Unmasking the Paradoxical Me.

I am 19. Black. African. Whole, not part,

Not mixed race, not “incomplete,”

I’ve got a healthy, functioning body.

But still, somehow, I feel… unfinished.

Like I’ve spent my life searching for the missing pieces of me

in places they were never meant to be.

……………………………………………………………..

I adapt.

Bring anyone in front of me, and I can tell you who they are.

I mirror their rhythm, shift my cadence to match theirs,

a chameleon cloaked in survival, masking for acceptance.

I’ve spent years becoming the reflection of someone else’s comfort.

But the cost of this adaptation?

It’s been me.

……………………………………………………………..

My voice drowned beneath the weight of what others wanted.

My interests buried in the shadows of their desires.

In love, I followed their lead.

In friendships, I mastered the art of disappearing behind smiles.

And all the while, my soul whispered:

What about me?

But I silenced it because I thought…. I thought I was too much.

Too flawed.

……………………………………………………………..

By day, I could fake it.

But by night? Oh, the night is mine.

When the world goes quiet, I finally hear myself breathe.

The darkness holds me gently, reminds me I don’t have to perform.

And my smile broadens,

Relief bringing forth the life I thought I’d lost.

There’s beauty in that stillness.

There’s freedom in being unseen.

……………………………………………………………..

But I am seen.

I’m seen as distracted. Absent-minded. Not enough.

“Distracted brain,” they’ve said in school.

“Sit still, pay attention, stop wandering off!”

But they didn’t understand:

My mind was never built to stay in one place.

It travels, it questions, it dreams of a world more vast than this.

They called it a problem, but maybe it was just… me.

……………………………………………………………..

Maybe the world was too loud for a mind that craved depth.

Too rigid for a spirit that needed freedom.

……………………………………………………………..

This world. This neurotypical world.

A world that demands we wake up and work,

Connect and grind, smile and show up every day like clockwork.

A world that tells you to “fix yourself” if you don’t fit the rhythm.

A world that doesn’t bend but expects you to break.

……………………………………………………………..

And for years, I did.

Until the breaking became too much to bear.

……………………………………………………………..

I bent. I broke.

I tried to fix myself. I prayed. I read the books, went to the churches.

I love Jesus, but even there, I felt the gap widen.

Because how can I find peace in spaces that don’t see me?

How can I exist in systems that were never designed for someone like me?

……………………………………………………………..

And then came the words: neurodivergent.

Autism. ADHD.

Labels that didn’t box me in but finally, finally explained.

I don’t have a diagnosis, no.

But I see the way my brain bends differently.

I see the stimming in my spirit, the burnout from masking,

The years spent twisting myself into shapes that weren’t mine.

……………………………………………………………..

But what if the problem isn’t me?

What if the problem is this world built for “normal”?

A world that calls us broken when we don’t walk the same paths.

What if the wave of neurodivergence isn’t new?!

What if we’ve always been here, hiding in plain sight,

Forced to adapt, forced to survive, forced to mask?

……………………………………………………………..

I think about how many of us have prayed for death.

Not because we wanted to die,

But because living in a world that doesn’t understand you is exhausting.

Because the constant battle to be seen, to be heard,

To just exist without apology is a weight no one should carry.

……………………………………………………………..

But I am here.

Still standing. Still finding myself.

Still navigating this complex, messy, beautiful thing that is me.

I am not incomplete.

I am not a problem.

……………………………………………………………..

I am Black.

I am African.

I am everything they said I couldn’t be and more.

I love the night. I love the quiet. I love the rhythm of my heartbeat.

The dance of Afrobeats, the pulse of hip-hop,

The whisper of jazz, the wail of blues,

The cry of rock and roll, the swell of classical,

The hum of reggae, the ache of soul,

The stillness of folk, the fire of gospel.

All of them, at varying degrees, as my brain pleases—

Because my soul was made to hold multitudes.

I am a paradox, a contradiction, a masterpiece in progress.

……………………………………………………………..

And I will not shrink anymore.

I will not mask to make you comfortable.

I will not mould myself into a shape this world demands.

……………………………………………………………..

I will take up space.

I will love myself in the quiet and in the chaos.

I will let everything align.

……………………………………………………………..

Because I am whole.

Because I am enough.

I am paradoxically magic.

Not with the flicker of wands but the breath of the Creator.