And no, I'm not talking about the grief of losing someone dear to you, for this might just be far worse.

^{you might actually want to hit play}

I speak of the kind of grief that leaves you wondering where all the versions of yourself ran off to. The kind where all your dreams appear to have died in a car crash. So much that one day, you find yourself sitting alone, wondering how you ended up a law student when all you ever wanted was to direct films, bring all your creative ideas to life.

I think there's a type of mourning people don't talk about. Perhaps, because we often don't realize we're in the process of losing ourselves until it happens completely. Maybe because it cannot be compared to losing your favourite person, or someone that had a piece of your heart. Maybe it is also because it’s the type that is supposed to hurt less.

But how can it hurt less when you're supposed to be your favorite person?

One day, you're on the most thrilling road trip of your life. Your 14 year old self steering the wheel, you both laughing, the breeze all up in your faces without a care in the world. You both know you're taking the path that'll make all the versions of you happy.

But somehow, in the years that followed, there's a blurry memory of finding that version of you lying motionless and unconscious by the side of the road. Nearly buried, but not forgotten.

And now, in a way you never imagined, you take the road trip on your own. The air is hotter, the breeze feels stuffy, and suffocating. You don't know what path you're going down by but you know you've got to keep going because this is where you've found yourself. That's a terrible kind of grief.

So now, you mourn.

You mourn all the versions of you whose dreams died with them. You drown in a queue of Billie Eilish's songs and you weep for the girl who really wanted to paint when she was younger. The tears slide down your cheeks for the girl who enjoyed writing scripts for little plays. You weep for her because she is now sat zoning out of a lecture she has no interest in. Walking to and fro from class to class wondering where she lost the plot, where the wheel took a left turn.

You scale by the hectic Lagos traffic, roaming like the ghost of your childhood and you wonder how you lost all your whimsy. You wonder how the boy who used to love playing football so much is now submitting resumes, applying for jobs he doesn't give two shits about. You stare at your twin children, drowning in the sound of their beautiful chuckles and imagine whether you'd have become the next "Agbani Darego" if life didn't just happen.

You slump slightly by your bedside and wonder how your ex sucked so much life and love out of you, how you're now a shadow of yourself, a version of yourself you never imagined you would be. You wonder how the overload of university makes it seems like all your academic accomplishments have become a thing of the past. You wonder how the person they praised endlessly for being an academic weapon is now struggling so much with the complexity of biochemistry diagrams.

I think losing yourself to life is scary. You stare at old pictures of you in a way that makes you wonder how bright your smile used to be and why things have changed. You wonder whether it's all the callousness of life that made you this way, without your spark, without your smile.

I've been doing a lot of thinking and feeling recently and my mind couldn't stop spiralling about how a classmate of mine had to drop out of medical school because of how depressed he was getting. He's doing what he loves now and even though it took some time, he is getting his spark back.

But more than being scary, the realization of losing yourself is genuinely sad. Maybe the person who was steering the wheel isn't dead after all. Maybe she's waiting for the season you finally decide is favourable for both of your dreams, so she can wake from her slumber. A part of me really believes it's never too late to do what you love. Because what is the point of life if we're all just surviving? If we're all just existing outside the parts of ourselves that we love?

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P/S: The background song is Billie Eilish’s The 30th. I wrote this entire piece while listening to it, it contains such beautiful heart-wrenching emotions. I’ve had it on repeat for the past two days. And to everyone genuinely struggling with this part of themselves, I hope you get your spark back soonest. As always, thank you for reading!⭐

^{you should definitely hit play}

Why? Because for me, it has never been one of those light topics you write about in one or two days. And it’s something I’ve always avoided talking about because if I had to, I wouldn’t be entirely honest about it. It was complicated, yet simple: I didn’t believe in love.

I found my journal of junior secondary school. One of the entries was on how I didn’t believe in love and why I don’t understand how romance works because I didn’t have the best examples of romantic love growing up. They were all chaotic, it made me shun the idea of romance generally. To think I held that ideology up until uni is crazy, but genuinely it was one of the most honest things I had written then. Maybe I wrote it from a place of pain, hurt, I can’t quite name the feeling right now.

I read it a few days ago and laughed because, well, there’s some difference between that and what I believe in now. I remember watching Everything Everything some years ago and there was a part where the main character says ‘love is the force that binds the whole universe together’. And somehow I slowly started realizing love is woven into everything. You can separate a lot of things, but not this one.

Before last year, I didn’t think I was capable of loving someone that way. Till I did. Why do I believe in love now? Turns out you need to have love to be able to love. The saying “you can’t give what you don’t have” is utterly true in this case. You need to embody love before you can show that to someone. And it turns out I am capable of loving. Everyone is. Because love is love regardless of the kind. It’s in the little things. It’s in how you look out for the people you care about. It’s in how you admire a beautiful sunrise or a beautiful sunset. It's in how you play a song on repeat because of how it makes you feel. It’s in the endearing way you watch a little child toddle around in the grass, giggling as they the trip over. It’s in literally everything.

Now, regarding romantic love, I'm not a hopeless romantic, I've never been. I don't know what it's like to be a lover girl but I know LOVE. The idea of romantic love doesn’t really excite me. I’ve never had the butterflies in the belly thing, I don’t think I’ve ever had a romantic crush(*inserts a sticker). Don’t get me wrong, I do not say this to take pride in it, but because it's true. I however, do know love. I love love for other people. I love LOVE through and through, the depth of it is beautiful. I have loved and experienced love in all the forms I think I can.

People make love seem so rosy. It’s far from it. Because when you tell someone the words “I love you” you’re not saying to them, “I like your smile, and I think you’re beautiful and kind and the thought of you sends shivers down my spine”. Yes, that might all be part of it, but love is beyond just that feeling.

Love is far more than infatuation. It is more than the desire you feel to hold someone when you’re with them, more than the desire to lie in the comfort of their arms. It is more than the desire you feel when all you can concentrate on while staring at them are nothing but their lips. It is what remains on the days that desire fades. On the days there’s nothing left but you both, your thoughts and your silence. On the days being scared becomes the dominant feeling, on days it feels like nothing is thriving.

Where were we? Ah… yes.

Let’s rewind to the time I said I didn’t think I was capable of loving someone till I did. I had been with someone last year— the only person I’ve ever felt anything for— who told me they loved me, but somehow, they didn’t know how to show that they cared. This was after some major conflict we had. And even when I tried to see where they where coming from, I couldn’t because it hurt. It hurt in a different kind of way I hadn’t felt before. The kind that had me up at 2.45am, writing fuck ass epistles to them which I never sent. The kind that had me blaring Daniel Ceaser’s ‘Get You” from ‘our playlist’ and bawling my eyes out in the shower to the point where I was void of breath. Which was weird because crying is never my first resort to processing my emotions. But, I digress. It hurt because I was getting to know love as something that stayed, even in the difficult times. Not as something that displays affection but not effort and consistency. It hurt more because I genuinely loved them. I probably still do.

I once watched a video of this couple in which one of them had said, what matters sometimes is that both parties do not give up at the same time. There’s obviously other factors but I guess this one played out more in how things ended between us regardless of the fact that my love just never faded.

