Have you heard about the “first year, hardest year” in marriage mantra from Aunties and Mothers? We were all promised a war. We were told that the first year of marriage is the hardest because you’re just adjusting to each other, getting to know each other, reality is setting in, and the chameleon is finally showing its real colour.

And somehow, we all took that in. Expecting the worst in the first year. Hoping, waiting to see the “real person” we were married to. And I would argue that the expectation itself somehow causes some of the fights.

One thing nobody warned us about is the slow fade that comes after the wedding.

And I’ll just say this: this is all about the myth we prepared for versus the reality that actually happens.

My first year of marriage wasn’t particularly hard. In fact, we’d probably fought more during courtship than we did after getting married. We’d already seen enough of each other to know what we were signing up for. And perhaps living apart during that first year helped too.

There wasn’t this dramatic adjustment period everyone had warned me about. No great revelation of, “Ah! So this is who you really married.”

But perhaps the thing nobody warned me about wasn’t the fighting.

It was the fading.

I keep thinking about how intimacy reduces once you get married. Not sex alone — intimacy.

Maybe it’s because you get used to each other, and that familiarity is what makes the spark fade. We’ve been told since childhood that the first year is hard, and while that’s true in terms of learning about yourself and your partner, we say it so often that we walk into marriage expecting a war. Things that should be easily resolved become overburdened because we’re constantly braced for impact.

Growing up, my parents were modern in some ways, but I didn’t even find it unusual. Whenever my dad was around, they would have their bath together, and I did not even see it as cringe. I just assumed that was what every parent did, like a normal ritual.

They would kiss each other in the mornings in front of us, hug each other, sleep on the same bed and just do nice things for each other. And somehow, I believe these things helped build their intimacy.

When I hear the version of parenting where affection is hidden from children—where intimacy is something you “graduate” out of once you’re “respectable”—I recognize how much that shapes our expectations. We start to view marriage as a stage you grow into and then quietly stop “acting” in.

Then there is that other narrative we grew up hearing — the one where our Mothers and Aunties cautioned us against being too adventurous with men. They would say there was no need for all that now because once you marry, you will eventually get bored of it.

The idea was that after doing it repeatedly, the spark dies, and it becomes a chore where your husband is the one chasing you around.

I am not necessarily advocating for sex before marriage, but I believe many people truly cherished that period of romance and closeness before the wedding.

Honestly, I think what they were actually addicted to was not the act itself, but the thrill of the secrecy.

The secrecy was the aphrodisiac.

The sneaking out, those hidden late-night phone calls, and the pure adrenaline of a forbidden fantasy you cannot quite fully share yet.

At this stage, we live in our imaginative world, manufacturing our own desire, fuelling the adrenaline. That is the phase where you feel most vibrant and sexually alive.

Perhaps the initial years of marriage still hold a bit of that lingering excitement.

But eventually, marriage happens.

You start seeing the same face every single day, and it becomes so easy to just fall into a routine. You know what they are going to order. You know how they sleep. You know the face they make when they’re annoyed. You have seen them sick. You have seen them looking rough. You have probably watched them look for something that is literally in front of them.

We call it “see finish” and laugh it off.

But there is something slightly uncomfortable about how quickly familiarity can become the opposite of fascination.

The morning kisses stop, replaced by a monotonous, “Good morning, good morning.”

You start living like roommates.

And don’t get me started on when kids become involved. That is going to take over the whole essay.

You become great friends, which is wonderful, but somewhere in that transition, you lose the womanly, intimate parts of the relationship too.

I think a lot of marriages are now living on quickies, and sex just for procreation. It feels like so many marriages have devolved into a culture of the “quickie.”

Women are just exhausted — drained by the sheer longevity of the commitment and the endless weight of life’s expectations.

I often think that for men, it is straightforward; they do not require a grand invitation to feel desire. But for a woman, the journey to intimacy can be a slow burn.

For many women, desire doesn’t begin in the bedroom. It starts much earlier.

It requires intentionality. A kind of Monday-to-Sunday romance that isn’t necessarily about grand gestures, but the small, consistent bits of effort.

It’s the shared chores, the spontaneous dates, or even just bringing home a tiny treat like a lollipop.

It can be affected by how loved you feel, how much you’re carrying, whether you feel seen, whether your husband has been irritating you since 9 a.m., whether you’ve had a moment to breathe, whether you still feel like a woman and not just somebody managing a household.

Because of the way we were socialised, many women find it hard to simply say “no,” even when they are tired. So intimacy turns into a checkbox on a list — a scheduled, mechanical routine.

We have stopped making love and started just “fucking.”

True intimacy requires a conscious, deliberate presence that we often forget to pack in our bags because we are too busy surviving, working, and just trying to keep our heads above water.

We have abandoned the art of the flirt within our own homes.

And honestly, that is the exact void an outsider can step into.

When another man offers that missing spark, it becomes so much easier to give in — not out of weakness, but because she is simply famished for the affection that should have been served at her own table.

By the way, this does not excuse infidelity. It explains the vulnerability. There is a difference.

I was watching a video once where someone said the best sex of your life is before marriage, and I struggled with that, but I understood the point.

Because… where is the lie?

Not necessarily because the sex itself is better before marriage, but because somewhere along the line, we lose the romance that made intimacy exciting in the first place.

People are having sex with their clothes still half on. No romance. No intentionality. No intimacy. No long kisses. No flirting. No build-up. Nothing that says, I still want you.

The sex becomes a ritual. Something you do because it is Tuesday, or because it has been a while, or because you are married and that is just what married people are supposed to do.

And maybe that is why people look back at courtship and say, “The sex was better then.”

During courtship, the stakes feel lighter because the weight of forever isn’t pressing down on you yet. There is anticipation. There is flirting. There is the excitement of not knowing exactly what the other person is thinking. There is effort.

Then marriage happens, and a certain kind of complacency — a slow negligence — sets in because you see the same face day in and day out. You know each other so well that you stop trying to create mystery. You stop flirting. You stop seducing each other. You stop doing the little things that made you feel like lovers and not just two people who happen to share a home.

And listen, I am not anti-quickie. Quickies are good!

But they are called quickies for a reason. They are supposed to be the quick version, not the entire experience.

Even a quickie should have some drama. Some flirting. Some “come here.” Some I have been thinking about you all day.

The problem isn’t that sex is quick sometimes. The problem is when the quickie becomes the only language of intimacy left in the marriage.

Because honestly, romance is not the side dish to sex. It is the main deal. The main dish.

We have to remind ourselves that intimacy isn’t a debt one person owes and the other merely endures; it is a vibrant house we build with purpose, and one we must choose to keep building every single day.

And please, let me remind you: sex is as important to women as it is to men.

If you’ve somehow convinced yourself that, as a woman, you’re not allowed to want it, enjoy it, initiate it or actually look forward to it — SCRAP THAT.

Also, attraction matters. A LOT.

If you really want to enjoy sex with your partner, attraction must be a priority. You need to be physically attracted to your partner—the kind of attraction that makes you look at your partner and still think, “Yes. You. Come here.”

Even after the misunderstanding.

Especially after the misunderstanding. 😂

Anyway,

Quick PSA: do not show my mum these last bits. I will deny ever writing them.

I like boys. I always have. And I want to say that from the top, before anything else, because by the time you finish reading this, you might understand just how complicated a simple statement like that can become.

I grew up in a home full of them. My older brother, my cousins — guys, guys, guys. And because I was the kind of child who did not like whatever was popular, whatever everyone else was doing, I resisted them completely. That was just how I was wired. If everyone in class was struggling with a particular topic, that was the one I found easy. If everyone was moving in one direction, I was going the other way. It wasn’t rebellion exactly. I just genuinely did not want to be like the majority.

So being surrounded by boys made me want nothing to do with boys.

I refused to wear trousers because trousers were what they wore. In fact, I refused to speak French because my brother and parents spoke it, everyone around me spoke it —and I wanted no part of it. I genuinely regret that one now though because I could have been fluent. But at the time, being different was everything to me.

Then one day my brother came back from school and kissed me on the cheek. A peck. The kind he always gave me when he came home. And I wiped it off. I was 6years old at the time.

My mom was making my hair. She saw the whole thing. She asked me why, and I told her, in the way a young child explains things, that it wasn’t fair. Why did he get to peck me like I was a baby?

She sat with that. She didn’t dismiss it. She actually sat with it, and we talked. And somewhere in that conversation, something in me shifted.

