Nigeria ranks as one of the cheapest countries in Africa, but why does it feel very expensive to live in?

And before you come for me and say, “Not everywhere in Nigeria,” let’s narrow it down to Lagos and Abuja.

But Lagos especially.

To have a social life in Lagos is very expensive. Even salvation isn't that expensive.

I am literally too poor to survive in this Lagos. And tbh, guys, I actually want to chop life.

I want to go out. I want to do interesting things. I want to randomly wake up on a Saturday and say, “You know what? Let me go somewhere.”

I want to attend events. I want to see my friends. I want to discover cute places. I want to eat somewhere that isn’t my kitchen. I want to have a life.

But whyyyyyy is everything so freaking expensive?

Someone should please help me ask Jide what is going on.

Because even things that God gave us for free, you people have somehow found a way to charge us for them.

First of all, why is the beach expensive?

The beach!

The water that God gave us for free?

And I’m not even talking about the transport yet.

Let’s say I’m coming from the Mainland to the Island. You check Uber at 4:00 PM, and it’s ₦4,000. You apply lip gloss, check again at 4:05 PM, and it’s suddenly ₦12,500 because of “high demand.” Did the Third Mainland Bridge turn into a runway in five minutes?

And I’m not even talking about Lakowe or Ajah o.

Then you reach the beach, and they tell you to pay an entrance fee.

For what?

Was the ocean not there before I arrived?

Then you enter, and suddenly every other thing has a price attached to it.

Do you want to sit here? Pay.

Do you want to do this activity? Pay.

Do you want food? Pay.

Do you want a picture? Pay.

Do you want to breathe?

Actually, please don’t give them ideas.

Even parks aren’t free.

Parks!

I thought the whole point of a park was that it was somewhere you could just go and sit down and exist outside your house.

Apparently not.

At this point, I should never have left Ilorin.

P.S. I was not born in Ilorin

Please, this is not a shade to anybody living in Ilorin o. I’m just saying life was much more convenient back there.

Because what exactly was I looking for in Lagos?

Every day is war.

If you are looking for the fastest way to make your quality of life deteriorate, you can choose Lagos.

You wake up: traffic.

You leave work: traffic.

You want to see your friend: transport.

You want to go somewhere nice: transport + entrance fee + food + transport back.

You want to eat healthy: money.

You want to rest: money somehow.

Imagine being invited to an event.

Someone sends you an invitation, and you’re initially excited.

“Ahhh, I’d love to come!”

Then reality sets in.

Because before you even set foot outside your house, the mental arithmetic begins.

How am I getting there? What am I wearing? Do I need to do my hair? Will there be parking, or will three different men in reflective jackets try to charge me a ₦1,000 "security fee"... wait, what am I even saying? I don't even have a car!

You haven’t even left your bedroom, and you’ve already spent ₦60,000 in your head.

Then you actually get to the venue, sit down, and the restaurant gives you a menu where a tiny plate of pasta is ₦22,000, and a mocktail, which is literally 85% ice, 10% syrup, and 5% pure vibes, is ₦12,000. And just as you’re trying to process that, the waiter casually drops that there’s a “minimum spend” of ₦50,000 per head.

For what? Is the chair made of 24-karat gold?

And I’m not doing extraordinary things o. I’m not asking to attend a yacht party in Banana Island. I am talking about basic, baseline enjoyment. A birthday. Dinner with friends. A beach day. A cute little outing.

Just let me be outside without needing a personal loan.

And honestly, celebrities and influencers are contributing to this problem.

Please tell me why you are doing all back for ₦10,000, and it is five pieces!!!!

Five!

What happened to the time when ₦10,000 could actually buy something?

And why are you doing photoshoots for another person’s wedding?

Now everybody needs a pre-wedding shoot, a civil wedding shoot, a traditional wedding shoot, a white wedding shoot, a bridal shower shoot, a birthday shoot, a birthday dinner shoot, a “soft life” shoot...

Please.

You people have made life difficult for the average person.

Because now, if you want to attend an event, you don’t just attend.

You have to look like you attended an event.

There must be pictures. There must be an outfit. There must be makeup. There must be hair. There must be somewhere aesthetically pleasing to stand.

And if you don’t do all these things, somehow it feels like you didn’t really go anywhere.

Even fitness is expensive.

Gym membership. Workout clothes. Shoes. Classes. Protein. Supplements. Everything.

Thank God my body parts are free from God, because imagine if I had to pay for every part of my body too.

Actually, don’t give Lagos that idea.

And don’t even get me started on food.

I no longer have access to fruits, you people.

Fruits!

At some point, buying fruit started feeling like I was making a luxury purchase.

I am standing in front of a bunch of grapes doing financial analysis.

Do I really need this?

It’s a grape.

A grape.

What kind of economy makes you reconsider your relationship with grapes?

And then there’s rent.

But rent is another story for another day because I am currently trying to enjoy the little life I have left.

The funny thing is that when we talk about the cost of living, we usually talk about the serious things.

Food. Rent. Electricity. Transportation. Fuel. Healthcare.

And yes, those things are important.

But nobody really talks about the cost of simply having a life.

Because there is a difference between surviving in a city and actually experiencing it.

Lagos has so many things to do. There are restaurants, beaches, concerts, exhibitions, parks, events, fitness studios, markets, new cafés opening every five business days and a new “hidden gem” somewhere that everyone suddenly knows about.

The city is constantly giving you something to do.

I think what annoys me is that I don’t even think I’m asking for a lot. I don’t want to be at a beach every Saturday or eat at a fancy restaurant every week. I don’t need a “soft life.” I just want to occasionally do something because I feel like doing it.

But in Lagos, even spontaneity requires planning. You can’t simply decide to go somewhere. First you check your account. Then you check the distance. Then you check the transport fare. Then you think about what you’ll eat. Then you remember you have another thing to spend money on next week. By the time you’ve finished calculating, you have lost the desire to go anywhere.

This is not to say that people shouldn’t enjoy themselves. Please, if you can afford it, enjoy your money. Go to the beach. Eat the overpriced pasta. Buy the cute little drink. Take the pictures.

My problem is that ordinary enjoyment increasingly feels like a luxury.

I don’t want to spend ₦500,000 on a Saturday.

I don’t even need to be outside every weekend.

I just want to be able to say yes sometimes.

I want to be invited somewhere and not immediately start calculating transportation.

I want to go out with my friends without wondering whether this outing will affect what I can afford to eat next week.

I want to exercise without needing a financial plan.

I want to have a social life that doesn’t require me to recover financially afterwards.

Because sometimes, I don’t want to stay at home.

Sometimes I don’t want to watch Netflix.

Sometimes I want to wear something nice and go outside.

Sometimes I want to spend an irresponsible afternoon doing absolutely nothing useful.

I want to chop life.

Is that too much to ask?

Apparently, in Lagos, yes.

So if you see me at home every weekend, please don’t assume I am antisocial.

I am simply conducting a very serious meeting with my bank account.

And unfortunately, the meeting keeps ending with:

“Maybe next month.”

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May the heavens not be kind to you, and may God truly be your witness, for when the day comes that you stand alone and ask to be vindicated, may there be no one left to speak for you.

When you ask for bread, may you receive stone; when you ask for water, may your mouth be given dust. May every road you take remember the things you did to me and refuse to lead you home.

Perhaps it is wicked of me to wish such things upon a man I once loved, but then again, you taught me that beautiful things can be heartless too.

The first time we met, you told me I was meant for you, not anyone else. You said I was the very centre of your existence, like somehow, in a world that had millions of people in it, you had looked at me and decided, There. That’s her.

And I believed you, because some words, when spoken to a girl at the right time, settle into her heart like scripture

You built a whole little world for me to live in. You gave me pieces of your life, carefully arranged so I would not ask too many questions, showing me just enough of yourself to make me believe I had seen everything. I did not know I was living inside a story you had written; I thought it was our life, and perhaps that is why I never thought to look for the seams.

You made yourself into a home before I ever thought to ask whether you were safe to live in.

When I was afraid, you looked at me and said, “You’re safe with me.”

And I believed you.

I believed you because I wanted somewhere to rest. I had spent so much of my life learning how to protect myself that when you came along, speaking softly, holding me like I did not have to keep my guard up anymore, I wanted to believe that perhaps I had finally found the person with whom I could put everything down.

So I put the armour down, not knowing that this was how you would get me not with force, but with tenderness, with reassurance, with the promise that I could finally stop being afraid.

Kai! Kola, you truly gave the devil a run for his money.

I had hoped you would be different. I told myself you would be the one who would finally make all the troubles, heartache and tears I had encountered on my journey worth it. After everything I had survived, I wanted to believe that perhaps there was a reward waiting for me at the end of all that suffering, and I wanted that reward to be you.

I wanted you to be the reason I could finally say, See, it was all worth it.

I did not know you were going to become another lesson.

I remember the first time you looked at me and said, “You’re mine and mine alone.” At the time, I did not hear possession in those words. I heard certainty. I heard commitment. I heard I choose you. It was probably the most assuring thing any man could have told me then, and your words felt like a blanket around me, warm enough to make me forget that blankets can also cover cages.

I did not know the same words would one day feel like a sentence.

You made me fall in love with a version of you that wasn’t real, and that is perhaps the cruelest thing you did because I cannot even mourn you properly. I don’t know which parts of you were real and which parts were carefully chosen because you knew they were the things I wanted to see. You were a man made from promises, held together by carefully selected words, a man who existed perfectly in my imagination but fell apart the moment the truth touched him.

And I loved him.

I loved you.

I gave you my time, my body, my soul, all of it. I handed them to you like someone handing over the keys to her house, believing the person at the door had come to live with her. I did not know I was handing the keys to someone who would eventually burn the place down, and perhaps the craziest part is that I would have given you the matches too if you had asked.

Tell me, Kola, why?

What did I do to deserve this?

You broke me in ways I could never have fathomed, and I tried to hate you because hatred seemed easier than admitting that I still loved someone who had hurt me so deliberately.

I tried to collect every horrible thing you had done and use them as bricks to build a wall between us, but somehow your name kept finding its way through the cracks.

It was so deeply etched into my heart that I did not know how to erase it.

So I went on my knees and prayed for God to take it away. I asked Him to take your name, your face, the memories, the version of me that still loved you; I asked Him to make me indifferent, to make your existence feel as ordinary to me as the existence of a stranger on the street.

But He didn’t.

Or perhaps He heard me and simply did not answer in the way I wanted.

I turned my back on Him, just as I had turned my back on myself, because somehow you mattered more, and that is the part I am most ashamed of. I was ready to forfeit my morals for you. I was ready to betray the very parts of myself I had spent years building just to keep you. I had made you my altar and was slowly laying myself on it, giving away pieces of myself and calling it love, and you watched me do it.

Perhaps you never asked me to become that woman.

Perhaps that is what makes it worse.

I did it willingly.

