Destination: Happiness

“The best thing to hold onto in life is each other”- Audrey Hepburn

I’m Amaka (Uh-Mah-Kuh).  I’m a Nigerian-American girl from the midwest suburbs.  I am a VERY private person.  I do not like people to know too much about me for fear of judgement or anyone misunderstanding me; and I'm honestly pretty good at it.  People always tell me that I have everything together, I’m nice, I’m professional, I’m smart.  But few people really know that I’m silly, I’m self-conscious, I’m sensitive, I’m critical.  As a society, we tell each other, "Keep your circle small". “I keep my circle so small it’s a period” so many of us have seen or said this.  Subsequently, we have to ask ourselves, is my circle small because I made it that way? Or am I trying to justify my flaws?  Is it possible that my circle is small because I turned people away unknowingly or I was too closed off?  This is what brings me to this blog.  I have been told my whole life, how put together I am, everyone wanted to be around me and my success.  Then things started to get tough, and many of my successes became failures.  Being a sensitive person, things hit me hard.  I have learned how to get over things fast, but that doesn’t negate the immediate feeling.  In the last few years all of the praise I received had been challenged.  And when I looked around to see who was still rallying behind me, I realized my circle became a period, and not because of anything they did.  Sometimes we have to pull ourselves up, but it’s okay to talk to people and open up about our fears and insecurities.  I learned to open up and found that I was the problem in a lot of my issues and insecurities; I had just never been knocked down hard enough to see it.  The last few years have truly been a blessing.  I truly believe that God took me through a storm, so that I would appreciate the sun I was standing in, my whole life.  Now this does not mean I had an easy life, or I was never challenged; I was just blessed enough to never have to face my own demons.  But, now I’m facing them, and I hope by writing this blog I can help someone else face their fears, and look within to find the amazingly strong person they’ve always been.  It’s okay to be different, and to try new things.  It's okay to contradict yourself sometimes.  It’s okay to go against the status quo or disagree with something you don’t believe is right.  I was blessed to be born into several conflicting identities, and it helped me see that there really is no way things should be.  Listening to your gut and that voice inside your head is the only true direction you need.  Trust yourself, and the rest will follow.  I’m no expert on this topic at all; just another "girl next door" en route to happiness.

"The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for."- Bob Marley

Amaka