I was in primary school. And from that point, something genuinely changed — not just my behaviour, but the way I saw people.

I stopped seeing boys as boys. That sounds simple but it wasn’t. What I mean is: I stopped putting them in a separate category. I stopped treating them as something to avoid or be suspicious of or keep at a distance. I just saw humans. And the same way I would decide whether I liked a girl — is she kind, is she genuine, does she make me feel safe — was the same way I started deciding whether I liked a boy. If you were a good person, I liked you. If you weren’t, I didn’t. It had nothing to do with gender. A girl could hurt me just as easily as a boy could, and I knew that. So I wasn’t running from boys because they were boys. If I ever ran, it was because that particular person had shown me something that said run — not because of what they were, but because of who they were.

That shift is what I think people around me never quite understood. They saw a girl who was comfortable with men and assumed something was wrong. But nothing was wrong. I had just stopped being afraid of something I had no reason to be afraid of. And even though I still like the minority, the unpopular things– I do not walk into a room full of men and feel uncomfortable, or find myself in a space where I am the only black person and feel the need to either shrink or prove myself.

Now, something I should explain before I go further. In Africa — and I imagine in many other places — we tend to be closer to our mother’s family. I don’t think it’s complicated. Mothers are who we spend the most time with, so we end up spending more time with their people too. It just happens naturally. Which means that I knew my mom’s extended family well. They were around. They had opinions. And their voices carried weight with her in a way that, eventually, would cost us both a great deal.

As I grew older, I found myself around more boys (or men). My mom was a lecturer, and her students used to come to our house. I was easy with all of them. They were kind to me, they never overstepped, and I had so many of them who felt like big brothers — buying me things, asking after me, just sitting and talking. I loved it. I didn’t see anything wrong with it, because there wasn’t anything wrong with it. I also had family friends who had sons and relatives that would live with us occasionally.

At some point, boys became my closest people. I trusted them easily. I could talk to them. There was something about those friendships that felt uncomplicated in a way that, honestly, not all of my friendships with girls felt. I’m not putting girls down — I have wonderful women in my life. But with the boys and men I was close to, there was a straightforwardness that I appreciated. You knew where you stood. And because I was the same way — direct, easy, no games — we just got on.But certain extended family members had already decided what kind of girl I was becoming.

I could feel the shift over time. Nobody said anything directly to me. But they said things to my mom. Whispers, warnings, things said over the phone or at family gatherings when they thought I wasn’t paying attention. She’s too comfortable around boys. The way she’s going, she’s going to end up wayward. You need to tighten your grip on her.

And my mom — who loved me, who was trying to protect me — started to change.

She became stricter. More suspicious. She started listening to them instead of to me. The woman who had always been my first port of call, who had always made space for me to talk, started closing that space. I didn’t understand it. I kept asking myself where this was coming from. What had happened to her? Why did she suddenly feel like a stranger?

The small things started to add up.

One afternoon, I went out with friends and instead of taking a cab home I walked. We were having a good time, the weather was fine, it wasn’t far. By the time I got back, my mom was already home. And she was furious — not the kind of furious that comes from worry, but the kind that comes from suspicion. She didn’t believe that I had walked. She thought I had been somewhere I shouldn’t, with someone I shouldn’t, and that the trekking was a story.

I stood there thinking: I cannot even walk home. I cannot make an ordinary decision without it meaning something it doesn’t mean.

When I was sixteen, my mom sat me down. A relative had received a revelation — an actual prophecy — that I was going to fall pregnant. That the way I was moving with boys was the reason it was going to happen.

I was sixteen. I had not even started having sex.

I sat there in genuine disbelief. Not angry, just stunned. I had always known my boundaries. Even as a young child, I knew what I was doing. I knew who I was around and what it meant and what it didn’t mean. I knew what I wanted and what I didn’t, and I didn’t need managing — I was already managing myself. That’s not something I was taught. It was something I came with.

But because of that conversation, and the ones before it, I started pulling back. Not from boys — from my mom. I started keeping things to myself that I had no business keeping to myself. Small things at first, then bigger ones. I had learned, slowly, that being open led to suspicion. So I stopped being open. I started protecting myself in a way that I had never had to before, and I hated it, because that was not who I was.

It went on like that for years. Small things, one after another, until I stopped counting them. And somewhere in the middle of all of it, I stopped telling her things. It took a long time for us to find our way back to each other. But we did.

There was a time we had a family friend, someone I had been close to in primary school. His father and my mom were colleagues. When we were young, our parents would sometimes pick us up from school around the same time, and we would all end up at the office together. We were just cool with each other. Then after primary school we lost touch, the way children do.

We found each other again in university. He lived nearby, and most mornings he would call me — are you on your way? come, I’ll drive you — and we would go to school together, come back together. Easy. Normal. My mom knew about him. She liked him. So when she would ask how I was getting home and I said I was getting a lift with him, she would say okay, that’s fine and that was the end of it.

But then a relative went to her. Said they had been seeing me with this particular guy for a long time now and she should be careful and pay attention because something was going on.

And my mom said: that’s her friend.

Just like that. The relative went quiet.

By then, my mom and I had grown back into each other. University was a different time. The hard years were mostly behind us. She knew me again, the way she had always known me before people started filling her head with other ideas. So when someone tried to make something out of nothing, she didn’t take the bait. She shut it down.

But that moment, that “easy that’s her friend” — it was only possible because we had done the work to get back to each other. And for a long time, we hadn’t been there.

There is one story that belongs in this piece, and I want to tell it carefully.

When I was nine years old, I went to stay with relatives for a weekend. They had young children, and I loved babies, so I was always happy to go. There was a man who came around there — a friend of my uncle — and he had always been friendly with me. The kind of person who bought you things, made you feel welcome. Everyone loved him.

That night I fell asleep in the sitting room with the other children. I woke up to this man touching me. My breasts. My panties. When I tried to make a sound he covered my mouth. I could feel how much stronger he was than me. I was nine years old and I had about a second to decide what to do.

I don’t know where what happened next came from. I looked at him and said, calmly: do you want to sleep with me? He was shocked. He said yes. I said: okay. You don’t have to use force. Let me go to the bathroom and I’ll be back.

And I walked straight to where my uncle’s wife was sleeping, and got into the bed beside her.

In the morning I went to my uncle and told him everything. He listened. He said he heard me.

And then nothing happened. No response. No action. Just silence.

I left his room not knowing what I had expected, but knowing that wasn’t it. And I made a decision not to tell my mom. I was a child, but I was already calculating. I thought: if my own uncle heard me and did nothing, why would she believe me? And she was already in that place where family was in her ear and the trust between us had thinned. So I said nothing.

For years, I said nothing.

When I eventually told her, she was heartbroken. Not just by what had happened, but by the fact that I had felt like I couldn’t come to her.

I still like boys. I want to say that again at the end, the same way I said it at the beginning.

I am married to one, and he is wonderful. I still have close platonic friendships with men because I have always known that liking someone and wanting something from them are two entirely different things. Even at nine years old, I knew that. I just didn’t have the language for it yet.

And when it did become romantic — when I was old enough for that — I knew the difference immediately. I could feel the line between what was platonic and what wasn’t, and I never confused the two. I also wasn’t the kind of girl who kept a guy waiting or played games about it. If I liked you that way, you would know quickly. There was no six months of maybe, no stringing someone along while I figured myself out. I knew, and I said so. And the same way I moved quickly into something, I moved quickly out of it if it wasn’t right. Some people might see that as a flaw. I see it as the same self-knowledge that kept me out of trouble. I always knew what I wanted. I just wasn’t always allowed to say so without it being turned into something it wasn’t.

What I want to say to every person who loves a girl child and is trying to keep them safe is this:

The answer is not restriction. The answer is conversation.

When you shut a child down without explaining why, when you listen to others instead of her, when you stop trusting he

r because of what people are whispering — you don’t protect her. You just become someone she can’t come to. And then what you were trying to prevent doesn’t go away. It just happens somewhere you can’t see, and she handles it alone, and she comes home and says nothing because you’ve already told her, without meaning to, that you won’t believe her anyway.

I was a girl who always knew herself. Who always knew her boundaries. Who was brave and direct and clear about what she wanted. And the adults around me, the ones who loved me, spent years trying to fix something in me that was never broken.

Talk to your daughters. Ask questions before you draw conclusions. Supervise, yes — but supervise with your eyes open and your mouth asking, not just your hands pushing her back inside.

