

If someone hurts me, I rehearse it. Not because I’m unforgiving, but because I’m overly self-protective.

If I forget what they did, how will I protect myself?

Forgiveness makes sense.

Forgetting feels like sabotage.

It feels like I’m betraying myself. Like I’m taking away the one tool that has always helped me survive: memory.

Almost like I’m shrinking back into that little girl who couldn’t let herself believe the father and the monster were one and the same. Wide-eyed with expectation, crushed by reality.

So maybe that’s why hurting people terrifies me so much: I expect them to make me the villain too.

Doesn’t everyone want to protect themselves?

But I guess I’ve misunderstood safety and secure attachment.

I thought security meant never hurting the people you love.

Never disappointing them. Never giving them a reason to leave.

But what if security isn’t built by the absence of hurt but by the presence of repair.

Apparently, people don’t keep emotional ledgers the way I do; instead, they build histories.

Histories where hurt exists alongside laughter, honesty, apologies, grace, ordinary Wednesdays, difficult conversations, and choosing each other again.

Maybe that’s why I’ve always been so confused when someone tells me I hurt them… and then stays.

How can you still see me the same?

How can your affection survive this?

Aren’t you going to lose interest, pull away, and most importantly, protect yourself?

What I’ve failed to notice is that I’ve almost always loved people far more than I’ve hurt them. They trust the love I’ve shown, more than the hurt they’ve just felt. They choose my track record.

Yet the moment I become the source of someone’s pain; I treat it as a verdict on my character instead of a moment in our story. As though my worst moment suddenly becomes my truest one.

Then I shame myself until I believe I deserve the punishment I think they’d give.

Lately, instead of punishment, I’m met with grace, and grace ever so often says, “Love doesn’t require believing you’re irredeemable every time you fall short.”

Love isn’t proved by perfection. It’s proved by what happens after you err.

Character is revealed less by whether you hurt people than by what you do when you realize you have.

Telling the truth. Listening without defending yourself. Apologizing. Repairing what can be repaired.

Because the cracks aren’t evidence that love is leaking out. They’re simply the places where love is asked to do what it has always done best:

Withstand.

There doesn’t have to be a good guy or bad guy, just complex people, willing to love.

Is this the beginning of the end? Maybe not.

With love,

Chinelolum.

To those who need a new lens on love.

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Muahhh! ❤️

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Not here with an opinion piece, just the kind of article that leaves you feeling like you strolled down the bustling halls of my mind. Ps: this is my attempt to quiet it down a little bit.

Hi, I’m Chinelolum and for some silly reason, I now allow people call me Chi. Chi in my native language (Igbo) means God, the full name means God has thoughts for me, and in an interesting way, knowing God has thoughts, comforts the thinker in me.

Maybe it’s a God-like thing to have a mind that ponders the way mine does. I barely ever refer to myself as an overthinker because in my humble opinion, I just think.

Anyway, here are some of my prevalent thoughts…

“Am I building muscle!?”

I have mentioned becoming a gym girl here before but guys, I might actually be on to something! I was sitting at the dresser in my room and without locking my thighs, I could feel muscle; firm, warm, tension blending in with what was once all squishy flesh. It’s such a satisfying feeling to see your body change, not a change born of self-hate and torture but of experiment. The gym for me right now is about putting my body in a lab to test how capable it truly is. The other day, I saw a reel of a lady do a full body push up and I had been trying to get one for a while, so I randomly decided to try again. People of God, I did it! Best believe I called all my friends to show them. Realizing that I’m in control of my body has done wonders for the way I see myself. The Substack police said we shouldn’t be too open on here, so I won’t talk about my lifelong body image struggles but just know that I’m healing.

“Yearning is pathetic.”

Articles will be written and podcasts will be recorded about the things I have learnt on the topic of shame. It’s been transformative to stop being so ashamed of my feelings in whatever form they show up. But you see yearning? I can’t help but feel pathetic about it. What do you mean I’m going on a walk and I break down in tears because I miss you? It’s such a puzzling feeling to be actively living without you yet feeling like I can’t. I’m occupied with my little life, pouring into myself, being my own best friend but something about your absence makes me question the real quality of my life. And fine is always my goal, I just want to be fine. But when you meet people who introduce you to fancier feelings like happy, safe, or even soft? Fine becomes so unsatisfactory. The burden of yearning is heavier when you can actually be okay without them. You are genuinely fine…just cursed to feel their absence even after filling the gaps they left.