Love is everything but the butterflies you feel in your tummy. It is everything but the aesthetic of the beautiful bouquet of roses you receive when they ask you to be their partner. It is in fact the thorns that eventually grows along those roses, it is the willingness to get your hands pricked by those thorns. And when you say you love someone, you’re truly saying to them, I’ll be here for you regardless of how pricky they get. I’ll make the effort even on the days it feels tiring, even on the days I am void of strength to. I’ll try to be the best version of myself for you.

It’s mesmerizing to me how powerful love is. How you can stop a bad habit just because you love someone and you want to be better for them. I know because I have been there. Rethinking whenever I find myself trying to return to past cycles, and my first thought was mostly “how’s this gonna make them feel”. Love is a very beautiful beautiful thing. How your music taste almost automatically weaves into theirs and soon, their favorite artist is on the list of your top-five most listened to. It’s in how you find yourself laughing at jokes of theirs that wouldn’t ordinarily be funny if anyone says it.

Love is still beautiful and it is effort in its entirety. It is hard hard effort. Because you do not say you love someone and not try to be better for them. It is remembering the little details they have mentioned, even if it means you had to write it down. It is in apologizing before you begin to defend your actions. It is what walks you through every version of the person you first had a crush on, and the hardest version of the person, being when they’re hurting. And it, in its entirety, keeps you to witness all the beautiful evolutions they go through being with you.

Now, I do not have perfect expressions of some things I mentioned here. And if you asked me exactly why I started to believe that love is everything, I wouldn't have one single answer. It's been multiple things. Mostly the fact that its depth lies in the simplest of things. I have watched my once cynical friend become the sweetest person ever when she began to embrace love and embody it.

Please love. Love through and through. And when you do, love deeply and never limit it to just displays of affection.

P/S: The background song is '‘End of the Road” by Boyz II Men. They write such beautiful love songs and this is one of theirs I really love. I had been stalling on this piece for so long because it’s quite raw, the first of its kind where it’s mainly a collection of my rambling and jumbled thoughts. As always, thank you for reading, mwahh and I’d loveeee to hear your love stories too.✨

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They say a lot of addicts start to escape something. And a lot of the time, people don’t know what they’re escaping from. Or if they know, they are avoidant with it.

I wasn’t though. And even though it didn’t particularly start with the need for an escape. I knew exactly what I was trying to escape from eventually—the former versions of me that had a drag path in my head.

Sit, let me tell you a story. Or something that sounds like a story that should be mine. Only that, I’m not the main character, Addiction is.

Addiction will ruin you, just like it nearly has me.

It studies you, lurking in the shadows like the creep that it is. It knows how desperate you are to escape reality. To feel something more than the gloominess that envelopes you. To hit a different feeling of ecstasy every single time. And it takes advantage of that void and fits itself perfectly.

Believe me when I say that’s just the better part. The worst part is you can’t run from it. You can’t outrun your addiction, you’ve got to face it and understand what it wants from you.

Because it knows you through and through. It knew when you were 14 seeking some form of high to fill the void of your absent parents and their nonchalance towards you. It knew the tv shows and the gaming which you loved very much wasn’t enough to cope. So it resorted to providing your new source of high —waiting on those guy’s texts. Oh, how it excited you in a way you saw no harm in. And if you didn’t get it from guy number 1, there was always a guy number 2 to text. And once he got boring, there was always a next one available. There was absolutely no harm in this to be fair. But you see…

You see, the thing with deriving a dopamine hit from something is that when it drops, you tend to need more the next time to feel better. So, it wasn’t any surprise when addiction decided your next high was going to be the number of little red hearts below your pictures and videos on that tiny screen you stare at first thing in the morning.

No, you weren’t getting too attached. It just made you happy. It was simple: the higher the metrics, the greater the excitement. And that’s the catch. Because it’s the reason for your happiness, it’s also why your dopamine drops when the metrics are lower. So you post more for more excitement. And that’s the part that addiction loves. The first few lies and delusions. “Just one more time, last time, five more minutes”.

It loves how it has become your alter ego, your go-to person. You place it on a high pedestal, so it takes its place and becomes your first stop when you feel numb.

Addiction is a bitch. Because it no longer feels like a habit, it has progressed into a relationship. The same kind you kept running back to after taking so much disrespect from him. And when addiction grabs you by the neck, leaving its fingerprints in the most violent way, you’re going to find that attractive. You would moan in short lived pleasure at its hickeys of so much high, with resentment marching closely behind a few moments later. The same kind of resentment you might feel for yourself the day after you spend the night at that same toxic ex’s apartment. But oh, the damn high. It is a much more fulfilling thing to experience than the resentment.

And then it’s a few months after your 18th birthday. You’re slumped against the wall, in the corner of your friend’s off-campus residence half present, half gone. This is one of the times you muttered, just one more drag. Valid for the best dopamine source you’ve had in all your 18 years. Slowly, one became two and three and you remembered you should stop now, but oh- the high. The fucking high. The euphoria kept you going. Each time, much higher than the last, much elated than the last.

Every time you find yourself swimming in this pool of euphoria, you’re going to ask addiction to save you from drowning one more time. No, not in a panic. Because you know it’ll always come. Addiction will watch you slowly drown, smile with the kind that doesn’t reach its eyes before it takes you in its arms. And it’ll whisper words of hurt you’ll find utmost comfort in. “I didn’t sign up to ruin your life. I’m just promising to make this night easier.” And everything will feel lighter, less heavy, less choking, because you’re in the arms of the person you trust to always to carry you back to shore. Every. Single. Time.

Perhaps 14 is you right now, or 18.

Maybe yours isn't weed, maybe it is. Maybe it isn't alcohol, maybe it is. Maybe it's the validation that decides whether today was a good day. Maybe it’s porn. Maybe it's the relationship you keep returning to. Maybe it's perfection. Whatever it is, addiction doesn't care what form you choose. It only cares that you keep choosing it. Either way, you don’t just ‘grow’ out of it if you never face it. And you don’t just ‘stop’.

You can’t outrun something that has walked, played and dined with you. Because it learns you. It studies you and how to become a part of you, of your daily routines. It ingrains itself in your mind till it fills your every thought. Till you start to make excuses for it, for why you love it in all the forms it has ever showed up in your life. For why you love something that ruins you so much. For why you love your addiction more than you love yourself.

You see, in the beginning, I mentioned something about a dopamine hit. Because that’s all that really matters. Addiction doesn’t care much what form you choose of it. It only cares that you keep choosing it. Time and time again. And it’ll whisper to you each time “just one more time. I’ll leave tomorrow”.

P/S: The background song is Labrinth’s and Zendaya’s “I’m Tired”. I had it on repeat while writing this, it’s such a lovely song. This piece is in honor of last month being Mental Health Awareness Month. I wrote this because we might have struggled with this in one form or the other at some points in our lives. Better late than never, I guess. And to everyone genuinely struggling with addiction, you’re not alone, it does get better🫂.

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Also, I know I’ve been away guys. Life became a lot at once and my unintended hiatus took too long but I’m back. I’ve missed writing on here. I’ve missed you guys, I hope you’ve missed reading my work as well, mwahhh.

There was this video where a woman talked about how sometimes, we use all our time to heal and forget to actually live. Everyday we say we’re healing and we forget to live life in the process— the same life that we’re healing for. It was a funny video, it was said in Igbo and I laughed alongside. But it got me thinking: even on the days you decide to live and enjoy the aftermath of your healing, those days would still form part of the healing process.

press play before you keep reading

I use the word aftermath because healing is messy. It’s very far pretty, and it’s not linear.

