Last month, I decided to go on a no rant challenge. What this means is, I lived through last month like I didn’t have any worries and it worked for me. I just kept pretending I was living in the absence of things to worry about and at some point, my mind believed it.

I realized how much I take the blessings that are so freely handed to me by God, my father Almighty for granted.

For every morning I said “thank you Jesus” I truly meant it. Everyday above ground is a blessing as we all love to say, but I truly reveled in the blessing of the gift of waking up last month. Sleep resembles death in an uncanny sense and overcoming sleep every morning is indeed victory over death.

So even on mornings when I had barely gotten three hours of sleep, I said thank you to Jesus and I meant it.

I reveled in the blessing and love of having family to call mine on God’s green earth. These past few months away from home have made me appreciate my family more. My mummy doesn’t go a whole day without calling to check up me. The sister group chat is always buzzing with all the interesting news and a little life challenges here and there, but the words “Love you”remain a constant through all of this.

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So even on days when I’m in a bus on my way home surrounded by people speaking an unfamiliar language, I remember there’s love at home and I’m blessed to have it wrap me in its tender and warm embrace.

I’m thankful that my love for my family doesn’t stem from grief. I’m grateful it’s not love that I do not know where to pour because the recipients are no more. I’m grateful it is not love that is so full in my guts alongside regret because I failed to show any of them how much my heart actually combusts with all these deep beautiful emotions when I think of them. I’m grateful that as I breathe love for them, their lungs can still very much take it in. Love is indeed the greatest of them all.

I’m grateful that I now consider myself worthy to receive love in the measure I give, especially in friendships. Because I love deeply, I struggle to believe others love me because I always measure the love I receive in comparison with how much I am willing to give. Love wasn’t designed to be that way.

So I just don’t believe I am worthy of the best kind of love attainable in friendship, I also now allow myself to sit back and enjoy love in the languages my friends speak. I recognize the blessing that is my girls and less than five boys and I just know that truly, God sees me. For if he didn’t, he wouldn’t send me people that meet me just where I need them at different points of my life and do things to show me just how much I mean to them.

I feel blessed knowing that I will always be brilliant. I see the quality of thoughts people put out there and I just say a silent prayer to God almighty for the brains he gave me. I’m blessed to be able to think— rationally too. To draw solid conclusions on diverse topics. To live in the consciousness that realities exist outside my present reality.

I’m blessed to be able to string words together and evoke emotions from people. To write pieces that allow people live vicariously through me. To allow my mind wander and paint pictures I might only ever see in my mind. I’m blessed to be filled with an understanding of language and just how to use it for the goddess act of self expression.

I’m blessed to be insanely beautiful, inside and outside. I look into the mirror sometimes and truly can’t believe that I’m real. My reflection is proof enough to me that God is a woman and I am a splitting image of God.

My beauty is not fluid. It isn’t dependent on any factor to be seen or acknowledged. It doesn’t require validation from anyone to feel real or true. Doesn’t need any performance to showcase . It just is. It’s there. Inherent to my existence. Synonymous with my being. I just am and beauty is seen. Truly, Mdoom is not a guy name.

I feel blessed to be an all round decent individual. I don’t treat people badly. I don’t wish people evil. Kindness is part of me. Giving is part of who I am. I am empathetic. I am understanding. I do not have to share the same orientation with you to see your point of view or validate your feelings. I’m blessed to be able to give self to the world in this capacity. That people meet me and something is moved in them.

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I’m blessed to have such insane charisma. I look good and I’m also good. My personality is charming—can be loud but nevertheless charming. It’s beautiful. It announces itself. I enter a room and people can’t help but notice light and colour has arrived. I used to rely on people to make me believe this but as I have grown older and become more self aware, I have seen it for myself. I’m a jolly good fellow and I pray life remains kind and colourful for me. May the bleakness that lurks around the world looking for homes to live in never find home in my soul.

I’m blessed with such a resilient spirit. I hate it when people call me strong because I have had to show up strong all my life. Even when I don’t feel it, I fake it. This strength has brought me this far and kept me here. This strength has helped me ace many goals in life and just kept it going even when life refuses to go for me.

I must give all glory to God, the Father Almighty who constantly holds my hands and teaches them to be strong and for the gift of His son, Jesus Christ. For the victory he gave unto me when he conquered death is what carries me through seasons of my life.

I’m blessed to be able to feel deeply. It is indeed one of my strengths. I wear my vulnerability on my sleeve proudly. I’m never ashamed to be vulnerable. For what is life without self expression and what good is it to gather all those feelings in my waist so much so my hip mobility is non existent. (I bet you didn’t know unexpressed feelings make your waist stiff. You’re welcome)

I’m blessed to be able to whine my waist and shimmy my belly in front of a mirror whenever I deem fit. To throw it back and admire my own rhythm. To not just listen to music but experience music too.

I’m grateful to God for abundance of help. I’m truly helped by God. There’s no way I’d have done this year on my own, especially the past few months. God has been mobilizing people to show up for me in different areas of my life. The blessings I have in my hands now, I didn’t go far and beyond to get them. God just sent help to me and I do not take it for granted.

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I feel blessed to know how to love. I’m talking romantic love now. There’s nothing I’ll experience in the hands of a partner that will make me forget how to love or deliberately deny myself the chance to love and be loved. I’m so full of love I might actually combust one day. As a matter of fact, I think after each terrible experience with lovers, I even love deeply when I find another. For love given so freely and truly is never love lost.

So even now, without a romantic partner, there’s still so much love in me ready to be unleashed and poured forth into another and I consider it a blessing to be able to have and hold such feelings.

I feel blessed to still have my innocence intact. The world may be wicked and full of all sorts of things and people, but my outlook on life hasn’t been altered by all of that. My mind is not always imagining the worst case scenario about people or situations. I don’t see life through the lens of a damaged person. I don’t look at life through the lens of someone exposed to the knowledge of good and evil. I’m blessed to be guarded by my mind in this regard.

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I’m blessed to be able to find joy in the little things. Like eating masa and miyan taushe. Watching my nephews smile and say gibberish. Seeing a relatable reel only to discover a friend sent it to me already. Having uninterrupted power supply for a whole day. Rewatching my favorite show— Scandal, hundred times in a year. Reading a book that changes my life forever. Just living life and doing nothing counts as a lot most days.

I’m blessed to have such an amazing sense of humor and a very sarcastic tongue. To be able to come up with corny jokes that annoy my loved ones so much.

I’m just so blessed to be able to recognize how blessed I am. To be able to see life’s beauty and gifts for what they are. To understand the essence of life and try to immerse myself in it. To understand that I live to serve a higher purpose— not in the way motivational speakers say it. I just know there’s so much more I can be. So much in me the world is yet to see. So much potential that can change lives and make people discover their essence too.

I’m so blessed I just had to be born by Iveren, my precious mother. Safe to call me Child of Blessing.

Maybe you should pick up a pen and paper and try to list out all your blessings like I just did and it will surprise you how full your hands are, yet your mind has kept you trapped in a place of constant fear— for what is yet to come and just blurred away all that’s currently here. That’s what people in medicine call short sightedness or is it long sightedness now? Whichever one is correct, just learn to live in the now.

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PS: I started writing this last year but couldn’t finish, the next two lines you read are from then,

I’ve stared at this blank page for like ten minutes now. That’s how I’ve been looking at everything for the past three weeks. Just dazed. I’m done trying to make sense of anything. I’m now just taking each day as it comes, trying to forcefully eject myself from the pit I’m drowning in because sadly, and most necessarily, life must go on.

I had just woken up from a long nap when I saw my mother’s call. I was ill at the time with the nastiest migraine that came with malaria. I missed that call. I needed to pee, so I carried my phone with me to the restroom and called her back. She asked in Tiv “where are you? Are you sitting down? Please don’t shout.” I just knew. I knew once I heard all three questions in succession.

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I still needed to hear the words loud and clear. So I waited, with my hands over my mouth as my mother strung those words together, words that have never been uttered before about my aunty Betty. She didn’t wait for a response after she said it. She just hung up.

They say when you’re about to die, your life flashes before your eyes, literally. It’s like you see all the events that have happened in your lifetime in one carousel. I think it happens when you lose someone too. Instantly, my mind replayed every memory of auntisco Betty in a brief minute. Before I left the toilet with shuddering shoulders, my entire body racking with physical and emotional pain and the obvious— tears I couldn’t control. They escaped in loud sobs as they flowed down my face freely.

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My family is a tight knit family. We have our differences and disagreements every now and then, like every other family. But one thing is sure, we love ourselves, deeply. I loved my aunty, deeply.

I have quite a memory— I remember things that have happened years ago quite vividly and I’m talking down to my drop offs at my daycare with a red gate and the morning of my fourth birthday with my big bowl of chips. Aunty Betty was an important part of my childhood and so, I am filled with so many memories with her, for the most part, the good and as I grew older, the not so good, but nothing out of normal disagreements.

Aunty Betty lived in an apartment just behind high level market when I was younger. It had blue walls a cramped kitchen and her room— as I wrote this line, I literally smelt the room. Crazy stuff. I spent most weekends with her in that house. Went everywhere with her too, like a bag under her arm. It’s why I know many of her friends and they fondly remember me as Omama, Betty’s niece. Sometimes, I don’t even recognize them, but if you call me Omama, you certainly did know me through and with my aunty.

She’d take care of me like her own during my stay at hers. I was technically hers, because your younger brother’s first child is your child right? I’m sure that’s why she was very hurt whenever we disagreed and I was distant, because why would your daughter not speak to you or come around often.

