Insight of a Kenyan Girl

Friends.
People who claim to care for us. People we, in turn, choose to care for. But what no one really prepares you for is the fact that sometimes — friendship has a validity term. An expiration date stamped in invisible ink. You won’t see it until it’s too late.

For her, it was in the way she laughed — a hollow sound that told me everything I needed to know. I knew then: she wasn’t a friend for keeps.
She was wrapped so tightly in her beliefs, her judgments dressed up as concern, and the hypocrisy of it all was almost impressive. She pretended she cared, but her words were laced with something else entirely: indifference.

It stings at first, realizing that not every person who walks into your life is meant to stay. You replay every memory, searching for signs you missed. And sometimes, you find them — small warnings you brushed aside because you wanted to believe the best.

The truth is, sometimes it’s not worth it.
It’s not worth opening your door to every knock, not worth stretching your heart until it thins out to nothing trying to hold onto people who were never meant to stay.
Sometimes, it’s just fine — even necessary — to stay alone.

You see the lights in my house? That’s not a welcome sign. It never was.
It was just me trying to make my space warm for myself, foolishly believing others would respect it, cherish it. I let them in without realizing that not everyone who smiles at you truly wishes you well. And I was naive enough to think otherwise.

Friends will stay when you have everything — when your pockets are full, when your laughter is genuine, when you shine. But when you lose it all — the sparkle, the money, the so-called “status” — many disappear without so much as a backward glance.
And you’re left wondering if they were ever truly your friends to begin with.

But you know what?
There’s nothing wrong with being alone.

Alone is peaceful.
Alone is honest.
Alone is you not having to shrink yourself, not having to second-guess the sincerity of the people around you.

It’s in the quiet that you learn:
You are enough.
You don’t need a crowded room to feel worthy.
You don’t need borrowed loyalty to feel valued.
Sometimes, solitude isn’t loneliness — it’s freedom.

So let the door stay closed.
Let the lights in the house stay on — not as an invitation, but as a sign that this home, this heart, belongs first and foremost to you.

And that’s more than enough.

In a world of fleeting friendships, may you always find a forever friend within yourself.