I’m not about to tell you how best I think you should heal. Because even I do not have a manual. Think of the guide to healing as a scrapbook. Some pages are really beautiful to look at, some pages may be less impressive and other pages are... well, blank.

I like to think there’s no pattern to heal. Because truthfully, there isn’t. While the videos on social media tell you a thousand and one ways that helped them get by faster, they would rarely ever mention the days of inconsistency.

Healing isn’t always kind. It’s cruel on most days, throws out the joy you’ve barely managed to gain into a pit with the most of your traumas. It peels of the scab you’ve managed to form on, leaves you with freshly open wounds and sprinkles a dash of salt to spice it up if it decides to. Each sprinkle, a reopen of memories, a peel of those words of affirmation, a more bare hurt.

There’s only one certain thing I know about healing: Your healing process begins when you decide to actually detach from the hurts and heal. It begins only when you decide you want to.

Someone once told me that healing basically started for them when they decided to drop their ego and put their peace first. I was glad he found that path to his healing, but I disagreed that it was entirely about ego. I remember telling him that some people don’t even get to recognize that they have anything to let go off or to heal from, so it’s never really a matter of ego. What do you think?

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I used to think the concept of healing was a way of brushing off all the real things that people have actually been through. It seemed cruel to just pretend all of it didn’t happen. Perhaps, healing isn’t total erasure of your trauma. It’s being able to remember without the usual pain that would accompany it. It’s being able to watch your inward growth instead of stalling in those experiences.

People often think the word ‘healing’ too heavy, too serious. And maybe it’s okay that it is. We sometimes bottle up so much trauma from our childhood, abuse, hoping it never resurfaces. Break-ups leave us lost in a field of emptiness searching for ourselves again and grief? It leaves us swamped in sands of time and memories we cannot get back. So maybe its okay if it’s serious, because these things matter and they were heavy too.

Of course, we could joke our way through it all in the mean time, as people would suggest. You may use humor as such a capable coping mechanism. But you’d never be able to joke your way into calming the whirlwind that starts in your chest on heavy days.

On the good days, you’d wake up feeling something like normalcy. You wouldn’t feel the sudden travel of acedia through your veins. Your soul would feel less fatigued and maybe more full of life.

On the worse days, you might want to pull your hair from the roots, or it might feel that way at least. You would want to scream but your vocals would be weary and produce a deafening silence instead. You might bed rot, dissociate from your present and everything might seem messy in the moment. I ask you not to be harsh on yourself on those days because it’s part of a process.

So darling, maybe it’s time to let go of some of these hurts so you can watch your seed of peace sprout. It will never be easy I tell you, but it is worth it. You would fall in love with yourself over and over again when you do.

I hope you recognize the need to let yourself heal.

And whatever trauma it is that you’re deciding to heal from irrespective of how long it has been, it’s okay to take time if you wish to. It’s completely okay to break down on some days even when you feel like you’re fine. You’d just hope with time, your good days are more than your worse days. And that even on both days, you’d remember to live life in the process.

Because if not anything, you deserve to actually live .

P/S: The background song is Lloyiso’s ‘Seasons’. I was listening to it when I began typing out this piece. It did help me get through letting go of someone, something that meant so much to me and it might sit with you too. Also, some of these lines here are bits and pieces of my journal entries. Love you all mwahhh.

with as Afam and as Kaima

Afam

It’s 11:46 p.m. The pitter-patter of raindrops fills the silence in the room, somehow echoing the things left unsaid between us.

Jacob Banks’ Black N White plays in the background. I watch you slowly pour coffee into the mug I got for you last Valentine’s. It has been your favorite mug ever since.

My eyes follow the trail of your hands. They are steady. Steady like they always are whenever you cup my face and leave a gentle peck on my forehead. Except this time, they’re steady from trying so hard not to be shaky. It was your outward expression of being angry or tense —your shaky hands.

And now, you’re having coffee at almost midnight to avoid falling asleep beside me like you always do— avoid.

I think this might have been our biggest fight yet. We always agree to disagree, but this time, it wasn’t something within our power to fix.

Kaima

The Cavemen’s Me You I serenades the wind in the room and the clock reads 11:49 p.m. I could feel your eyes roaming over every motion of mine as I poured the coffee earlier. I’m sipping it now, seated on the chair across from the mocha-brown desk.

My eyes catch the letter I wrote you last Valentine’s. Its head peeks out atop your fridge, possibly collecting dust. My mind drifts back to how the first thing you pointed out that day was that I hadn’t told you I loved you.

You said the letter was beautiful, but everyone else was telling their partners they loved them — why did I find it so difficult to say?

I did say it, though.

In the over 1,200-word letter I specifically learned cursive for, because you said you loved reading things in cursive. I said it when I made sure the letter got to you at 7 a.m., even while I was miles across the country in a different state. Because you loved reading things better in the morning.

I did say it.

But you were somewhat obsessed with repeating that three-word phrase time and time again. Until it became the sound of a dancing mosquito around my ear on a hot, dark evening.

Afam

It’s 11:52 p.m. The rain pours viciously, as though it intends to wear off the faded crimson-colored roof. I watch you raise your coffee to your lips, the only pair I ever want on mine.

The subtle scent of petrichor lingers more intensely tonight, rising together with the acrid taste of tension between us. It reminds me of our first minor fight — the one where I was “too much.”

I was working on my project when your call came in that evening. I picked up on the second ring, but not before noting mentally that you would usually be studying at that time. Something had to be wrong.

Your voice sounded numb, devoid of enthusiasm. I asked if you were okay. Twice.

“They’re getting divorced,” you said flatly. Your parents.

We were seated on my bed a few minutes later, after I threw on some clothes to come get you from the class you usually studied in.

You talked, ranted, vented. I listened. I held you as the sobs poured out until you said you “needed space.”

I understood. I gave you space while checking in every five minutes, trying to do something to make you cheer up.

You cheered up, then went silent for so long.

So I thought your quiet meant irritation. It was in the way I watched you the next morning, cautious, as if bracing for a reprimand I never voiced.

I loved the way I could love — hands lingering, words clinging — until the closeness pressed against my ribs and you called me “too much.”

I like to think you didn’t mean it. But for the rest of that day, we were louder than the raindrops beating against the roof.

Kaima

I glance at the ticking wall clock above that frame I detest so much. It’s your favorite photo of us, but I never really liked it. I wonder if you knew, or if you just chose to ignore it.

The clock reads 11:54.

I have never wished for time to pass as much as I have today. I just want the day to be over — your lingering gaze, the stupid rain, the bad energy between us sizzling like the pause before something irreversible.

I wish you wouldn’t talk about it. I want to get it over with.

This event, I can tell, isn’t the reason for our fight.

Imagine a leaking tap. Drop by drop. Slowly. Until the bucket is full. This fight has been a long time coming. With you always wanting to talk and me never wanting to.

I said you were too much that day. I hadn’t meant it. Or maybe I had.

I just can’t with you some of the time. You’re this… this walking nerve. Everything hits you. Everything.

You never want to let anything slide. You hide your insecurities behind “communicating.” Half the time, you’re just trying to quiet the chaos in your own head — your scattered thoughts, your restless fears. You always need reassurance. And even with how much I love you, I have never quite understood this.

That certain day some four weeks ago had been no different.