I remember one time, I was like four or five years old. I sat down outside on aunty Betty’s veranda at the house in high level, while she cooked breakfast for us. That’s how one ant bit me on my bumbum. I started crying instantly and scratching the spot. It hurt really bad and as a child, I couldn’t help but cry. At first she ran out of the kitchen, concerned and obviously worried. She held me and applied Robb on it. When she saw I was determined to cry the whole day and keep rubbing the spot, she told me to go and look for the ant and bite it back. She was funny like that sometimes.

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I also remember one afternoon after school. I think I was in Nursery two or so at the time. My mum and I took food to aunty Betty in school, she was in Benue State University at the time, studying for her Law degree. I remember we took the food in one green cooler we had with a yellow handle. I would later attend the same university and be in the same faculty too. Just that the faculty had changed buildings when it was my time.

During her time, the faculty was just at the entrance of second campus, BSU. The building is still there, just that it is now the school bookshop and the classrooms there now serve students of other departments. I remember her walking out of class in a black suit and her shiny jerry curls hair. She was truly beautiful.

I started growing breasts really early. In Jss2, I was already doing C cups and I hated wearing bras, still do. All the older women around me, and I’m not even exaggerating, all of them were deeply concerned about this. They kept preaching the importance of wearing bras and packaging to me and aunty Betty was at the forefront of this great movement.

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She’d always caution me whenever she saw me without a bra on. It didn’t matter if I was just lounging at home and watching TV. I had to strap on at all times in her books. She even said I should wear bras to sleep so my breasts wouldn’t fall and wouldn’t grow so much anymore. At some point, I had to succumb. Certainly not to wearing bras to sleep, but I ran inside to wear a bra whenever she came around and I was without one.

She didn’t stop at asking me to wear bras, she bought bras for me. Ugly ‘old mama’ bras no teenager should be caught wearing. But they were solid I won’t lie and expensive too. I was doing bras worth 9k-14k in secondary school, figures I struggle to do now on my own, or maybe not. But aunty Betty would buy those bras, bring them to the house gingerly and watch me try them on. Teaching me how to position my bra straps well and how to package my breasts in them.

She was the one who taught me how to call bras that hang on your upper back ‘school bag’ and showed me where my bra straps and band were supposed to sit. She taught me to start wearing my bras on the first hook when they’re new so that as time went by, I’d get to the last hook. Her rule was if it didn’t sit right on the first hook, don’t buy it. Auntisco Betty. Why’d you have to do me like this?

When my mum had my twin siblings in 2013, I was in SS1 and in boarding school. I remember coming home for midterm break and there was no night through my ten day stay that she didn’t sleep in the couch in my parent’s room. She’d bathe the babies every morning and evening. Head to work after her morning shift and return just in time for her evening shift just so my mum could rest. She didn’t do this for only the twins, she did it for my other siblings as well.

She was a very disciplined person and every or at least, most teenagers would clash with an adult like that. I wasn’t an exception. I remember murmuring under my breath a couple of times that her sendy sendy was too much. She was always sending my siblings and I to do one thing or another and was quick to scold us when we didn’t move fast. We made it our thing to gossip about her and wonder when she’d go back to her house so we would breathe. Silly us! This is an aunt that came to relieve us from stress. I’d give anything to have her scold me now.

Aunty Betty loved showing up for her people. The way she was always there for my nursing mother is how she was always there for a grieving widow— be it her sister or a friend. She’d pack her bags and move to the bedside of a hospitalized sibling or friend without hesitation. She’d show up with a present for a family member’s birthday and oh, she loved to show up with her cooler of her signature moi-moi. It didn’t matter what the occasion was, she’d make it. Sometimes, even when there’s no occasion, best believe she’ll just remember you and bring you a cooler of moi-moi.

She knew how to show love, in her own way and now that I think back, all the time I thought she was overbearing, it was just her doing life her own way because nobody’s way would have worked for her. She was either going all out for you, or keeping her distance from you and I’ve been on both sides of the coin.

I fought with my aunty a lot as I got older. I’m stubborn and set in my own ways and so is she. My personality didn’t suit the idea of me she had in her head. I wasn’t the Omama she thought I’d grow up to be. I’d say she struggled to accept me for who I was. On the other hand, I knew my aunty very well. I knew what to expect and what not to expect. It’s how I was able to cut her some slack, a lot of it.

In hindsight, I realize you can only disagree so much with a person if you had a relationship with them. My aunty and I shared one deeper than we both liked to admit, me especially. Because she said all the time, to anyone who cared to listen how much my actions and distance from her hurt her. She’d say to me often “Omama, you’re the one who will inherit me o. Man u gban cha a mo ga cii” you shouldn’t be far from me, loosely translated from Tiv.

Sometimes, her plea or toasting as I like to call it would touch me deeply and I’ll pack a bag to hers. I won’t even lie, I enjoyed spending time with her and bonding when we weren’t at loggerheads. We’d bake cookies together and I’ll help her use a fork to make decorations on the cookies.

I remember one Sunday in my third year in university. I had gone to her house from school to spend Easter holiday with her. We came back from church and I was supposed to cook jollof rice or so I thought. We ended up cooking it together with her telling me to just pour everything into the pot and add water and let it cook. I had never done that style in my life before. That turned out to be one of the best concoction rice I’ve ever made.

That evening, we fought during night devotion when she made it her sole mission to point out that I’d never gone to Bible school but I’d paid money to learn makeup at the time. The same makeup she’d later say at her traditional wedding, “Omama, this one you’re very busy in the kitchen, who will help me do small pancake on my face?”

Auntisco Betty liked squeezing money in people’s hands. A couple of times when I was to resume boarding school, she’d show up some days before resumption and act like it was a coincidence, then call me to her car window when she was about to leave and squeeze outrageous amounts in my palms for Cabin biscuits. I didn’t even used to buy the biscuit at the time because it wasn’t really my thing.

Sometimes, she’d call my mum and ask her to send my siblings over to carry garri for school from her house. All three of them at the time. I remember the morning of my father’s swearing in as permanent secretary, she was the only aunty who showed up that morning and squeezed money that couldn’t fit in my mother’s palms as her support for anything that wasn’t sorted yet. She complained while at it that she was waiting to be asked for her contribution but nobody asked, why’d my mum think it was okay to shoulder it all by herself? She definitely had good intentions for her tribe.

She’d randomly show up at our house from work with the prettiest dresses for my mum from time to time. She was the sister-in-law my mum ran to sometimes when things got rough. To every auntisco Betty from my mum, she’ll respond Awo! Even when they weren’t seeing eye to eye, she never not called her Awo!

It wasn’t just my mummy, she had a nickname for everyone. She never called anyone of us by our actual names. All her siblings and nieces and nephews had special names, down to some of our friends too. I can’t remember a time my aunty called me by my actual name, Doosuur. It was Omama or nothing. Kaiii. Death is excruciatingly painful.

My aunty loved the Lord. Evangelist Betty! She was always doing one thing or the other in God’s house. She spent most of her time outside work either traveling for one church program or attending church and prayer meetings. How can someone live for God all their lives and he’ll sit back and watch her just die like that? She called on you for mercy oh, she did! It’s well.

I’m writing all this because it’s how I release my emotions, but mainly because I don’t want to forget my aunty. I want to come back here from time to time and either smile or cry after reading this. I don’t want to forget the sound of her laughter. I don’t want to forget her beautiful smile. I don’t want to struggle to remember the time I spent with her while she was here. I want to be able to read these words and paint a vivid image in my mind.

I can’t possibly fit the memories I have of my aunty in one piece. I’ll probably write you again and again after today, but for now, I need to tend to my body. It’s racking with sobs and if I continue like this, my head will ache for a week.

I love and miss you aunty Betty. I wish you didn’t have to die. I wish you waited just a little longer. I wish you enjoyed your new life more. I wish you basked in your new found happiness and reigned in your queendom a little longer. I wish you were patient enough to attend my call to bar like I did yours. I regret not calling you to talk things out. I regret being mad at you for that long. I wish I sent you a body mist on your last birthday like I used to. I wish I pressed harder on my mum and insisted on going to see you in your kingdom o.

This is all I’m left with, wishes that’ll never come to pass and guilt I’m constantly praying to God to take off me. I pray for your soul when I remember you. I keep saying I’m sorry even though I know you can’t hear me. Funny how I never say sorry just for peace to reign as I love to hold on to my right to be angry, but right now, I’ll say a thousand sorries for peace to reign. Even if you’ll mumble “mhhm” under your breath when I greet you. Then one day, out of the blues, you’ll give me the brightest smile and warmest embrace and call me Omama.

I remember your wedding like it was yesterday. I worked like a jaki at your wedding—both traditional and white wedding, but I was happy, very happy to serve, I mean I was tired and angry at some point, but I was doing it for a good and happy cause. I remember hugging you when you were about to leave the village with tears flowing down my face and yours as well.

I remember bringing food to the room and telling you to eat because brides usually don’t remember to eat. I remember coming inside, smelling like smoke from firewood and spices from time to time to check on you. I remember the mint notes we collected from your husband to buy new slippers for you to walk to him from the room to the backyard. I remember hugging you at some point randomly and saying “aunty, I’m very happy for you” with tears in my eyes.

Immediately we broke free from the hug, you said “Omama you will not bath so we can snap together too” I didn’t bath throughout the ceremony and I stayed in my joggers and t-shirt and silk scarf all day until every guest left the village. My fitness app will later reveal I did 22k steps that day. I slept like a log of wood once I showered and hit the bed.

People danced all night outside the house because the king’s daughter had been married that day. I’d later tell my siblings you were destined for royalty. Born to a king, named Elizabeth, a name you never answered and eventually married a king. My Queen. My beautiful queen.