I could never forget the day I found out how dark your heart really was. I remember how everything suddenly made sense and, at the same time, nothing did. All the things I had brushed aside, all the little moments I had convinced myself meant nothing, all your strange explanations and half-truths came rushing back to me, and I remember sitting there wondering how I could have been so close to someone and known so little about him.

And then it hit me.

I had dined and slept with a liar.

I had let a liar into my bed, into my home, into my body, into my prayers, into the softest parts of me. I had trusted a liar with things I would not have trusted the whole world to touch, and the thought of it made me feel filthy in a way I could not wash away.

How mighty have I fallen.

I looked in the mirror and could not recognise myself. A woman was staring back at me who looked like me but did not feel like me; her eyes were tired, her heart was suspicious, and her softness had gone missing, and I knew exactly where to look for it.

I had given it to you.

My head bowed in shame at what you had turned me into, because a heart that once trusted too easily had learned how to doubt everything, and a woman who once loved with both hands now kept one behind her back, ready to protect herself.

I had once been a flower so soft that I did not know I possessed thorns.

You brought them out of me. Oh, what a beautiful shame.

To have loved someone so completely, to have trusted someone so blindly, to have mistaken a cage for shelter and called the fire home because you were the one holding the match.

You have ruined me!

What did I do to deserve such cruelty?

Do not pray for my forgiveness, Kola. Do not ask God to soften me towards you. I have spent enough time on my knees asking Him to take you from me.

This is the monster you made

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It feels like the only language I understand, the only thing I know how to feel. I like it there. I have grown accustomed to it.

I see it as my haven

I no longer know what it would take for my spark to come back alive. Where was it? Was it gone? How did I let the light go off without even noticing?

I don’t think about it often, but some days everything comes rushing back, and the traces never really left. It stops me. My heart begins to race as I relive every second I promised myself wouldn’t leave a trace.

So I look for distractions.

I try to occupy my mind with anything I can find, but somehow, it is never enough.

My depression was fun under the influence of my own delusion, living a reality diluted by lies. I didn't realise my joy was a facade

I let myself cry. I don't always want to reach for the light immediately. Sometimes I want to sit with what hurts. My heart feels numb, while my mind is full of things I don't know how to say.

It hurts that i have to heal from the things that werent my fault-

I am not afraid of monsters in the dark. I am afraid of the one inside me because no matter how far I run, I can’t seem to outrun myself. My chest hurts. It feels so tight, so dark, so painful that sometimes I don’t even have the words to explain it.

And when death eventually finds me, I hope it understands. I hope it takes my hand gently, like an old friend who knows why I am so tired, why I don’t feel alive. I hope it tells me I have carried enough, offers to carry these weights and burdens, and promises peace and quietness at last.

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An Agbaya uprising is happening in Nigeria.

Millennials and Boomers are the problem of this country, and before you come for me, me self, I am ready for you people.

Because since yesterday, like this, we never hear word. Country dey spoil; una no talk. One Gen Z person says something, and suddenly everybody has gathered for a national symposium on the moral decay of Nigerian youths.

In case you don’t know, Gen Z currently covers people roughly between 14 and 29 years old. Yes, 14 to 29. And let’s be serious, most of us are adults. We are in university, working, running businesses, paying bills, raising families, making decisions for ourselves and generally trying to figure out this adult thing.

Yet the way some of you talk to Gen Z, you would think we are all children who don't have sense. You talk down to us, belittle us, make us feel inferior, and then when we push back, suddenly we are disrespectful.

You correct a 25-year-old like they are twelve, and when they don’t take it well, you say, “You see? Gen Z has no respect.”

Abeg, how?

What is going on?

When you hear “Gen Z” like this, your libido will just be strong. You will immediately have something to say. Gen Z this. Gen Z that. We can’t rest at home, at work, outside, anywhere. Everywhere we turn, somebody is ready to tell us what is wrong with our generation.

Abeg, what exactly is wrong?

Something happens at work? Gen Z.

Someone doesn’t greet properly? Gen Z has no respect.

Young people don’t want to work twelve hours a day for ₦150,000? Gen Z is entitled.

Someone changes jobs after six months because they found somewhere better? Gen Z has no loyalty.

Someone says, “Actually, I don’t want to do that”? Gen Z has no respect for authority.

Someone says they are tired? Gen Z is too sensitive.

Someone complains about Nigeria? Gen Z is ungrateful.

Someone doesn’t complain? Gen Z is unserious.

At this point, if a generator refuses to come on in someone’s compound, I am expecting somebody to say, “Gen Z is responsible for this .”

Not because Gen Z is perfect. Please. We are not.

Some of us are rude. Some of us don’t know how to behave in a professional environment. Some of us genuinely need to learn that having boundaries does not mean you can speak to everybody anyhow. Some of us are entitled. Some of us are unserious. Some of us are just irritating.

But have you people met human beings before?

There are irritating people in every generation.

The problem is that once somebody does something foolish, somehow somebody will say, “I’m sure the person is Gen Z.” As if bad behaviour has now become an age bracket, and then you people suddenly become historians. You don’t just say, “This person behaved badly.” No. You need to summon the entire generation to court.

“This is Gen Z for you.”

Ah.

Is it?

Because I am sure millennials were our age too. Were all of you well-behaved? Were you all respectful? Did every millennial know how to speak to their elders, behave in the workplace, make responsible financial decisions and generally have their lives figured out?

Please.

You people were also young.

You also made stupid decisions. You also said things you shouldn’t have said. You also got into trouble. You also had your own slang that your parents probably thought was nonsense. You also thought your generation was different from the one before you.

The only difference is that some of your foolishness did not have a smartphone recording it in 4K and an audience of 200,000 people ready to quote-tweet it before lunch.

And maybe that is part of what people don’t understand about Gen Z. You can see us.

We document almost everything. The good, the bad, the embarrassing, the unserious, the things we probably should have kept to ourselves. We post our jobs, our breakups, our birthdays, our rants, our wins, our mistakes, our outfits, our opinions. Somebody can have the worst day at work, come online and tell 50,000 strangers about it before they have even left the office.

Of course you have an opinion.

But visibility is not the same thing as moral failure.

And I think we Nigerians have a particularly interesting relationship with age because we have somehow decided that getting older automatically makes you wiser, more deserving of respect and less capable of being wrong.

You are older, therefore you know better.

You are younger, therefore shut up.

That is the formula.

And maybe that worked when information was scarce, and the only way to learn something was to sit beside somebody who had lived longer than you.

But we grew up differently.

You may not like us, but you cannot deny that this generation is doing things that would have sounded strange twenty years ago.

A 20-year-old can be in Lagos and have a client in London. A 22-year-old can run a business from her bedroom, make money from her phone, build a following of thousands of people and turn a skill into an actual career. Someone who studied engineering is making content. Someone who learnt makeup from Instagram is running a beauty business. Someone who started making videos for fun now has brands paying them to create.

We have young Nigerians building tech companies, running fashion brands, creating media platforms, making music that travels far beyond Nigeria, freelancing for people in countries they have never visited and finding opportunities through a screen that previous generations would have needed connections to access.

And even beyond work, we have access to information in a way that has completely changed what being young looks like. You can be 21 and know more about a subject than someone twice your age simply because you have spent the last three years immersed in it.

Does that mean Gen Z knows everything? Of course not. Sometimes we are confidently wrong. Sometimes we don’t know when to shut up. Sometimes having access to information makes us think we have more sense than we actually do.

But that is different from being clueless.

You cannot keep looking at young people and assuming that because they are young, they have nothing to offer.

But the expectation that being younger automatically means being clueless is becoming ridiculous.

And this is where I think some millennials especially need to relax.

Because sometimes it feels like you people are angry that Gen Z does not want to repeat the suffering you had to endure.

You suffered through terrible workplaces, so we should suffer too.

You stayed in jobs you hated for ten years, so we should prove our loyalty by doing the same.

You could not tell your boss no, so when we do it, suddenly we are disrespectful.

You were told to “endure” everything, so when we say something is not working for us, you call us entitled.

But why?

If your generation had a difficult experience, why must ours have the same experience before you consider us responsible adults?

If anything, shouldn’t you be happy that something changed?

You cannot spend years complaining that Nigeria doesn’t change and then become angry when young people actually start questioning things.

And before somebody says, “Gen Z’s doesn’t respect elders anymore,” let me say this: respect and obedience are not the same thing.

I can respect you and disagree with you.

I can respect your age and still think your opinion is wrong.

I can respect your position and still ask why something is being done.

I can greet you properly and still not agree with you.

That should not be a revolutionary concept.

But I also find it funny that even among Gen Z’s, we have started doing the exact thing we complain about.

You will see somebody who is 28 or 29 years old dragging another Gen Z person because they are “too young” or “too unserious,” behaving like a millennial in a Gen Z body.

Suddenly, because you are closer to 30, you have received the certificate of wisdom from heaven.

Please go and sit down.

We are all so quick to distance ourselves from the people coming behind us that we forget we were once the people coming behind somebody else.

The older you get, the easier it becomes to look at somebody younger and say, “These children of nowadays.”

But somebody said that about you too.

Your parents probably did. Your older siblings did. Your aunties definitely did. Somebody at your first workplace probably looked at you and wondered what was wrong with your generation.

And somehow, now it is your turn.

Maybe that is just how this thing works. You grow older, you forget some of what it felt like to be young, and then you start looking at the people behind you like they are evidence that the world is ending.

We are just young Nigerians trying to figure things out.

We are looking for jobs in a country where getting a decent salary can feel like winning a raffle. We are trying to build careers while the economy keeps changing the rules. We are figuring out money, relationships, adulthood, family, friendship, faith and ourselves, sometimes all at once. And yes, sometimes we are getting it spectacularly wrong.

Some of us are rude, some brilliant, some hardworking, some lazy, some entitled, and some are still figuring life out.

That is normal.

There are millions of people in Gen Z. Of course we are going to be different from one another.

Gen Z is not a personality type. It is an age bracket.

But can we stop turning every random incident involving a young person into a TED Talk about the death of Nigerian values?

If one person is rude, address the person.

If someone behaves badly at work, address the behaviour.

If someone genuinely does not know better, teach them.

Why must the entire generation enter the matter?

Because the way you people say “Gen Z” these days, you would think we personally sat down at a meeting one evening and decided, “You know what? Let’s spoil Nigeria.”

And if that meeting happened, I would like to know when it was.

Because I was not invited.

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I thought carefully before writing this. I wanted to be sure I wasn’t just writing another generic piece, the kind I can churn out when I’m in a mood and need to feel deep. But I can’t help it.

Love feels like an emotion that’s foreign to me now. I don’t know why. I just don’t know how I feel it.

I mean romantic love. I know other kinds of love. I know what it feels like to love my friends. I know what it feels like to care for my loved ones. I know how deeply I can care about people.

But romantic love? Hmm.

That one is strange to me now.

Which is weird because I used to think I was the champion of it.