“God is pleased with me.”

Psalm 37:23 NLT “The Lord directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives.”

Whether it’s building muscle or yearning for someone’s biceps, you’d find me thinking about love; you’d find me thinking about God. And when all is said and done, I’m just a girl who wants to please God. Nothing has been harder to accept yet humbling to acknowledge than the fact that God is pleased with me. I think about it often and it washes so much warmth over me.

I believe it, I hope you do too.

With love,

Chinelolum.

Thank you for reading this log. If this felt like a walk through a friendly hallway, subscribe so you never miss an entry. And I'd love to know — what's been living rent-free in your head lately? Leave it in the comments.

Muah 💋

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I have come to the interesting realization that I am, in fact, a busy bee.

I’m one month into my internship and four months into the job itself. I worked part-time during the semester, and now I’m getting a taste of what it’s like to do this full-time. I ask with genuine concern: How do people do this every day?

I’m the kind of person who looks forward to a break whenever something feels tiring or unfamiliar. When the semester gets overwhelming, I think about the upcoming holiday. When the holiday gets boring, I teleport mentally back to the semester, where there’ll be something stimulating again. I’m always looking for loopholes in every system—avenues to escape to days when I can do as I please.

Sometimes I want to be perfectly still. Other times—maybe most of the time—I crave the hustle and bustle. When I have too much time on my hands, I miss my routine. When my routine starts feeling like bondage, I miss the freedom of an unplanned life.

But real life doesn’t come with built-in breaks. Productivity is a fundamental part of being human. The semester ends, but work continues. The holiday comes and goes, and Monday returns. Eventually, there will come a time where holidays are not a given.

Maybe what I’m realizing is that life isn’t meant to alternate neatly between work and freedom. It’s mostly learning how to live somewhere in between. To find flexibility in the routine. To not see the days of freedom as days when living stops altogether. To accept that this is life, and it never truly stops. It expands, it changes, it intensifies, but it doesn’t stop.

As I was saying, I am a busy bee.

I plan my days before they come. My months, even. If not for the uncertainty I have about the exact path my life will follow, I would have planned my entire life, day by day. I would pick an engagement day, a wedding day, the day I release my first book, the day I start that podcast with my friend. If I could be in control of every tiny detail, I would. But I’ve learned to stop playing God in the name of planning.

I digress.

I came to the conclusion that I am a busy bee, because I get a productivity high every time I accomplish a task. I move through my day ticking things off my to-do list, and it gives me great delight.

I have fellow interns who want to do the barest minimum and lowkey hate the job, but I can’t relate. I love my job because it’s a job. I get to be busy. That’s the whole point.

I get to walk around in my corporate pants and business casual shirts, drunk on success. I learn something new, or I make a mistake that becomes a lesson in giving myself grace. I get remarks like, “Good job, Chinelo,” from my superiors, and it keeps me going. I come in the next day looking for another good job. Sometimes I go unnoticed, but it doesn’t faze me. It’s not about the applause, or even the pay. It’s about the thrill of doing something I’m proud of. Or maybe just doing something at all, for whatever is worth doing is worth doing well.

It’s the aesthetics of oolong tea in the morning, sitting at my desk and responding to emails. It’s telling the customer, “I’d love to help you with that,” and actually meaning it. Because I do love helping you. I’m keeping score of what I accomplished today, and you get to be on the list. It’s a win-win situation.

I’ve been told before that I’m a Type A person: time-oriented, driven, competitive, ambitious. But I’m not one to put myself in boxes or categories. I do, however, believe that at heart I’m just a girl who lives in the sweet spot between taking things seriously and not taking them too seriously at all.

I love my life. I love living.

Whether that looks like a corner office or a difficult course, I can’t help but fall in love with the things I do.

I firmly believe that you won’t always do what you love, but if you love yourself enough, you’ll learn to love whatever it is you do.