May the angels guide your path home. May God smile at you and call you by His name. May your voice shout the loudest hallelujah during choir practice ‘over there’. You’re in a place where there’s no worry whatsoever. Where you’re not scared the robber that visited your house like four times will come again. In a place where I can’t reach you anymore.

I love you. I really do. I miss you, I always will. Till we meet at Jesus’ feet, yav deedoo aunty wam. Aondo a nau ishoo man shi a ngohol jijingi wou a ave aha cii. Bem na a lu a we shin ku kpa. War wa ime shi huan kpa, mbatomov mba Aondo ve lu a we gbem je. U doom shima kpese.

In English: Sleep well my aunty. May God show you mercy and accept your soul with both hands. May you experience peace, even in death. The grave is dark and lonely, but may God’s angels be with you perpetually. You’re good to my heart, very well.

I do not disagree with her at all.

A few weeks ago, I got a mail from one of my closest and longest friends and it made me cry so much. It was short but packed. That mail couldn’t have come at a better time. She had the perfect words for me, it was all I needed to hear at the time. Funny how we hadn’t been in constant communication for some weeks, but she just knew. Indeed, uma ka boki.

Friendship is such a special concept. So beautiful, so soothing, so deep. One minute, you’re strangers, the next you’re having sleepovers and sharing personal items, before you know it, this person holds all the secrets that could easily mar your life.

In good times and bad times, you’re willing to share all of you with them. You know their flaws and you live comfortably in the knowledge of this, choosing them everyday regardless and not weaponizing it against them.

Friendship is resting secure in the arms of your tribe. Knowing that no matter how difficult it gets, you can sit in silence with them and grieve whatever it is life has taken from you. You know they might not be able to lift whatever burden has encumbered you off your shoulders, but they will cook spaghetti or buy liquor and plant based relaxants and life will have some color again.

Friendship is walking around with so much on your mind, knowing fully well that soon, you’ll get that “how are you, really?” from your friend on a random afternoon while you’re putting on a brave face at work and burst into hysterical tears in the middle of nowhere because you’ve been waiting—patiently to untie the knot that is your mind for a while now.

Friendship is seeing a dress and knowing instantly it was made for your friend and buying it, even when you don’t have so much money. It’s saving a piece of your chicken from a date because your friend has to munch on something while you give her all the deets of the outing. It’s putting together a look for your girl from your wardrobe, new dresses and favorite dresses included, because what’s yours is hers at this point.

Friendship is sending your friend a note to remind them of how well they’re doing and how proud you are of them because you can sense how weary their spirit is, even without them uttering a word. It’s randomly sending money or buying groceries for them because you know they’re struggling but wouldn’t say a word for fear of disturbing you.

Friendship is practically having to put someone else over yourself sometimes because in that moment, their survival depends on it. Friendship embodies unconditional love in its truest form; like yes, you may tell a lie every now and then and you may have vices that I will never agree to but I do not see you with the lens of judgement. I accept you, all of you, vices, sometimes even crime and whatnot.

Friendship is having another family you can casually stroll into and draw from their well of love when needed. It comes with bonus parents and siblings.

I remember one of my darkest phases in life vividly, I would wake up to random calls from Eyum’s mum and texts of encouragement from Queen’s mum. I’d get knowing hugs from Hannah’s mum and have Ada’s mum dote on me with so much love and food. Mvena’s mum would pray for me and Ella’s mum kept sending fire to the camp of the enemies, typical Nigerian mum style. I didn’t have space to feel alone because these women, my bonus mothers stood ten toes behind me.

Friendship is giving your children godparents and sometimes legal guardians, knowing fully well that even in death, the foundation you’ve established will continue to stand and your children will never lack love and care.

Friendship is coming for a sleepover with an empty tote bag and leaving with a bag full of things that now belong to you, things you didn’t buy or even ask nicely for.

Friendship is sweet. It is loving. It’s soothing. It’s secure. It holds no grudge. It takes your confidence a thousand notches high. Friendship is motivating. It’s such an amazing experience, you’d be the most cheated person by life if you never get to experience it.

Friendship is beautiful. It will hold you on days your hands are frail. Help you walk when you’re weak in the knees. Pick you up from the floor and remind you of who you are when you roll with filth for too long. Friendship will annoy you real bad, but it’s the kind of annoyance you become accustomed to and miss on days when they’re not there.

Friendship is literally standing in front of this one person and going naked to show them all of you, no shame or fear of condemnation or condescension. You just open your bumbum in front of them and hope they take all the intricate pieces of your mind in, digesting it bit by bit and deciding to choose you, whether there’s some tangy taste or it’s all sugary.

Friendship indeed is life.

I’m so blessed to have friends, real friends, solid friends, dependable friends. I’m not one of those people who only ever experience ‘fake friends’ I’m not a person who doesn’t know what it is to be loved and carried by friendship. I’m not a girl who doesn’t have her girls when life gets rough. I have friends who are now my sisters.

I have friends I can never think of cutting off because then, I will lose parts of me I can never get back and I’ll just keep walking through life in search of things, anything to fill the void that would leave in me. Friends that have shown me how dark it gets in their world and how flawed they can be on some days, but it’s still them, will forever be them.

I know my siblings can always call on my girls when I’m not available. I know my mother has more than enough daughters to take care of her if it ever happens that I lack the capacity to do so. I know my children have aunties that will spoil them silly because I have nurtured these relationships and they will never ever know what it feels like to not have older women to hold their hands and walk them through life.

Even now, I may be going through a thing or two likewise my friends, but even in this our dark tunnel, dark humor making mockery of our plight and the light in our eyes that life has tried and failed woefully to snatch from us has kept us going, will continue to keep us going and collectively, we will locate the end of the tunnel faster!

I love friendship. I’m a fool for friendship. I have so much love to give, wholly and utterly to friendship. I will continue to give grace to my friends till it becomes humanly incapable to do so. I’m forever indebted to my friends and how much they’ve poured, are still pouring and will continue to pour into me.

Apparently, my mother is not the only one who thinks friendship is good. My friends grandmother knows this so much she named her Sharret which means, friendship is good.

My sincere wish for you, my besties is to experience the wholeness and beauty of friendship in this lifetime.

I also hope you make conscious effort to be the channel through which others experience friendship in their lifetime.

I know you have friends you love so much, please share this essay to them and just remind them of how much they mean to you. I expect my friends to send this to me too by the way!!!

I’ll write you soon, I have one request though, can you please write me back sometimes? And comment on these posts so I know I’m actually talking to people? Thank you in anticipation of your cooperation!

Stay jiggy, as always!

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I’m so envious of people that seem to have their lives together. I just look at them and wonder, what did you do to get here? What are you doing that I’m not doing? What do you say to God when you’re talking to him that I haven’t said before? If you’re a young adult like me, I’m sure you’ve felt like this before or you’re constantly feeling like this. You’re not alone okay?

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Most times when I voice out how I feel, there’s always people around to tell me how much every other person who seems to have the pieces of their puzzles placed in the right spot are actually clueless and do not know what they are doing. Lie! A big fat lie I must say! I’m sure there’s areas of their lives that aren’t particularly put together yet, but I also know they’ve pretty much figured somethings out and urghhh, it should be me!

In the past couple of months, I’ve known what I’m doing with my life for like three working weeks and I’m talking about the cumulative number of days in like three months. There’s days I wake up and it’s 10k steps, three litres of water, 5k words and meaningful conversations and educative podcasts, well truthfully, my gbegborun podcast mostly.

Every other day, it’s aimless social media scrolling and activities that add little to nothing to achieving my goals or growing in the areas I actually need to grow.

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Because I like to hold myself accountable, sometimes— I’ll admit I’m doing myself on most days.(If you’re not Nigerian, the phrase ‘doing myself’ loosely translates to self jeopardy) I wake up with clear set goals and go ahead to do absolutely nothing to accomplish them and I mean, absolutely nothing!

In my defense, my cousin had triplets eight weeks ago and I’ve been living in a repetitive cycle of making formula, changing diapers, pacifying babies, washing feeding bottles and feeding babies. When I’m not doing this, it’s aimless social media scrolling or trying to catch some sleep because trust me, the last night I slept well was probably in March. Since then, I’ve been operating on vibes and Insha Allah.

However, I’m sure people who seem to have life figured out use the little time they have to put their affairs in order. Maybe, just maybe if I did better with managing my time and ditch procrastination for discipline, I may not figure out everything in my life, but I’ll get better in most areas.

That’s why I’ve decided to start from somewhere. Might be little and will not necessarily get me to my big goals in a matter of days, but hey, I’m trying to figure things out.

Don’t get me wrong, things are moving in my life however, I can’t up and travel to Maldives today to clear my head, heck I even need to plan before I fly interstate in this country. I need to add and subtract before I buy things I want, even the things I need. I’ve been living on my savings for weeks because spending money has finished and another spending money has refused to come.

I’ve had my LL.B for about a year now but I still don’t know when I’ll start law school because my school has made it a priority to always admit more students than their quota in law school. This has set me back 1000 steps because, I’m stuck in a limbo waiting indefinitely for law school and not knowing if to just start NYSC for fear of it clashing with law school eventually and partly because I need that one year experience in an actual law firm as an NYSC associate.

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I was just thinking about this the other day and it made me laugh. I finished secondary school at age 15 and got admission the same year. Yet, I’m 24 now and I still haven’t finished schooling, when it’s not that I had years of spill or I’m doing masters or Ph.d. To hell this system mahn and the day I meet the angel that brought me to this country, all hell will break lose because I will wrestle him more than Jacob did.

Maybe, just maybe if I had finished school earlier, I would be among the people that have figured life out a bit, no? Or maybe I still wouldn’t have figured anything out who knows? Or if I was born a trust fund kid, I wouldn’t be bothered about figuring jack out. God knows best or so they say! But I also know he has favorites, he likes some of us more than others which is the only possible explanation as to why their paths are less crooked than others.

