Grace Adebayo's Blog

 These days I've been struggling to let my voice break the way it's supposed to.  These days, I've been feeling like a spectator in my own life. I've been hiding from my shortcomings, watching the nostalgia kick in. I remember how I tore my clothes to stop you bleeding but nothing ever stopped you from leaving. I've been sad. I've been angry. I've been struggling with consistency, as usual. When people say they're heartbroken, usually they mean someone they care about has hurt them and they can't get over it. When I say I'm heartbroken, I mean I failed myself. I mean someone who should have no relevance has made me feel bad. I'm always on the recieving end of betrayal. I'm always at fault.  Why do I keep letting people take me for granted? I trust the wrong people and let my trust issues ruin the relationships that should have been perfect. Billie Eillish once said "I ruined so many beautiful things just because I was sad" and I...

    Dear reader, I never imagined I’d get this far. I never thought my voice would be heard. Even if it was just 20 people. I never thought I’d have a piece that got over 300 views on its first day of release. I never thought I’d have you guys here. I never thought I’d grow up from that girl who thought so less of herself. I grew, I learnt and I loved. Which is why I’m writing this letter to you; my girls. From the bottom of my heart; Girl, I love you and I want you to know the world is large enough for your dreams. You’re strong, talented, beautiful and your struggle only strengthens you. Girl, Wipe Your Tears! It’s your time to shine.   Love, Grace.     We’re Girls.   They bring us up to compete with each other and then tell us we envy each other too much. They tell us we have to fight for attention; not for good things like jobs or our rights which I think could be helpful, but for the attention of men. We’ve had society tell us...

  Welcome back! Today, I’ll be sharing the Dorothy writing process and things you probably didn’t know about it.   Dorothy. Writing Dorothy gave me the fulfillment I’ve always wanted as a writer. Ideas kept running through my mind and I had a hard time trying to make it a short story. Dorothy could have been much longer but then it wouldn’t be a short story now, would it? I kept overthinking, worried no one would read. I kept reading it over and over, editing again and again until I just returned it to its original version because it didn’t feel original again. Consistency has always been a problem for me. I either give up on the way or just grow lazy. Dorothy makes me happy. It gives me hope that I’m capable of finishing something I started. It was a New Year Resolution and I’m happy it happened. I was so close to dropping it in my archives because I was scared of rejection and failure. Dorothy is the first completed body of work I’ve put out there. Does anyone re...

I’ve always believed in the butterfly effect. Everything we do has consequences; good or bad. These days I’ve been watching the hours go by, waiting for my consequence to arrive. I’ve learnt not to rely on others for happiness. I don’t even remember what I’ve been doing these past months.  All had I know is I’ve been waiting. I know it’s been a while I’ve bothered you with my blogposts. Yeah, if I’m being honest, I’ve not been doing too well. I feel like I rescued myself from a dark hole and then got sucked right back in. I’ve been stressing over feminism-related issues. Because honestly, if I don’t talk about it; who will? I know a lot of you think I’m very public with my life, well I’m not. But if talking about my pain instead of holding it back and hiding it from people who need to hear it makes me a public person, then so be it.  Today I’ll be talking about an experience that gave and still gives me chills till now. I think about two weeks ago; I was on an errand for my m...

Hi! It's been a while, hasn't it?  I'm currently in my bed doing absolutely nothing and I had this idea to write on my blog and I thought, why not? Fear or anxiety can be paralyzing. Most of the time I feel like I'm trapped in my own brain. I feel inconsistent, like one minute I'm happy and then I'm sad. Anxiety often gets the best of me and I don't take it too well.                 Sometimes the fear of what could be takes me captive and I feel helpless. My chest tightens, there's suddenly a lodge in my throat and a cold pit in the bottom of my stomach.       Sometimes my brain gets adaptive to my thoughts and bring them to my dreams. All the scenarios I've imagined in my head start to surface when I'm sleeping and I often wake up with sweat on my forehead,  a physical reminder of the things that went on while I slept.                 Sometimes I just cry,...