And if a girl who has always known herself comes to you and tells you something happened — believe her.

Because when a girl like that tells you something went wrong, trust me, it really did.

And while I’m here, let me say something to the men too. Not every girl who is comfortable around you wants you. Not every girl who laughs easily with you, who sits beside you, who calls you her friend and means it — is signalling something. Some of us just like you. Full stop. No agenda, no hidden feelings, no waiting for you to catch on. And the moment you start reading our openness as an invitation, you ruin something that was never meant to be anything other than what it was. Women can like men naturally. Purely. Without it meaning anything else. Learn to receive that without making it weird.

Let’s talk about the phone.

Not because the phone is the real issue but because it is where a lot of marriages and relationships go to quietly fall apart.

There’s a particular kind of scene that plays out more often than people admit. A woman picks up her partner’s phone. Maybe she was looking for something innocent. Maybe something had been sitting in her gut for weeks and she needed to either confirm it or quiet it. And then she sees something. And suddenly, everyone’s talking about why she picked up the phone, instead of talking about what was on it. In reality, the question shouldn’t be why did she check? The question should be why was there something there to destroy her?

Having a life outside your relationship is perfect. You don’t have to weave everything around your partner. However, there is a difference between having a life outside your partner, and having relationships that you know certainly, would destroy what you have with your partner.

Many men carry around a very convenient definition of cheating — one that requires sex or some physical intimacy before it counts. As long as nothing happened, nothing happened. This definition is only for them. The definition of a woman cheating is so much broader. You do not want to hear the last of it.

But I’d argue that the highest and most damaging form of infidelity isn’t physical at all. It’s emotional.

The moment you start giving someone outside your relationship the version of yourself that your partner deserves — the attention, the flirty compliments, the softness, the “I love how you talk, I’d love to hear more of it” — you’ve already crossed a line. You’re investing in something you have no business building. I know the feeling you get from this is good. Mostly without even feeling guilty… And the reason it feels so good? Because that person is new. They don’t know your bad days. They haven’t seen you at your worst. They only get your best, the same best you gave your partner when it all began.

Hey brothers and sisters, that’s not a connection. That’s performance. And your partner is at home getting what’s left.

There is a reason mothers say you don’t really know your partner until you’re married. It’s because that is where life actually happens — the building, the grinding, the ugly mornings, the hard years. The person in your home has walked through all of that with you. They are not just your partner. In many ways, they are your life.

But the person outside? They are temporary by design. They are there for a moment, and in that moment, they feel like everything — precisely because they are not required to be everything. They get the highlight reel. Your partner gets the full documentary. And somehow, we confuse the highlight reel for something real.

Permanent and temporary are not the same thing. They never will be.

I know it is so difficult to be with one particular person for the rest of your life – and there is no shame in admitting that. If you are an attractive person, it is so much easier to get attention from many people – to get immersed in the flow of that attention. But what sets you apart and keeps you sane is the word commitment. The word is not in the dictionary for the fun of it. It’s there because it holds a meaning, and a valuable one at that.

Men have started to complain about how women use the word “gaslighting.” And honestly? Some of that pushback is fair. The word can get overused. But here’s where it gets complicated.

When a woman has been through something before — a betrayal, a pattern, a particular kind of pain — and then she starts to see the same signs in her current relationship, she isn’t just reacting to the past. She is reading the present. She is not reacting based on what she has experienced before– she’s reacting because she is seeing a pattern of what she has previously experienced. There’s a difference between a trigger and a truth. And many times, what looks like insecurity from the outside is actually just pattern recognition.

She is not scared because she is broken or insecure. She is scared because she has seen this before, and she does not want to go through it again. That is not a trauma response. That is wisdom trying to protect itself.

And when you call that insecurity, or make her feel like her perception of the situation is the problem — that is gaslighting. Not in the overused way. In the real way.

There’s a kind of clairvoyance that comes with being a woman in a relationship. We can walk into a room and know when another woman is interested in our partner, or when something is going on between them — without a word being exchanged. We see the way energy shifts. We notice what is said and what isn’t. It is not magic, and it is not paranoia. It is just that we are paying attention.

So when a man flirts — even “innocently,” even without any real intention behind it — we see it. And when we say something about it, the worst thing you can do is make us feel like we imagined it. We didn’t. We never do.

It is not our job to chase what we already know. It is a partner’s job to respect the relationship enough to stay within its boundaries.

I am not here to attack men — I am speaking from a woman’s perspective, and I know this is something that happens a lot. Many men just love to flirt. Especially those that are good with words. And even when they say there is nothing behind it, women are naturally designed to read between the lines.

But here is something you need to understand as a man — when you do these things, you are embarrassing your partner. You are making her a laughing stock. You are busy flirting with another woman, whether she knows you are married or not, the responsibility to feel guilty or to feel some kind of conscience is not on her. It is on you. You are the one in a committed relationship who is deviating. So when you do these things, know that you are embarrassing your family. You are making your wife seem as though she is not worthy of respect — not from that other woman, not from anyone.

And just to be clear, this goes both ways. Imagine a woman cheating on her partner. Is that not her embarrassing him? Is that not her saying out loud without words, that he is not enough? It works the same way. If you get what I mean.

It takes more than love to make a relationship work. Love is actually the easy part — it’s the commitment that costs something. Commitment means choosing, daily, to stay in the lane you chose. It means understanding that the grass will always look greener somewhere else, and then choosing to water your own anyway. It means holding your relationship in high enough regard to protect it — not just from other people, but from yourself. From your own wandering.

I remember reading about a man who said what keeps him committed is his phone. His display picture is his wife. His wallpaper is his wife and daughter. So everywhere he turns on that phone, every time he goes to text someone, every time he picks it up — he sees them. And he does not let himself get used to it either. He changes the pictures regularly, so it never becomes background noise. It keeps him in check. It keeps him reasonable. It reminds him, every single time, what he has and who he chose.

Now, that might not work for everyone. But commitment is also a thing of the mind. You have to decide. And honestly? You have to pray. The devil is real, and if you believe in prayers — please pray.

One last thing.

When a woman is complaining — when she keeps bringing something up, when she’s upset about the same thing again, it means she still cares. It means she’s still fighting for the relationship. The moment she goes quiet and stops bringing it up, especially when that issue persists? That is not peace. That is a woman who has decided. And you do not want to be on the wrong side of that decision.

If you love her, fix it. Don’t explain it away. Don’t redirect the blame. You know, deep down, what it is. So does she.

“Cheating is not always kissing, touching or flirting. If you gotta delete text messages so your partner wont see them, you are already there”

The first time my mum ever asked me about sex was during a breakup. I was heartbroken. Properly heartbroken. And that was the first time she saw me cry so much and be all moody over a man. Out of nowhere, she asked me, quietly, almost carefully, “Have you guys had sex?” Not Are you okay. Not what happened. Just that one question. She asked like she was scared of my answer, like someone hoping my answer would be No.

I have thought about that moment a lot. Not because it hurt. It didn’t. But because of what it told me about how we talk about virginity, or more accurately, how we don’t.

I grew up around boys. Protective ones at that. Even my younger cousins, who are much younger than I am, were so protective of me. It’s like they felt a duty to be protective because they were boys. My only sibling is male and despite our closeness, we don’t talk about sex or anything like that. It was only once that I asked him if he thought sex was something that could hold a relationship — like if it was a necessary factor. And he told me it wasn’t. I still appreciate that conversation to this day, because he didn’t speak to me merely as a brother trying to protect his baby sister from the wilderness of men, but from a realistic point of view. That discussion strengthened how I viewed sex and even myself as a woman. I was 19 when we had that talk.

My mum is a bold woman. She is modern in ways that still surprise me. My mother is the kind of woman I could tell about my relationship troubles and she would say, “To hell with that boy. You cannot give some silly boy the key to your emotions.” She is the kind of woman I can have those conversations with. I mean, we are as close as we are combative, but we just never talked about sex. Even when I started my period at the young age of 9, my mother never gave me the “a boy touches you and you get pregnant” talk. She just taught me the necessary hygiene and how to perform ghusl (ritual bath) after my period. We had every discussion surrounding menstruation — except sex.