Whichever it is, if you don’t subscribe to my substack and share this publication, I’ll be writing for thirty days straight and there’ll be people out there missing out on the gospel of chum and her pen. You’ll be getting personal essays, think pieces and maybe, just maybe fiction from me. So pretty please, subscribe to this publication and get me to three hundred new subscribers in these thirty days, we can do it yes?

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Wrote this with one of my babies on my chest the whole time by the way. See the lengths I go to make sure you read from me and well, ace my goals?

I’ll write you tomorrow which is hours away by the way. I might get stuck along the way and call on you, my besties for inspiration. Please, answer me when I call on you!

Till then, stay jiggy!

So this morning, as I sit on a mat on my father’s lawn, under this orange tree that never produces juicy oranges and my mother has contemplated taking down a million times, I’m showing you my nakedness with very little covering. I’m baring my mind and letting you in on the many things that have been swimming through my head without overthinking how it sounds—with little to zero filter.

I only started getting paid to write last year after I finished university and didn’t know what to do next. I still don’t know what I’m doing, but my vision isn’t as foggy as the previous year. Who would have thought getting paid to write would throw me into a writing slump! Unfortunately, that’s what happened to me.

I really enjoy writing. I’ve been writing since I was a child. It’s the only way I know how to convey my emotions clearly. It’s also how I release tension. It’s how I connect to myself again after allowing the chaos of the world to occupy my mind for long. This is the polar opposite what my experience has been since I started tailoring my pieces to my client’s satisfaction.

I just woke up one day and realized I was struggling terribly with writing. I wasn’t sure of anything I was writing. I found myself being so conscious of word count I started limiting my thoughts, words and just generally not expressing myself enough because anyway, I’m just trying to get to 2k words or whatever is required of me at the time. I even said to my friend once “I don’t enjoy writing anymore” he was scared something really bad was going on with me.

I also became very conscious of my writing style and doubt crept in. Mind you, my clients hardly ever complain when I deliver but, imposter syndrome and my anxiety haven’t let me be. Even now, I’m stuck at this line because I don’t know how to say what I want to say simply because I’m not sure it makes sense. That’s where I’ve been for a while now.

I take longer hours to write because I do more of editing than writing. I write a line, I go through it a million times and edit it two million times before I move to the next. Sometimes, I write two articles on one topic because I already anticipate my client complaining about it, which hardly ever happens anyway. But I always feel it’s better to have a backup plan than have to write something else from scratch if it so happens that they aren’t satisfied with what I’ve written.

As I write this, I’ve taken a break from writing gigs. I backed out of a project in March that wanted to end my mental health entirely. I’m not taking any writing gigs in April (can’t guarantee this because Tinubu is my president and money is fleeting). I may not have money, but I need to think clearly and know what I am doing.

One thing I know for certain is, I’m writing again! I’m expressing myself without overthinking. I’m not writing like I expect an audience to read and approve or disapprove. I’m not thinking of words to impress whoever gets to read what I write. I’m not looking for synonyms of words I know just so I sound like some great philosopher, like my president— Shallipopi! I’m just writing and it feels good! Can’t wait to see what this phase holds for me and you, my besties!

I went through a terrible heartbreak last year. Losing the person isn’t what hurt me per se, it’s the treatment I received and losing myself in the process that finished me. After the whole ordeal, I sat down to ask myself where I really went wrong and what I did to deserve what he put me through. The answer is obvious, he was only bad to me because he wanted to be a bad person due to no fault of mine.

You know, we all claim to be oblivious when things are going wrong in our relationships. We cling on to the hope that, because we love these people and are willing to do anything to make them stay and make the situation work, they should do same. Sadly, life na pot of beans. Lmao. I don’t even know the genesis or actual implication of that proverb, but I must say, Nigerians come up with the most interesting sayings.

As we harbor this hope in our minds, we fall deeper in love with the idea of them which is usually a vast contradiction of who they actually are. Delulu becomes the solulu and we do nothing to float in this well of delusion and before you know it, we’re drowning in low self esteem, zero self awareness, extreme hurt and resentment. You realize you’re not just resentful towards this person, you start to resent yourself too. Love is a very senseless phenomenon indeed and we should come together to abolish love.

When you’re in this phase, there’s nothing anyone can say to you that’ll make you see your partner for the devil they are. If you have a friend who has been in love before, you will know this. You can see them visibly hurting and bleeding and getting the worse possible treatment yet, your words about them leaving and deserving better will fly right over their heads. If care is not taken, you become the enemy.

And just like that, one day, they’re struck with straw that breaks the camel back and in the famous words of Dunsin Onyekan; it will do you like a dream. The day you decide to leave, it feels like you have experienced an epiphany. Like there was a whole tree in your eyes, not just saw dust and it has just been taken out and you can see the light!

That’s exactly how it happened to me. I just woke up one day and it dawned on me how much of myself I had lost. I didn’t recognize the person I was. It didn’t feel good to be that person. I had thrown away all my standards and accepted every kind of treatment and even started going to places I ordinarily wouldn’t want to be seen. I didn’t only realize I had been in bed with a stranger, I had become a stranger to myself.

When you finally realize this, there’s no going back. It’s easier to even stop loving them at this point, because you’ve fallen out of love with yourself and there’s no greater betrayal to self than this. So one day, just like that, I upped and left. Not without scars and memories I occasionally look back on and feel like puking, but I left and I haven’t looked back since— I’m never looking back and if I see them on the road, I will jam them with my motor! Best believe!

Now, it’s like I’ve identified another love interest. If you like judge me, na you sabi. Because of my previous experience, I’ve been more cautious not to repeat the mistakes I made before and overlook the things I did till I ended in a ditch of mishaps. I don’t know if I’m doing well, I don’t even know if this is going to morph into happy married life, I don’t know how serious this person is, but I revel in the fact that I’m not doing more than I’m getting. It’s been quite a struggle because I don’t know how to measure the love I give out. What unit is love even measured in? But I’ve been deliberate about not pouring what hasn’t been poured into me which I believe is an indication I can still see and think clearly.

I’ll update you if this love eventually blinds me, if it almost kills me, I’ll give my testimony here again.

I’ve not really been living lately. There’s been so much to worry about and it has to do with my future. It doesn’t even help that my country, Nigeria is the weapon fashioned against me. I take ten steps ahead, it brings me back by twenty steps.

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This month will make it a year since I graduated, I haven’t gone to law school, haven’t gone for youth service, haven’t gotten any job, I’ve finished just two courses since then, I have tons of job applications with no response. Somedays, I think the odds are really stacked against me, but because I’m practicing positive living and trying not to say not so positive things about myself, I refuse to believe there’s something fighting against me and my happiness and stability.

My patience is wearing thin and so, I urge you all to remember me in your prayers and ask whichever God you believe in to give me a breakthrough!

I started working out last year and I’m here to let you know this is one of the best decisions I’ve made for myself. I feel lighter, healthier and more confident (I’ve always been confident so imagine the new level i even unlocked) I’ve successfully taken my waist from 44 inches to 38 inches! Somebody shout hallelujah!

I loved my body then, I love it even more now and I’m certain there are versions of my body I haven’t met that I will love even more than this one I know. So I’m sorry in advance, because I’m the cause of this heatwave and there’s more on the way. Brace up my dears.

I now also know that I don’t want to be slim. Once I get to a size 14, I doubt there’ll be any more weight loss for me. God didn’t accidentally give me big meat and I believe he knows more than I can ever know. So I shall not stray so far away from his original program.

I started writing this yesterday morning (if you get this on the 2nd of April) as I try to finish this now, it’s raining in Makurdi. This is the first time it’s rained here this year. This is the first rain I’m experiencing this year and my heart is full.

I’m one of those people that believe rain comes with blessings, superficial much, I know. So 5am this morning, I stood up and went outside and looked to the sky so the rain could touch my face and I spoke life over myself and told God all I want in this month. I did more of thanking him than making requests because really, thank God for the rains. Heat tried to kill me in this Makurdi but mercy said no!

I’m closing this newsletter off by saying thank you for sticking around for this long and reading the nothings I’ve been writing. I now know that this is what I want to be writing till my head is in a space where I can take clients again. You will hear from me often going forward because I have a lot to let out of my chest and you my bestie, deserves front row tickets to what goes on in my mind.

Please, recruit other besties to join us by sharing this newsletter okay? Give me ginger to keep coming back to you!

I put my gorgeous picture there so you can come back to this love letter on sad days and have cause to smile when you behold my beautiful face okay?

I’ve gone through so many changes since I last wrote you, but one thing stays constant, our sign off!

Stay jiggy besties!💜

You just look at another person in flesh, like you and it easily dawns on you that this person didn’t choose to be in this situation and even if they deliberately got into a situation that such result was the only obvious and predictable outcome, they thought they had a certain level of control, and it wouldn’t particularly turn out like that. In your little scaredy mind now, you think a quick declaration of that will save you from such an experience, all along filled with the knowledge that, the declaration you’re making is the only form of control you have. Eyes have not seen, neither have ears heard or mouths told the tale of how it’s so going to be you, in even higher monuments than you just rejected.

I understand your fears as I share the same fears. In recent times, I’ve found myself in more ‘can never be me’ situations that I envisioned for one year and we’re only halfway through the year. Lord only knows what’s ahead of me. The things I’ve experienced this year, if anyone had told me I’d go through them, I’d smack them in the face and send them to hades but look at me now! If you google face of can never be me, you’ll most likely see my face. I’m a walking billboard of can never be Me’s and I’ve accepted my fate that it can very much be me. It is me! I’m the one!

