Laura Nnamdi: The Weight I Carry as an Advocate

Dear Remi,

Now Playing, Fix You by Coldplay.

I wake up every morning asking myself, Laura, what new horror will the world unveil today?

Is it femicide, committed by a man with an inflated, wounded ego who cannot accept rejection? Or is it the tightening of Western migration policies that stifles the dreams of international students who cross oceans with hopes in their pockets?

After 27 years of living, you would think I’d be used to it. The world has been cruel for longer than I’ve been alive. Shouldn’t Christ’s peace, which I am assured of, be enough to stop these cruelities or still the racing of my heart when the news comes on? Shouldn’t my spirit be steady by now, used to the cycle of grief?

But I am not used to it. I doubt I ever will be.

You see, I do this thing called advocacy. Some advocates prefer to distance themselves from activism, as though the word itself has become a source of shame. Social media has painted the “activist” as a nuisance: a barking dog, always loud, always demanding, but ultimately harmless and quick to fall silent and wag their tails if you toss them a juicy bone.

But advocates and activists are no different. We often want the same things, fight for the same reforms, and dream of the same better world. And yes, we can all be compromised, too. After all, we are human.

There are mornings I wonder: why don’t I just mind my business? Why don’t I focus on carving out my own little corner of joy, detached from the chaos? Wouldn’t life be lighter if I chose to look away?

Perhaps. But detachment is not a strength I possess. I envy those who can scroll past another tragedy and feel nothing. I imagine the calm of staring at the headlines with numbness in my heart and lifelessness in my eyes. To be unshaken, to remain untouched; that would be a kind of power.

I don’t have that luxury. To stay sane, I became an advocate. Advocacy is not simply my work; it is my survival mechanism. It is the way I process the flood of emotions that come with watching people suffer whatever hand life decides to deal them.

Yet, this survival comes at a cost. Some days it feels like both a curse and a blessing. To be so selfless that you pour yourself out for humanity without expectation of return, and at the same time, to be so fragile that the weight of every injustice threatens to drown you. But Remi, if I give it up, who would I become?

I am terrified of the version of myself that would look away, that would surrender to apathy. To be alive and yet indifferent feels to me like a worse kind of death. Perhaps that is the paradox: Advocacy both unsettles me and keeps me alive.

So here I am, restless, weary, hopeful, broken, mended, all at once. A body that trembles at the weight of injustice, and yet a spirit that refuses to stop fighting. Remi, to stay sane, I chose the very thing that makes me restless. And in that tension between curse and blessing, despair and hope, silence and voice, I live.

It is my first anniversary as an advocate, Remi. I have learned so much, and yet I am still unsure of so many things. The world is heavy, the work is endless, but my heart is still willing.

Will you walk with me, Remi?

***

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