I don’t blame her. Because the truth is, most of us never really had the conversation. Not properly. Our parents didn’t sit us down and say your virginity belongs to your future husband. They didn’t have to. It was already everywhere. In the African and Indian films we watched, the African books we read, the church pews we sat in, the sermons from Muslim clerics, the girls who were held up as examples and the ones who weren’t. The message arrived long before anyone said it out loud: a woman’s virginity is precious, and it is precious because one day, it will belong to a man.

And so many of us carried it that way. Like something to be guarded on someone else’s behalf. Note that men were also born virgins but I guess their virginity is not considered as precious as ours.

Here is what I want to talk about — the quiet damage of that framing.

When you tie your virginity to a man, you are essentially making it a transaction. You are holding something in trust, waiting to hand it over. And the moment you hand it over, you expect something in return — even if you never say that out loud. You expect to be treated with a certain kind of reverence. You expect him to understand the weight of what you gave him. You expect that this, of all things, will make him stay.

But here is the thing nobody tells you: he may not see it the same way at all. He may not appreciate it as such. In fact, I have spoken to some men who told me it felt like a burden — that they were not ready to deal with the emotional weight that comes with being someone’s first.

And if that relationship falls apart — if he behaves badly, if he leaves, if he turns out to be someone you didn’t quite know — you will not just grieve the relationship. You will grieve the virginity. You will sit with this specific, exhausting guilt that says I gave him something I can never get back. You will feel like something has been taken from you. You will feel less whole.

I have watched this happen to women I love. Breakups that turned into crises not because the relationship ending was devastating on its own, but because of everything that had been mentally attached to the sex. The virginity becomes evidence. It becomes the reason you feel like you can’t move on, like you owe this person something, like your value has somehow shifted. And when his behaviour doesn’t match what you feel you deserved for giving him that, you start wondering what you did wrong. You start picking yourself apart.

None of that is about him. All of it is about the story you were told.

Virginity does not hold a man.

I know that’s uncomfortable. But it needs to be said. Waiting does not guarantee faithfulness. It does not guarantee respect. It does not guarantee that he will stay or that he will love you well or that the relationship will work. A man who is going to cheat will cheat. A man who is going to be careless with you will be careless with you. Your virginity is not a lock and he is not a door.

If you want to wait, wait. There is nothing wrong with waiting. But do not wait because you believe it gives you leverage. Do not wait because you think it is the thing that will make a man choose you or keep him. That is a weight your virginity was never designed to carry.

And while you wait, don’t wait in ignorance. Don’t wait oblivious of your body and what it could possibly crave. Understand your body, your femininity. Trust me, you don’t need sex to do that. Being a virgin should not translate to naivety. Not having practical experience does not mean not understanding the theory. Read. Ask questions. Be curious. Understand the female body — your body. Pay attention to it.

I was in SS2 when my guardian — the woman I could tell things I could never tell my mum, looked at me one day and said she was certain I was already involved with someone. She said it like it was obvious. Like a girl like me, surrounded by all those boys, couldn’t possibly still be unattached in that way.

I just smiled.

Because I wasn’t. She assumed this because of the kind of questions I asked her. I used her phone for most of my research, and when she checked her Google history, she wondered what I wanted to do with all of that information — like I was just too young to want to know all of these things. I was deeply, relentlessly curious. I read everything I could get my hands on. I asked my guardian questions about her marriage, about sex, about what it was actually like, until she would laugh and tell me I was too young to be asking such things. But I kept asking. I’m also glad that she answered. I wanted to understand.

I will also say that my background helped me. Even though my mum and I never had sex talks, she was still open with me in other ways. I also witnessed, from a really young age, the bond she shared with my dad. So I never saw my curiosity as a taboo. I only felt like it had its limits with my mum — which is fine. At the end of the day, she is an African mum.

My eagerness to understand my body made me mature enough to know the difference between curiosity and readiness. I understood early that the idea of sex and romance is exciting — and still, my virginity wasn’t something I was protecting for a future husband. It was mine. It was just mine. And I was going to decide — on my own terms, in my own time — what I wanted to do with it.

That curiosity, that willingness to understand my own body and my own desires without shame, did not make me want to rush into anything. It did the opposite. It made me more certain of what I wanted and less willing to settle for anything that didn’t match it.

Being a virgin does not mean you should be ignorant. It does not mean you should shut yourself off from understanding sex, from understanding your body, from knowing what you like and what you want and what you deserve. That kind of self-knowledge is not a threat to your values — it is part of knowing yourself. And knowing yourself is always worth protecting.

So here is where I land, and I want to say it plainly:

Your virginity is not for your husband.

It is not a gift you are holding in trust. It is not currency. It is not leverage. It is not the thing that makes you a woman or confirms your worth or guarantees that anyone will treat you well.

It is yours.

If you choose to keep it, keep it because you want to. Keep it because it aligns with your faith, your values, the life you are building — not because you believe it will earn you a man’s devotion. And if you don’t keep it, that is also yours to decide. Either way, you do not lose yourself. You do not become less. You are not diminished by that choice.

What diminishes you is handing the decision over to someone else. What diminishes you is spending years of your life managing something on behalf of a person who may never even know the weight of what you carried for them.

You are not a vessel for someone else’s honour.

You are a whole person. Act like it.

If this resonated with you, share it with someone who needed to hear it. And if you have thoughts, I’m always in the comments.

The world keeps shouting, “Damn the rules.”

But adulthood asks a quieter, heavier question: “Should you?”

There is something undeniably sweet about going for what you want. About letting your insecurities down, overpowering them, and realising that the thing you were afraid of isn’t so bad after all. Sometimes, once you do it, you discover that it’s really not that hard. After all, we all have free will.

For the longest time, I believed that anything standing in the way of what we want must be fear. That if we were brave enough, bold enough, rebellious enough, we would finally be free.

But growing up has taught me that not everything that restrains us is insecurity.

Some restraints are values.

Some are chosen.

Some are inherited.

Religion.

Culture.

Society.

These are often spoken about as cages — things to unlearn, rules to break, limitations to escape. The world tells us to damn them. To live loudly. To choose desire over discipline.

But should we?

I remember the first time I went on a piercing spree. I have always loved piercings. Back in secondary school, because I schooled in the North, it was normal to see girls with two or three piercings on their ears, some even on their noses. It wasn’t a big deal there.

But back home, where I was coming from, a young girl with piercings meant something else entirely. “She has joined bad gang.” “She’s about to become a prostitute.”

The thing about me is — when I love something, I go for it. I research it. I think it through. And if my religion allows it, that’s usually the end of the conversation. Still, I knew that piercing my ears while I was in secondary school would be a battle I couldn’t properly defend with my mum, so I let it be.

But the moment I clocked 18?

Hehehe. The journey began.

I pierced my ears — four at a go. When my mum saw them, she said nothing. But when my aunt saw them, I noticed the look on her face, like I was some spoilt child she had allowed to do whatever she pleased. The irony is that my mum is a strict woman. I’m just… me.

When I pierced my navel, I didn’t tell her. I didn’t flaunt it. I simply kept it to myself, out of respect. Not because I was afraid, but because I knew she might be culturally disappointed. If she ever found out, she never said.

I also love anklets and waist beads. I started wearing waist beads in secondary school and began wearing anklets after I turned 18. I remember one time my mum told me to stop wearing anklets. I didn’t. She got angry and pulled out the ultimate mother card:

“As your mother, I command you to stop wearing anklets.”

I asked why.

She said she didn’t like them and that anklets were worn by prostitutes.

I told her I was surprised she thought that way — especially because she’s educated. I expected her to think differently. I told her I would stop wearing them at home, because she didn’t like them, but I would wear them in school. And that was exactly what I did. Eventually, it stopped being a problem.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve realised that wanting something doesn’t always mean taking it.

I have thought, many times, that if I did certain things differently — if I posted certain content, lived a certain way, loosened my grip a little — I would be more influential, go viral, happier, maybe even more fulfilled. The thoughts that cross my mind sometimes tickle me. Some of them are wild enough to scare people, wild enough to attract judgment.

But I have the ability to restrain.

Some people might say that means I’m living a boring life by not going for everything I want. But am I?

And I won’t lie — acting on free will can be incredibly sweet.

There is a joy that comes with choosing yourself, with doing the thing you desire and watching yourself survive it. Sometimes, breaking away feels like breathing fresh air for the first time. Sometimes, it’s fun. Sometimes, it heals. And yes, sometimes, the consequences are worth it.

I think everyone should taste that freedom once in a while. I really do.

But I don’t believe in throwing away the keys that restrain you just because the door is open.