I remember vividly when I was in secondary school, I was one of those kids’ people usually kept a seat for beside them during exams and test. I’d usually act like it wasn’t a big deal, but boy o boy! My heart would usually combust with so much joy and pride. You know what made me happier, the favoritism my English language, literature-in-English, French and government teachers showed me. I’m sure you know what that means. I wasn’t just wanted by students in one or two subjects; I could literally come through for you in any subject but mathematics and economics. real hot cake shit init!

I was also, a member of the debate and literary club and my dear Mr. Ken didn’t play with me at all. He’d sing my praises whenever he had cause to. This saved me from being punished for breaking rules in school sometimes. My teachers didn’t understand how and why I was so intelligent yet, so disobedient. That’s what I call balance baby! One of my house mistresses at the time adopted the ‘love with the right hand, reprimand with the left hand’ method in dealing with me. I’d say it worked because I still reach out to her at least two times in a year to know how she’s doing.

I got admission into the university immediately I graduated school in 2016, I was fifteen going on sixteen at the time. As expected, I was excited, and I had my whole life mapped out before me as well. On my map, I’d be called to the Nigerian Bar and must have completed NYSC by age twenty-two. I’d look at my classmates that didn’t get into school immediately at the time, like they were way behind on the queue for success in this life. I’d even help them calculate how old they would be upon graduation pending when they eventually got into school. Of course, I didn’t know better. It may please you to know I’m twenty-three years old and I don’t even know if I’m a graduate cause I haven’t seen my final results yet. Look who’s juggling balls in the circus now

!

I attended a public university in Nigeria, every Nigerian knows how the story goes; you spend more years than required in school due to the incessant strikes in school. In as much as that’s part of my story, there’s another event that’s very much the climax of this story; my expulsion! how do you move from being known as an intelligent kid in high school to being expelled from university for examination malpractice? just doesn’t add up! I was eventually recalled, but the stories that went round can never be retracted and honestly speaking, in the famous words of my project supervisor, what’s my own?

I spent about eight years in total in the university. The people who got into school after me have since finished university and completed NYSC as well. Yet, I’m here, writing you from my father’s foyer in my cousin’s dress that I stole and relying on mobile hotspot from my phone because where do I want to see money to give MTN for MiFi subscription right now? Oh, might I add, I’m writing with eyes that are swollen and hurting as well from crying so much and a heart shattering in tiny irreconcilable pieces. ahn ahn! what is it? haven’t you done enough? the pain, the torment, the torture, is it not enough!

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You can now see the different ways in which it has been me. Look at the bold transition. I’ve easily become those people that spend about ten years in school trying to get one degree. If you talk about me, people who attended same university as me will most likely not consider me the most intelligent person in the room. People who have heard my expulsion story wouldn’t even consider me book nor street smart. In as much as people are allowed to form whatever opinion they deem fit about you; you can’t say this chain of events haven’t given them cause to form these opinions about me.

You see, I wasn’t wrong when I said I’m now a walking billboard of can never be Me’s. I’m certain there’s a bunch of other things I’ve said can never be for that are now part and parcel of my everyday life. It’s me like mad! If you hear me speak about relationships with the opposite gender in public, even if you’re given a hundred-dollar bill (which is quite some money in Tinubu’s economy) you won’t believe I’m capable of crying myself to bed three nights in a row over a man and reaching out more than once to try to resolve issues with him. Hmmm… it is well, God will see me through in this world.

This goes to show how we all desperately want to be seen in a certain light and would do anything to maintain that image. We see these things happen every day on social media. People hide behind the curtains of their keyboards to castigate others living their lives, the very emotions they are afraid to confront in their real lives is what they come online to drop think pieces on. As a young girl, I really aspired to be famous. Growing up and seeing how the media works now, I dread fame. Your entire existence is just exposed to so much public scrutiny; all along, it’s just people projecting their despair on you.

In the past week, two public figures got married. In fact, since the year started, we’ve witnessed tons of celebrity weddings in the Nigerian entertainment space, and it’s been think pieces upon think pieces. “oh, I can never marry a cheating spouse because of money” “oh, I’d never marry a man who’s been divorced twice just because he’s a billionaire” “oh, this fashion designer married down, her husband is not on her level” “this person married his wife because she’s related to the Otedola’s” and these aren’t even up to half of the comments people made. There’s more and trust me, it gets worse. And let’s not even lie nor steal, we’re both guilty.

Everybody has something to say; they aren’t just giving opinions. They’re making sure to remind you while at it that, they live pretty perfect lives. They’re just so sure they are above having situations that you do not particularly bargain for suddenly becoming your reality. If only we could meet people at the minute just before they fall asleep and experience them in their truest naked forms, we’d see clearly how much it is all of us. We aren’t so different at the end of the day!

So, my darling next time you see someone going through something and you want to open your mouth and quickly declare it can never be you; please, close your mouth and count one to sixty and be convinced it really can never be you. And even after you receive that conviction, I need you to ask God to borrow you his scepter of control so that you will indeed have all things under control and maybe, just maybe you will show us that it is possible to share God’s glory with him.

As for me, I’m a mere mortal and life has taught me, it can very much be me. My own role now is to try my best to hide my shame when it is me.

Stay jiggy till I write you again bestie!

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There is no way in the world I’d have read all of that. I wasn’t intrigued or grossly motivated by the Ben Carson books everybody was raving about either if I’m being honest. I just didn’t want to feel like the unserious kid frankly speaking. This is how I feel about self-help books and I’m glad I’m now an adult. I can revel in the bliss of my fictious books without guilt.

From what I’ve told you, I’m sure you’re wondering why I’m writing this cause; I certainly won’t pick up a book with the title ‘how to heal’. Well, here we are!
I remember asking my contacts on Whatsapp sometime last year to give me a random topic to write on and my baby, Ihotu of pretty pink room suggested I write on how to heal. There is a draft in my notes on this topic, one of those notes I never went back to, God will help me. God in his mysterious ways of doing things already sent me help by releasing a trigger. I think it’s safe to dedicate today’s newsletter to Ihotu. Please, buy jewelry from her to say thank you on my behalf.

Sunday, May 19th, 2024, was my late brother’s 22nd birthday and something that has never happened before happened. My mummy made a post on Facebook in remembrance of my brother, her son. This is a first-time occurrence in our household. My mum, the honorable Priscy babe never shows emotions. Sometimes, it scares me. I’m always left in wonderment by how strong a woman she is.

Since I became an adult, this is the second time my mum would openly talk about the loss of her son. My heart leapt; I don’t know if it’s appropriate to say for joy, but I was happy she showed some sort of emotion. I know it tugs at her heart sometimes. I also know she has so many unanswered questions. I know she feels it’s her utmost duty to guide and shield my only brother now jealously. I can’t say my mummy has washed away all the trauma by virtue of this one post, but baby steps I believe.

Time heals everything; that’s what most people say when you’re going through a difficult phase. Especially when you’re grieving. They say this as though, as minutes turn to hours and hours to days and days to months and months to years, you’d just wake up one morning and your brain is erased completely of that memory. If truly it’s as easy as sitting down, doing nothing and just waiting for time to pass, I strongly believe we would not have tons of people living with trauma; unhealed, unspoken about, life altering trauma.

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Walk with me as we try to decipher how to heal and if we both end up in a ditch garnering more trauma, you will collect the baton and find solution for us okay?

I know pain is universal and the process of healing isn’t so different. In our diversity there are certain similarities we share; this I believe is one of those things. There are crucial steps everybody or at least, most people take to heal from terrible experiences. However, I do acknowledge there isn’t a one size fits all in the healing process. I may not know them all, but I know a couple.

Acceptance is number one on my list. If you do not acknowledge there’s a problem, you won’t even feel the need to find a solution. I mean who tries to fix what isn’t broken? Once you pinpoint what is wrong and come to accept that it could be different, should in fact be different, you’d start making deliberate efforts to change it if it matters that much to you! Once this is out of the way, I promise you, you’re halfway there. I’m not promising the steps you’d take after this will be seamless, but at least you’re not living in denial. Your problem is in your hands; so is your solution.

After this, I believe every step that follows is an individual affair and so, whatever comes after are steps I may have taken in my own journey. Steps that are not peculiar to just me, I hope.

There’s this one time I had an acquaintance call me face of depression. She said it was a joke, a joke I’ll never shine my twenty-eight teeth to. Get another monkey to dance in your circus please. I no longer speak to this person today. You cannot be playing with something as important as my mental health like that.

I’d later find out the reason she said this is because I’m quite open with my mental health struggles. If there’s something wrong with mee, I will open my mouth and talk. If I’m close to you best believe you won’t hear the end of it till that phase is over. I’ll say it with cryptic messages. I’ll say it with memes. I’ll literally go on and on about how my anxiety level has skyrocketed and I don’t feel alive anymore and trust me, I feel better after that. A problem shared may not be a problem instantly solved, but it is definitely some burden lifted of my shoulders.

Heck, you don’t even need to share it with a person. You can journal, take long walks and talk to the air, stand in front of your mirror and have conversations with an imaginary friend. Just make sure you use your mouth to puke the pain that has your stomach in knots.

There’s something new I’m learning to do and its feeling in the moment. Whenever I eat bread and eggs, the last bite is usually the richest. I eat round the bread without the eggs and save the middle for the last bite. Delayed gratification, that’s what it’s called. I do it with pain as well. I numb the pain, feeling it in tiny shallow bits, until it overpowers every iota of control in me and my entire world collapses in my very frail hands. Trust me, you don’t want all that weight to crash on you at once.