Your friend died. Our friend died.

You cried like I had died, mucus staining the black shirt I gifted you last Christmas because you mentioned it was your favorite streetwear brand. My bank account dried up with that debit alert, but I didn’t care because it was for you.

You think I don’t care. But I do.

You think I didn’t cared when I heard Ayo was finally gone? We were both there when his mom called. I picked that call. The phone slipped from my hand, landing on the red carpet. You noticed, like you always do. You put the phone on speaker.

She cried. You cried.

I lowered myself onto the bed, pinching my wrist, wishing the tears would just fall. I wondered how it was so easy for you to fall apart — the tears, the collapse.

You asked why I was so calm.

Calm?

If the hollowing in my chest and the burning in my throat is what calm is, I don’t think I ever want to be calm.

Afam

You stare at the clock for several minutes. It’s a few minutes to Valentine’s Day.

My mind wanders to the letter I hand-wrote you, the one I automated to be emailed at midnight, the gifts I hand-crafted for you.

Then back to our reality. The fact that our argument ended with you saying, “We… this cannot work anymore,” before everything went blurry and dead silent.

I would be lying if I said I hadn’t seen it coming.

Most of our discussions this past week revolved around me moving— leaving our university to start school at another one. You loved it for me, and I know you worried about us, but you managed to brush it aside.

And that’s the problem.

You loved my success more than you hated the distance it would create.

Why are you concealing how much you worry about us? How much you would miss me? Why can’t you reach for me? Yearn for me? Scream like the live bands and tell me you want me to stay?

Because I want to stay.

To be with you.

To forfeit the scholarship just to be with you, if you asked.

Kaima

I remember the day you confirmed it. I had just sat on my favorite plush chair in the corner of your off-campus room when you announced those dreadful words that will forever haunt me.

You were leaving. Leaving.

You were going to leave me.

The words cooled in the air as my gaze rested on you, silently praying it was one of your stupid pranks. But it wasn’t.

Your passport and flight ticket lying next to the beverage containers on your small fridge were enough proof. A reminder of what I once had but was already losing.

I wanted to scream at you to stay.

To be with me. To not abandon me in this godforsaken country.

To suffer with me. To build with me.

Survive with me.

The words swelled in my throat, desperate for release.

Your flight is scheduled for tomorrow morning. How could you leave on a day we were supposed to spend together? A day for lovers.

We should have been sleeping, saving your strength for the journey ahead. Instead, we were drowning in silence.

When did we become these… people? The kind who sit three feet apart and cannot reach each other. Why can’t we even communicate properly? Were we always like this?

And just as though our playlist feels the depth of our silence, Rihanna’s ‘STAY’ blares softly from the speaker. You’re staring at me now with those predictable eyes. You want me to beg. You want me to give you a reason to stay.

I want that too… but I’m sorry. I can’t.

I’m happy for you. I swear I am. Somewhere beneath the anger and sadness, there is pride. You got your escape. You got a chance to leave this place that eats people alive.

I would never stand between you and your success. Never.

I will never forgive myself if I do.

I know you would stay if I asked. You would cancel the trip. Tear it up. Pretend it was never booked.

You want to hear those words: “Stay.” But I love you too much to do that. My love for you is greater than my need to have you by my side.

And that’s why I ended it.

Five seconds before Valentine’s Day.

You haven’t stopped staring. It’s frightening now— the way your eyes search my face for a switch to undo this. I fiddle with my fingers, the urge to reach across the room for your soft palms, burning through me by the second.

The clock strikes 12:00. Finally.

Happy Valentine’s, my love.

Thank you for reading guysss, xoxo Chimdi and chi.

Then I had such an interesting series of conversation with someone I met last week. It ranged from personality types to hot takes on performative Christianity to the mask of indifference in our generation— the younger generation. As I said, it was an interesting series of conversation. It got me thinking how people rarely have conversations that struggle to etch in your memory anymore, hence the title of this piece.

you should definitely hit play before you continue.

I’ve seen some posts on the art of conversation here and they’re so lovely. One talks about how what is really sexy is a real conversation. Another talks about how conversation is the most intimate thing because you walk away with their thoughts, a real piece of them. So no, I’m not about to tell you why conversation is important or how to have a great conversation. But there’s a kind of intimacy that forms when you have deep conversations with people you may or may not get to see again. The kind of intimacy you have with someone you had a brief but insane connection with, that’s the kind this is about.

Sit with me for a bit, let me tell you about a certain day in October of 2023.

At a preparatory class I attended for an exam, I got to class this day to find out that the class had been cancelled in reverence of the public holiday of the day before. I was pissed thinking about how it was my fault that I had spent unnecessary money on transport because I didn’t check the class group the previous day. I decided to spend the two hours designated to the class re-reading the book I had with me: Michelle Obama’s ‘Becoming’.

Well, except our teacher was very concerned as to why I showed up to class.

I began ranting about how not having my own phone at the time (secondary school strict parenting type shit) made it hard to keep with class updates. He laughed and asked why I was so angry about it.

And what I thought was my answer to a question, became a conversation. And then we talked for hours.

From laying off strict rules that made absolutely no sense to how different he explained life and freedom would be in university. We went from analyzing the football matches of that season to stupid gender roles that both agreed were pointless. We argued back and forth as to my take on not believing in love at the time and him countering that with the multiple interesting people he had seen in love.

Somehow, to prove his point on love, he opened up in passing as to why he had cut his full hair the previous week and I was in awe. He mentioned how he loves to keep his full hair(he’s partly Nigerian and Italian) does it in empathy every time his wife has to routinely shave her hair for chemotherapy. Then he goes on and on about how beautiful the love of his life is, how he wished the cancer picked him instead so she wouldn’t have to go through so much pain. And with a certain glowing sadness in his eyes, he mentions how he loved her before, through it and would love her forever till the ends of the earth.

We talked so much that for the first time, I saw through the mask of the ‘cool teacher’ he had on during classes. A tear almost slipped out my eye at that moment. He was the kind of teacher that encouraged the best version of yourself, the kind that told old, gold stories that make your belly hurt from laughing so much as he taught. The kind of teacher who you couldn’t just dislike even when he’d so brutally critic your essays. He reminded me of Dead Poets’ Society’s Mr. Keating.

I haven’t seen him again after the duration for that class elapsed. But sometimes, I think about that moment, whisper a prayer for them and wonder if she finally beat cancer. If he’s still teaching, if they’re both happier, and if they both never have to cut their hair again.

I think most beautiful thing about intimacy in conversations isn’t how you allow the vulnerability when it comes. It’s how all of it heals a part of something you might have never known needed healing. Your inner child, your bruised ego, a certain realization that should have come sooner or an advice that you might have brushed off if you heard it as one of those regular sayings.

That strangely right artistic symmetry you feel with people you meet briefly almost always stems from the conversations you have with them. Conversation has never just been an exchange of words or ideas. At least in this certain intimacy we speak about, it is the shared thoughts that leave you replaying those moments over and over again. It is the rawest intimate act that fuels brief human connections.

I largely feel that the depth that comes with intimate conversations lies heavily on listening and subsequent curiosity. It is the question that follows when they tell you about that distinct moment of their childhood. It’s the question that trails when you notice their eyes light up when they mention something they love doing.