I used to be the love person

There was a time when love felt like the most obvious thing in the world to me. I was the person who fell easily, who read between every text, every pause, every “goodnight.” I could take one small interaction and build an entire emotional theory around it. I wanted to tell one particular person everything that happened in my day. I knew what it meant to like someone so much that your brain suddenly became their unpaid full-time employee.

I believed in the little things too. I believed that if two people really wanted something, they could make it work. I believed love was something you could choose, again and again, like a daily habit. I wrote about love like it was air. I gave advice about it like I had a map. I watched my friends navigate messy relationships and thought, I understand this. I know how this goes.

I was probably very annoying.

Now I think about that version of myself and wonder where she went. Because when I try to reach for that same feeling now, I don’t quite find it. And that’s what I don’t understand. Where did all of that go? What exactly did I miss?

I like the idea of it

The funny thing is, I look like I want it. I think I want it. I like the idea of having someone, of being close to someone, of having that particular kind of connection. But the closer it gets to actually becoming real, the more irritated I become.

Like, Mehn, why can’t we just do something else?

Why must liking someone automatically start pointing in that direction? Why must it become a whole thing? Why can’t I just enjoy your company without suddenly having to figure out what this is and where it’s going?

Abi am I cursed?
Or is it fear? Am I actually scared and I’ve just convinced myself that I don’t want love?

I genuinely don’t know.

Because when I actually sit down and think about having a relationship, I don’t just think about the nice parts. I think about having to communicate constantly and having to explain why I’m upset. Making time. Checking in. Remembering that there is another person to consider before I make certain decisions. Having to be emotionally available when sometimes I can barely deal with my own emotions.

And honestly, sometimes I’m just like, Mehn, that sounds like work.

I don’t know when love started sounding like another responsibility.

Maybe that is the problem. I have started looking at relationships and seeing the work before I see the romance.

And I don’t think that means I don’t want to be loved. I like the idea of being someone’s person. I like the thought of having someone who knows me properly, someone I can call when something happens, someone who notices the little things about me. I like the idea of having a person.

I just don’t know if I want to do everything required to get there.

Which sounds terrible when I say it out loud.

Because shouldn’t the right person make all of that feel worth it?

Maybe.

I think I need me right now

I also think I’ve become very comfortable with my own life. I know how to be alone. I know how to entertain myself. I know how to have a bad day and deal with it. I can disappear into my own little world without having to explain myself to anyone, and honestly, I like where I am right now.

I like having myself.

I like knowing that when something happens, good or bad, I can come back to myself. I can sit with myself. I can figure things out. I can take care of myself.

And I think I need to do more of that.

There is this thing people always say about loving yourself before you can love someone else. For a long time, I thought it was just one of those things people say because it sounds good. But lately, I have been thinking about it differently.

I don’t think I need to become some perfectly healed, completely put-together person before I can love somebody. I don’t think anybody ever really gets there.

I just want to know that I can be there for myself.

That I can take it easy on myself. That I can have bad days without feeling like I need someone else to come and make everything better. That I can be happy with my own company and still have enough love left to give someone else.

I think I want to learn how to love myself properly before I start trying to extend that love somewhere else.

Not because I think I have to be perfect first. I just don’t want to make another person responsible for parts of me that I should be holding myself.

And maybe that is why romantic love feels strange right now.

I don’t know if I’m waiting for someone. I don’t know if I’m avoiding someone. I don’t even know if I want someone.

I just know that, right now, I want to be okay with me.

And honestly, I think that’s enough for now.

I can still like someone without wanting a relationship with them. I can enjoy someone’s company without needing it to become something. I can think someone is wonderful and still not feel ready to let them into that part of my life.

I don’t know what that says about me.

I don’t know if I’m scared. I don’t know if I’m protecting myself. I don’t know if I’m just not ready.

I just know that I don’t want to force myself into wanting something because I used to want it.

Maybe romantic love will feel familiar again one day.

Maybe it won’t.

For now, I think I’ll just take it easy on myself.

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Whoever came up with that proverb definitely snapped with it.

Anyway, I’m back.

And somehow, none of you missed me enough to come looking.

Interesting.

I remembered you guys, sha. That’s why I’m here again. I have plenty to share later, but first: why is everything so stressful right now, mehn?

Nigeria is hard.

Men are hard.

Women are also beginning to stress me.

But men especially...

Men, what exactly is going on?

Some of you lack basic etiquette when it comes to behaving yourselves around women, whether online or offline.

Before you enter someone’s house, you knock before you enter. You don’t enter before you knock; it doesn’t go the other way. If you want to enter somebody’s life, you cannot just jump through the window because you are feeling yourself.

There is a process, please.

You don’t just meet someone, decide you like what you see, and immediately start behaving as though you’ve been given the key to their house. There is a difference between showing interest in somebody and assuming that because you’ve shown interest, they now owe you access to them.

That part, I think, is where some of you are getting it wrong.

Why are you so entitled to a woman’s time?

You start texting a lady, and you’re already expecting fast replies. Some of you even go as far as saying, “Send me pictures,” or “Send me a video,” as if... how? Have we established a cordial relationship? Have we defined anything here? Have we even had enough conversations for you to know what kind of person I am?

Why is this woman automatically supposed to give you her time and attention simply because you are texting her?

I was on my own, jeje, when you entered my DM to tell me I’m pretty or beautiful. It’s a nice compliment, and I say thank you. That should be the end of the conversation.

But how did we get from “You’re beautiful” on Tuesday to “Good morning, sunshine” the next day?

Excuse me?

Why couldn’t it remain at you complimenting my features and me saying thank you? Why must we go further?

Maybe I don’t want to talk to you every day.

Maybe I don’t want to send you pictures.

Maybe I don’t want to become your morning sunshine just because you called me pretty on Tuesday.

And please, this is not me saying that you cannot try to get to know somebody you find attractive. Of course you can. That is literally how people meet. But there is a massive difference between making an attempt and making an assumption.

You can send a message. I can reply.

You can compliment me. I can say thank you.

You can ask to get to know me. I can decide whether I want that too.

It is actually that simple.

Showing interest in someone does not automatically give you access to them. You can be interested in me, and I can appreciate the interest without wanting anything more from it.

I can think you are attractive and still not want to date you.

I can enjoy talking to you and still not want to talk to you every day.

I can reply to your message three hours later without you deciding that I have suddenly become wicked.

Oh, don’t let me get started on the response time, because for me, it is so different. Why do you expect me to be on the phone all day so that when you text, I come running?

Please.

This isn’t always about not liking the person. Sometimes, life is just happening.

You will hear things like, “You like to reply late.”

As howww?

How?

After I have entered a Danfo and I’ve been sitting in a cramped space in Lagos traffic, which is already enough to drain the life out of me, what exactly did you expect me to be doing? Holding my phone and waiting for your message so I can immediately respond?

Or maybe I’ve been staring at a report since morning. Or writing a communications plan. Or jumping from one work task to another. Or simply trying to remember the last time I actually drank water.

Or maybe I saw your message and simply didn’t have the mental energy to respond at that particular moment.

And then somehow, because I didn’t respond quickly enough, we have entered another conversation about how I am “nonchalant” or how I “don’t seem interested.”

Tunde, just because your message came in all the way from Alapere doesn't mean I owe you an instant response. Showing interest in me isn't a binding agreement for 24/7 access!

I really need some of you to understand that people have lives outside of the person they are talking to.

I know this sounds very obvious, but apparently we need to revisit the basics:

• You can be talking to somebody you like and still have a full day.

• You can like somebody and be terrible at texting.

• You can be interested in someone and not enjoy being on your phone.

• You can see a message, think, “Let me answer this properly when I have the time,” and then life happens and three hours have passed.

It doesn’t automatically mean someone is playing games. Sometimes the person is just... living.

And please, let me not even start with, “But I saw you online.”

So?

You saw me online. Congratulations. What exactly have you discovered?

Maybe I opened Instagram for five minutes. Maybe I was checking something. Maybe I was replying to work messages. Or I just wanted to doomscroll and not text! Maybe I was looking at one very unserious video that had me laughing for ten minutes. Maybe I came online, saw your message, and thought, “I’ll reply later.”

The fact that I am online does not mean I am available to you.

And then there is another one that genuinely baffles me: video calls.

Why are you video-calling me without asking if you can?

What kind of audacity do you people have, self? Like, from where? How? Who told you that because we have exchanged a few messages, you can suddenly appear on my screen?

What happened to “Are you free?”

What happened to “Can I call you?”

What happened to “Can I video call you?”

Why are you just calling?

And before you say, “But it’s just a call,” yes, exactly. It is just a call, which is why asking first is not going to kill you! The person could be outside, on transit, in a meeting, or they simply don’t want to talk. Why is that so difficult to understand?

I think we have become so used to having instant access to people that we have forgotten that access is still something people get to choose to give you.

Everything is immediate now. You can message someone from anywhere. You can call them. You can video call them. You can see when they were last online. You can see that they viewed your story. You can send another message when they haven’t replied to the first one. You can even start wondering why someone watched your story but didn’t respond to your text.

And somehow, all of this has made people feel entitled to immediate access to one another.

But please, this is 2026. Nobody has the time or the mental space for unnecessary pressure, irrelevant conversations, and this constant expectation that everybody must always be available.

People are tired.

People are working.

People are commuting.

People are trying to make money.

People are trying to keep their lives together.

People are trying to rest.

Some people are even just trying to survive the week.

So if I don’t reply immediately, please don’t build a conspiracy around it.

If I don’t answer your call, try again later.

If I don’t want to send you a picture, that’s the end of the discussion.

If I don’t want to video call, there is no hidden meaning behind it.

And if I don’t want to talk to you every day, it does not mean I hate you.

Sometimes I just don’t want to talk. That should still be allowed.

I think we need to bring back a little more courtesy into how we approach people. Not everything needs to be rushed. Not every interaction needs to become something. Not every compliment needs to turn into a talking stage. Not every talking stage needs to become a relationship.

Sometimes you can simply tell somebody they are beautiful, they can say thank you, and everybody can go home.

Nobody died.

And honestly, I think that would make all of us a little less stressed.

So please, let’s do better!

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An oddly specific number, I know.

Long enough for life to expect me to have moved on, and short enough for certain memories to still arrive uninvited.

Time is such a peculiar thing. It always seems to know exactly what it is doing, whether it is convenient for us or not. It never asks if we are ready. It never slows down because we are still hurting. It simply keeps moving, and somehow expects us to move with it.

I used to think I couldn’t live without you.

I don’t mean that in the dramatic way people often say it after losing someone. I genuinely believed I needed you beside me. I needed to hear your voice, to see your face, to watch you smile. I couldn’t imagine a version of my life where you weren’t somewhere in it. You were home to me in so many ways I didn’t even realise until you were gone.

Again, time.

If you ask me, it deserves every award.