When it comes to building a lovely life, you have to let that love spill over into everything you touch. Your work, your relationships, your routines, your ambitions—all of it.

And when something stops reflecting the love you have for yourself, that’s your cue to leave.

Maybe that’s why I’m a busy bee.

Not because I’m obsessed with productivity or achievement, but because I genuinely enjoy being engaged with my own life. I like having somewhere to be. Something to do. Someone to help. A challenge to solve. A reason to get out of bed in the morning.

I am a busy bee. I suppose there are worse things to be.

With love,

Chinelolum.

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Thank you for reading this piece. I’d love to hear from you. Are you a busy bee?

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Xoxo

If you ask me what I have been up to lately, my response would be adulting.

After an exhausting semester, I’m finally on my summer break, but it has literally felt like one big catapult into adulting.

I got an internship for the summer, working in IT support. You know, woman in STEM and all that jazz. So, my daily life now looks like that of a twenty-something post-grad woman working a regular 9-to-5, starting right at the bottom of the career ladder.

I had to quickly switch gears from student to intern, but I had been mentally preparing for this for a while, so I’m not exactly thrown off by it.

I wake up at 6 a.m. after testing 7 a.m. for a week and realizing that although getting to my job is just a walk down the street, I still need more than an hour to get ready if I’m to clock in by 8 a.m. I stretch every morning on my yoga mat; I even sweat a little. I drink my warm lemon water, sometimes with chia seeds, and get on with my day. I make my bed on days when I’m feeling extra detailed. I go to the kitchen to pack my breakfast, and lunch which I must’ve already prepped the night before.

I play worship music and talk to God to get my mind right, then I get to showering. In the shower, I say, “Hey, this girl, stop caressing your body and hurry up,” every single day because I somehow think time stops when I’m in the bathroom.

It does not.

Then it’s on to my five-step skincare routine that I follow judiciously. Someone at the office told me that I always look moisturized, and I was like, yes, absolutely, that is the goal. My skin is dry as dust, so you will find me layering lotion and oil every morning. I finish off with sunscreen because I must protect myself from UV rays. Then a little extra touch on my face: brush my brows, mascara on my lashes, and the ultimate lip combo.

By the time I’m out the door, I always say, “Tomorrow, I will wake up earlier,” because there never seems to be enough time.

Safe to say that I have the perfect morning routine.

But honestly, it’s more like an anchor. I didn’t realize how important these little rituals were until one day, I was on a call with my friend Jojo, who is also doing an internship. We were talking about our routines, and I said, “Wow, Jojo, this is the so-called adult life oh. Busy weekdays, 30-second weekends, rinse and repeat. No time to breathe.”

She said, “Ah, Chinelo, this is it oh. There’s nothing else to it.”

That got me thinking.

I don’t want to be someone who works a soul-sucking job that takes all the color out of her life and turns her into a machine. I don’t want to abandon other parts of my life just because I work. Then I found myself saying, “I don’t want to work a 9-to-5.”

Yet the bitter truth is that not everyone can escape the office and freelance through life. Those CEOs you admire once had desk jobs they were faithful at before they rose to the top. So, if I have to trek through the corporate world before I pursue something else, then I must at least romanticize the routine.

I must build a life I truly enjoy.

Starting with a stable morning routine. I locked in with the one I have now, and I never skip a step. Then came an after-work routine that feels like pouring back into myself. And just like that, guys, your girl is in the gym.

If friends invite me out, I go without treating it like a waste of time. I am not meant to be so burnt out that I forsake connection and isolate in the name of rest.

I take time to watch a movie, continue my ten-seasons-long series, read a novel, journal, go on a therapeutic walk, cook something from my hundreds of saved recipes, anything and everything to excite myself in the ordinary.

So many people lose themselves to the weight of their jobs. Skipping meals, disregarding body care, doing nothing for their mental health, and some are single, living alone, so there is no love waiting at home either. And those little ways in which they abandon themselves compound into burnout that we all blame the job for.

But sometimes, it’s not just the job. It’s the way you made it your entire life.

This is the life. You must work, and you must be great at what you do. But if you play your cards right, you can still afford a vibrant life, no matter how much you give to the grind.