Because restraint is not the enemy. It’s the thing that reminds you who you are when desire gets loud. It’s the difference between choosing freely and living recklessly. And most times, the cost of losing yourself is far higher than the pleasure of the moment.

I have a long list of things I want. Some I’ve done. Some I’m still building the courage to do. And some, I know I won’t do — not because I can’t, but because I’ve decided they are wrong for me, morally or religiously.

A few days ago, I was asked a question: if religion and culture didn’t exist, would I ever get married?

My honest answer was no.

I would rather not get married and just be with a partner. I’m a sucker for love, but deep down, I don’t think I would want to be tied maritally — if you get what I mean. That is something I would want.

But did I get it? No.

Because culturally and religiously, to be with a man, you have to be married.

And maybe it’s easier for some people to dissect what they want and discard everything else. But I often ask myself — why do these structures exist in the first place?

There is a difference between being afraid and being anchored.

The world celebrates rebellion loudly, but it rarely stays long enough to help you clean up after it. It tells you to break the rules, but never asks you which rules were holding you steady in the first place.

We live in a society governed by laws. Despite your free will, if you commit murder, you wouldn’t walk outside, blow a trumpet, and announce it — because you know the consequences. Free will doesn’t mean lawlessness. So why do we treat religion, culture, and even society as if they are automatically cages?

Late last year, I started posting more actively on TikTok. I wanted to document my hair journey — I had just started growing my hair back, and it was thriving beautifully. I knew people would resonate. I knew it would grow my page.

But I didn’t do it.

Not because I’m a saint — trust me, I am far from that (sips tea). And even though I don’t follow every principle of my religion perfectly, I don’t want to go backward. The restraint wasn’t fear. It was choice and not everything that restrains us is bad.

Not every “no” is a limitation.

Not every pause is cowardice.

Some of them are choices.

Some of them are love.

Some of them are us deciding that freedom does not always mean indulgence.

I post regularly on social media now because I want to. There may be reservations about what I post or write, but I don’t feel bad about it. As long as I’m comfortable, that’s enough for me.

And when I see things online that I find cringeworthy, I don’t rush to judge. I ask myself instead: I hope this person is doing this because they genuinely want to — not because they feel pressured by the internet.

Because not everyone knows the difference between desire and direction.

And maybe growing up is learning that wanting something is not the same as needing it. That freedom isn’t always about indulgence. And that sometimes, the strength is not in doing whatever you want but in knowing why you didn’t.

Being a teenager who is allowed to live life as a girl, without rush, has so many perks. But it also comes with its own detriments. Today, I want to talk about one of them.

I was 11. In junior secondary school.

I attended a Muslim-only school, and I promise you, they were strict about everything— especially modesty.

For context, I had attended the same school since nursery. One day in Nursery 2, I took off my hijab in class because I was hot. I was a child; I didn’t understand the spiritual or religious significance of covering my hair in public. I was beaten for it and forced to put it back on.

I’ve always been stubborn, so even after the beating, I removed it again. The teacher put it back on; I removed it again. I knew closing time was near and my mum would soon pick me up anyway.

When my mum arrived and saw my face, the school knew they were in trouble. And they were.

That should tell you how strict the school was.

In secondary school, if a girl was caught speaking alone with a boy—or vice versa—you were punished. Sometimes, the punishment was being asked to get a 60-leaves notebook and write everything you discussed with that person, from the first page to the last.

Anything considered “unholy” was treated like a crime.

The school was preparing for inter-house sports.

There was a boy in my class—almost every girl liked him. Junior girls. Senior girls. He was rich, sporty, and back then, that alone qualified you as desirable. I’ll call him K.

K and I were classmates. We weren’t friends, but we talked occasionally—normal class gist. Because he was sporty, he was representing the school at the competition. It was an away event, and everyone was excited to leave school premises.

After classes one day, I innocently walked up to K. We talked briefly. I confirmed he’d be running. He asked if I’d attend, and I told him I wasn’t sure because I might be following my mum to her office that day. We ended the conversation, he went to the hostel, and I went home.

That was it. Or so I thought.

On the day of the competition, I went with my mum to her office. I remember exactly what I wore: a green top, a knee-length jean skirt, and a small scarf tied around my head.

After some time, my mum’s colleague’s son—who attended the same school with me suggested we go watch the competition since it was happening within the same premises. We went together.

I saw some of my schoolmates. Most were in uniform. I was on mufti, which, back then, felt like a small flex. You know how it was.

We watched the event. I saw my principal and greeted him. We laughed, bought ice cream, joked around, and left.

The next school day was a Monday.

I was late—as usual. It had almost become my identity. This time, I was later than usual because I’d gone to the hospital for my new glasses.

When I got to school, I felt it immediately. All eyes on me.

Let me explain the school’s structure so you understand what I mean literally.

The school buildings were arranged in a circular layout, with an open space in the middle. From the center, every classroom could see you—and you could see every classroom.

I was walking through that center, heading to my class, when I noticed heads peeping through windows. I assumed it was because I was late.

I entered the class. We were writing a test. I rushed to my seat. That’s when I started hearing hushed whispers. I ignored it.

After the test, the whispers became noise. The stares lingered.

“Why would she even write that letter?”

“She’s shameless.”

“She’s in serious trouble.”

I asked my friends what was going on.

They told me the principal had seen the letter I wrote to K.

Me? A letter? To K?

I looked at K. He wouldn’t look at me. He looked embarrassed—ashamed, even. Or maybe proud. I couldn’t place it.

A few minutes later, I was called to the principal’s office.

I was asked to kneel down. I refused. I asked what my offence was.

I was a bold child. Still am. I wasn’t one to bow to bullying.

The principal said, “Obey before you complain.”

That was the first time I ever heard that phrase, and even then, it didn’t make sense to me.

They weren’t surprised by my refusal. The principal had taught me in primary school; he knew me. To them, I was bold—so I must be guilty. A bold girl was a spoilt girl.

They showed me the letter.

It said I liked K. That I wore mufti to the inter-house sports to impress him. Pure nonsense. I was shocked. I didn’t even like K like that. And it wasn’t my handwriting—though whoever wrote it did a good job imitating mine.

That moment when nobody believes you? When you’re the only one defending yourself? That was me.

The principal insisted it was my handwriting. He accused me of tweaking it. He said I dressed immodestly to impress a boy.

Immodest? I was 11.

Teachers came into the office one after the other, each with an opinion about me—as if they’d been waiting for this moment.

They crushed me. They called me names. I cried until I couldn’t breathe.

I returned to class in shame—for something I didn’t do.

At home, I couldn’t tell my mum. I was usually a chatterbox, but this time, I stayed quiet. I assumed she wouldn’t believe me.

This happened shortly after I escaped being raped (that story is for another day). But everything combined broke something in me.

My brother noticed. After some persuasion, I told him. He was furious. Together, we told my mum.

She was livid.

“How could they do this to a child? My child?”

I begged to change schools. I did not like the school anyway. But my mum refused—not because she didn’t believe me, but because she didn’t want rumours to chase me away. She told me people would always have opinions. I couldn’t keep running.

The next day, I dragged myself to school. The stares continued.

During break time, I saw a familiar figure.

My mum.

She went straight to the principal’s office, then the staff room.

I heard she really spoke to them—not insults, but words that sank in. The kind you don’t forget. Words that made them understand what they had done to me.

The gossip stopped.

But I didn’t heal.

Because it felt like it stopped not because they believed me—but because they were warned to treat me properly.

I eventually left the school for other reasons. And honestly? It was one of the best decisions my mum ever made.

Years later, I ran into the principal.

He asked, “I hope you’ve stopped all those your behaviours?” I was shocked to say anything and honestly, it was a good day and I didn’t want him to ruin it. When I got home, I thought about so many things I could have said to him.

Years after secondary school, I ran into K, and it left a sour feeling in my stomach.

He wanted to date me. LOL!!!

He brought up the letter. Said he liked me back then. I looked at him the way you look at nonsense and told him, very clearly, that I never liked him. Not then, and definitely not now. The audacity of men! Because how do you claim to like someone, yet abandon them when rumours break? That is not the love story I plan to tell my children.

He later told me he found out who wrote the letter.

Apparently, it was my friend.

He never told me who.

People will always have opinions about me. To know me, you have to experience me.

Of course, I am super grateful for this year. It’s been wholesome — just not in the way I planned. Every year, before the year starts, I write out a list I call the year’s fantasy. And honestly, ever since I started this ritual, I’ve always smashed, if not all—then most of the goals.