It is funny because it feels like years have passed, but when I look at the calendar, it hasn’t really been that long.

For a while, I kept sending you messages. I would type as though nothing had changed, telling you about my day or something that reminded me of you. I knew no reply was coming, but pressing "send" somehow felt easier than accepting the truth.

Sometimes I try to remember your voice, and it scares me that I can’t hear it as clearly anymore. I still have your pictures. I look at them more often than I’d like to admit, and your smile still feels familiar. But your voice... that’s different. No matter how hard I try, I can’t quite remember the way you said my name, or the sound of your laughter. I never imagined that would be the first thing time would take from me.

It is such a strange feeling, almost like wondering whether someone existed so beautifully in your life that time has started blurring the edges of them.

Then I catch myself smiling the way you smiled.

Or saying something exactly the way you would have said it.

Or choosing kindness because you taught me to.

And I realise you never really disappeared. You just stopped existing in ways my eyes could see.

Somewhere along the line, I stopped crying.

I honestly don’t know when it happened. One day I simply realised I hadn’t cried in a long while. I stopped waking up from those terrible nightmares, and I stopped shutting down every time life became overwhelming.

At first, I felt guilty.

There were days when I didn’t think about you until much later, and I hated myself for it. I wondered if that meant I was forgetting you.

But I wasn’t.

The world you left me in always had me fighting to be in it. I was surviving the life that continued after you.

Life didn’t pause because I was grieving. It kept asking things of me. There were decisions I didn’t feel old enough to make. There were days I barely recognised myself, and days I was trying so hard to become someone better.

You would have loved the woman I'm becoming.

Not because everything is perfect it isn’t- but because I wish you could see the work of your hands.

I wish you could see how beautiful your prayers turned out.

I wish you could see how much I have blossomed.

I am not that little girl with low self-esteem anymore. You made sure of that long before you left. Every time you believed in me, you were building a version of me that would one day have to survive without you.

It was hard.

Really hard.

There were moments I wanted to give up. Moments I questioned everything. Moments I thought I wasn’t strong enough.

But I kept going.

Partly because I promised I would make you proud.

Mostly because, somewhere along the way, I realised that making you proud also meant not giving up on myself.

Not every decision I have made would have made sense to everyone. Some of them probably wouldn’t even have made sense to you. But they gave me something I had been searching for without knowing it.

Peace.

I learnt to walk away from things that disturbed it. I learnt that protecting my peace wasn’t selfish. The moment I started choosing peace, I somehow felt closer to you.

Maybe because while I was learning to protect mine, you were finally resting in yours.

Oh, my beloved.

So much has happened since you left.

There are so many stories I wish I could tell you. So many people I wish you could have met. So many moments when I instinctively reached for my phone because I wanted to tell you something, only to remember there was no number to call anymore.

I think you’d laugh at how stubborn I still am.

You’d probably tell me to stop worrying so much.

And somehow, everything would feel lighter.

The funny thing is, I don’t think about you with the same sadness anymore.

I still miss you.

I always will.

But when I think of you now, my heart doesn’t break the way it used to.

It feels... Warm.

I don’t know if there’s a word for that feeling. It isn’t happiness, and it isn’t grief. It’s just love that has learnt how to exist in a different form.

I came across these words recently:

“If you gamble in the name of love, stake what you like. What’s the fear? How wonderful if you win. Even if you lose, all is not lost.”

When I first read them, I thought they were talking about the risk of loving someone.

For a long time, I thought I had lost.

I thought losing you meant losing everything that came with you. The certainty that somewhere in this world there was someone who loved me exactly as I was.

Maybe everyone was right.

Time kept moving, and somehow I moved with it. It didn’t ask whether I was ready. It didn’t wait for me to stop hurting.

But somewhere between surviving and living, it gave me something I never expected.

It gave me back the ability to think of you and smile before I cried.

And if that’s what healing looks like, I hope you know it was never because I loved you less.

It was because you loved me enough that I eventually learnt how to live.

Because even after losing you, all was not lost.

If loving you was the gamble, I would place the same bet every single time.

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People always spoke about university as though it divided your life into two parts: before admission and after admission. They said it would change the way you think, the people you knew, and the future you imagined for yourself.

I suppose they were right.

Every weekday began almost the same way. My mother woke before dawn to prepare breakfast while I hurried through my bath, packed my books and joined the long queue of students waiting for buses heading towards UI. By seven o’clock, the roads were already alive with traders arranging their stalls, buses blaring their horns, and students trying not to be late for eight o’clock lectures.

Within weeks, the routine became familiar. Lectures. Assignments. Departmental notices pinned to crowded notice boards. Endless introductions to people whose names I forgot almost as quickly as I learnt them.

University gave me plenty to do.

It just didn’t stop me from missing Tayo.

Sometimes it happened unexpectedly. A boy in my department would laugh the way he did. Someone would argue passionately about football outside the Faculty of Arts, and I’d find myself smiling before remembering why. Even the smell of roasted corn outside the school gate carried me back to evenings in Mokola, when the two of us would walk home pretending not to notice our mothers calling us in for dinner.

Distance has a strange way of teaching you the value of ordinary things.

Back then, loving someone in another city required patience.

Airtime disappeared faster than common sense. Calls dropped halfway through conversations. Sometimes one of us would simply flash the other, a silent promise that said, I’ll call when I can afford to.

The conversations themselves were rarely extraordinary.

“Have you eaten?”

“Yes.”

“Are your lectures going well?”

“They’re trying to kill me.”

“Engineering?”

We laughed.

The network interrupted us.

We called back.

Somehow those few stolen minutes became the best part of my day.

One evening, I returned home to find my mother in the kitchen, tying her wrapper a little tighter as she stirred a pot of egusi soup.

“You’re back,” she said without turning around. “Wash your hands and come and help me.”

I dropped my bag in my room before joining her.

She pushed a bowl of ugu leaves towards me.

“Pick the stalks out properly this time. Last week you nearly made me cook a forest.”

I laughed and sat beside her.

For a while, neither of us said much. She cooked while I sorted vegetables, the radio playing softly somewhere in the sitting room.

Then she looked at me.

“You’ve been smiling at your phone since you came in.”

“I have not.”

“Tolu.”

I smiled in spite of myself.

“He said he’d call today.”

She stirred the soup a little longer before speaking.

“People say many things when they’re leaving.” I looked up.

“Tayo isn’t like that.”

“I didn’t say he was.”

She left it there. So did I.

Looking back now, I wish I had asked why those words sounded less like advice and more like memory.

A week later, the postman arrived just after lunch.

He was a familiar face in our neighbourhood, usually bringing nothing more exciting than electricity bills, church programmes or letters meant for neighbours who were never at home.

“There is something for you today,” he said, smiling as he handed me a cream-coloured envelope.

The moment I saw the handwriting, I forgot everything else.

His handwriting had always leaned slightly to the right, as though every sentence was eager to reach the next one. I had copied enough of his notes during secondary school to recognise it instantly.

I almost opened it at the gate.

“Tolu!” my mother called from inside the house. “Where are you?”

“I’m coming!”

I slipped the envelope inside my notebook and hurried into the kitchen.

Lunch was almost ready. My mother glanced at me once before pointing towards the sink.

“Wash those plates.”

I obeyed.

When she asked me to arrange the table, I did. When she told me to bring drinking water from the fridge, I did that too. It was impossible to grow up in our house and expect to disappear into your room the moment you got home. My mother believed everyone old enough to eat was old enough to help.

All the while, I could feel the letter waiting inside my notebook.

It felt as though it was calling my name.

“You seem unusually hardworking this afternoon,” my mother said, watching me.

“I’m always hardworking.”

She laughed.

“If you say so.”

We ate lunch together, talking about lectures, lecturers and whether I had finally bought all the textbooks on my departmental list.

Only after we had finished eating and I had carried the plates back into the kitchen did she say, “Go and rest for a while.”

That was all the permission I needed.

I hurried into my room, shut the door behind me and pulled the envelope from between the pages of my notebook.

Inside were three neatly folded sheets of paper.

I unfolded the first page.

Dear Tolu,

I hope this letter gets to you before I lose my mind in this city.

Lagos is exactly the way everybody said it would be busy, noisy and in a terrible hurry. I don’t think anybody here actually walks. They all seem to be running after something, and if you don’t move fast enough, somebody behind you will remind you.

During my first week, I entered the wrong bus because everybody else was entering it. I didn’t realise until the conductor asked where I was going and started looking confused . I knew immediately that if you had been there, you would never have let me hear the end of it.

Engineering is already showing me pepper. One lecturer welcomed us by saying, “Look at the person sitting beside you. One of you may not graduate.” Can you imagine? We had barely resumed, and the man was already threatening our future.

Hostel life is another story entirely. I’ve discovered that washing clothes is harder than it looks. I mixed my white shirts with blue jeans and now everything has a funny colour. Please don’t tell my mother. She’ll probably say, “Didn’t I tell you to separate them?” and honestly, I don’t have the strength for that conversation.

My roommates are funny people. One snores like a generator that refuses to go off, and another keeps insisting he knows how to cook. Last Saturday he almost burnt our pot of rice, but somehow he still believes he’s the best cook in the room.

As much as I’m trying to enjoy this place, I keep catching myself comparing everything to home. I’ll be walking back to the hostel and suddenly remember the woman that sells roasted corn near our street, or Baba Kazeem arguing with customers as if quarrelling is part of the business. I even miss your mother shouting my name whenever she caught me climbing your fence instead of using the gate.

And before you start smiling, no, I’m not becoming sentimental.

Maybe just a little.

I hope you’re settling into UI. Have you made any friends yet, or are you still pretending everybody is disturbing your peace? I can already imagine you hiding one novel inside another textbook instead of paying attention in class.

Don’t forget to eat. I know you. Once you’re reading, the rest of the world disappears.

Write back when you have time. Tell me everything. I want to know what campus is like, who your lecturers are, whether UI is living up to all the stories people tell about it, and if Mokola still feels the same without me.

I miss home.

More than I thought I would. Write back soon, I miss hearing from you

— Tayo

I finished reading with a smile I couldn’t hide.

Then I read it again.

And once more after that.

For the rest of the afternoon, Lagos no longer felt like the city that had taken Tayo away from me. It became the place where he was collecting stories he couldn’t wait to bring back home.

From that day on, we fell into the habit of writing to each other, and every few weeks another letter would arrive, sometimes only two pages long, other times stretching to six.

He wrote about impossible assignments, hostel life, noisy roommates and lecturers who seemed determined to humble every first-year student.

I wrote about campus, my classmates, departmental gossip, the endless struggle to find seats during GST lectures, and the quiet corners of the Kenneth Dike Library where I escaped whenever I wanted to read in peace.

Slowly, without either of us saying it aloud, our letters stopped being updates.

They became conversations.

One afternoon, I was reading one of Tayo’s letters beneath a tree outside the Faculty of Arts when my friend Sade dropped into the seat beside me.