There is no constantly fun job, fun community, or fun routine. They are all monotonous and tiring in their own ways. There is just you. Your life is only as exciting as you are.

So, say yes to that Friday night movie. Try that online recipe for your meal prep this week. If you fancy dressing up like me, put together a nice fit for work and finish it off with a new scent you bought with your adult money. Find the beauty in the mundane. It does not have to be different to be cool, but it ought to be sustainable. Most importantly, it must make you feel good about yourself.

That priceless feeling that you are pampered and looked out for by no one else but you? Chase that feeling.

You deserve a life you love.

With love,

Chinelolum.

Thank you for reading this piece. I’d love to hear from you. If you’ve been in the corporate space, how do you find the balance? Leave a comment.

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Muahhh.💋

I came here determined to write something, anything at all, because I refuse to let this become another part of my life I abandon for ridiculous reasons. Self-consciousness being chief of them all.

I was greeted by ’s latest letter and she said to write back. So here I am, allowing her to inspire me as she often does. I do not have any deep, thought-provoking thing to say right now but like she said, “These days, I mostly write for myself.” I felt that.

I once let someone into the inner workings of my mind. But there I was in every corner, monitoring their perception of me. I watched the very twitch of their eyes when they read something I wrote. If they smiled, I was desperate to know what they found amusing, but if there was a joke in there and they didn’t catch it, I’d be crushed and immediately condemn my art. MY thoughts, MY words, MY tone, and eventually my entire existence. Tsk, what a sad way to live.

I told him that I’ve realized how self-conscious I am about the way my mind works and how people perceive me on a mental level. I’ve always valued being smart and witty, over being conventionally attractive. He said, “oh I know.’ And the next thing, I was fidgeting again at the thought of being trapped in his mind as one insecure silly girl. What do you mean you know!? So, you have perceived me and even labelled me!?

That’s when it clicked. My self-consciousness is actually just a rebellion against labels I cannot escape or even evolve out of. Ugh, boarding school was a land of labels. Labels so choking, they constantly distorted my identity as if I was not allowed to choose who I am. And you know the worst part about labels? They leave no room for growth, no grace for becoming. So, the older I get and the more I desire to accept myself, the more I want people to keep up with me. I am like a human iOS right now; I have a software update every fortnight.

So, promise me that you won’t hold me to who I was yesterday. That you will see me and say, “Hey, what’s life been teaching you lately?” Because I have been learning and if you ask nicely, I’d love to share.

It’s my mind. It’s words from my heart to yours. It’s my Substack and I’m proud of it.

With love,

Chinelolum.

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Okay guysss we’re backkk, did you miss us? ‘Because we missed you! (Please get the reference)

I am not making any lofty promises of consistency, but I intend to try. I want to be so much more committed to my art, and I hope you stick around for the journey.

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Muahhh 💗

My desire for community left just the way it came. Quietly.

But what dismissed it wasn’t disappointment, it was memory.

I remember now. I remember why I often kept to myself. I remember why solitude made more sense than connection. I remember the battles I had to fight to find the light in my eyes. I remember how quickly people dimmed that light not maliciously but by merely being..different, complex…requiring effort. Effort that barely goes into myself.

And I can’t help but wonder, if my thirst for community was just a desire for more of me. Does this deficit of connection that sits within my soul simply mean that there are parts of me I’m yet to explore? Am I my own adventure?

Now I’m uninterested. Now I’m tired. Now I don’t want it anymore. Because what’s the point of external desire that can only be internally satisfied? Emotional needs that only I can meet?

It’s a decidedly futile venture. It has more risks than returns. It’s a high you’re chasing but real life is lived in sobriety. So what then is the point?

This is not pessimistic or cynical. This, I fear, is the truth.

I’m not saying I don’t need people. I’m saying I don’t want them because unmet desire is slow poison. I’m not made for a life of endless longing. It’s too miserable to be someone who is insatiable.

I intend to be content. Desire challenges that contentment. The more I wanted community the more I reinforced in my mind that I’m not enough for me. But I am. I have to be. Who else is?

Everything I need the Lord will provide, not everything I want.