How then do you avoid that? It is quite simple for me, feel in the moment and react accordingly. When you have a bad day, cry, immerse yourself in the pain of that day before the cock crows the next day. If you’re hurt about a certain event, release that hurt by every means possible and any avenue you deem fit. Don’t stockpile pain to feel later. You’d be setting yourself up for premium breakdown. The type Taraji’s husband had her go through in acrimony. I thought as much, you don’t want to be that person.

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Pursuant to the paragraph above (lmao. How else would you know you are reading something ‘the law’ wrote?) I urge you to take breaks. I know you’re adulting and it doesn’t really give you room for that, but please rest! If you don’t give your mind and body rest, when they reach their threshold of pain they will shut down and you will be forced to rest longer than you would have if you did so voluntarily. And so, my darling, if you really want to heal from a situation, you should voluntarily give your mind and body time to rest, lest Ceaser takes what is his by force. It’s easier to heal when you’re starting on a clean slate; behold, all traumas are slowly fading away and a new you is coming on board.

Lastly, you don’t have to do it all by yourself. Life is not meant to be done alone. Truly, nobody is an island. That is why we just don’t drop from the sky; we come from families and our families from a community. It’s perfectly okay to seek for help from trusted people around you. Tell them in accents loud and clear that you’re struggling, and you need someone to hold your hand and walk you out of struggle vile.

If you want to set clear boundaries to avoid see finish later in life, seek professional help. If you can afford therapy, pay for it. Talk to someone who is trained and paid to listen to people like me and you actively trying to leave struggle vile. (We just might make this an actual word. lol) If you can’t afford therapy, cause frankly speaking, it’s quite expensive and I wonder why! Aren’t they supposed to make things easier for the heavy laden? But I understand, if I had to listen to the woes and tribulations of tons of people, I bet I’ll need therapy myself as well. It’s only fair they collect that money to sip cocktails on a beach to unwind.

There are however organizations that offer free therapy sessions. A session or two at least. That might not be enough to release all the trauma tugging at your heart, but it is just might set the pace for your healing.

I’m not certain all I’ve written makes sense; I don’t even know if it will work. Thank God I gave a disclaimer at the beginning that I don’t particularly know how to heal either. But at the end of this all, I want you to know you’re not alone and you don’t have to die with all the trauma in your tummy. Puke it out, all of it!

Till I write you again, stay jiggy bestie!

Started the week on a rough note. Was thrown off balance by an incident that is indeed the real “laugh now, cry later”. I had laughed a couple years ago about this very thing, now, I’m crying real tears and I’m heavily ladened with the burden of replacing that which I can’t afford. Jesus help me.

Amidst what I went through this week, I was once again reminded that life will go on, irrespective of the shege you see.

It doesn’t make sense that my love life is non existent yet, I have all these issues with a person I’m emotionally involved with, these emotions being solely on my part, with no certain borders. It’s the height of stupidity to think this person isn’t definitively my partner, but I console myself with the thought, they’re my person. At least, I share this stupidity with Sza.

I was once again reminded, I’m in a generation where people may truly like or love you as the case may be, but what matters the most to them is yielding the power to manipulate you. I don’t know how to explain that, but I know exactly how to feel it.

In the famous words of the Mayor of Lagos, “no let them see you finish….” Ideally in any relationship, you’re meant to drown in what you share with no life jackets. Just you, truly living and feeling, doing the things you love most with this person and basking in the bliss of what you share. But like I mentioned, manipulation is the order of the day and in addition to that, disregard for your person and feelings are added to the group chat quickly. I’ve seen and experienced this in HD. Well, as for me, I believe Jesus will intervene.

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People really want you to be okay with them showing up only when they can. Switching on and off like the electricity supply in Nigeria. Today you say you really don’t want to speak to me anymore, tomorrow you come saying you want me, you chose not to speak to me yesterday but now, you’ve changed your mind and you don’t really have a valid reason to give, you don’t even try to give a reason and you really think I was made to be stuck in a limbo and be constantly available whenever you choose to share yourself with me? Sick!

I was indeed reminded of why I stay frugal and never stray away from my budget. Spent money on something that was sprung on me out of the blues, I objected initially, but I come from a woman and she knows which buttons to press sometimes to cajole me into doing something I ordinarily wouldn’t do. Now, I shall live with the consequences of this.

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I’m learning to stand on business. Quite ironic how this is the next thing I say after reverencing the persuasive power of my mummy. But yeah, there’s certain things I’m learning not to fold on. I understand perfectly the art of selflessness. Now, I’m trying to balance it with learning the art of utter selfishness. No be you go tell me wetin I go do.

I’m tired of chasing this LLB, I need it to chase me too. Even though, the last time it chased me, it was away from it. I wasn’t joking when I said my enthusiasm to become this lawyer girl has diminished greatly and I don’t even want any motivation. I’m just trying to get this done with so that I can rest. Plus there’s a person who regards me as ‘tap out queen’ but with this degree, I must finish what I’ve started. Hopefully, I really get to wrap it up on the 16th of April this time around.

I was reminded how much I hate being in a position to ask for financial help from people that aren’t my parents, my men, or my cousin Sembu. Remember the big blow at the start of the week, threw me off balance and piggyvest is such an annoying tyrant. The people that will come through for me without blinking are still poor. It is why I keep plugging them to job or money opportunities. Let me help my helpers be of help to me. There’s people I’d come through for without blinking too, respect is not always reciprocal. Thank God for my daddy that born me and the zaddies that earn so I can spend. Na una biko this weekend oh!

I didn’t ‘people’ much this past week. It was deliberate. Life been wan over me, I no dey for cho cho cho! I tend to do this without remorse from time to time, I don’t care if it’s good or bad. If I’m going through something, I’m doing whatever it is that’ll make me feel better. Sorry, not sorry!

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Love is indeed a beautiful thing. My cousin got married today, well, I’m writing this at 2am so technically, yesterday. I could literally see her push all of us out and get lost in her husband’s eyes whenever they locked eyes. I act like indaboski bahose’s daughter that drinks abidoshaker but there’s nothing I want more than to love and be loved with exact same intensity I love. I mean, apart from having plenty money of course. I just want to look at my man and be consumed by his existence. I’m really a sweet girl, a very sweet one at that. God will help all of us.

I worked out every single day this past week, y’all can now address me as ‘Chummy six pacs’. I actually feel better. Reduced physical activity due to the strike had me twisting and turning every night because of muscle pull, the only pain I feel in my legs now is the burn from squats.

I’m certain there’s more to say, but I’m sleepy now. This is my journal entry and I’d have taken about four pages of my little black journal that I’m managing, plus I always, always sleep off while writing in my journal so it is goodnight from me.

Next time you hear from me, I’d have my LLB in my tote bag. This is your go ahead to look for trouble besties. I mean, I have about a year to go for law school but hey, who cares? Just pile the trouble and keep. The bigger your troubles, the bigger my money.

And before I forget, Ramadan Kareem to all who observe, it’s quite sad I can’t even eat on your behalf cause I now eat one main meal a day too, then drink about four liters of water and pee all day.

Stay jiggy besties!

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One of my favorite verses in the Bible used to be Romans 8:18. My current Bible app reads; “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” Another versions says; “the pain you’re suffering is nothing compared with the joy that is coming.” If you noticed, I said used to be. That’s true, because right now, I don’t feel very hopeful considering the happenings around me.

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You see, I’m convinced in my heart the apostle Paul was a Nigerian politician. That is why he’d come and tell people this kind of thing. Had it been I know him, I give him a dirty slap. But to the glory of God, my parents were not even conceived at the time. The whole world is definitely going through it, but if you’re Nigerian like me, you’d agree we’re at the gates of hell. We’re literally standing face to face with the devil. That’s the only logical explanation for what’s happening in this country.

When you get to this paragraph,drop your coats of religion, read, delusion at the last full stop and be human, just human. Feeling everything as raw as possible. Feeling everything in the spur of the moment. This thing you’re using your eyes to see in this country, between me, you, your God and Tinubu, does it look like the hopes you entertain will ever materialize in this country?

This country has dedicated it’s existence to aggressively trampling on dreams, it takes away everything that actually counts as living from you and ensures you merely exist, flowing and adapting to every direction the wind of their wickedness blows.

Romans 8:22 further says, “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.” If I wasn’t sure Paul was a Nigerian politician before, now I’m convinced. You see, anytime we attempt to hold any leader accountable, we’re reminded they’re not the genesis of the problem. Obasanjo left problems for Yaradua, and Yaradua for Goodluck, and Goodluck for Buhari. But you see this one we’re inside? I’m convinced in my soul he came in and employed scientists to create some more problems in a lab. Nothing has actually ever worked in this country, but it’s never been this bad. It’s like we’re at the end of the tunnel and on the contrary, the national grid has collapsed as usual and there’s no light. Not a single ray of light!

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Nigerians have it bad right now. People are working more than they used to and probably earning more, but there’s nothing to show for it. They can’t afford basics let alone indulge their guilty pleasures. People are dying because they can’t eat, I don’t think most people understand how bad this is! Parents can barely feed their children let alone themselves. Children are dropping out of school. No sector is working, not health, not finance, not education! Nothing! Absolutely nothing! I deliberately refuse to write all the woes we’re facing in this country because I won’t finish today. I don’t even have the words to cover it all. I’m not even joking, I randomly sit and cry because I’m in this country and I believe my tears are valid! Osalobuwa meh! Who really do us like this!

The point of this love letter isn’t to remind you of the plagues you currently face. No! I’m here to encourage your feelings of despair and hopelessness. I love the idea of optimism and positive thinking and affirmations and what not. But I’m also a firm believer in allowing humans be human and feel everything as raw as possible. It is on this accord that I’ve come to tell you to feel hopeless my darlings! Feel it! Use your mouth to express it. Say it exactly as it is. It’s not your fault you’re in a moving train with no brakes, no signalman, no operators, the train is just movinoniown.