So when I refer to how the intimacy of conversation is dying, I do not just mean talk over talk. I refer to the reassurance that emerges from holding eye contact when they’ve just mentioned something heavy, the shared awkward laughter when something in passing catches both your eyes. I speak of the loud, quiet silence that thrives as the wind breezes over your hair pores simultaneously. I speak of the intimacy of knowing that the person in front of you listens and even if they don’t understand, in that moment, they try to and that’s what matters.

Perhaps, the intimacy of conversation is what makes moments like those full without being forever. It is so lovely that the conversation happens in the moment not knowing how long it would last.

There is so much beauty in how intimate these moments feel and how brief life can makes them get. It is in how you replay these conversations over randomly at 2am, wishing they had lasted longer, thinking about what it would be like if you see them again. It’s in how you see someone that looks like them and recall the bits and pieces of the conversation in details. It’s in the ache to reach out if you could, to find out how they’re doing. And with the hope that life has been treating them well.

Because even in fleeting moments, the weight of a conversation stays. It always will. It would be lovely to hear about conversation depths have you had with the most random people that left you replaying thoughts at 2:44am.

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P/S: The background song is Yana’s ‘Beautiful’ which I discovered recently and has been on my repeat ever since, it’s so so lovely. I especially love the ‘all of it is beautiful’ part. As always, thank you for reading.✨ You can read the first part below. Love love you all, mwah.

I saw a video on Instagram of a guy who graduated from a university in the UK with a degree in Visual Arts and Studies and stellar grades. His parents however refused to attend his graduation. They didn’t congratulate him or acknowledge his degree. Why? He left ‘their dreams’ of him becoming a medical doctor to chase what he has a genuine passion for: Art.

A part of my heart lost color when I saw that video.

He tried to look so happy with his years of hard work, his efforts, finally achieving what he really wanted for himself. And he really was happy. But it genuinely hurt that your own parents would decide to not have anything to do with you again because you didn’t follow their career path.

I have a hypothesis. Stay with me now.

Some parents spend years loving the version of their children that exists in their heads. When their child doesn’t evolve to embody that version fully, they get really disappointed. Then we realize a part of their love was conditional all along.

The condition is simple: I love you as the child of mine I want you to be, not as the person you’re morphing into. Quite pathetic if you asked me.

I had a conversation with someone once. I saw his artworks of years ago and they were so beautiful, I asked him why he doesn’t draw anymore. He brushed it off and said time. I waited a few seconds for him to tell me the real reason. Because ‘lack of time’ isn’t why someone completely stops doing what they love. He said he stopped drawing after secondary school because his parents thought it was a huge distraction to the medical path they wanted him to take on.

We talked back and forth, and he said he understands them now. It was from a place of ‘love’ and they didn’t mean any harm. He said I’d probably understand later. I didn’t agree with it. Perhaps, I’d come back to tell you if I comprehend that analogy later, but for now, I simply don’t.

I get that as a child, he decided it was better to follow what his parents said and I completely respect that. What I don’t understand is; as a parent, you couldn’t look at his artworks, admire and appreciate your son’s passion while still encouraging his medical career.

I don’t know what pisses me off more: that some parents do not consider what their children would rather do in life or that they do not bother to have conversations around these ‘dreams’ they have for them.

Honestly, almost half of the people studying some courses really don’t want to be there. They study it because they need their parents’ financial support through school and would rather rebel when they are more financially stable.

I knew someone that didn’t like getting on calls with her mum because it almost always translates into a fight. Her mum would remind her almost on every call how she would never be called ‘Mama nurse’ because she decided to ‘waste’ her time doing architecture. It sounds so crazy to me that her mother’s worry was how she wouldn’t be able to brag about the course her daughter studies. Make it make sense please?

It is heart-wrenching to understand that a parent chooses their image over the well-being and happiness of their child.

If your argument is that some parents mean well, I understand that, really. I have heard people say they’re grateful for their parents’ advice on a part of their life. And that’s the key word: advice, not a mandate. It is in their obligation to guide their children in the path they feel is right for them.

But I do not understand reducing another human’s dreams— your child’s in fact, to the part of you that wanted to exist so bad. It’s selfish.

I saw a comment under a post talking about parental control on Instagram too. It read something like ‘If my parents ever make me choose between my life’s fulfillment and what they want, I’d gladly choose the former.' And I’m genuinely thinking, as a parent, why are you making your child choose between their dreams and your convenience in the first place? And to the extent of cutting ties with them because they aren’t the continuation of what you wanted for yourself?

I was going to attribute the title of this article to African parents, but it’s really universal. I think about young people that are required to live the legacy of their parents, follow strict rules of taking on their family business and how desiring anything different would label you ‘problematic’. There’s so many instances I could give, but it would be wholesome to see them from your lens.

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So that being said,

we’d very much like to morph into our own individuals. Because young people are whole humans, with dreams just like parents have. We do not want to be finished products of someone else, frankly speaking. It’s exhausting to grow up knowing part of your worth is measured by how well you’re able to mirror the people that gave birth to you. It’s beyond exhausting.

If this is your current struggle, you will morph. You’d find your fulfillment and you will be happy. I hope you’ll feel less exhausted when you choose your dreams. You’d let loose those ropes, spread your beautiful butterfly wings and appreciate the pretty flowers you’ve always wanted to see.

P/S: The background song is “To Build a Home” by The Cinematic Orchestra, Patrick Watson. The song title resonates so much. The intro phrase is an excerpt from Khalil Gibran’s book, “The Prophet” that I discovered when I read this lovely piece on parental control. As always, thank you for reading✨

My friend sent a snap a few days before last year ended, ranting about how he couldn’t find his air pods at home. Knowing how much he loves listening to music, I proceeded to rant along with him because as a fellow music lover, I would have also felt irritated. When I texted him two days later to ask if he had found it. He hadn’t. He said he had accepted what it came to be— that it possibly got lost. “I’ve grieved it and I’m over it now”.

This statement led to the conversation we had on the first day of this year that really stuck. I told him I wouldn’t know how to let go of the air pods in my case and I admire how it was somewhat easy for him. He said it’s better to have just felt all the frustration at once, that he would move on better afterwards. We went back and forth, shuffling opinions between allowing yourself to feel and shutting things out.

Alas, he told me, ‘I’m really rooting for you to learn to feel more this year, and not just block them out.’

I thought about it, like really thought about it.

The fact that we as humans are able to feel is just lovely.

Sometimes you can put a name to it. Other times you do not understand what you feel, but you sit with it anyway. I think feelings are so beautiful because no one tells you how best to feel them. Yes, as humans, certain emotions may be universal. But it would never be the same intensity and depth in different situations.

I like to think everything is art somehow. Including feeling, and embodying it. And just the way you admire art, I like to admire when people who allow themselves to genuinely feel their emotions. Maybe admiration alone isn’t enough and I need to learn to embody it too.

From admiring, I have learnt to understand that sometimes, it extends beyond just feeling to what you do with those feelings.

Imagine being in a pool, floating against one of those foam floater things, enjoying the warm breeze liven your pores while you relax. You would definitely know when your body feels off-balance, when you’re about to sink, and you would adjust. That’s what feeling all your emotions make you: more self-aware to be able to control the situation at hand. You allow yourself to feel and still know how and when to act on those feelings, it’s a beautiful concept.

