By Debbie Olujobi
There are two obvious sides to every story; both sides have not more than the same characters in common. The sides are true to all involved based on perception and reception. A story that involves actual people, happening in real time and is similar to rivulets of water coming downstream.

It could dry up if it falls on dry patches of soil and disappear. It could also trickle into a larger body of water and be consumed by currents that change its nature turning it into a larger story than it actually ever was.  It could also interestingly change in entirety and be adapted to other stories and gain the avalanche of hysteria; this scenario has people using their own insecurities and past experiences to colour their versions and it eventually dies when the hysteria borders on the ludicrous.

Stories are often not the dramatic tales we hear of or tell to others. Life itself is a story and each one of us is a story happening from minute to minute.Our stories differ according to the emotions we have and a life can be a tragedy one minute and a comedy the next.

Through it all, our emotional composition is altered by the pain and the joy we feel at every twist and turn of our story. Emotions will eventually temper our relationships with others and their stories but like a large ball of yarn different patterns are formed when fate begins to weave its mysteries.

Our stories are naturally carried around in our hearts but our minds are the reservoirs of all the pain and it is often our minds that carry the baggage of pain we have felt even when our hearts are healed. The human mind must be the most interesting part of humans; it’s the seat of all notions and even emotions.

It’s the trigger of reactions and perceptions. It is the control centre of the heart. I love the human mind and a part of me still wants to go back and study it extensively; it is complicated and even twisted but it is very intriguing.

As a growing child my story was that I was inconvenient, ugly and unwanted. I truly believed this and I grew up with the baggage of all that negativity. The result was a disenfranchised, suspicious, unkind, resentful and angry young adult. I was the middle child in a big family; ahead of me were two brothers and behind me were the three most beautiful and cute little girls ever.

I didn’t fit in with my brothers and was too old and too tall to fit in with the girls. I was a bag of bones and referred to as a mosquito or a prawn. People had thought it was funny to make fun that my head was bigger than my body. I was particularly resentful that I was the last to be given anything and even when I got, my things could be taken and given to the children who threw tantrums just to keep them quiet.

I had been something of a model child and I tended to be quiet and say yes to everything. What most people didn’t realise was that I was a very angry and bitter child full of anger and seriously depressed. I took being igno
red as a sign that I wasn’t wanted and that all the cruel nicknames as proof I was ugly. My rage was mostly directed at my mother who I felt didn’t love or want me; that was my story and I believed it.

The other side of the story was my mother’s. I didn’t discover her side fully till she passed on and I read her diaries. Her story was that of a woman in an extremely abusive marriage with more children than her resources could accommodate. She referred to someone as my present frequently and it took a while to realise she meant me.

She had me when she was twenty one and was convinced I had been given to her by God as a coming of age present. I was the child that came after 5 minutes of labour, hardly ever sick and brilliant to boot.  I was quiet, didn’t complain and had what she thought was a sweet disposition.

She honestly didn’t realise how hurt I was by all the skinny nicknames and she thought I understood when I got passed over for treats and even parties. In her mind, I was the one always on her side and made life easy by not being difficult.

It’s amazing the perception one gets when we get the entire story, what we believe or hear is not always the truth. Emotions can cloud judgement and lately I am in a situation similar to my childhood days. It’s a shock to the system that for all my so called intelligence I can be as hurt and wounded as way back then but we live and learn.

The difference between those days and now is that I am not a defenceless and insecure child who lets her feelings make her an emotional cripple. These days I am in full control of my emotions and while I am not above being hurt I am in a tight grasp of my truth; I can’t be silenced by venom or name calling.

I remembered my mother’s diaries this week and I am empowered by the truth of a love I didn’t know was there till much later on. We became very close before she died and her story became even clearer. It fortifies and strengthens my position that no matter how bad things look; there is always another side to every story.