I have to accept that the only connections I get to have are the ones that contribute to my destiny not the ones I seek on a whim.

And those destiny ones? They’re here on assignment. They won’t indulge my desperate cries. They are not here to soothe me. They are here to move me. Wanting more out of them defeats their purpose.

So this is the aftermath of yearning. This is withdrawal. I have examined the cost of wanting and I’m no longer convinced it’s worth paying.

I’ve always been the girl who didn’t want anything and I remember now.

I remember why I avoided desire like the plague. Wanting a father. Wanting new cells. Wanting more than this provincial life. It didn’t leave me heartbroken, it left me fatigued. It left me drained.

So no, I don’t want it. But if in a holy twist of fate, I’d get to have it. Then, well, that’ll be great.

But wrote, “When community feels heavy, lighten the load; don’t dump it.”

And I can’t help but wonder what that will look like for a girl like me. Because if the rules of engagement are too much, I always choose to not engage. But I like Toni’s approach, I just have to figure out what it means.

With love,

Chinelolum.

Straight from the archives 💌

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I once came across a question: “Are you climbing the mountain for the world to see or for you to see the world?”

All it takes is one shift in perspective for us to realize that everything we do for applause is an adventure in itself. An adventure we ought to relish.

Yet we can’t appreciate it for the thrill it is because we’re focused on the wrong thing—applause. We all want an audience as if life is one big staged play.

And maybe life is just a show. But what if I told you that the acting is so much more important than the reviews. That being there, under the lights, giving all you have to embody the script you’ve been given is much more fulfilling than any cheer would be. Because it’s in the acting that you get to discover just how talented you are. You tap into parts of yourself you didn’t know existed. You test your limits. You come alive.

Why have we stopped seeing existing for the gift it truly is? Why do we want more life than life itself? And what on earth makes us think that we will get it from people who are just as wretched as we are?

You must’ve heard about sonder—the sobering realization that everyone is living a life as vivid as your own. If that is true then everyone is probably seeking an audience too. Everyone is as hungry for approval as you are. Which then poses the theory that if everyone is hoping to be seen then no one is actually living.

So what’s with the fantasy that the audience is somehow complete, qualified, or transcendent? When the people we want validation from are just as hungry themselves.

That’s why I can’t get behind performative love because why belittle something so great an experience to mere recognition from people who don’t even recognize themselves?

So when I’m asked if I’m climbing the mountain for the world to see or to see the world, I really hope my answer is the latter. I hope I’m always found choosing adventure over applause.

I hope I thrive without needing anyone to see me at it.

I hope I love for the sake of it. I hope I still cook when there’s no one to eat. I hope I write without a reader and speak without a listener.

I hope I’m satisfied with living, even when no one’s watching.

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Because an audience may see my life publicly without ever understanding it, while I—the one who’s living—may also be estranged from my inner life.

And we’re all plagued to ask the rather dull question, “If no one sees me, did it matter?”

Yes. It mattered because you were there. So learn to find enough meaning in the act of being alive.

Meaning is generated by participation not by witnesses.

It’s not a crime to want people to witness your life, that’s the root of our need for relationships. But the absence of a witness should never stop you from living.

With love,

Chinelolum.

Straight from the archives 💌

Thank you for reading this piece.

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Or don’t. I’d keep writing regardless. But please do. 🙃

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March brought me a gentle realization: I am capable of loving and trusting myself far more than I thought I was.

A huge chunk of that self-love and trust was tied to forgiveness.

After finding all the ways I traded my peace in February, I was really hard on myself. It’s a thing I do — I cry over spilled milk and hope that regret is going to make me wiser.

I’m convinced that if I hate myself for what I did, then I won’t do it again.

But the truth is, self-loathing is just poison.

It’s not a catalyst for change. It’s not productive in any way. It just makes you feel unsafe in your own body — a body you cannot escape.

So I had to forgive myself.

For my emotional reactions.

For all the tears.

For being weak and needy.

For exposing my vulnerabilities.

For abandoning myself.

Even for sidelining God.

But most of all, for my humanity.

I had to forgive myself for being human because I would much rather be a god.