“Who keeps writing to you?” she asked.

“A friend.”

She reached for the envelope before I quickly pulled it away.

“A friend?”

“Yes.”

She studied my face for a moment before laughing.

“Tolu, nobody smiles like that over an ordinary friend.”

I rolled my eyes.

“We’ve known each other since we were children.”

“I’m sure you have.”

She stood up, dusting her skirt.

“And one day you’ll realise everybody else figured it out long before the two of you did.”

She walked away before I could answer.

I watched her disappear across the courtyard, then looked down at the letter in my hands.

Sade’s words stayed with me longer than I cared to admit.

I tried to laugh them off, but every time another letter arrived, I heard her voice all over again.

Before long, the semester began to gather speed.

Lecturers stopped pretending to ease us into school life. Every department suddenly remembered there was a syllabus to finish.

Assignments appeared from nowhere, continuous assessments followed, and the library became so crowded that students started arriving before sunrise just to secure seats.

One Wednesday afternoon, after my last lecture, I called Tayo.

He answered on the second ring.

“You sound tired,” I said.

“I’ve been in the workshop since eight this morning.”

“And?”

“I now understand why final-year students always look older than everybody else.”

I laughed.

“It’s your first semester.”

“Exactly. Imagine what I’ll look like by final year.”

“You’ll survive.”

“I hope so.”

“What about your test?”

He groaned dramatically.

“Let’s not spoil this conversation.”

“It went that badly?”

“I answered every question.”

“That’s good.”

“I didn’t say I answered them correctly.”

I laughed so hard that two girls walking past turned to look at me.

“You enjoy my suffering too much.”

“I do.”

“I knew it.”

Most of our conversations were like that. Sometimes we spent twenty minutes arguing about whether jollof rice tasted better in Lagos or Ibadan. Sometimes he called simply because he had five hundred naira worth of airtime and wanted to use it before it disappeared. Sometimes we said almost nothing at all.

By November, first-semester examinations were approaching, and campus changed almost overnight.

The football field became quieter. The cafeterias emptied earlier than usual. Everywhere I looked, students carried thick bundles of handouts tucked beneath their arms. Nobody talked about parties anymore. Everybody talked about past questions.

I barely heard from Tayo during those weeks. Whenever he called, he sounded exhausted.

“Are you alive?” I asked one evening.

“Barely.”

“Engineering?”

“I thought you people said you were the strongest department.”

“We lied.”

“You deserve it.”

“I regret ever telling you I wanted to study engineering.”

“You’ve regretted it every week since resumption.”

He laughed.

“I really have.”

Our calls became shorter after that. Sometimes they lasted only five minutes before one of us had to return to our books.

It didn’t matter.

Knowing he was somewhere in Lagos studying while I sat beneath the yellow reading lamps of Kenneth Dike Library made the distance feel a little smaller.

When my examinations finally ended, I walked out of the hall feeling lighter than I had in weeks.

Students poured out of lecture theatres laughing, stretching and making plans. Some were already dragging suitcases across campus. Others stood in long queues at the park, waiting for buses home.

Christmas was only a few weeks away.

For the first time since Tayo left for Lagos, I realised I wasn’t counting semesters anymore.

I was counting the days until he came home.

Continue reading the series

If you’re joining Tolu and Tayo’s story for the first time, you can begin with Part One: Mokola here.

The story continues in Part Three.

Until then, thank you for spending time with Tolu and Tayo.

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People often say it is the root of all kinds of evil, but I beg to differ.

The Good Book never said that.

It said the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. Greed. Obsession. The willingness to sacrifice your soul for a bank balance. That is the problem.

Then the same Book says something else.

That money answereth all things.

I have always found those two verses fascinating. One warns you not to worship it. The other quietly admits that it gets things done.

Maybe the contradiction isn’t in Scripture.

Maybe it’s in us.

I love money.

There, I said it.

It is probably the fastest way to my heart after a plate of good food, and I am not even ashamed to admit it.

Especially as someone who lives in Nigeria.

A country where the economy has a way of making you question your life choices before you’ve even had breakfast. A country where you can do everything right and still struggle beneath the weight of simply existing.

The other day, I was scrolling online when I saw a beautiful Mercedes.

I stared at it longer than I should have.

Not because I wanted people to see me driving it.

Because I wanted to know what it feels like to live in a world where buying one isn’t a fantasy.

Sometimes, when I’m alone, I imagine all the wonderful things I could do if money stopped being a limitation.

Some of those dreams are noble.

Some of them are gloriously shallow.

I think about the places I could go.

Today, Bali.

Next month, Monaco.

Then Kyoto in spring when the cherry blossoms decide to show off. The Amalfi Coast because everyone swears the lemons taste different there. Detty December in Lagos. Cape Town because every photograph looks like God spent extra time on it. Paris because I owe it to my younger self. Santorini because white buildings against blue water still don’t look real.

Not because travelling is fashionable. But because I’ve always believed the world is too beautiful to spend an entire lifetime in one corner of it.

I think about the people I could help.

The charities I could support without announcing it online.

I think about my friends.

The kind of life we would build together if none of us had to calculate every outing, every bill, every dream.

Then I think about myself.

And sometimes, without even realising it, I whisper a prayer.

God, please don’t let me die in Surulere.

Not because Surulere is beneath me.

But because I refuse to believe that the place where I began must also become the boundary of my life.

I want to know what it feels like to buy something because I love it, not because it was on sale.

I want the good perfume, the one that lingers after you’ve left the room.

I want watches that become family heirlooms.

I want a house with too many books.

I want fresh flowers in my living room every week, not because anyone is visiting.

Just because they’re beautiful.

I want to tip people generously.

The waiter, the cleaner.

The woman braiding my hair.

The dispatch rider who arrived in the rain.

I want money to leave my account without leaving anxiety behind.

I want to see what is on the other side of my passport. I want a passport full of stamps instead of explanations.

I want airports to become ordinary.

I want foreign cities to become familiar.

I want to know what life feels like when survival is no longer the loudest voice in the room.

I want to stop saying, “Maybe next month.”

I want to order dessert without calculating whether it is financially responsible.

I want to choose the window seat every single time.

I want to buy first class just once, just to see what everyone keeps talking about.

I want to own luggage that has actually been to the countries printed on the airport tags.

I want to wake up on a random Tuesday and decide that I feel like spending the weekend in another country.

Most of all, I want the freedom that money buys.

The freedom to leave.

The freedom to stay.

The freedom to choose.

Perhaps that’s what people misunderstand.

When I say I love money, I am not saying I love greed.

I love what money makes possible.

Freedom.

Choice.

Generosity.

The ability to say “yes” without first checking my account balance.

Maybe money isn’t the dream after all; maybe the dream has always been the life it allows you to live.

I don't know exactly how I'll get there. I don't know which opportunity will change everything. I don't know how many closed doors I'll have to knock on before one finally opens.

But I know this much. As the saying goes, we might eat late, but I promise we will eat.

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I have spent a long time wondering whether English has ever forgiven itself for not having this word.

We translate it as “my beloved.”

But every time I hear that translation, it feels as though something has been left behind.

When I think of you, I think of my culture. I think about how I have loved you almost entirely in English, and how unfair that suddenly feels. I have never loved you in the language that raised me, the language that first taught me tenderness, comfort, longing, and home.

Sometimes I wonder how different it would sound if I loved you in Yorùbá instead.

Ayanfẹ mi.

Not simply my beloved, but someone deliberately chosen by the heart. Someone whose place cannot be negotiated or replaced.

Then I wander a little further into my language and find another name waiting for you.

Olólùfẹ́ mi.

I linger here a little longer.

I think about how special you are to me and how no single English word seems willing to carry that truth. We settle for my beloved, but it feels too brief for someone who occupies so much of my heart.

It is not merely naming affection; it is naming the person my love has learned by heart. The one my love returns to instinctively, over and over again, as though it has forgotten every other direction.

And somehow, that still doesn’t feel like enough.

So I keep searching.

Ọkàn mi.

My heart.

Not because you are my heart in the dramatic way novels like to claim, but because every meaningful thing eventually finds its way there. Joy arrives there. Grief settles there. Hope grows there. To call someone ọkàn mi is to say they live where the rest of the world cannot reach.

Then there is Ayé mi.

My world.

What an impossible thing to call another human being.

And yet, every culture has found impossible names for the people it loves perhaps because ordinary language has always struggled with extraordinary affection.

I have often wondered if that is why I keep returning to Yorùbá, not because English cannot tell you that I love you.

It can.

But Yorùbá has never been satisfied with saying only that. It insists on telling you who you are to me.

It calls you my chosen one, my beloved, my heart, my world as though love is too vast to live inside a single name.

My language is still not finished with you.

It leads me to yet another name.

Ayọ̀ mi.

My joy.

There is something wonderfully simple about this one.

Not because you are responsible for my happiness, but because there are people whose presence makes life feel a little lighter. The kind of people whose laughter becomes your favourite sound, whose victories feel like your own, whose existence reminds you that joy has a way of finding us through other people.

To call someone Ayọ̀ mi is to admit that somewhere along the way, they became one of the reasons you smile.

And just when I think my language has exhausted every beautiful thing it could possibly call you, it gives me one final name.

Ìfẹ́ mi.

My love.

The simplest of them all, yet perhaps the deepest.

I arrive here almost reluctantly.

Not because there are no more names to give you, but because every road through my language seems to lead here.

This is not just another name. It is the thread that has held all the others together from the very beginning.

Before you became my chosen one, my heart, my world, or my joy...

You first became my love.

Perhaps that is why my language kept searching, not because one name was ever wrong, but because one name could never be enough.

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“Where do your ideas come from?”

I never know how to answer.

Sometimes I want to say, “I don’t know.”

Because I really don’t.

I’ll sit down with no intention of writing anything. Then a word, scenario or a phrase drops into my head. I follow it. Before I know it, I’ve written three pages I hadn’t planned, or imagined a conversation between people who have never existed.

I’ve never been able to explain it.

I don’t say this enough, but I am grateful to God for my creativity.

Sometimes I stop in the middle of writing and wonder where an idea came from. And I remember that I did not invent imagination. I inherited it. How incredible that the Source of life is also the Source of imagination itself.

The greatest Artist chose to make artists.

The greatest Storyteller chose to make storytellers.

The greatest Creator chose to make creators.

He made me in His image and left traces of His creativity in me.

I think that’s what amazes me most.

That the God who painted galaxies with stars, who gave the sea its boundaries, who decided that sunsets should never look the same twice, still finds joy in giving one ordinary woman fresh ideas on a Tuesday afternoon.

He could have made a world that simply functioned.

Instead, He made one that blooms.

Flowers didn’t have to come in thousands of colours. The sky didn’t have to blush at sunset. Rain didn’t have to leave the earth smelling new.

Yet He chose beauty.

He chose detail.

He chose wonder.

