When The Rain Stripped Me Bare. How one storm revealed the emptiness in… | by Oluwasanu | Sep, 2025

There was a day it heavily. Not the kind of playful drizzle that teases the earth and disappears, but the type of rain that insists on being known. It came with force, pounded roofs, flooded streets, poured for over an hour, stopped for a breath, then returned with the same stubbornness. It was relentless, and I was caught in the middle of it.

I had two things with me: a small weekend bag filled with essentials, and a sack of Irish potatoes. Not a big sack, just my portion from the full sack colleagues and I had contributed money to buy together at work. A kind colleague had offered me a lift halfway, but from there, I had to find my way home.

And that was where the real problem started.

Vehicles came and went, splashing dirty water as they sped past. None wanted to go as far as I needed. The few that did were snatched before I could move. If I had been alone, maybe I would have hustled, but the potatoes tied me down. I couldn’t dart into vehicles. I couldn’t maneuver. I was stuck.

At some point, holding my umbrella became tiring. My arms ached, my spirit sank, and I just closed it, letting the rain soak me completely. By the time I checked my phone, it was past 7pm which meant I had been under that rain for well over an hour, stranded. At this point, it had stopped raining. People had trooped out from where they had taken cover and the population at the bus stop had tripled. This made the search of vehicles competitive. Traffic had started to form because most people had to leave work the same time. It was a Monday.

So I thought, what should I do? Since traffic had built up, it meant getting a car was going to be a long and difficult. Knowing the route well, there was certainly traffic at many places along it. So, I thought, maybe I should crash at a friend’s place.

I picked up my phone, scrolled through my contacts, and realized something I had never admitted to myself before: I didn’t have a single person I could call.

Yes, I knew people. I even had colleagues who lived right in that area. But they were colleagues, not friends. I couldn’t just ring them up at night to say, please, I’m stranded, can I spend the night at your place and leave early in the morning? No, I wasn’t that kind of person in their lives. And maybe they weren’t that kind of people in mine.

I thought of friends. One didn’t live alone, she stayed with a family friend, so going there wasn’t even reasonable. Another one I called wasn’t at home that night. The one person I had the highest expectation of, the person I thought would say “Don’t worry, come over”, their tone on the phone told me plainly they didn’t want me there. That cut deep. The disappointment was heavier than the sack of potatoes at my feet.

And then the others, my people, people who would gladly say come, don’t worry, but they lived far. Too far. Not the kind of far you can manage with one taxi. The kind of far that would demand three stops, long detours, and more exhaustion. I wasn’t asking for far-away rescues. I just needed someone close enough to get to in one ride. And there was no one.

That broke me.

Not just because I was cold and frustrated, but because it forced me to confront the kind of friendships I have built. Or rather, failed to build. I had to ask myself hard questions: what kind of person am I in relationships? What quality of friendships have I been nurturing?

The answer was not flattering.

And I blamed myself.

Because when I think back, I have never really been intentional about friendships. I have always coasted with vibes. If we flow, we flow. If we don’t, I move. I have never stopped to be deliberate, to be strategic about building community. And in moments like yesterday, that lack of intentionality shows.

I know my patterns. I take things too personally. I cut people off quickly when I feel slighted. If someone doesn’t reciprocate my energy, I interpret it as rejection, and I withdraw. I am a terrible texter, a poor caller. Not because people don’t cross my mind, but because I don’t prioritize them enough to reach out. I have always told myself, if they don’t call me, I won’t call them. My pride has made me rigid. The moment you are out of my sight, you are out of my mind. Distance kills my relationships because I don’t water them. I have excused it as “everybody is busy,” but the truth is, I haven’t been intentional either.

A couple of weeks before the incident, I have been confronting some really hard truth:

Building friendships is inconvenient. It requires sacrifice, awkwardness, sometimes even cringy acts of showing up. It’s not always glamorous. To build a community you can lean on, you must also be the kind of person others can lean on. You must send that random check-in text. You must show up at birthdays. You must carry small loads with people so that when your own heavy load comes, they will help you carry it too.

In romantic relationships, we are told to endure, to manage conflict, to forgive small offenses. But in friendships, we expect perfection. One disagreement and we cut people off. One misunderstanding and we retreat. We act like friendships should be problem-free sanctuaries. But that’s a lie. Friendships, like marriages or family ties, will test you. They will offend you. They will stretch you. If you cannot sit through conflict, you cannot build anything lasting. Accepting that friendships require endurance has been difficult for me as someone who lacks patience. They require overlooking small things. They require calling back even when you feel slighted or not in the mood. They require patience through awkward silences. They require deliberate love. And yes, they require the inconvenience of showing up when it would be easier to stay at home.

Standing under the rain, I realized how fragile my own patterns have made me. I was forced to see my lack. And more than anything, it left me with a longing, not just to have community, but to be community. To endure, to forgive, to overlook, to inconvenience myself sometimes, to stay through the unglamorous parts. To be intentional about building friendships that can survive rain, distance, and time.

Most people like to pretend they don’t need people. But we do. We need people to lean on, to call at 7pm when the roads are flooded and the night feels too long. We need communities that will not let us drown alone.

On this day, the rain didn’t Just stripped me bare, it stripped me of all my excuses. It left me asking: if a bigger crisis comes tomorrow, who can I call?

The answer was silence.

And I don’t want to live with that silence anymore.