Sometimes, I think I am above being human. But here I am, stuck in humanity — the kind that comes with a need for connection, a nervous system that needs regulating, a body that needs tending, and a mind so wild it must be tamed.

March said:

Chinelolum is human, but God can handle her humanity.

Chinelolum is human, so emotions are expected from her. They are normal, not an emergency.

Chinelolum is human. She’s complex, complicated, weird, and wounded — but Christ is her simplicity. His love interprets her in ways even she could never have done for herself.

Chinelolum is human. She will have desires. It is not a betrayal of contentment to want more than this provincial life.

Chinelolum is human. She will feel a wide range of emotions. Some are chemical, because hormones are interacting. Some are spiritual, because she hasn’t been praying. Some are psychological, because her mind is working overtime to protect her from pain. But they are all part of her human experience, and God is not unaware of them.

Chinelolum is human. She will get attached to someone who feels like an exhale after holding her breath for so long. She will get excited. Then she will want time, attention — anything that keeps the feeling alive. She will get a little entitled, but that doesn’t make her needy or spoilt. She’s just human.

Chinelolum is human. She will gravitate toward people in search of connection, safety, and solace. But because she is dealing with fellow humans, she may be disappointed. She may not find what she’s looking for.

But how she deals with that disappointment matters.

Will she make desire the villain and say, “I’ll never seek connection in people again. I’m fine on my own”?

Will she make the people villains and hate them for the same humanity she has?

Or will she accept that not all stories have villains and realize that what she wants is not perfection, but company — a human to be human with?

Because in acceptance lies great freedom.

Yet we can only accept others if we accept ourselves.

If love is accommodating a person’s humanity, and we ought to love others as we do ourselves, then love starts within.

We must first make room for ourselves, determine how much space we take up, and become comfortable with it.

So much of the hate we feel toward people — and the world at large — is hate we have for ourselves. We are often just projecting.

But oh, I am so done hating myself.

In March, I learned to accept myself.

I accept my strengths, so I exercise them.

I accept my beauty, so I take compliments with grace.

I accept my hysterical laughter, so I go where there is humor.

I accept the way my mind works, so I write — I do not hold back.

I accept my body, so I care for it, adorn it, and steward it.

I accept my voice, so I speak. I ramble. And if you let me, I’ll minister truth to you.

I accept my hair, so I wear it proudly, and when I want to switch it up a little, I get clean braids.

I accept my weaknesses, so I ask for help. I refuse to romanticize false independence.

And because I accept her, I am now armed with enough love to change her, grow her, teach her, and align her with the vision God sees for her — a vision He is opening her eyes to see too.

I accept her, so I trust her.

I trust that she will not bleed again in the hands of people who merely opened a wound they did not cause — a wound that never really healed.

I trust that she will treat her emotions as the information agents they truly are, not as catastrophes.

I trust that she will no longer abandon herself in search of things she already has.

I trust that she will not shrink again, because she will not be ashamed of her totality.

I trust that she will forgive and release resentment.

I trust that she will not betray herself by doing things that do not contribute to the life she wants for herself.

But the flesh is a wicked thing, and it cannot really be trusted. So when all else fails, and it turns out that I am not so trustworthy, I trust not in myself, but in Christ in me — the hope of glory.

With love,

Chinelolum.

Thank you for reading this letter. I hope it resonates with you. Do tell me about your March in the comments — I’d love to hear what it taught you. And if you’d like to keep receiving these reflections, subscribe. 💕

I’ve always wanted to be a Christian who stays.

The kind who has placed enough value on God to know there is no life without Him. I don’t want to be a roller coaster Christian—up today and down tomorrow. I want to be steadfast, immovable, unwavering in my pursuit of God. Because true devotion is not found in passion, but in consistency.

I can know so much about God and do even more for Him, but if abiding in Him is not the fabric of my existence—if it is not the very air I breathe—then my Christianity is a mere hobby, a thing I do out of curiosity, when it ought to be life itself.

So whenever I find myself in that distant place—the place I arrive at when life gets in the way and I stop tending the fire on my altar—I grieve a little.

I know I should be praying more. I should be studying daily. But I haven’t lately. I’ve slacked. I’ve gotten self-absorbed, even proud.