And because He did, I believe every good idea is an invitation to know Him a little more.

Every story I write reminds me that I am only echoing the First Author.

Every metaphor points back to the One who spoke the world into existence.

Every spark of imagination is a quiet reminder that I belong to Someone whose creativity has no ceiling.

I often worry that I’ll run out of ideas.

God never does.

His imagination has sustained generations before me and will continue long after I’m gone.

What a comforting thought that my creativity is not a reservoir I must guard, but a river that flows from an endless Source.

So today, I am not celebrating my ability to create.

I am celebrating the One who made creation itself.

The One who imagined light before anyone had seen it.

The One who thought of oceans before waves had names.

The One who dreamed up humanity, and somehow looked at me and said, “You, too, will create.”

And every time I create, I remember whose image I carry.

I remember that I am not the source of creativity. I am a reflection of it.

I am light because He is Light.

I am creative because He is the Creator.

I create not to rival Him, but to reflect Him.

Not because of who I am.

But because of whose I am.

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I was carrying Tayo’s child when I discovered our mothers had been lying to us for years.

If I had known the truth sooner, perhaps neither of us would have made the choices that changed our lives forever.

Tayo and I grew up in Mokola, Ibadan, in a neighbourhood where everybody knew everybody and every child belonged to every mother. If I stayed too long at Tayo’s house, my mother knew exactly where to find me. If Tayo climbed our mango tree without permission, my mother scolded him as though she had given birth to him herself.

Our mothers were best friends long before we came into the picture. They had survived secondary school together, attended each other’s weddings, and stood by one another through life’s many seasons. So when Tayo was born two years before me, and I came along afterwards, our friendship was almost inevitable. We never really had a choice.

Tayo was nine.

I was seven.

Some of my earliest memories are of chasing him barefoot through dusty streets, arguing over who scored the winning goal with a plastic football, and sitting beside him after school while we shared roasted corn bought by our mothers. We spent Christmases together, celebrated birthdays together, and complained about homework together. Somewhere along the line, our two families stopped feeling like neighbours and became one extended family.

Tayo had a habit of getting me into trouble.

If he wasn’t daring me to climb a fence I wasn’t supposed to climb, he was convincing me to sneak extra meat from the pot while our mothers chatted away in the sitting room. And if anyone dared to tease me afterwards, Tayo would puff out his chest and declare,

“Nobody is allowed to pick on Tolu except me.”

He said it with so much confidence that even the older children usually laughed and walked away.

It annoyed me every single time.

Secretly, I loved it.

That was Tayo. He irritated me, defended me, laughed at me, and somehow made every ordinary day feel like an adventure. Looking back now, I think he had been looking after me long before either of us knew what that meant.

Years passed almost unnoticed. Before we knew it, childhood gave way to adolescence. Football on the streets became late-night study sessions, and our conversations shifted from cartoons and comic books to WAEC, NECO, and JAMB.

For the first time in our lives, we wanted different things.

Tayo dreamed of studying Mechanical Engineering at the University of Lagos. He talked endlessly about Lagos: the opportunities, the energy, the future waiting for him there.

I couldn’t understand it.

Everything I wanted was in Ibadan.

I wanted to study English at the University of Ibadan. It had always been my dream. More importantly, I wanted to stay close to my mother. Ever since my father passed away, it had been just the two of us. Leaving her behind felt impossible.

The thought of Tayo leaving unsettled me more than I cared to admit.

Lagos sounded too loud, too fast, too different. People spoke about the city as though it changed everyone who stepped into it. They said it hardened people. They said girls returned with new accents, new friends, and lives that no longer fit the streets they came from.

I wasn’t afraid of Lagos.

I was afraid of what Lagos would do to Tayo.

Or perhaps, what it would do to us.

Months later, our JAMB results were released.

A few weeks after that, the admission letters arrived.

Tayo had been offered admission to study Mechanical Engineering at the University of Lagos.

I still remember the way he smiled when he held that letter.

It was the happiest I had ever seen him.

Throughout that week, all Tayo talked about was Lagos.

He spoke about it as though it were another world waiting to welcome him with open arms. Every conversation somehow found its way back to the University of Lagos- the campus, the hostels, the lectures, the people he was certain he would meet. His excitement was contagious, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t bring myself to share it completely.

I was happy for him.

At least, I wanted to be.

But beneath every smile and every congratulatory hug was a quiet sadness I couldn’t explain. It wasn’t that I didn’t want him to succeed. I just couldn’t understand how he was so ready to leave behind everything we had built together.

Our streets.

Our memories.

Us.

The morning he was leaving, I accompanied him and his mother to the park. His bags had already been loaded into the bus while passengers hurried to claim seats by the windows. The atmosphere buzzed with excitement, but all I could hear was the pounding of my own heart.

I kept telling myself not to cry.

I failed miserably.

The tears came before I could stop them.

“What is this?” Tayo laughed softly. He wiped my cheeks with the back of his hand. “It’s Lagos, Tolu, not London.”

I tried to laugh, but my voice refused to cooperate.

I wanted to tell him. I wanted to tell him that somewhere between childhood games and late-night WAEC study sessions, he had become the person I looked forward to seeing every day.

I wanted to tell him I was terrified that Lagos would take him away from me. Instead, I said nothing.

He reached for my hand and squeezed it gently.

“I’ll write to you,” he said. “And I’ll call whenever I can.”

“You better,” I muttered. I tried to sound annoyed instead of heartbroken.

“I promise.”

I believed him. At eighteen, I thought promises made by the people we loved could never be broken.

I didn’t know then how ambitious life could be. I didn’t know then that life had a way of making promises sound like lies.

The bus engine roared to life.

Tayo leaned out of the window. He waved with that familiar grin that had carried me through most of my childhood.

“I’ll be back before you know it!” he shouted.

I smiled through my tears. I waved until the bus disappeared into the dusty road leading out of Ibadan.

For a long moment, no one spoke. Then I turned to leave.

That was when I noticed them. Our mothers.

They were no longer looking at the road. They were looking at each other.

It was not like two best friends saying goodbye. They looked like two women carrying the weight of something neither of them wanted to remember.

Tayo’s mother reached into her handbag and pulled out a small brown envelope. She pressed it into my mother’s hands.

“I’ve kept it for twenty years,” she said quietly. “I can’t keep pretending anymore.”

My mother’s face drained of colour. “You promised,” she whispered.

“I know.”

“And if they find out?”

Tayo’s mother looked in the direction the bus had disappeared before answering. “They’re going to find out eventually.”

Neither of them noticed that I was still standing there.

I wanted to ask what was inside the envelope. I wanted to ask what they were talking about.

Instead, my mother folded the envelope and slipped it into her handbag. She smiled at me as though nothing had happened.

“Tolu,” she said. “Let’s go home.”

I didn’t ask any questions.

Back then, I thought the hardest thing I would ever have to survive was watching Tayo leave for Lagos. I had no idea that the real story had started twenty years before either of us was born.

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By “funny species,” I mean higher animals. Although, judging by recent events, some of us have evolved backwards. Every now and then, some Nigerians behave in ways that make me wonder whether evolution took a tea break.

The other day, I went for one of my little walks. By “walk,” I mean a casual stroll because adulting is expensive and walking is still free. I mean that thing you do when Lagos hasn’t frustrated you enough, and you decide to touch grass.

It had just rained, and for the first time in a long while, the air actually smelled... fresh, green, and clean. Not like exhaust fumes and generator smoke had formed a coalition government.

I loved the weather so much that I didn’t want to go back inside, and it was quiet too.

The kind of quiet that reminds you of how life used to feel before every trip to the market started looking like a financial crime. Or, if we’re being honest, before Tinubu AKA City Boy became president. Not that his predecessor deserves flowers or a standing ovation either.

Anyway...

Let me not turn this into a political think piece.

As I was rounding off my walk, I heard two grown men screaming at each other. One voice was significantly louder than the other.

When I got closer, I saw one man standing outside with two suitcases while the other sat comfortably in the driver’s seat of his car with the door wide open.

From what I gathered, the driver was either an Uber, Bolt, or InDrive driver. Honestly, they all blur together after a while.

He had just dropped off the passenger, and somehow... kasala burst.

You know that saying:

“Trouble go sleep, yanga go wake am.”

That evening, I watched that proverb come alive. Now, before you judge me... yes, I stood there, and yes, I minded everybody's business.

And yes, I stayed until the gist finished because they had already invited the whole neighbourhood with their shouting. I merely accepted the invitation.

Now let me say something that might annoy a few people.

Some Nigerian ride-hailing drivers behave like customer service is a personal attack.

Not all.

"Let's Be Honest"

90% of Uber, Bolt, or InDrive drivers in NIGERIA are thieves, opportunists, badly behaved, and they lack basic ethics for the work they are doing. And what do I mean? I will explain.

If I could write a whole book about this, I would. First of all, they lack manners, and there is a deep form of misappropriateness when it comes to the female gender.

It takes a severe level of craziness as a babe for you to go band to band with these fools. I used to think they only did it to young women, but it turns out they don't care across the board.

Some talk to you like they’re doing you a favour. Some suddenly become relationship counsellors the moment you enter the car. Others believe silence is offensive.

Sometimes I just want to sit in peace.

I don’t want to hear about your village people.

I don’t want to hear about fuel prices.

I don’t want to hear how your ex-wife ruined your life.

I just want to reach my destination with my sanity intact.

And please... Why do some of them behave like requesting a ride automatically means I’m richer than the person who owns an actual CAR? Make it make sense.

Back to my story.

Apparently, the passenger had been picked up from the airport.

When they got to the destination, he alighted. He asked the driver to open up the boot so he could get his luggage.

In between trying to get his bags out, he had to move them from the road onto the pavement of his compound. Through all this, the cab man just sat in his car.

He was acting completely oblivious to the fact that the passenger was struggling. He didn’t even offer to assist. He didn’t even ask if he would like some help, just so the passenger could at least decline.

No attempt to help.

No, “Oga, let me assist you.”

Nothing.

Then, while the man was still struggling with his suitcases, the driver suddenly shouted:

“You never pay me my money o!”

Excuse me? Sir?

First of all, that was rude and completely against all service judgment. Surely nobody is entitled, but I am one of those people who believes what is worth doing at all is worth doing well.

Whether someone chooses to help or not is another conversation, but basic courtesy costs absolutely nothing.

As a woman living in Lagos, I wasn’t even surprised; I used to think this attitude was reserved for female passengers.

Apparently, E don touch Everybody.

Anyway, they say a moving man will meet his luck one day. It turns out this particular moving man met quite the opposite, lmaooo.

The passenger was furious. Steam was practically coming out of his ears, I mean literally.

Then the cab man started shouting that he wasn’t anybody’s boss and certainly wasn’t anyone’s slave. If the passenger wanted help, why didn’t he bring his own car instead? The usual Yoruba insults started flying, and before long, both of them were exchanging words like they were competing for an award.