People who have learnt to be brutally stoic overtime tend to block out some or all of the ‘noise’, like I used to. I imagine it— all of the noise, marching back into a tiny room when it is rejected and piling up there. Until the room becomes too full and the door can’t shut tight any longer, so it all bursts open at its loudest frequency. Your elastic limit, a breaking point for you basically.

You may have blocked out the noise in the meantime, but it would all come back louder. I do not say this because it is obvious in the very least, I say it from experience. All the emotions you’ve quieted would become rebellious teenagers and decide to throw a wild party in your head. Imagine how messy the aftermath of that party would look. That’s exactly what you would feel for that period: shitty, overwhelmed, exhausted from holding it all in.

Sometimes, maybe the noise is necessary to recognize and appreciate silence. Maybe your feelings are to be felt so you’ll understand yourself better and appreciate when the need to be stoic when it comes.

And this doesn’t just apply to painful emotions. Shunning off your other emotions slowly dulls off those excited, happy, enthusiastic feelings. I saw a post that read something like “the problem with thinking that nothing can make you sad is that nothing also makes you happy”.

It is not that you do not feel these emotions, you’ve shut it out for so long so you’ve forgotten how to. And when they show up again, you don’t know what to do with them.

That’s how my birthday felt last year. It was full of so so much love. I was outwardly happy, grateful, emotional—but I didn’t actually feel the happiness, the love, the sweetness of my friends. Instead, there was this inward overwhelm I couldn’t explain.

Re-reading all the birthday letters and texts after that convo with my friend made me so full of emotions. I felt whatever came with it, and for real this time. I realized life is so much fuller when you experience your feelings in real time, than over-analyzing it later on.

I think most of us are scared of being seen as ‘weak’. Because if you laugh when you’re happy, why don’t you easily admit at least to yourself, when you’re sad?

It’s okay to feel. And to admit to yourself that this is what you feel because it doesn’t make you weak. Just human.

I’m glad this is the first newsletter for the year. Let’s feel all our feelings this year.

Allow yourself to really love the people you love. To grieve, to be sad. To feel happy, to be scared at some points. To cry if you need to. Perhaps, my friend was right, it’s the better way to live and I’ll give feeling in the moment a better-aimed shot this year. I think everyone truly should, it’s really wonderful.

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P/S: I wrote most of this while listening to Harry Styles’ Sign of the Times. The line “why are we always stuck and running from your bullets?” just resonated. I think of “we” as all the versions of ourselves, and “your bullets” as our emotions that are always chasing us, whether we face them or not. As always, thank you for readingggg!✨

I heard the theme song of a particular cartoon play on the television. Part of the lyrics were something about ‘we are friends and forever we’ll be’ . It made me chuckle, and think about how deeply different friendship feels right now. Slowly, this piece started putting itself together in my head.

Childhood friendships were so simple. We went to the same school, we lived close to each other, we liked to play the same games, so we were friends. Our parents visited each other, so we did too and it was enough to term it friendship. In less elaborate terms, it was pretty simple.

Proximity was the deal for friendships back then and the simplicity was beautiful. The innocence of not knowing details of any kind and just being happy, talking and playing into the evening as children.

As we got older though, friendships became more defined. You were drawn to the people who related with you more, who you had similar vibes with and vice versa. In teenage years, friendship circles were built around activities you engaged in together, opinions from school drama and somewhat proximity as well. You would care less about whether your parents are friends and you’d focus more on finding your people— those that compliment your person.

Growing into adulthood however changed some of the dynamics of these friendships.

You outgrew some friends without any drama. Most times, it wasn’t because of any specific fallout, maybe they were just meant to be friends for that phase of life. Other times, you may have had minor but significant issues that came with the realization that you were not for each other. The ones who stayed however, who you get to go through the rest of life’s *shege with, became so precious, you wouldn’t wish for anything better.

I think about the friends I have right now, and how I wouldn’t trade them for anything else, ever. Oftentimes, I think of how it might be in the future. Whether it would still be similar to what it is now, perhaps with distance as a more significant barrier and our lives unfolding in our different individual paths.

I think less about it now because there’s something my friend told me last week, ‘If I love you, I’m affiliated to YOU, not your school, not your location, not your life happenings, just YOU first then everything follows right after’. And maybe this would be the notion guiding our friendship in the much later phase of adulthood, when life becomes survival and the silence on those busy days becomes a representation of intimacy.

Because in adult years, friendship exists even on days there is silence, because the “we don’t talk everyday” kind of silence signals understanding. Life gets overwhelming, everyone’s life gets a bit messier, a bit more complicated and structured, which leaves less time for the small talk we used to enjoy as teenage friends. Days of silence would be made up for by long hours of catch-up talks, dinners, planned hang outs and intentional acts of love.

The little details like ‘what are you doing rn?, what series are you currently watching?’, matter less now because you care more about how they are genuinely faring. The kind of love that blossoms in adulthood friendships comes with effort. Friendship in adulthood means regardless of how messy it all gets, you choose them over and over again. It’s no longer what happens by proximity, it’s intentional and the bond you share strengthens and adjusts to it all.

It’s in calling a friend when you feel exhausted, and not needing to explain the tears. It’s in sitting with you in silence over the phone because they understand. It’s in celebrating the little wins together, carrying your proud moments on their head, like theirs. It’s in making life’s lemonades together, staying long enough to make it less sour when the lemons come.

Thinking about friendships in the different stages of life there are makes me realize that often times, the dynamics that come with certain concepts are a necessary part of growth. Adulthood friendships thrive on effort and grace because the path gets rocky along the way. It is hard. You’d learn that as much as you try to show up physically for your friends, on some days you really can’t. You would have to sit with that reality and give both parties grace even when it becomes the other way round. It’s genuinely worth enjoying.

How different do you think your friendships are now from what they used to be?

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P/S: This has been sitting in my drafts for about a week now because I wanted it to be the ‘perfect messy’ appreciation for all the friendships we’ve been a part of this year. The background song is Justin Bieber’s and Tems’ “I think You’re Special” because each one of these friendships is so special. As always, thank you for reading!✨

*shege: A Nigerian slang commonly used to describe tough situations, overwhelming stress or hardship(inserts crying emoji)

I randomly remembered a theme discussion we had at a book club I attend some months ago. The theme was “Liminality”. It was the first time I had heard the word and its meaning immediately intrigued me. In this context, liminality is the state of transition or an in-betweenness, mostly experienced during significant life changes. It sent me down a rollercoaster of thoughts I’ve never considered penning down until recently.

There’s so much about transitioning from one state of life to another that people leave unsaid. Nobody talks about how hard it’s going to get in that state of moving from one point in life to another. In that transient state where it would just be you and your thoughts filled with so much uncertainty.

Think of it as being in an elevator, but you do not know which direction it is headed. You know you’ve left where you were before and you’re currently heading to a different floor, but you’re unsure how long it will take to get there and what you’d meet when you get there. That’s what a liminal space would feel like physically.

There’s too many of these ‘in-betweens’ people leave out when telling you about the tough parts of life. For instance, they may tell you that after graduating secondary school, not everyone would find themselves in tertiary institutions immediately. But they would leave out the part where you would feel particularly empty and confused at some point before you find that next floor. They would also leave out the quite heart-ache of suppressing the feeling that life is moving on without you, while seeing your former classmates build their lives in uni.

