How do I treat someone who hurt me?

It was 6am. Her alarm rang. My eyes opened, though it clearly was shut. She has her own room, why is she here?

A quick flashback; oh, her fan spoilt. She can't afford to sleep in that heat,  so, she came to mine. She gets up; I wonder how she could tell I was awake, because  she whispered 'Yimi, I'm going to my room. Come lock the door'.

Sleepily, I got up. As she stepped out, I twisted the knob but, on my way back to my bed, I noticed something. There was a mattress on the floor, and instead of my roommate sleeping on her bed, there was another girl. The one who just left got up from the mattress on the floor, but my roommate was still sleeping on the mattress.  

Again, another flashback. I remembered I slept with the friend on the bed sleeping on my roommate's bed. The roommate asked me before I travelled into the land of dreams if it was okay to wake her up so she could go to her room. With my roommate on the floor, she sure did not. I assumed the mattress on the floor was that of the girl whose fan is bad.

Finally, I can go back to bed, after this investigative journalism. But clearly, someone thinks otherwise, as there's a knock on the door.  Let's call the girl with the bad fan 'Tori'.

I allow Tori in, and she picks up a few things. She apologizes for disturbing my sleep and tells me she has a 7am lecture she's going to. I go back to bed, but Tori keeps going in and out. The door is still unlocked.

Have you ever had a morning that feels like everything is working against you? I think this was one of those, because, it hasn't been up to five minutes since Tori left, and someone is banging on the door.  Yes, banging, not knocking. Let's call this someone Vanessa.

I am upset. Totally annoyed. Why can't I sleep in peace today? Who did I offend? So, I'm screaming "who is there? " Vanessa replies and I ask her to come in. Pissed off, I ask the expected, 'why are you banging on my door early in the morning? '

She says she wants to take her bed; that her room is looking scanty.  Err... Hold up.
I do some maths at this point. The girl sleeping on my roommate's bed is Vanessa's roommate.  We'll call her Daisy. I sum up that my roommate; 'Vivian' didn't want to wake Daisy up, so she brought Daisy's mattress here to sleep on. Tori came to sleep here, so they slept on Daisy's mattress.  

Perhaps Vivian took the wrong mattress; Vanessa's. But this is almost impossible. Our rooms are near each other, and being friends, we have been to each person's room a lot. We know everyone's bed,  there's no way Vivian took Vanessa's mattress mistakenly.

Urgh, what's all this stress? I just want to sleep. Then it hits me; Tori and Vanessa are cousins, but, had a major disagreement recently. Vanessa is probably pissed off simply by the thought of Tori sleeping on the mattress that clearly isn't hers.

You see how brilliantly I solved this question;  if only I solved school math problems like this. Vivian and Daisy are still sleeping, although I wonder how they can with all this noise.  Anyway, I tell Vanessa, as calmly as I can, 'You can see Vivian is still sleeping, when she wakes up, I'll tell her to bring the mattress to your room'.

Guys, I woke the sleeping lion. Something in that statement pissed Vanessa of. She started shouting, throwing different insults, I just couldn't understand. I just want to sleep.  

Then she insulted my parents, and I got angry. You'll think the knowledge of my size compared to hers will give me more wisdom,  but no, my brain was on holiday. I chose to talk back. I told her it was fine to insult me, but she should never bring my parents into the matter. I said some things I can't remember because the next thing I noticed was my head being bashed into the wall. Guys, my head turned around fifty times. People started coming in, Daisy and Vivian finally got up. She went on hitting me till they got her off, ‘they’ is the cleaner,  the house mistress and some people I can't remember.

I felt bad. Terrible infact. People were rushing in, to get the full 'gist'. I was only trying to allow my friend sleep, but I couldn't get the sleep I wanted.  

People hurt us all the time, most times worse than mine. And it's so difficult to forgive. So hard to let them go. For one, I wanted to see Vanessa's head on a platter of gold. But one thing I realized is it all depends on how you look at it. In my case,  I chose to let her words affect me. Truth is, no one has ever died from an insult. No one ever will. It's the action taken after that insult that can result in death.

Also, 'consider how you may have contributed to the situation'. I knew she was angry, I could have ignored her while she spoke. But I didn't.   

So though it may seem unfair to take all the blame, I agree you can't control people's actions, but you can control your reaction. Treat people with love regardless, keep positive energy always.  You choose if you want to be light or darkness.

I can still feel that hot slap she gave me, so I'm just going to go to bed, hopefully, I don't wake up to stress.

-Sending love and light your way,
Yimika Adeniyi.

Read about my most embarrassing moment. It's embarrassing; but hey, what are friends for? Here's some humour for you.