Suffering from identity crisis was definitely not in my plans. But here I am. I met someone new. She asked 'Who are you?' I had no answer. I asked myself 'Who am I?' Still no answer.  I know something about myself at least. I know I'm suffering from identity crisis. I know I'm a writer. But if I'm not a writer, who am I? I mean, I'm actually getting known. I'm growing. I have the growth I've always desired. I'm actually known as a writer. I write beautiful things. I say beautiful things. And I'm beautiful on my own. But not knowing who I am? That's definitely not beautiful.  When will I know who I am? Will I ever know who I am?  I'm definitely stressed. I'm definitely tired of being told what to do, who  and who not to talk to, where and where not to go. I'm definitely angry that someone posted my poem and cropped my name out of it.  So I guess that's a win. Maybe I don't know who I am yet. Maybe I'...

Hi! Welcome back to my blog.💛 It's been a while. Has it? I don't know.  Anyway this is just a random topic actually. I was watching an episode of Grownish and I got the inspiration. Trust me I haven't had real inspiration to write on my blog for a while but I got it lately and I'm writing it now so I don't get lazy and toss it aside. Literally. So Love, Concession and Change. They're three different things actually and we often mix them up. The Advanced English Dictionary defines Love as a strong feeling of affection for sb that you are sexually attracted to:  Concession as something that you allow or do, or allow sb to have, in order to end an argument or to make a situation less difficult It also defines change as : to become different So these three really define our relationships with people.  They are not just the basis, they are the foundation. I get that when you love someone,you want to please them and make them happy. And sometimes that may...

    Does it feel right? Very often, I’m disappointed with how people treat me. I want people to be more compassionate to me. Maybe it’s because I would treat them the exact same way. I shower my friends with love and kindness and I feel really bad if I’m treated any less than how I would treat them. I go extra miles to make the ‘people I love’ happy and I’m heartbroken when I found out they wouldn’t do the same for me. But then I remind myself that sometimes, kindness is a personality trait and not everyone has it. I’m also reminded that not everyone can be like me. I often feel like I’m self-righteous when I tell people how I want to be treated. I expect to be treated with respect and kindness and whenever I’m treated differently, I speak up. Of course, this has left me with lesser friends but it only makes me know who my real friends actually are. I’ve had people tell me “try to tolerate people or you’ll just chase them away” I’ve also had people tell me “d...

Why so helplessly selfless? By Grace Adebayo.   Why so helplessly selfless? Why so helplessly devoted to someone who isn't to you? Why do you care so much? Always convincing yourself that you're fine just because of what you think society will say.   At times when I talk about mental health to my friends/acquaintances (I'd rather not call some people my friends) the few ignorant ones are always making foolish comments like "This one won't work in Nigeria", " I don't have time for stuff like these, I have exams, why would I be focusing on mental health? ".  I get discouraged. Yes. But does it stop me? No. Coz I know my goal here and I really don't care what anyone feels.  Sometimes we are scared to show emotion because we don't want to be called names or insulted. I hope you get to that point in your life where you don't care about these stuffs anymore.  I wanted this blog post to be about how often I wonder why I'm so devoted t...

  THE DESIRE TO FEEL. -Grace Adebayo.          For a while now, I’ve been feeling very unemotional. And not like in a heartless way so to say. I’ve been feeling numb not physically though. Emotionally, spiritually, mentally. A lot of stuffs have happened in these last few weeks. I expected myself to at least show some emotion but I couldn’t. It felt like……..nothing. Actually, I felt nothing.          I wanted to at least have a mood but I couldn’t. Then I came to conclusion. I’ve gone numb. It felt so surreal, so weird and bizarre. I wanted to deny it. Wanted to hide under a chair or something and say it wasn’t true but it actually was. I kept it in for months. Thinking maybe if I ignored it, it would go away. I even almost concluded it was maturity creeping in but it was much more than that.           Being the experimental person that I am, I’ve b...