They would tell you being an adult is hard, so you should enjoy your childhood, but they won’t tell you about wanting independence while not being adult enough to afford housing, so you’re technically still under your parent’s roof. They would tell you to stretch and expand your options that “the universe isn’t on a budget”. But nobody talks about the space between deciding if your ambition for what you really want should outweigh your desire to follow the structure of growth everyone is used to. Another in-between.

As common as these liminal spaces are, we barely recognize them. They show up when you’ve decided your partner isn’t worth your time and efforts, but you’re still debating how you would go on without them. When you’re slowly leaving the phase where relatives tell you to focus on your studies rather than relationships to the phase where they start talking about ‘settling down’ and having a partner. That liminal space becomes a battle ground for your thoughts and emotions. The teeny little space that will serve as a bridge till you finally heal and choose yourself.

A quiet space perhaps.

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But these in-betweens would be loud sometimes.

Like when you’ve decided you’re tired of merely surviving but you’re really not sure how exactly you want to live yet. That uncertainty creates the rowdiest transition space in your mind, similar to the one you would have in the space between graduating from university and finding a balance in the actual workplace or with what you want out of life.

I think the messiest liminal spaces grow between vital points in life we struggle to give a name to. It’s sort of what exists between losing your shit and keeping it all together. Between holding so much faith in God and questioning life when it gets tough. In these spaces, you would sit with and by yourself, because explaining it to someone else would shrink the space, make it tighter, more suffocating.

Recently, in the regular routine of viewing stories, I noticed some of my classmates that haven’t posted in ages since graduation began posting again. I lowkey did the same thing when I was in that space too, and I didn’t even realize it. Because when you sort of find a footing, life seems to be easing back into normalcy— a definite floor since getting off the last one.

And I was glad. Really glad.

Then again, I was reminded that nobody talks about these in-betweens because they are the spaces only WE get to fill up and witness. We often tend to not share it because they’re our struggle spaces, our foot-finding spaces.

Funnily, we’re all in the same space at once sometimes. We don’t know it because we leave it unsaid. And even crazier, one in-between intersects with many other liminal spaces of different aspect of our lives. Now that we’re deciding not to leave it unsaid, what in-betweens have you been in without realizing?

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P/S: I wrote a part of this while listen to Ayra Starr’s ‘In Between’ (because it partly inspired this piece) . However, the background song is Bon Iver’s ‘Holocene' because it felt like a liminal space while listening to it. As always, thank you for readingggg✨

I hesitated on finishing this piece, I didn’t know if it was relatable enough. But when I read 's ‘People you love in theory’, something sparked and I felt compelled to share it.

There are people you meet that feel less like strangers and more like an intersection; a familiar road cross at a junction perhaps.

It’s like when light rays hit a scattered surface and are reflected in such a way that they cross paths, only to continue in their own directions. Meeting them doesn’t not feel like longing. There is just this strangely right artistic symmetry you feel with them.

My friends would often ask me how I was always talking about deep stuff with the most random people, and honestly, I didn’t know how. There was just always a click, a spark that doesn’t start a fire and for the right reasons.

Somehow, there is so much beauty in these brief but real human connections. I often think I overthink it sometimes. Replaying the conversations in my head, not necessarily missing the person in a longing kind of way, but the feeling of that intersection.

The side of them I got to meet.

The moment shared.

And sometimes, the quiet question of why it couldn’t have lasted longer.

Remembering them is kind of hearing a familiar distinct fine jazz tune that takes you back to a very specific night. A night you know, as beautiful as it was, had to end because stretching into into the day takes away the fascination.

I think I carry a small archive of these kinds of connections in my head. People I shared moments with that meant a lot in real time and still do when I think about them. Not in an “I miss you” way. More in a “I wonder what they’re up to now, how life is treating them, what their recent read is” kind of way.

And I had been thinking about one of them recently. The one that happened in just two days. Two days of art, books, long walks, and conversations that felt strangely layered for such a short time. We spoke about the most random things with so much intensity — his law journey, my medical school ordeal, creativity, crazy spontaneous experiences, life. He admired my art— my writing, the way my mind worked, my style. I admired the way his mind moved, how smartly he spoke, his spontaneity. It never felt romantic. It felt like two curious minds rubbing against each other briefly before drifting apart.

In the two days before my departure, our individual morning routines sort of merged, and we took 6 a.m. walk-outs together, talking as we caught our breath. Spent the evenings exchanging fragments of our worlds and views on various ideologies, watching the moon fully take over the sky.

We may have stepped outside the boundaries of thought, knowing it was the last time we’d see, with the full moon as a silent witness. Words fell away, and for some minutes, closeness spoke in its own quiet language. Breaths meeting in a way that lingered just a little longer than it needed to. It happened almost like something meant for the moment, perhaps for the plot. We spoke a little after I had left, in fragments. Until one day, we simply didn’t anymore. We wouldn’t see each other again and we both knew. And life as it always does, continued.

Somehow, life makes us appreciate depth over duration. Another happened to be someone I met a little after secondary school, while studying for the same exam, taking classes together, tired laughter in between sessions. We talked a lot about what more there was to us asides classes. I got to know he was done with uni, an upcoming artist still trying to find his balance with producing music. I remember he had thanked me for helping through that ‘trying’ time of his life. I didn’t even know I did that by just listening and conversation, but I was glad. He left me a note with his number that said “Call me if you ever need help.” I laughed it off, I didn’t have a phone then so the last thing I remember telling him was that we’d see again when life permits.

Curiosity got the better of me recently, so I checked his Instagram page.

24k followers.

Interviews, live performances, so much growth and I felt subtly proud.

Not because I was part of his journey (I wasn’t). It’s because I got to see the version of him he’s now able to share with other people. I listened to his music, I still do, they are in my playlists. But I didn’t reach out. I didn’t think it necessary, maybe it’s one of the beauty in brief connections.

I think moments can be full without being forever. Like how I got to listen to one of my juniors in secondary school tell me about how difficult everything was for her at that point. She cried. I felt bad I couldn’t do much more to help her than hold her hand, listen and give her the big-sister advice I could. Some days, I would check in on her. Other days, it would be a smile or a wave from across the hall. When I was graduating, she was so happy for me, then sad I was leaving and I remember telling her everything will get better with time and she’ll feel like herself again. I sometimes wonder where she is now, if she’s happier, more confident, if her spark has returned brighter.

Maybe that’s what they really are: moments that pass through our lives, complete in themselves. I’ve always believed some people aren’t meant to stay, some shape a part of us and vice-versa and that’s lovely in itself. Again, moments can be full without being forever. I think it’s such an amazing concept, an art even.

I could write a second, third, multiple parts to this topics (there’s a lot in my imaginary archive) but I’d love to hear about your interactions that were brief but felt deep too. People who you do not keep in touch with but you somehow would never forget.

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P/S: I wrote a major part of this while listen to Olivia Dean’s ‘A Couple Minutes’. So I decided to use the insert sound feature so you could also listen while reading. Thank you for reading✨

Partly because every time I come online, open one social media app or another, it’s graced with sad news — news of pedophilia, rape, sexual abuse. Sometimes I want to say it’s tiring, but then I imagine how exhausting it must be for the victims and their families.

Tiring in the same way you probably heaved a sigh when you read that first paragraph, “Not this topic again.”

But yes, this topic yet again.

Because every time I scroll through a post, there’s always that one silly comment; someone mocking victims or defending perpetrators. I can’t tell if it’s because these people hide behind a screen or if this is truly how people think.