Then the passenger said something I completely agreed with.

He said that people abroad who do this exact same job would gladly help you with your luggage and make sure you’re satisfied with the service, and they’re driving much bigger cars, by the way. So what exactly was this man feeling like with his 2001 Toyota Camry?

Yet somehow, it’s still the Nigerian government’s fault.

At first, I thought that was where it would end.

I was wrong.

The cab man then called the passenger a pauper, bragging that at least he was his own boss and could decide not to work whenever he wanted, unlike the passenger, who was working for someone else.

I just shook my head.

Poor man.

You see, poverty is one of the greatest diseases in this country. Not just because of empty pockets, but because it sometimes robs people of humility and replaces it with unnecessary pride. I wasn’t surprised. I wasn’t even disappointed. I had simply accepted that common sense had clocked out for the day.

The cab man kept running his mouth until the passenger finally said he wasn’t going to pay for the ride after enduring all the insults. Since the driver claimed he didn’t need anybody and was such a “big man,” the passenger decided he could also survive without that fare.

That should have been the end of it, but no.

The cab man grabbed the passenger by his shirt.

And just like that, all hell let loose. Long story short, the cab man was beaten to a pulp. In my opinion, it was well deserved! At least he would learn the hard way and won’t run his mouth anymore like loose stool.

Let’s just say the next few seconds were a practical lesson in why you shouldn’t let your mouth write cheques your body can’t cash.

People eventually rushed in to separate them; I enjoyed the view.

Anyway, I just came to gist, you people.

You’re welcome.

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Some mornings she catches herself in the mirror, lingering a second too long, searching for the woman who once believed love came with windows thrown open.

She cannot remember when she began mistaking closed curtains for safety.

Or perhaps she never did. Perhaps she learned that some kinds of love ask you to survive in the dark.

She knew. God, she knew.

She knew his ring had a home before it found his finger, knew someone else’s last name rested comfortably against his own, knew heartbreak was waiting for her like an old friend at the end of the road. Still, hope has always been louder than reason. She convinced herself that maybe this story had misplaced its ending, that maybe she would be the exception. She wasn’t.

She often wonders what a man looks like when he is truly in love.

Does he reach for her hand before she reaches for his?

Does he smile when her name lights up his phone?

Does he introduce her without rehearsing an explanation?

Does he leave because he misses her?

Or does he stay because leaving has never crossed his mind?

She has only loved men who loved her quietly. Too quietly.

He came to her with the parts of himself he couldn’t carry home: his loneliness, his fears, his silence. He emptied his pockets into her hands and called it intimacy.

She mistook the weight of his burdens for the weight of his love; how was she to know the two were different? He never came because she was the love of his life. He came because she had room to listen, room to forgive, room to understand.

A heart like hers has always been dangerous; it mistakes being needed for being chosen.

She often thinks

You ruined me so gently. Not with betrayal that would have been merciful but with almosts.

Almost forever. Almost mine. Almost enough.

You gave me just enough sunlight to keep me growing, never enough to bloom. And she hates that secrecy fits now.

She hates that she no longer flinches when she leaves through the back door, that birthdays can wait, that weekends were never hers to begin with. She hates how naturally she has learned to disappear.

She is neither home nor destination, only the road between. She is the remedy for an absence she did not create, the pause before he returns to the life he never intended to leave.

Always the artist, never the muse,

Always the place people arrive broken but never the place they stay healed. Always pouring, always understanding

Always making room, never asking why no one made room for her.

Always the epigraph, never the novel. Always the poet, never the poem. Always the sanctuary but never the home.

Always the woman he needed, never the woman he chose.

Always loved in whispers, never in daylight,

Always the afterthought, never the first choice.

Somewhere between becoming his secret,

she became a stranger to herself; perhaps that is who the other woman has always been, not simply the mistress, but the woman who abandoned herself

in the hope that he would finally choose her.

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Trust NYSC to somehow find its way into the origin story of yet another Nigerian relationship. At this rate, it’s either building marriages or giving people lifelong trauma.

When people say love is blind, I think they were talking about Dayo. Now before you come for me, hear me out.

First of all, Tomisin, I have a bone to pick with you. You keep saying you’re frugal, and that’s fine. In this Tinubu economy, everybody should actually be a little frugal. But my issue is... where was all this frugality when Dayo was putting you on a monthly allowance?

You weren’t too frugal to collect that one.

You weren’t too frugal to let him take you out.

You weren’t too frugal to let him carry you through one of the hardest periods of your life.

So now that the tables have turned, all of a sudden every naira is allocated? I’m sorry, but I wasn’t buying it.

And then she said spending ₦150,000 on his birthday made her start calculating all the other things the money could’ve been used for. Sis... It’s his birthday. Relax.

The money has already gone; celebrate the man. The way she talks about spending money honestly made me feel like every debit alert is a personal attack. Everything sounded like loss.

LMAOOOO. I’m sorry, but if buying your partner a birthday experience gives you chest pain, I don’t know what to tell you. Because imagine Dayo reading that: “My babe is thinking of depreciation while we’re cutting cake.” Abeg.

Another thing that got me was when Dayo called her stingy. She didn’t even defend herself. She basically said, “Yeah... people have been saying that.” Her siblings say it. Her friends say it. Now your boyfriend is saying it too. At some point, if everybody is giving you the same review, maybe HR needs to investigate.

Now, do I think Tomisin is evil? No. Wicked? Yes! I actually think she is stuck in a profound poverty mindset, deeply attached to money in a way where letting go of it feels completely unsafe. That’s the impression I got from the interview. But whatever the trauma or the reason is, it has made generosity feel difficult for her. And that’s a problem, because generosity isn’t measured by how much you have. It’s measured by your willingness to show up. At some point, babe, we have to leave “I’m just frugal” and ask ourselves if maybe, just maybe, you’ve mistaken withholding for financial discipline.

Before you people say I’m dragging Tomisin too much, let’s talk about Mr Lover Boy himself. Dayo, my brother... Because how are all these things happening and you’re still saying, “We’re a work in progress”?

A work in progress?? Sir. Imagine defending this woman from the beginning of the interview to the end. Imagine still saying, “I love her. I’m not going anywhere.”

There’s a Nigerian saying that if you ignore the signs, you’ll eventually see wonders. You’ve already seen the signs. You’re now preparing to see IMAX.

And don’t even get me started on the phone incident. You lost me there. The moment you opened her phone, checked her account balance, took a screenshot and sent it to her... Oga. Pack it up. I don’t care how frustrated you were. That’s one argument you automatically lost.

But even after all that, I still found myself feeling sorry for him. Maybe because I kept thinking about how painful it must be to pour into someone so naturally, only to start wondering if they’d ever pour into you the same way.

Can we actually talk about the marriage part? Because I saw some people in the comments saying Dayo was doing too much. No. That man was thinking ahead, and for once, I agreed with him. Forget boyfriend and girlfriend for a second.

Imagine they eventually get married. Imagine they have children. Imagine Dayo falls on hard times for a while, which happens, by the way. Their child needs something as simple as books for school or wants to go on an excursion, and Tomisin is there calculating depreciation and opportunity cost because she’s “frugal.”

I’m sorry, but that’s scary. Because at some point, being careful with money crosses over into a cold-hearted unwillingness to let go of it. And don’t even tell me she would be different with her kids because her siblings say she’s stingy, her friends say she’s stingy, and Dayo says she’s stingy. Even she admitted she’s trying to change. So clearly, this isn’t just Dayo making things up.

This is exactly why I agreed with Dayo when he said she wasn’t frugal. She was stingy. Frugal people still know when to be generous; they just do it intentionally. Tomisin almost made generosity sound like a personal loss. Everything was a calculation. Everything had another use. Everything was “the money has been allocated.” At what point do you actually enjoy the money? Or use it to make the people you love feel loved?

I actually felt for Dayo. Imagine spending almost the entire interview defending the woman you love while also telling the interviewer she’s stingy. And before somebody says, “But that’s her money.” Yes. It is. Nobody is arguing that. The question is whether you’re building a partnership or running a personal finance ministry.

Relationships are not fifty-fifty every season. Sometimes it’s 90-10. Sometimes it’s 20-80. Sometimes one person is carrying the whole house while the other figures life out. That’s life. And funny enough, Dayo had already done exactly that for her. Which is why I found it difficult to sympathise with Tomisin.

Twitter has been dragging Tomisin like a generator since this interview dropped, and honestly, I understand why. But I also think the conversation online has become bigger than Tomisin herself. This story isn’t just about one couple. It’s about how differently people define generosity.

Some people think generosity is foolishness. Some people think generosity is love.

Am I the only one who thinks Tomisin was stingy, or do you think Dayo expected too much?

If you haven’t read the interview yet, I recommend reading the original Zikoko piece before judging my takes

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There would be a coastline where your laughter first reached me, and an ocean so deep no cartographer would dare measure it. They would simply write unknown depths and move on, unaware that every inch of it belonged to the way I love you.

There would be roads I built from the sound of your voice, travelled so often they no longer needed signs. I would know every turn by memory, every pause, every silence, and every sentence you almost finished before I understood it anyway.

Some places would be marked as protected land: the morning you looked at me without saying anything, the afternoon your hand found mine as though it had always known where it belonged, and the ordinary Tuesday that became extraordinary simply because you existed inside it.

Right beside them, there would be forests dense with the things I have never told you. Whole ecosystems of unsent sentences growing wild beneath leaves that have never known daylight, where if you wandered long enough, perhaps you would hear them whispering your name.

The highest point on the map would not be a mountain. It would be the first moment I realised I had begun measuring time differently: there was the life before you, and then there was every single moment after.

The map would also have weather. Your absence would arrive like winter, not because it is cruel, but because it changes the colour of everything without asking permission. But your presence would not be summer. Summer is too loud. You have always felt more like the first morning after weeks of rain: quiet, certain, the kind of light that doesn’t demand attention, only gratitude.

There would be no borders, because love has never respected them. It crossed every country I built to protect myself, scaled every wall I convinced myself was permanent, and arrived without a passport while somehow still feeling like home.

And if, one day, someone else found this map folded inside my chest, they would probably think it unfinished. They would wonder why so many roads disappear into nothing, why some coastlines stop abruptly, and why entire cities are left unnamed. They would mistake mystery for absence.

But maps are only incomplete to people who have never walked the land.

I know every inch of this one. I know where your laughter first settled like morning light. I know the quiet valley where your name echoes longest after you’ve gone. I know the bridge we built from conversations that never seemed important enough to remember, until they became the architecture of everything I now call home.

It is an intricate, messy sort of geography, but it belongs to us.

So if you ever find yourself wandering through my heart, don’t look for the quickest route. Maps like these were never meant to be rushed. Stay long enough for the tide to recognise you. Sit beneath the trees until the silence begins to speak. Learn the roads the way I learnt you slowly, deliberately, with wonder.

And when you finally reach the place marked home, I hope you realise it was never a destination at all.