Nobody in such a train will open their mouths to profess the positivity of such movement. Maybe entertain hope of surviving, yes! But be still and know that God is God, that’s extremely difficult and looking at it from a human standpoint, not logical. The country is in chaos there’s no doubt about that! Every single day you wake up, it’s one thing or the other trying to stifle your existence. People who are very much breathing mourn the dreams they’ve nursed since they were young. They mourn the lives they live. How ironic!

In all of this, there’s people whose delusions fuel their judgment of others. I remember the gloomy morning the election results were announced. People literally woke up in tears, myself inclusive. I wailed because I knew there was nothing good about that, we’re not far gone into the administration and the hardship we face is nothing I could have ever imagined in my life! While we were crying, delulu patriots were saying “this administration will favor me and my family” one would think the rest of us just really love bad things and were professing it accordingly. How can you see a broom and call it a spade?

My only consolation in all of this is that, the price of spaghetti in the market for me is not different from those whom this administration is favoring. We’re groaning together in agony.

They’re also the people that will say you should be hopeful about the situation of the country. They’re the ones that’ll ask how you are and forbid you from saying things are difficult. They’re the ones that will condemn you from saying you don’t have money, as though constantly saying it to yourself will change your present reality. They’re the ones that will also blame you for the country’s situation, they’ll say it is your negative utterances that has gotten us here and your lack of belief in the agbado movement that is part of our problems.

These people are littered everywhere. They’re in political parties. They’re in the churches you attend. Some of them are reading this now and wondering what kind of demon has sucked away my faith. They’re wondering why I don’t think belief and fervent prayer can solve this mess. They’re wondering why I think saying “I’m rich” whilst starving from the obvious, poverty, makes zero sense. They must be saying that’s why I’ll keep complaining about the government till I get tired and discover the solution is in me, not totally a lie, but the minutes before they drift away into deep sleep every night, I know the thoughts that cloud their minds.

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In that time, they’re naked. No makeup, no filter, just them. Bare to themselves and they confront exact same thoughts they judge me for. They’ll admit then, that indeed they feel hopeless too. They’ll drop all the weight of saving face they carry around during the day. They’ll low key curse this person they’ve put in power. They’ll agree with me that indeed, there’s no redemption from this madness, so why even bother to entertain the hope of such.

You, my bestie won’t bear all this burden at night alone because like me, you speak your truth. You say how you feel and you know your feelings, raw, coarse and unrefined are valid and so, you bask in the knowledge of this. If you think I have words to make you feel better at the end of this, you’ve thought wrong because I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. I don’t know how I’m coping. I don’t know what the way forward is. I don’t even know if there’d ever be a way out. I just know I’m Nigerian and this country is making conscious efforts to successfully dim the light in my eyes and make me lose my spark. But this actor no go die for film, neither shall you my bestie.

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Ironically, the content of this love letter negates the title. It’s cry now, cry later!

Till I write you again, find reasons to live above your misery. I have entertained and fueled your hopelessness, but I very much want you alive.

Always remember that I love you and stay jiggy bestie!

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I woke up one morning and saw a meme of a keke (keke is a Nigerian word for tricycle) parked between a heavy duty truck and a jeep I think, with the quote “you sef no small, no gree for anybody”. I guess I was sleeping when Nigerians held a meeting and unanimously agreed to adopt this phrase as the motto for 2024 and oh, how I love my country people. They’re going to milk the essence out this phrase till the phrase itself becomes empty!

It is because of this phrase I write you today. I refused to gree for procrastination, laziness and impostor syndrome today. I’ve written you a thousand times in my notes, drafts and journal, but somehow, I always feel it’s not good enough to put out there and so I reserve it for my reading pleasure, how selfish of me to actually enjoy what I write you in private but never release it to you because I’ve sat somewhere in my head and decided on your behalf it isn’t good enough. Woe betide imposter syndrome.

I know I’m not the only one that succumbed to this. I know this cause you’re my bestie. We have a lot in common. I know you didn’t ace some goals last year because you felt all the plans you made weren’t good enough to be executed. I know you’re stifling your potential and playing small because one demon is whispering gibberish in your ear and telling you you’re not good enough. I know you’re scared of failure so much that you failed to try. This year, you will perish this mentality and like a phoenix or rather, like garri that they soak and travel, you must rise above that serenren.

Some of you must have tried and failed at it and then made up your mind not to try again. How dare you gree for one time or a couple times failure? Even Taraji’s husband in the movie acrimony got it at some point after a gazillion tries and a disastrous marriage later. Defy the odds and ace this life thing! I’m definitely not guaranteeing you super ease with the process, but I know for a fact persistence and consistency yields positive results and you’re more than capable my bestie!

And then there’s you, putting in the work and grinding so hard but there’s people in the world that have designated themselves as judge over every other person and you have them around you too. The only support they have to give is to tell you how sure they are you’re never going to make it. Let’s paint a picture together okay? If we’re all struggling with imposter syndrome and momentary lack of belief in ourselves, do you really think everyone in a pool of this struggle would love to see you rise above them?

I mean, logically, they should. Cause if we’re all struggling in a pool, the more people make it out, the better. It’ll reduce the number of people in there and give them hope that indeed, there’s a way out. Unfortunately, the heart of men is wired like Max and his rabbit in his tube hole in the Thunder-mans (we all haven’t outgrown watching Nickelodeon right?) did the wiring. They’ll rather have us all sinking deeper into the pool, not minding they themselves being the casualties of their handcrafted disaster.

So tell me, what does it profit a man to look at himself through the lens of people who can barely see themselves. People who move around with glaring insecurities and deeply rooted problems looking for who to project it on. You really want to assess yourself the way someone who recognizes no good in their self does? Chelsea c’mon nau. No be so e suppose be.

As you wake up everyday, choose you! Gather momentum and do the things that seem difficult. Push against the voices telling you you can’t do it while at this, make sure you’re doing it for yourself and not to prove a point to anybody. If the obstacle in your way is you, no gree for yourself! Surprise yourself. Do things that you love but hardly do. See my friend Eyum for example, she wore a tee with mom jeans and sneakers and went out, took pictures and didn’t leave it at that. She posted the pictures on instagram! If this isn’t a sign, I don’t know what it is.

Finally, because I have told you not to gree for anybody, doesn’t mean you will carry JBL speaker and go to any Nigerian Army checkpoint around you and start blasting Nasboi’s song Umbrella oh! They will do something to you and even hospital fit no gree for you. Know your limits okayy? In the famous words of Kizz Daniel, no go dey do pass yourself!

Stay jiggy till I write you again, which is real soon Bestie!💜

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Exactly one week ago, it was children’s day, and as I took my siblings out, I couldn’t help but ask where time had gone. It feels like yesterday when I was in KHMS and Mr Abang would take us to IBB square for the celebration and I’ll lick all his glucose, cause why not? And now, my siblings are gushing over the outing they had and say “thank you sister Doosuur” repeatedly! Grandma Suur is this you in embryo?

A week or two ago, I made a recording of myself dancing with a scarf on my waist and my waist-beads an adornment on it, rotating my waist swange standard, because how else will you know i’m a tiv girl if that body don’t move like a snake do? I watched that video that is no more by the way, over and over again wondering what God added in his creative stew when it got to my turn. Kimon, a masterpiece I stan!

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As a generous person that I am, I wanted to share it with my WhatsApp contacts but then, overthinking took over and for valid reasons I believe. Four, five years ago, I wouldn’t mind sharing such content. I would have conveniently posted it. Last week though, my stance was different. I do not have an issue with people putting such content out, heck, oil that booty and roll your waist on the internet baddies. However, for where I’m at now, of what use is it to me for people to see my bare waist on the internet.

If I’m trying to make money off that video, I’d understand, but I’d be entertaining people who’d most likely just drop fire emojis and go behind to forward the video with clown emojis to their friends. I started reminiscing on the baby I was five years ago. I made some stupid choices and did a couple stupid things too, but I’ve never truly let myself go and just lived in the moment.

Of course I had the urge to post a twerking video years ago but didn’t. That, and a couple other things I could have done are still on my bucket list of things I could have done, but didn’t and most likely wouldn’t at age 22 now. And it’s so weird I think I’m too old to indulge in such, maybe I am, but I believe the world has so much more grace for you when you do reckless things as a young adult.

It’s easier to get away with reckless behavior when you’re younger. You obviously have less problems and you’re still developing. When you attain a certain age, your goals are totally different, as are the expectations from you. So why not make use of the free trial this life App is giving you?

The way things are going, if I don’t let my guard down and have some money now too, I’d wake up at thirty and have plenty activities unticked off my bucket list and I must have outgrown the phase of doing them in my mind.

And so, I write you today, to urge you to live life truly! It’s something I want to start doing and two sabi people are better than one. Which is why I’m trynna recruit new members.

Give free rein to your guilty pleasures and prioritize self gratification. If the things you want to do involve money and you can afford it, do it. If you can’t afford the ones that involve money, live fully in the other ones.

Dance on the street to random music, hop on tables in clubs and yell gibberish, pull the hair of random people in front of you and act like you didn’t, if you get caught, that’s on you though! Say hi to random people and make them wonder where they know you from.

I want you to be more intentional about being happy and enjoying the moment. Take random pictures with your people and drop your phone when it’s necessary to immerse yourself in the energy of your people. Drink to stupor in places you feel safe and do the chicken dance while at it. Fall in love with no restraints, whatever happens, you certainly will not die.

I want to assure you like Buhari would, regardless of the path you take. Be it that of extreme cautious living or living with reckless abandon sometimes, you will grow old, or may not (that isn’t my prayer for any of my besties) and die. We will all die and nothing, absolutely nothing would be buried with us, neither would the lives we lived be remembered forever if we’re being honest.