So, in the middle of my soliloquy, I decided to make it a post.

There’s something deeply wrong with us as a society.

There always has been, but it feels like we’re now at the peak of everything that could be wrong and we urgently need to do better.

These ills will keep happening if we don’t keep talking about them.

Change starts from the little things.

We need to sensitize our children and young people and stop shrinking girlhood for the convenience of men.

Parents tirelessly warn their daughters to ‘be good’ , ‘stay away from everything’, ‘avoid here and there’, ‘don’t breathe too hard so you don’t attract predatory stares’ yet rarely teach their sons to respect women, to know they have no right their bodies or to see them as objects.

We need to stop sexualizing every little thing and making women feel uncomfortable for simply existing confidently.

We need to stop silencing children who speak up about abuse, especially when the abuser is a “respected” adult.

We need to stop protecting and making excuses for perpetrators.

People rarely fear consequences because enablers and excuses have made impunity feel normal.

And we must stop turning the fight for justice into gender wars. it’s unnecessary and distracting. Males and females get abused.

The law may have failed us, but we cannot fail ourselves.

We must fight better for justice because it’s always one of our own and stop terming it “noise”.

It’s crazy sad how we scroll past pain like it’s just another post. It’s almost as though we’ve become so used to tragedy that empathy is now termed “doing too much”.

But truthfully, indifference is a quiet form of complicity and we can’t keep acting like it doesn’t affect us.

We can all do better.

As adults in a seemingly sane society, you can do better even if you weren’t raised with the greatest mentality.

Stop the sexual jokes, harassment and stop enabling and normalizing it.

And to every survivor still learning how to live again, you’re not alone❤️‍🩹

May the souls of the amazing angels we’ve lost rest in perfect🕊️

Somewhere between getting excited by party packs, stabbing Capri-Sun open with the famous orange straw and walking from lecture hall to lecture hall with the sun as your best friend, you lost it.

Your sanity.

Well, not completely. You still have a part of it, soon to be lost to the rigidity of our education system.

Assemblies in primary school were a way of making our young minds understand order and discipline. We had to get into a straight line, pay attention to the numerous addresses on the assembly ground and march duly back to our classes.

It was simple then.

Until it wasn’t.

In secondary school, you understood the concept of the game when you got a terribly low mark for writing your understanding of a topic.

“Seyi, please can you explain that topic Mr. Obinna taught in class that day?”

“Ah, me I don’t understand it o, I just crammed what was in the textbook abeg”. Seyi took 1st position that term.

Hence, new survival mode unlocked: La cram, la pour.

It became easy again— understand what you could, stuff the rest in your brain the way it was dished to you.

So, it was a slight surprise in university when the game plan shifted subtly.

Attend the important classes— you don’t necessarily have to pay attention. Don’t miss practical. If you have to stay by the door and struggle to hear the lecture, do so. Then mark your attendance afterwards.

For your workbooks and continuous assessment, you tried to fill those out yourself.

“Ah, you dey dull o. Haven’t you seen the CA filler? Copy from there, change some things then submit.”

Once again, you changed your survival mode.

Work smart, not hard. Attendance had to be ticked (by you or not, it mattered not). Continuous assessments had to be submitted, exams had to be written. And you had to pass.

You did pass.

Second class upper.

Your Capri-Sun-obsessed self was proud of you.

Until you got into the real world.

”Didn’t you study computer science? Debug this code the former employee wrote?”

You couldn’t. You had crammed most of the programs the lecturer scribbled on the board.

“Tighten the knob on that ...”

It took you a while to find the knob. The machine looked very different from the one in the textbook.

Your survival mode changed once again. But for the better this time. You had to learn, unlearn and relearn to improve your abilities and experiences.

Because this time, la cram, la pour didn’t save you.

You had to outgrow survival mode— work both smart and hard to get better in the aspects your degree hadn’t spoken for you.

In reality, your ‘education’ started after the certificate you pursued.

And somewhere between walking from one lecture hall to another and working a 9-5, you realized the real world doesn’t reward good memorizers, it rewards efficient problem solvers.

I’ll admit— our generation is softer and probably not as respectful as that of our parents but I do not agree it’s as a result of ‘sparing the rod’. A huge part of the ‘respect’ our parents’ generation had for their elders was rooted in fear because of the way they were disciplined.

Fun fact: The phrase ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’ as most people tend to quote from the Bible isn’t from there. The Book of Proverbs says “He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him”.

The whole point of the message all comes down to disciplining with love in the end. Yet, some people interpret it far too literally. Because honestly, why is anyone using an actual metal rod to hit a child?

I do not entirely dispute the old ways of discipline. Some adults today say it worked for them and maybe on the surface, it did. But at what cost?

It only gets us caught in an unhealthy cycle of generational trauma. We end up creating a generation of adults that grow to resent their parents for being hit at every slightest thing, doubt their worth unconsciously and repeat the same with their children.

It’s quite sad that the other forms of discipline used under gentle parenting is perceived as ‘weak’ and ‘bad’. The idea behind disciplining with love is to discipline them with one hand and draw the closer to you with the other.

If a child doesn’t understand what he or she did wrong, the point of discipline has been defeated completely.

There’s a foundational problem if we think the only way to discipline is physically manhandling a child. And genuinely, what does a one-year-old know about being “wrong”? Why should a cup of milk spilled accidentally earn a reflex beating?

True discipline corrects with love and not fear.

That’s the kind of ‘rod’ that lasts.

On Sundays, I always look forward to the moment the priest says 'Let's offer each other the sign of peace ' because it's simply warm to feel the happiness radiate from their togetherness.

I watch how they move from hugging the people sitting next to them with beaming faces to genuine heartfelt chuckles.

Some would walk three pews backwards or forward to ensure they've hugged as many people as they can, and with the most beautiful smiles.

Most times I catch myself smiling too.

If you've seen an older couple chuckle mid-hug, you know it's impossible not to smile too.

It's as though their joy so rubs off on me that even if I came in tired that morning, peace overshadows my fatigue.

It's slowly starting to become my favourite part of Sundays.

Then in my little space, after offering a hand to a little over the five people seated around me(with everyone my age group having the blandest expressions), I wonder why it's so different with the younger generation, with us.

The handshakes are often so quick, glances so half-baked, you'd think smiling for longer costs us data.

I know older people may not be the happiest. They definitely also bear worries like we all do but maybe they've realized the time we have to spend here is too short to not enjoy every single bit.

I see how they genuinely look out for each other's well-being in the littlest ways— fixing the side of another's dress, waiting for the people sitting innermost to enter in before they do and it's just the most heartfelt thing to watch.

Yet somehow, the caring culture is slowly fading in our generation. Too similar to how a slowly diffusing gas escapes from a room by each passing minute.

It feels like we're suddenly all minding our businesses, caring less, embracing nonchalance and making it out new ‘normal’.

To us younger people, it's okay to care.

It's okay to genuinely do what makes you happy and smile while at it.

So dance with your arms wide if you have to.

Hug your friends like it's the last time you'll ever see them. Tell that random person beside you that their haircut looks good or their hair-do is pretty if you feel like it.

It's not being a suck up like someone once called me(had no idea how complimenting someone I just met was being suck-up but okay).

It's basically keeping the spirit of being genuinely human alive.

And maybe if we choose to care a little longer, we'll slowly bring that warmth back.