It was you. It has always been you.

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If you knew me a couple of years ago, you probably wouldn’t believe that. I don’t even think I would’ve believed it myself. Somewhere between trying to figure out adulthood and trying not to lose my mind, peace quietly climbed to the top of my priority list.

I didn’t notice when it happened. Maybe adulthood did what it always does: it changed me so gradually that I only realised it after.

These days, I enjoy being alone more than I ever imagined I would. In fact, I sometimes worry I’ve become too accustomed to my own company. My phone spends more time on Do Not Disturb than it does ringing, and if I’m being completely honest, I’ve grown rather fond of the silence.

I still love people. I love conversations that wander into unexpected places, laughter that arrives without warning, and friends who make time disappear. But when the workday is over, all I want is to come home to myself.

Sometimes I wonder if I’ve forgotten how to interact with the world outside of work. Then I laugh, because perhaps this is simply adulthood.

Nobody warns you that adulthood feels like fighting several battles at once. On one hand, you're trying to stay afloat financially. On another, you're trying to keep your body healthy because apparently it now demands things your younger self never had to think about. Then there are the invisible battles the ones you wish you could explain but somehow never find the words for.

Nobody tells you that you'll spend half your time trying to survive and the other half pretending you're not tired.

If there is one thing capable of dissolving the weight of the day, even if only for a little while, it’s my novel.

Whether it’s tucked inside a worn paperback with folded corners or glowing from the screen of my phone, stories have always known how to find me.

Yes, I read on Wattpad.

I know Wattpad has a reputation lol; I genuinely do not care. Some of my favourite evenings have been spent there.

Others have belonged to Nora Roberts, Joan Johnston, Sandra Brown, Debbie Macomber, Harlequin romances that people love to dismiss; I'm happy there.

Reading has become my own little rebellion against the heaviness of adulthood.

It’s how I romanticise my life.

Just me, my bedroom.

Beautiful weather. If it’s raining outside, even better.

I don’t know what it is about the sound of rain when you’re indoors. It makes the world feel slower. Safer. Like nothing bad can reach you for a little while.

The bedroom light stays off. I let the soft glow from the restroom seep into the room instead. A slow, soft song plays quietly in the background. My tea sits beside me, and before I know it, it’s gone cold because I’ve been too busy turning page after page.

Then I disappear into someone else’s story. No matter how chaotic my day has been, no matter how many things went wrong, that version of the evening always finds me. It reminds me that the world can wait, that not every problem needs to be solved tonight, and that sometimes peace is as simple as a good book, warm tea, and the sound of rain outside my window.

The things bothering me haven’t magically disappeared.

But somehow they don’t feel as loud anymore. I think that’s why I protect my peace so much these days.

I lied when I told you what my love language was.

I used to say it was words of affirmation, acts of service, quality time, or maybe even physical touch. I don’t think that’s true anymore.

These days, I think my love language is undisturbed peace. The luxury of not being reachable all the time. A phone on Do Not Disturb without feeling guilty. Rain tapping against my window while I curl up with a cup of tea and a book I can’t seem to put down. The freedom to disappear into my own little world for a few hours without anyone asking where I’ve been or expecting anything from me.

Maybe that’s what love looks like to me now. Not grand gestures, not flowers, not expensive dates, but creating a life that feels gentle enough for me to exist in.

There’s so much about me I wish people knew. Not the version that goes to work every morning, replies to your messages, or smiles and says she’s fine. I mean this version of me: the girl who would choose a rainy evening over a party, who gets ridiculously attached to fictional characters and genuinely mourns when a book comes to an end, who can spend an entire Saturday reading and call it a perfect day, and who has learnt that protecting her peace isn’t selfish; it’s necessary.

I wish more people knew this version of me, but I suppose that’s the thing about people. We rarely get to know all of each other at once. We meet one another in pieces, in moments, in chapters. The rest of us remains tucked away in quiet places, waiting to be discovered.

This is one of mine.

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Out of all the people this world has created, all the paths I could have taken, and all the lives I could have lived, something impossible allowed me to cross paths with you. And if I spent the rest of my life searching for a word greater than luck, I still do not think it would be enough to describe what you are to me.

You are one of the few people who remembers the person I was before life changed me. You know versions of me that I can no longer remember; versions I have forgotten how to return to. Perhaps that is why losing you feels like losing a small piece of my own history.

I do not promise you a life without chaos. I cannot promise that every chapter of our lives will be gentle and beautiful. But if life comes and I have to choose between you and it, I will choose you.

If life comes with cold, I will make sure my hands are the place your body returns to for warmth. If life brings darkness, let me become the lantern you never have to search for. For as long as I breathe, I will continue to choose you in every version of tomorrow.

And if someday the earth calls you by your name, do not be astonished, for I have called your name into the wind countless times, professing how much I adore you.

Out of all the days that could have passed without meeting you, out of all the narrow roads that could have led me somewhere else, I am grateful that they led me to you.

I want you in every shade and season. I want you on the days when you feel more than enough and on the days when you do not feel good enough at all. Because every day, I count the lives you have touched, including mine.

Do you know how many ways I love you that you never see? Not the obvious ones, nor the ones I speak aloud. I mean the moments when I read you without a single word. The unseen things carry the most weight. It is as though I am holding us steady with both hands, and you never even notice the effort.

Perhaps that is what love is: choosing someone so completely that even your silent acts of devotion become instinct.

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I hope you know that there isn’t a single soul on this earth like you. Not even a statue carved by the finest hands could replace your presence.

Your hair is a rich, thick tapestry so heavy with heritage that even the heavens look down in awe. Your eyes carry a quiet light, a constant reminder of exactly where you have come from and just how much you have already overcome.

They told you your colour was dirt. They tried to make you believe a smear of it brought uncleanliness. But the truth is, your skin holds the lustre of pearls. Your curves are so beautifully endowed that they can make a man go mad with pure intention.

You are not a mistake of nature. You are the blueprint.

Look at the texture of that skin. It is sleek, rich, and completely unbothered by the trends of a world that tries so hard to replicate what you were born with. It is an authentic kind of beauty, the kind that doesn’t need validation because its brilliance is undeniable.

You wear your melanin like a royal mantle, a badge of honour passed down through an unbroken lineage of resilient daughters, mothers, and matriarchs. It is the colour of a deep, abiding comfort, the very shade of the earth that holds our roots and the wood that builds our altars. When you wrap your arms around someone, they are held by the strength of generations.

When the light hits you, it doesn’t just reflect; it sinks in, warming the deep mahogany tones, making you look like you were sculpted from wealth and earth. There is a weightless luxury to your brown skin. It is smooth like silk, polished like fine stone, and entirely rare. You carry a depth of colour that demands presence without you ever having to say a word. It is a striking, bold statement of existence.

The world spends billions trying to catch the glow that you wake up with naturally. They try to bottle the warmth, copy the shade, and mimic the rhythm of your form, but authenticity cannot be manufactured.

It is a masterpiece of design that belongs in the highest rooms, draped in the finest things, because anything less would be a disservice to how beautifully you were made.

So the next time you stand before that mirror, look past the lies they handed you. Look at the richness staring right back. You are walking in a body that is pure luxury. Don’t ever let them convince you to dim a glow that was meant to command the room.

A masterpiece rendered in shades the world will spend forever trying to imitate.

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Forgive me in advance, but I have to ask: Is this a Nigerian thing, or specifically a Yoruba thing?

Married people, what is actually going on? I was minding my own business jeje, doom-scrolling on TikTok, when I stumbled into a rabbit hole that made my jaw drop. I ran straight to the comment section.

The topic?

Apparently, once your friend gets married, you can no longer call her husband by his first name.

I thought it was a joke. It was not. People were fighting, real fight o. Friendships are allegedly ending.

People were being accused of disrespect. Some were even apologising.

Apologizing!

For calling a grown man the name his parents gave him.

At this point, I have questions.

Maybe is because I am not married. Perhaps there is a secret married people’s handbook that gets handed over during the traditional wedding ceremony. Maybe there’s a chapter titled “Things Single People No Longer Understand.” Because from where I am standing, the math is not mathing.

Most of my friends are in their twenties. The ones who are married are married to men who are usually in their late twenties or early thirties.

These are not elderly men.

These are not village chiefs.

These are not kings.

These are people who, in many cases, are our literal age mates. Yet, somehow marriage happens, and suddenly everyone starts talking like there has been a promotion ceremony.

One minute, he’s Tunde. The next minute, someone is looking at you sideways and asking, “So you’re part of those people who call their friend’s husband by his name?”

Excuse me. What does “those people” mean? What happened to Tunde? When exactly did Tunde stop being Tunde, and who decided?

The thing that fascinates me isn’t even the naming issue itself. It’s how strongly people feel about it. One married woman will tell you to please call him whatever you’ve always called him. Another will look at you as if you’ve committed a crime against humanity. Some say it’s respect, others say it’s culture, some swear it’s boundaries, and others think it’s just unnecessary, restless behaviour.

The funniest part is that nobody seems to agree on the rules.

The rest of us are just standing here confused, trying not to accidentally offend somebody.

Because if I call him by his name, I’m disrespectful.

If I call him brother, people will laugh.

If I call him uncle, his birth certificate may disagree.

If I call him sir, his friends might think we’re conducting a job interview.

So what exactly are we supposed to do? Maybe there is something I am missing.

But if I were married, I honestly cannot imagine calling my friends into a meeting because they referred to my husband by his first name.

That seems like an exhausting thing to worry about.

As a Yoruba babe, once you refuse to participate in certain customs, somebody immediately concludes that you are disrespectful.

But when exactly did titles become the sole measure of respect?

Can I call somebody “sir” and still disrespect them?

Absolutely.

Can I call somebody by their name and still respect them?

Absolutely.

So where exactly is the line? And please, let us be honest.

Some of the same men who are apparently too important for their wives’ friends to call by name are introducing themselves as:

“Hi, I’m Femi.”

“Hello, I’m Tola.”

“Call me Tunde.”

They are not even enforcing these rules themselves, so who is enforcing them?

At this point, I am genuinely asking.

Married women, married men, people in relationships, elders, anthropologists and anybody with answers:

What should your friends call your spouse?

And why?

Because from where I am standing, marriage has entered the group chat and started adding rules that nobody informed the rest of us about.

Please educate me before they cut me off, too.

Because if it reaches my turn and all of you suddenly move on from this rule, it will pain me.

You cannot stress my generation with a policy and then retire it before my own wedding.

If we are doing it, let us all commit. In fact, let us establish the rules now.

Because when my time comes, I don’t want confusion, you people will not be calling my husband by his first name.

You will address him properly.

• Baba.

• Kabiyesi.

• His Imperial Majesty.

• The Glory of My Friend.

• The Love of Her Life.

• The Babe of Our Babe.

• The Saviour of Her Happiness.

Whatever is available at the time.

Thank you.

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