I start navigating this wild world on my own, giving in yet again to the foolish idea that it’s all about me. It’s up to me. It’s my burden to bear. My life to live. My heart to heal. My body to do with as I please. My name to make known. My glory to reveal.

When I’m in that place, I think about returning.

But first I ask myself: Why did I leave in the first place? Why can’t I just stay? Why can’t I read my Bible and pray fervently every day? Why do I have highs and lows?

But that question is loaded with so much shame and accusation. It is not I speaking in that moment—it is the accuser, and the goal of such thoughts is to distort my view of God.

It doesn’t stop at shaming myself; it becomes projecting my shame onto God. I’m tired of my inconsistency becomes God is tired of me. God is rolling His eyes, wondering why He wasted His investment on me. God is irritated by my inability to get my act together. God is disgusted by my falsehood, because it’s always lies with me. I say I will fast, but I eat—I even feast. I say I’ll pray, but I sleep off. I say I’ll study, but I skim the pages like Scripture is a bore. God is not going to wait around for me to change. He’ll go to those who are not doomed to fail like me. To those who stay.

But through these lies, the Spirit reveals:

To learn to stay is to relinquish the shame of returning.

It is to stop making a ceremony out of it. There is no hunt for a male goat and two turtle doves for a sin offering. There is access. Not beggarly, shaking hands and weak-in-the-knees access, but boldness and security.

Why are you so insecure about returning to a God who stands with open hands? The One whose Son was nailed to the cross in the very posture of an embrace—arms wide open.

To learn to stay is to live like you never left.

I imagine the prodigal son thought about returning the very night he left, but pride was in the way. I don’t need my father; I have taken all I need, he must have thought, until he squandered it all. And even if he had been prudent, he still would have run out, because yesterday’s supply cannot meet tomorrow’s needs. That is why we have daily bread and new mercies. That is why we ought to stay—because we must remain connected to the Source.

But staying connected is only half the lesson. The other half is knowing what to do when there’s a disconnect.

The prodigal son did not make a spectacle of returning. He considered the worst possible outcome and still decided that serving in a place where he was once a son was better than royalty outside. He forsook the lies of independence and returned.

I’ve found that we often hesitate to return because we think our absence has made our acceptance conditional. Many of us would rather bring a bull or a goat, because then forgiveness would make sense. Then we could say we appeased God’s wrath with our offering, and so He let us in.

But that only reveals how little we understand the magnitude of Jesus’ sacrifice. We have yet to grasp what it means that the wrath of God was satisfied. That we are grafted into the vine, adopted into the family. We are always welcome. Reconciliation is not ongoing; it is already done. Sanctification is what continues.

Jesus did not build a bridge so that we could live outside and come in occasionally. He demolished every external place and delivered us safely into His kingdom. There are no temples to enter and leave; we are the temples. If we cannot depart from our own bodies, then we cannot escape His presence abiding within us.

Isn’t that what the Psalmist meant when he said, “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence?”

You are not going over a bridge. You are inside.

In fact, you never left.

You are cocooned in Christ, and Christ in God. You do not get kicked out when you fall. You simply fell. Your stamina changed, not your location. All you have to do is get up. Your fellowship may have been disrupted, but your sonship was not revoked. You are not journeying back home. You are home.

What if we saw “returning” for what it often is: an excuse the flesh uses to delay fellowship?

What if all the time we spend contemplating how silent we’ve been was spent praying? What if we chose to read the Bible more than we think about how many days we’ve missed on our Bible plan?

If we strip returning of the shame it carries, we may find that the Christian journey is not about repeatedly finding our way back to God, but about waking up to the truth that in Christ, access is eternal.

So to those ridden with shame about their inconsistency, wondering what to do to appease God, I submit to you that He is not angry at you. He misses you. He wants to hear from you. You’ve been silent? Just speak. You’ve not heard Him? Be still and listen.

There is love at home, my friend. Go home.

With love,

Chinelolum.

Thank you for reading this piece.

I hope you always remember that the believer’s experience of distance is real emotionally, but not ultimate spiritually. Don’t let shame keep you away from home.

Happy Easter Week 🤍

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