But this year? I looked at my fantasy list and laughed so hard because, guys, I only smashed 2 out of 12. But I am still very grateful because those two projects cost almost a head and an arm—and I did them without loans. So when you read this part, just say: Congratulations, Hawau! (Thank you.)

It’s funny how we pray for something, the prayer is answered, we glorify the moment, and suddenly we’re chasing the next thing. Because once a prayer is answered, it feels like you need more prayers to get to the next step. So the anxiety never really ends—from one waiting room to another. The circle continues.

I had so many fears this year. So many sad days, but happy days too. Lives were lost. Relationships were broken. But as we say, we movee. This post is just me ranting—no head, no tail. So please take it as it comes.

This year, I planned to start a community, write more often, and build a strong circle of readers who could maybe turn family but I didn’t start. I hope to do that this coming year. I wrote a lot this year too, but I didn’t always have the strength to post. Which means there’ll be plenty of goodies from me next year.

Writing, for me, is how I express myself fully. I feel naked when I write, and because of that, I sometimes run away from it—I don’t want to be seen just yet.

I procrastinated a lot this year, and I’m giving myself grace because, honestly, many times I didn’t feel like doing anything. I cried myself to sleep. My anxiety flared up. I was overwhelmed. Adulthood really hit me.

My presence on social media reduced—though it increased on TikTok. Not as much as I would have wanted, but that space felt safe for me. I don’t know how to appear happy on the internet when I truly am not. So on the days I posted pictures, they were genuinely happy days—and I made sure I showed up and showed off.

So many lives were lost this year, and it took a toll on me. I lost my first pet too. Her name was Muezza. She was a cat—a cat my mum didn’t want but ended up loving crazily. She was really sweet, and her death revealed a version of me I didn’t know existed, in full bloom.

I mourn her quietly, sometimes with my mum, because people think I’m crazy when I talk about her. So I’d rather not.

Anyway… this write-up is starting to feel sad. Lmao.

The year was a rollercoaster of emotions jare—and so shall this post be.

I left Nigeria this year to permanently be with the love of my life—my sweet munchkin, my honeyboy, my twin FR. And it’s been a sweet experience. I miss my parents and my brother so much. I miss my friends, my Doja and her warm hugs. I miss my grandma too.

But I’m also happy to be with Ridd.

Truthfully, there are days I wish I could pack a few things and go spend some days in my old room—the one in my father’s house. Because living with someone and sharing everything is not easy. Not easy at all—especially when you’re not used to it.

I’ve never really shared a room with anyone for a long, indefinite time. Even in uni or boarding school, we shared rooms—not beds, kitchens, or plates. Everyone had their own corner. During service, I lived alone. Even when I was working, I lived alone. At my parents’ house, I’m the only girl, so I always had my own space.

Sharing my space with Ridd has been my biggest challenge as a married woman this year.

The first few months, I complained a lot. Why would you open the closet and not close it? Why are you pulling the blanket in the middle of the night—do you want cold to kill me? Why do you want the windows closed because you prefer darkness? Why are you using my towel? Why do you want to kiss me when I haven’t brushed my teeth in the morning?

Somehow, I’ve adjusted—apart from the morning-kissing-without-brushing part. I’m still working on that.

They were big deals to me, no matter how small they sound.

When people see us together and ask how long we’ve been married, they usually say, “Oh, it’s the honeymoon phase.” And I always wonder if they think we don’t fight or don’t feel like pinching each other sometimes. Because we do. I’m a pain in the ass. And he is too.

But we complement each other. We’re up in each other’s noses, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. Tomorrow will solve itself, just like today did.

At least this whole write-up isn’t entirely sad. In all of this, I ended the year crazily in love with my honeyboy, bonded with family here, and surrounded by consistent love from home.

So… Adieu, 2025!

I am not healed, not finished, not fully figured out—but I am held.

So, let’s just blame my absence on adulthood and his brother, life (if they had genders, they’d definitely be male because the premium shege they show us is plenty).

Yesterday, while watching an Indian movie, I suddenly felt this strong desire to visit India. The yearning hit me so deeply, you’d think I had always dreamed of going there. I quickly added it to my list of countries to visit. Then it struck me, there was a time I had no dreams, no bucket list, no fancy expectations from life other than “I just want to be rich.” And really, who doesn’t?

Back then, I didn’t care about skydiving, traveling, or chasing unique experiences the way people around me did. In fact, I felt odd because others seemed so driven by those desires, and I had none. Do you know what I did instead? I borrowed my brother’s dreams. He raved endlessly about wanting to visit Singapore, so whenever someone asked what country I wanted to see, I’d confidently say “Singapore” and even repeat his reasons as if they were mine. When he finally went to Singapore, you’d think it would still stay on my list – but no. That dream left with him, and I quickly picked up his next one. Because God forbid someone asked me what country I wanted to visit, and I said, “None.”

The truth is, I wasn’t one of those kids who always knew what they’d become. I didn’t grow up declaring, “I’ll be a lawyer!” No. If anything, I thought I’d be an actress, though I knew that dream wouldn’t sound pleasing to my parents’ ears. And as stubborn as I can be, I’ve always loved to please my parents and brother. Those ones, they are my soft spot.

I was in JSS3 when I thought about Mass Communication or Law as my career paths, and my brother advised Law. He explained that with Law, I could pivot later into Mass Communication, but not the other way around. It made sense, it made my parents happy, and so, off I went to study Law.

I enjoyed it. But everyday till I became a lawyer, I felt it within, that it was not what I truly craved but when I’m hailed “D’Law!!” at home, I forget what I feel within.

I love law, don't get me wrong. Some parts of it excites me. Actually, let’s quickly talk about that.

Truth be told, I genuinely love Criminal Law—it excites me, challenges me, and comes naturally to me. I am extremely good at it (emphasis on extremely). Even in practice, my brilliance in criminal litigation was often praised. But here’s the catch: in Nigeria, corporate/commercial law offered better financial opportunities, so with little hesitation, I pivoted there. It gave me money, but not joy. To keep my fire alive, I still took on criminal cases on the side. Again, I chose the path that made others proud – even when it didn’t completely satisfy me.

My business, however, is different. It gives me passion, growth, and income (minus the massive stress that comes with entrepreneurship). But even with that, I know I could never do just one thing. I’m multi-passionate, and that’s okay.

Then came my big move to a new country. A turning point, a fresh chance to start over. It felt like God was handing me new cards and saying, “Pick again.” For my Master’s, my family initially suggested Law-related programs, and I almost lazily agreed. I was scared, unsure, and guilty for even wanting something else. After all, many people would kill to be lawyers, and here I was, holding it lightly. But deep within, I knew: I didn’t want Law anymore.

So, for the first time, I chose me. I told my brother and parents I was dropping Law, explained my new interests, and braced myself for resistance. But guess what? They understood. They didn’t flinch. And oh, the relief I felt! It was like breathing fully for the first time. Finally, I wasn’t borrowing someone else’s dreams; I was choosing mine.

That said, Law never really leaves me. It creeps back in. People still send me legal work here and there, I get paid for it, and honestly? I enjoy it. Maybe because it’s no longer an everyday grind for me but something I do on my own terms. That balance makes it fun again, not draining.

You see, the fact that I didn’t have a dream country for so long wasn’t a problem. I wasn’t weird. I was simply me. Now I have a list of many countries I want to see. And if I never had one, it still wouldn’t make me less. Some people shout bucket lists from rooftops, others don’t. And that’s perfectly fine. Now I actually do have countries I’d love to visit, but if I never did, it still wouldn’t make me less of a person. Loving yourself sometimes means letting go of society’s checklist and writing your own - whether that includes Singapore, skydiving, or simply staying home in peace.

Pivoting, starting over, it’s hard, but it’s worth it. Because finally, I am choosing myself, loving myself, and staying true to what I desire.

Now, back to the question: How do you love yourself without being selfish or self-centered? Honestly, I believe there’s no way to fully love yourself without appearing selfish at times. And that’s perfectly fine. Putting yourself first, setting boundaries, saying “no,” or chasing dreams others may not understand can feel selfish to the outside world. But here’s the truth: it’s not selfishness, it’s self-preservation.