This is not me in anyway telling you to self sabotage as I believe there is no greater enemy than oneself. When someone else tries to destroy you, to an extent, you can escape, there is redemption. However, when you decide to do yourself as Nigerians would say, there’s no coming back from that. You’re gone for good, cause only you truly yields such power over your life.

As you’re prompted to truly start living life like Poco Lee and Chum of the good life from this love letter, use your head and never forget what truly does matter to you.

While at this, stay jiggy bestie, till I write you again.💜

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There’s literally no excuse for not writing you in exactly two months and four days. Nobody, especially not you my bestie, deserves to be ghosted for this long and I am truly, deeply, sorry. I apologize and I hope you let me walk the path of earning your forgiveness with minimal obstructions.

Let me walk you through what has happened since the last time you heard from me. I was on election break then and the gubernatorial elections had just been postponed. If you’re a well meaning Nigerian, you are fully aware of the results of the just concluded election and it’s effects on us. You know how a student randomly tweeted she hoped the three weeks break would not exceed three weeks, what happened? Exactly! You guessed right! That’s what this country has done to us.

We were all hoping after this elections, we’d be so confident a three week academic break would be just that, I laugh in PDAPC. It’s a shame we just might continue living with the hope of getting there, hope that will most likely not materialize in the next four years, maybe, not even the next eight years. The elections came with loss of lives, battery and assault of harmless citizens, threatening of citizens in broad daylight, destruction of businesses, actually, the list is endless. Pandora’s box indeed opened on Nigeria.

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I’d speak on nothing else if I detail the events of that sham of an election in today’s love letter, one thing remains commendable, the very thing that makes Nigeria; Nigerians! We were relentless in our support for democracy. We looked out for ourselves through the chaos. People slept under the rain to count their votes, too sad that amounted to nothing. As always, I know we’d persevere, hang in there.

Immediately after the break, school resumed and I started tests immediately and exams, just two days after my test. As an ex-expellee, you have no idea how anxious I was. I felt so lost when I started reading, thankfully, which is quite ironic, I wasn’t alone. On one of the days I sat in front of my books and cried, my friend sent me a note reminding me how much of a strong person I was and telling me she felt just like I did and we’d be just fine! I became alive immediately I read it!

My test came and went (in Ardee’s voice, just not present tense) and there was never a night I caught up to four hours of sleep during that week, I’m glad it paid off at the end. During exams, I was a nomad. A night at my friend’s, two in the hostel and one at my parent’s, this is the price you pay for resuming school in second semester, after regular students have sorted their accommodation. Exams were fine, I dare say, the best I’ve had in that faculty. There was never a time I was confused cause I didn’t know what to answer, it was I knew almost all questions and didn’t know what to pick. It wasn’t just good for only me, my friend had it good too.May God not shame the confidence of an Idan.

I’ve suffered imposter syndrome and intense anxiety in these two months. I’ve however, perfected the act of numbing my emotions, it did work and I’m so thankful to my maker. I’ve second guessed everything I’ve written in these months, which is part of the reasons I didn’t put anything out. I didn’t think I was doing well, I’m glad I’m gradually coming out of that phase. I’m not about to be vulnerable in today’s letter *disappears into her shell.

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Some of my close friends graduated recently. I am incredibly happy and proud of them. I would mention names, but, I want to live long, and leaving out a name won’t guarantee that. In my happiness for them, I was reminded of the fact, “life na turn by turn” a saying most commercial trucks and buses in Nigeria have on them. Beautiful coincidence, isn’t it?Everybody is running an individual race, and truly, only you can save you. One thing is certain though, we’re going to meet 6ft beneath at the ultimate finish line.

Speaking of 6ft, I lost yet another family member (see my previous two letters for reference) it’s been series of heartbreaks in our family, but the dominant feeling is fear, who’s next? We hop nobody leaves anytime soon, there’s only little our fragile hearts can take. Please, pray for us.

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This, my darling, is where I end today’s letter. That way, we still have a lot to let us chat weekly and I will most definitely not ghost on you this time. Please fill me in on what I’ve missed out on in the comments or via email and i’d most definitely respond. I look forward to hearing from you!

I love you bestie, and as always, stay jiggy!💜

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The heading was going to be, “when you die, sadly, life goes on” but I decided against it. Last heading death, this one, the same thing, Holy Ghost fire please. Sadly, my cousins have suffered great losses and it’s barely three months into the year.

I wrote you last a couple of days after my aunt died and we were preparing to bury her. (I just called her my aunt, but technically, she’s my father’s uncle’s wife. What’s that please? Grand-aunty in-law?) her death pained us. She had cancer and died just a couple months after we discovered. Death made a grown man cry for the love of his life! When my uncle fetched sand to pour on his wife’s casket and wailed the name he called her through their marriage, it took God’s grace not to cry more than the immediate bereaved.

We buried her on a Saturday, most family members traveled back to Jos and Abuja on Sunday. On Monday, my uncle who had suffered two strokes and was hospitalized at the time died. (This ‘uncle’ is my father’s own. Younger brother to the one that just buried his wife) when I heard it, I screamed! If i’m being honest, we were all praying it wouldn’t happen at the time, more like we were scared it would happen. Clearly ,God had other plans.

Everyone was sad. Devastated! I’m pretty sure some lips had questions for God, but we daren’t! We’ve buried him too. For me, the saddest part of this was watching my cousins travel home barely a week after burying their mummy for this. It was a ‘we never drink water, drop cup situation’ It’s like they relived their experience again. I could see in my cousins eyes, (the one who lost her dad now) pain, disappointment and strength, because she had to be strong. Again, indeed, Ikwulono!

Something significant happened after both funerals though. We went to party afterwards. Our cousin has this lounge, well it has a restaurant and bar too. I don’t know what they call such places, but you understand right? It’s a really cool place though. So yeah, after both funerals, respectively, we went home, took off our white dresses, and came back in party clothes to drink and dance.

Nobody that had seen us partying would have imagined we’d just buried family. We did that to help our cousins feel better, and boy! They did wiggle their assets and feel better! Knowing the family I come from, this is a new tradition. “Funeral after party”. It’ll even become a problem when it’s not done for other people, nobody will die IJN.

The significance of this is what prompted this love letter, no matter what happens, life will go on! It’s sad, but true and necessary too. It’s normal to feel guilty for moving on from tough situations like this soon, I understand, you’re human, but my all means necessary, in the famous words of Kiss Daniel, “Don’t sleep, don’t sleep! Wake up!……” if not, somebody else will collect your money. Not literally money, but you might actually miss out on something.

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So my dear bestie, the sooner you realize life goes on irrespective of the shege you see, the easier it will get for you to approach such situations and know that you can’t change some things, and that’s okay.

I’ll write you soon. I love you 💜

No doubt death is painful, but the finality of death and the continuity of the pain is something I don’t think anybody can fully fathom. It’s funny how there’s so much similarities in our differences as humans. We’re too connected not to love ourselves. For example, ‘Ikwulono’ is an idoma word, but I’m pretty sure about twenty other Nigerian languages call death iku. That goes to show the feeling towards death is universal; pain, grief, confusion, anger, brokenness and any other emotion you can come up with.

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I’ve never lost a parent or sibling, thanks to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, this I believe are the closest people to my heart and as close as death would hit. (I should have added “as an adult” to that statement, cause I lost my baby brother as a baby. I didn’t really know what death was thankfully) However, I’ve lost people I loved dearly. Extended family members and my friend, Zainab Yayajo, which as a matter of fact inspired today’s love letter. I write you with tears inna mi eyes, pardon me if reading this makes you cry too.

In 2021, my cousins lost their father. This is the closest to home death has hit in a while. I was with them from the moment he had a stroke in 2018, till he passed in 2021. I know what they went through while he was sick, I could see trepidation in their eyes once in a while, waves of hope would sometimes overtake it, but one thing was certain, they knew he’d pass soon. One would think knowing he’d pass soon would make it easier when it happens eventually, nope! Far from it! It’d shatter you in the same way randomly losing a loved one to the pandemic called Nigeria would.

The certainty of death, yet, the inevitable pain that comes with it is something no one would fully ever grasp. You can’t be ready enough; not to die, not to lose someone. When it comes, it comes and that’s final. They won’t randomly pull a peekaboo moment on you. They won’t come back for like a week or two before they return to ghost town. It’s aurevoir till eternity. If losing a partner whom you love so much hurts even though they’re alive somewhere, imagine what it’s like for your loss to be final. They just go and that’s it! Damn!

Time heals pain. That’s what they’ll tell you. It’s a lie. Ten years later you’re walking down the aisle and bawling your eyes out. Or you’re listening to Wizkid’s Soco and they only thing you hear is the person’s name. Or Arsenal loses their game, like they did last night and all you can think of is Yayajo laughing at them for their never ending losses. You pick up a shirt to wear, and you remember they hated it. You’re eating shawarma, and there’s nobody to beg you for a bite. It’s a Wednesday morning and you have nothing to do at 10am cause daddy is not here for appointments anymore. It doesn’t end; the pain doesn’t end! Ah! Ikwulono!

If you’re currently grieving the loss of a loved one or still hurting from the loss you suffered years ago, I’m sending you all my love today. It’s okay to cry once in a while. It’s okay to breakdown, but don’t stay down for too long please. This isn’t me telling you how to grieve, siblings lose parents, but grief hits them differently. Take all the time you need to go through it, the world will be here when you’re ready to join us again. You’re not alone, this should stick with you always and hopefully you draw strength from it.

I love you dearly and I’m sorry if I made you cry.

Till I write you again, stay jiggy bestie 💜

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