The Quiet Vacancy.

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treasuree31 seconds ago6 min read

I was casually lying down on the bed that hot afternoon, I was holding my phone, but I wasn't seriously doing anything with it, I had opened my whatsapp and closed it again, i did same thing with Instagram, I had only scrolled for few seconds, everything just felt somehow and empty at same time,

"You no chop?" My younger sister asked me as she entered the room.

"Omo, I will eat later, Jawe," I replied.

As she entered the room fully and sat at the edge of the bed. "Na wetin you don dey talk since morning be this o"

I didnt answer, and it wasnt because I was angry or because i was offended at her, I really just didnt have the energy to explain anything about how I was feeling.

"Why do you still have this person's chat pinned ehn sister?"

I quickly grabbed the phone from her. :Leave my phone ooo" I said

She looked at me and sighed, 'Abi, do you miss him?'

I didn't talk.

But the silence also gave an answer.

The truth was that I didn't know when it even started to hurt that much, One minute, we were talking daily , saying good morning, arguing, saying goodnight, making up, planning alot of nonsense future plans that never happened. And then the next minute, everything just went 'POOOOOH'.

There were no big fights, no dramatic goodbyes. It all just became silent, distance, absence, and a vacancy, and this vacancy isnt the type that you will see on signboards.

This vacancy wasnt one used to announce a position or someting in organisations, this vacancy was inside me, i felt empty, the space that was once occupied now laid empty.

I remember how i used to wake up and the first thing that always comes to my mind is to vheck if he had sent a message. And sometimes i usually found he has texted , other times, he hadnt, but i still somehow checked. it got to a point in my life where i had still always checked , until I gave up on it. And then , that was because my body still had not learned.

That evening, my friend Bolu came to visit me, "Bae, you look tired o" she said, just as she made herself comfortable with her back resting on the bed frame.

"I am tired na."

"Of what?"

I laughed a bit

"Of missing someone na, that probably doesnt even think about me."

She stood up and sat beside me.

"Do you still love him?"

I shrugged...

"I dont think it's about love now o, I just feel like i got too attached," I said.

Bolu nodded with understanding .

" Shey you know that sometimes attachment is really hard to break than love itself"

Then i got hit with reality, because truly it was true

I was not missing the person as much as I was missing the version of me that existed when he was around.

The me that laughed easily, the me that believed love was simple, The me that felt chosen.

Now, I just felt… empty.

Like a room with no furniture, like a chair with nobody sitting on it, like a space waiting for something, but not knowing what.

That night, I opened our old chats.

I don’t know why I did it, maybe I was looking for closure, maybe I was looking for pain,maybe I just wanted to remind myself that everything wasn’t a dream.

I scrolled and saw messages like:

“I miss you.”

“I can’t wait to see you.”

“You are my person.”

I laughed.....

And not because it was funny or something, but because life has a very wicked sense of humor.

How do people go from “you are my person” to strangers?

How do you become memories? How does someone leave and still live inside your head rent-free?

I dropped the phone and stared at the ceiling.

“This space inside me… what do I do with it?” I whispered, Nobody answered.

The next morning, my mom called me into the kitchen.

“Come help me peel these onions,” she said.

As we worked, she suddenly said,

“You know say sometimes God remove people from our life not because they are bad, but because they are not meant to stay.”

I looked at her.

“Why does it still hurt then?”

She smiled sadly.

“Because your heart had plans.”

That one almost made me cry.

My heart had plans, Plans that never happened, conversations that never continued,Dreams that never matured.

And now all of that has become a vacancy.

But something changed that day.

Not magically.

Not instantly.

But slowly.

I started realizing that vacancy is not always a curse.

Sometimes, vacancy is space.

Space to breathe.

Space to grow.

Space to become someone new.

Space to learn myself again.

I started doing small things.

Going out for walks.

Writing my thoughts.

Laughing with friends.

Even talking to myself sometimes.

Slowly, I stopped checking my phone every minute, slowly, his name stopped being the first thing on my mind, slowly, the vacancy started feeling less like a wound and more like an empty land,And empty land can be built.

One evening, I told Bolu

“I don’t think I want anyone in that space right now.”

She smiled.

“That is growth.”

I nodded.

Because for the first time, I wasn’t desperate to fill the vacancy.

I wasn’t looking for a replacement.

I wasn’t searching for another person to patch the hole, I was learning how to sit with myself.

And honestly?

That feels like the real healing.

The vacancy might still there.

I won’t lie, but now, it does not scare me as much as it did before.