The key is balance. Loving yourself doesn’t mean disregarding others. It means showing up as your best self for them too. It means choosing paths that align with you, not just those that please others. It means allowing yourself joy and growth without guilt, while also uplifting those around you.
When you love yourself in this way, you’re not self-centered – you’re centered in yourself. And that’s exactly where true love should begin.

I’m not quite sure what I’m writing about — family or Eid. But maybe I don’t need to choose. Because if there’s one celebration that brings family together in the most beautiful, chaotic, unforgettable way, it’s Eid.

It’s that time of year when cousins you haven’t seen in forever suddenly look like they’ve grown a foot taller, when gist flows like chilled Zobo, and the younger kids rally around asking for owo odun (Sallah money). The older cousins are trying to be cool, while the younger ones are calculating how much they can squeeze out of every adult in sight.

It’s when we all gather to cook, eat, laugh, and forget our worries. Well, everyone except the aunties, God bless them. The ones already thinking about what aso ebi colour they’ll wear to your wedding (that they cannot wait to attend), asking when you’ll bring “huzband,” or in a few rare cases, “when are you bringing your wife?” And then there are the elders who won’t ask anything directly, but will just pray:

“Iwo yi emi, ile oko re lo ma shey o”

(“By the next Eid, you’ll be in your husband’s house.”)

Thank God I’ve finally exited that group chat. 😂

And of course, how could we forget the true stars of the show? The rams! From the dramatic slaughter to the frying and cooking, the aroma that fills the air on Eid morning is simply unmatched. There’s a smell that only comes with Sallah day, and honestly, I don’t know how, but it never happens on any other day of the year. It’s a miracle of its own.

Growing up in Ilorin made Eid even more unforgettable. Here, we call it Ileya, which literally means “the time to go home.” And that’s exactly what it was. No matter where you were in Nigeria, you returned for Eid. It’s a ritual of joy, meat, laughter, and presence.

I had never missed Sallah in Ilorin. Ever.

Well… almost never.

There was this one time — I was in either JSS3 or SS1 at my police secondary school. That year, Boko Haram had threatened to attack police institutions, and for security reasons, we were told we’d be spending Eid in school.

Ha! The heartbreak! My body literally shut down. A sudden stomach upset. Weakness. Confusion. Sallah in school? That had never happened before. Something had to give.

And then, DING! — a plan hatched in my head.

Now, a fun fact: I wore recommended glasses, and without them, I could barely see. That evening, during dinner (beans and yam, shoutout to boarding school survivors who know the trauma), I joined the long queue with my plate in hand. When it was my turn, I strategically tilted my head so that my glasses fell right into the massive pot of hot beans.

Chaos ensued. The pot had to be stirred and stirred before my glasses were finally fished out. Completely damaged, of course. The school couldn’t replace them, so my mum was called.

Next thing I knew, she was in Minna and I was back home in Ilorin — celebrating Eid like nothing ever happened.

That was the only time I almost missed Sallah at home. But I still found my way back.

When I eventually brought home the man I wanted to marry, I didn’t really think much would change. Last year, my husband graciously let me celebrate Eid with my family. This year? He probably would’ve done the same but my parents lovingly chased me back to my husband’s house. Sigh!

And that brings me to this very moment.

This Eid feels different, because it is. I’ve finally moved to the UK to join my husband, and for the first time in my life, I’m celebrating Sallah far away from the familiar chaos of Ilorin.

It’s a strange but beautiful mix of emotions. On one hand, I miss the noise, the people, the jokes, the smell of fried meat. On the other hand, I’m excited because I get to create new memories, with a new family that I’ve just joined. One I’ve been eager to know and love.

But in the middle of all this change, one memory stands out. Something that happened right before I left Nigeria.

You see, I used to wonder why Nigerians would escort someone en masse to the airport like it was a village ceremony. It always felt a little extra to me. But now, I completely understand.

In the days leading up to my departure, our house was full. Friends, cousins, neighbors, everyone just wanted to be around me. To soak up those last moments. And on the morning of my flight, my dad looked around and asked, “Are all these people escorting you to the local airport?” My mum simply smiled and said,

“It’s Hawa’u na! You know your daughter is a sweetheart to many.”

That moment melted me. Watching people I loved surround me, some quietly shedding tears, others helping me triple-check my passport and bag weight — it made everything real. Some of those faces I may not see again for a very long time. Some, maybe never. But in that moment, I understood the meaning of “send forth.” It’s not about drama. It’s about love.

So yes, this Sallah is different. But it’s still special.

I’m writing this not just because I love Eid (which I do!), but because it’s a gentle reminder that things change, and they change fast. That we must hold on to the people and moments that make life feel whole. I’m so glad I cherished mine when I had them.

And now, I’m stepping into a new phase. New country, new family, same heart.

Let’s raise a toast — or a spicy ram skewer — to my first Eid with Habibi. 🫶🏽

Here’s to love, meat, and memories — old and new.

This one has been long overdue—and it’s going to be a long one too. But if you’re a proud member of the “We Love Love” association, you might want to grab a cold drink. I’ve been meaning to write this every single day, especially because this man just won’t stop feeding the butterflies in my belly. But really, what better day to finally write and post this than our anniversary?

Guys! Today makes it ONE WHOLE YEAR since I’ve been married! And I kid you not, it still feels like a dream. I could’ve just treated today like any regular day, but it really isn’t. Being married for a whole year? Nah, that deserves a moment. A loud one.

It’s our anniversary, so let me serve you the premium gist—the how we met story and, more importantly, how I knew I was completely gone for this man. I call him Ridd most of the time, so that’s how I’ll refer to him here.

Now, let’s rewind.

The month of May is a very special one for us. It’s packed with beautiful memories and celebrations, and honestly, since we met, May has been doing the most, in the best way possible.

But this story starts on April 23rd, 2023. A Sunday. I had just returned to Abuja after the Sallah break. I was lying in bed, feeling a little lonely, missing home, and lowkey nursing the drama from a relationship I was in back then.

Still, I was calm. Ramadan had just ended, and there’s always this post-Ramadan peace—a kind of spiritual detox that softens even the harshest of heartbreaks. So I was in that peaceful but emotionally messy place, scrolling through my phone, going down memory lane with pictures from that previous relationship. I was in disbelief, really. Like, how did it all go left?

Then I stumbled on a meme I had saved a while ago and thought, Why not? I posted it on my WhatsApp status.

A few minutes later, someone reacted with laughing emojis. I checked and saw the contact name: Ridwan. As a business owner, I’ve got plenty of numbers saved, so I just assumed he was one of my customers.

He reacted. I reacted. And then he said, “Hauwa, right?”

I replied, “Yeah, Hawa’u. And you’re Ridwan?”

He said “Yes.”

And boom! just like that, we started chatting. But I had to confess: I didn’t remember him at all. I asked if he’d ever bought anything from me. He said no. In fact, he wasn’t even sure how he got my number. I looked at his display picture again and thought, What a fine man! How on earth don’t I remember this face? That’s not like me at all.

I did a mini investigation. Checked Facebook. Instagram. Maybe I’d see a throwback, a mutual friend, something. But nothing. It was like he just popped into my phone from thin air. Honestly, part of me was convinced he remembered where we met but was deliberately holding back, probably because he annoyed me then and doesn’t want me to remember.

Anyway, we let it slide.

We kept chatting until I fell asleep. And that night? It was the beginning of many sleep-off chats. The next morning, we picked up right where we left off. We talked for hours. I laughed, rolled on the bed, phone plugged in, me staring at it like my life depended on every buzz. And Ridd? He didn’t keep me waiting. I loved that.

Now, at this point, I wouldn’t say I was into him yet. I just saw him as a sweet distraction—completely unplanned but very, very welcome. He made me forget my stress. My pain. My confusion. It felt… light. And I needed that.

Days went by. More chats. More voice notes. Even phone calls. We were vulnerable. He was expressive. Nothing felt forced. I remember the day he asked if we could video call. He was so polite. What a gentleman! I rushed home after work, had a quick bath, and tried to look cute. Then we had the video call.

That was the first time we saw each other “face to face” virtually. I expected awkwardness, but there was none. Zero. Nada. It already felt like we had known each other for ages.

And remember that relationship drama I mentioned? Yeah, it was still messing with me. But Ridd was there. Present. I had never met a man so emotionally intelligent. He was like a gentle sponge, soaking up every bit of bad energy I didn’t even know I was still holding onto. He did it effortlessly. So much so that I still don’t fully understand how.

All of this happened in just 10 days. Yes, TEN DAYS. And a week later? I just knew he was the one.

