Isolation Diaries — Ifeoma’s Entry II

The Tribe Lagos
The Tribe Stories
Published in
4 min readMay 29, 2020

This Isolation has given me so much time to reflect on my short life. The memories I had forgotten, those I cherish and those that are seldom revisited, they’ve all been featuring in the time and space of being isolated. In all of this, gratitude has been my most prevalent disposition. Age has brought an ability to appreciate once overlooked gifts, privileges and opportunities.

A thought that has come front and centre during my quiet moments in this isolation has been the passage of time. It seems like I have not really observed the people around me in a long while. I had always known how old my parents were but now I am forced to stop and look at them closely and I am shocked that I only knew their age as numbers, I had never considered the implications of those numbers. I had somehow forgotten that those numbers also represented the end of the parts of my dependence that I have grown so accustomed to.

I had failed to realize that our relationship was entering a different stage and I would begin to carry some of the load they had expertly navigated all these years. So much began to dawn on me as my mother and I enjoyed our private movie nights. I accepted it for what it was and vowed to steward our last days together. All this unanticipated bonding time will soon be a cherished memory for my mum and me. We spend most of our adulthood away from the people who moulded us and as I look towards the very immediate future of leaving this place I call home, I’m committed to making time for them, to listening to the tales I’ve heard a thousand times and enjoying their presence. I am all too aware that these times are fleeting so I have pardoned my parents for being flawed humans, for painting inadequate pictures and for every unmet need. This season has allowed me the liberty to choose to focus on all the ways they got things right.

Time passes whether we heal or not and I would hate to have wasted this opportunity to stop, reflect and unpack all that I can so my journey ahead is as smooth as possible. A sense of urgency has arisen to steward the people I have around me and let go of people that no longer suit the vision. I must open myself to new people and experiences to fully be present, so I need this space. I need to unload all the weights that God was highlighting, I need an empty house for the journey ahead.

This lockdown brought me to a stop look within and I realized that being angry actually made me sick. I’ve been upset at a particular person for the past four months and though I had been convicted about my anger in the past, this period brought the conviction home and several times over these past days — I was reminded of the act and the frustration, so sometime last week I started having these headaches that wouldn’t go no matter how much paracetamol or sleep I had. Coincidentally, while waiting on the headaches I decided to watch a sermon by Pastor Isi where she shared that resentment made her ill, armed with that information and the recent impressions I had received about anger, I was led to call a friend and we prayed through those emotions and right there and then I felt some of the pain lift off me. I have felt better ever since. Ladies and gentlemen keep your heart free of bitterness, it’s not worth it. I actually thought I had COVID-19 while I was causing my own problems.

After this isolation, I promise to stop and chill off and the busyness of activities, to be present wherever I am, to laugh more, to speak and to forgive, to care more. I want memories to last a lifetime, laugh at myself a lot more, fully exonerate the offenders of the past and laugh at those things I once thought would overwhelm me.

I’m really grateful for God’s kind mercies even in this quiet and extraordinary times.

Cheers to a fuller life.

As told by Ifeoma Nwakalor, a young lawyer living in Lagos, Nigeria.

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The Tribe Lagos
The Tribe Stories

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