Ask me how?

One night, we were on a call for hours, and it drained my phone battery. I went to bed thinking, I’ll just charge it at the office tomorrow. I got to work the next morning… and there was no light. The generator wasn’t working. Weird, right?

By that time of the day, we’d usually have exchanged texts or a call or two. But now, nothing. I couldn’t message him. He couldn’t reach me. And I couldn’t function. I was worried that he’d be worried. I kept pacing, opening and closing my bag like I’d find a power bank inside. The way my heart was doing “kikum kikum” was both sweet and ridiculous.

I couldn’t believe how much not hearing from someone could scatter my entire day. I had never felt that way before. It was sweet… in a crazy way. My heart ached, I kid you not. And right there at my desk, I penned down my feelings and I told myself, “Hawa’u, you’re in love.”

I called my aunt. We’re very close, and I said, “Aunty mi, mo ti ri ọkọ tí mo máa fẹ́.” (Aunty, I’ve found the man I’m going to marry.)

She laughed so hard and was in shock. She knew my last relationship had just crashed. She knew how I used to shiver at the mention of weddings. She knew I had said “I’m not doing again” when it came to love. And here I was, calling her with a bold declaration.

She started interrogating me:

“Who is he?”

“Is he in Abuja with you?”

“When did he ask you out?”

I answered all the questions calmly like a woman who had seen vision.

“His name is Ridwan.”

“He’s not in Abuja.”

“In fact… he’s not even in Nigeria.”

“And no… he hasn’t asked me out yet—but he will.”

That same day, when we finally got to talk, there was this rush, this longing in our voices. It was the longest we’d gone without speaking, and we felt it. Then he asked me something that caught me off guard:

“Have you ever considered leaving Nigeria?”

Now normally, my answer would’ve been a strong NO. I’ve always been that girl who would rather travel abroad for vacation but return home to her jollof rice and pure water pride. But that day? I didn’t even blink. I said, “For love? I would leave Nigeria.”

That day, he confessed his love to me. And guess what I did? I pretended like the network was bad—just so he’d say it again. 😅

Did I give small hard-girl resistance? Of course not! Me that had already melted since the flat battery incident. There was nothing to think about.

You know how they say, “When a man knows, he knows”?

Well, “when a woman knows, she knows too.”

I had no doubts. I loved him. He ticked boxes I didn’t even know existed, and that was enough for me. Still is.

It literally took a flat battery for both of us to realize and admit we were in love. Who would’ve thought?

Now, I’m not the easiest person to understand or handle. But Ridd? He gets me. He sees me. He completes me. And most importantly, he is kind. My kind of man.

Till our wedding day, we still didn’t know how we got each other’s numbers in the first place. We just called it a miracle. And anytime someone asked how we met? We’d both smile and say, “Na miracle.”

But plot twist? There was a backstory we didn’t know about until our wedding night.

We were sitting side by side, replying to messages, and then a message popped up on his phone from a name that made me blink twice: Funmilayo Adejumo. She was congratulating him on the wedding and mentioned how his wife looked just like me. I nearly dropped his phone.

Funmi is one of my close friends, but distance and life had made us drift a bit. I had mentioned my new relationship to her once, briefly, but didn’t go into detail. I never said his name.

That night, when I saw her message, my brain clicked. I remembered.

Funmi was the one who actually hooked us up!

Sometime in 2018 or 2019, she had messaged me saying she wanted to introduce me to a guy she believed could handle my “wahala.” 😅 She said he was gentle, intelligent, and exactly the kind of person she pictured for me.

Funmi had always been trying to matchmake me. Since our teenage years! I didn’t have many serious relationships back then, and she took it personally 😂

Anyway, at the time she mentioned Ridwan, I was already in a relationship. She didn’t believe it sha. She insisted on sending me his number and gave him mine too. He texted briefly, but I wasn’t interested then, so the conversation didn’t go anywhere.

Somehow somehow! years passed, and we must have lost each other’s contacts. Then in 2023, we just started seeing each other’s WhatsApp statuses out of nowhere. And here we are.

Destined. Delayed. But right on time.

Our story strengthened my faith in God deeply. Before Ridwan, I never truly prayed about my relationships. I never handed them over to God. Maybe because I’d never had a terrible experience, I didn’t see the need. Or maybe I was scared. You know that thing where you pray and God says, “This one is not yours,” and you’re just there, heartbroken, even though you got divine guidance?

I didn’t want to experience that. So I avoided praying about it.

But when life humbled me, nobody told me before I turned to God. Thankfully, it was Ramadan. I used that sacred time to really pray and fast, and I was specific. I told God exactly what I wanted in a man, and how I wanted to be loved.

I remember saying, “God, if the person I’m with isn’t mine, please send me the one who is. Even if he’s under my nose, sniff him out ASAP.”

And God did. Right under my nose. ASAP.

To say I’m proud to be called Ridd’s wife is an understatement.

He sees me. He understands me. He listens, he cares, he is kind to a fault. He is expressive—something I wasn’t used to at first because, honestly, it felt a little too feminine to me. But boy, I’ve grown to love it. Now, I look forward to his words the same way I look forward to his hugs. Most importantly, he’s in love with me, loudly and gently, all at once.

Being with him made me realize I was never asking for too much. My standards weren’t unrealistic. I just hadn’t experienced the kind of love I prayed for. The kind of love that looks like home.

On our wedding night, I went to bed feeling light and joyful, but when I woke up the next morning, it hit me: Bro, I’m someone’s wife! I thought having a small, intimate wedding would make everything feel casual, but waking up that next day came with this quiet wave of responsibility. Not in a bad way but in a this-is-real way. I felt hooked. Not trapped, just deeply connected to the life ahead of me. It was sweet but a little scary.

And of course, he noticed.

Without needing an explanation, Ridwan simply said, in his usual calm tone,

“Wife is just for aesthetics. We’re forever dating.”

That one line melted the fear. It felt like fresh air. And since then, yes! we’ve truly been dating through marriage. Every day.

People say “one year might not be that much in marriage”, and maybe they’re right in their own context. But spend one solid year loving deeply, showing up daily, growing intentionally with someone and you’ll know it’s more than just time passing. It’s foundation building. And what a foundation we’ve built.

I promise to always give you your flowers. Not because it’s trending. Not because I’m trying to prove anything. But because you deserve them. Sometimes we forget to say “thank you” while the sun is still shining, and when the clouds come, it’s hard to remember the warmth. So here’s me, appreciating you publicly. Not just for what you do, but for who you are.

Two years since I met you.

One full year of being your wife.

And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

In those years, we’ve talked every single day. Even on the not-so-good ones. You’ve seen me at my highest and held me at my lowest. I’m crazily in love with you, Ridwan. I will choose you again and again, in every life, in every version of me.

We started this journey with Allah as our foundation, and with Him as our mantle, our love will only grow stronger.

It’s not perfect—but it’s ours. And it’s beautiful.

Dr. RIDD, you get me.

You steady me.

You water me.

And I love you.

Mo fo fun e bajé.

To make matters worse, one day during CDS, the CDS master asked us to get a sheet of paper and write where we saw ourselves in five years. I stared at my paper, looked up at the sky for some divine inspiration, glanced back at my paper, and then peeked at my neighbors. The lady beside me had already filled up her sheet, scribbling away with so much excitement, as if she had been waiting for that very moment. The guy on my left was just as eager, writing down his plans with a big smile on his face, like he had his entire future figured out and it was all falling into place.

And there I was—with a blank sheet and an even blanker mind. Between my head and that sheet of paper, I couldn’t tell which was emptier.

Time was up, and we were picked randomly to read out what we had written. In those last few seconds, with a painfully slow adrenaline rush, I finally put pen to paper and wrote: “I want to be rich.”

I didn’t know exactly what I wanted, but I knew what I didn’t want—I never wanted to be poor or lack financial independence. How to achieve that, I wasn’t so sure. It wasn’t a matter of lacking skills; if anything, I had too many. I could do a lot of things. But I also knew that while I was great at starting things, I often struggled to finish them. That awareness made me cautious—I didn’t want to be a jack of all trades and a master of none.

My service year was amazing! I served alongside my incredible girls, and I’m grateful that we’re still friends to this day. I had a beautiful romantic relationship, and I served in a reputable government institution. Yet, despite all of that, there was this lingering void—an unsettling uncertainty about the future. And that thought scared the hell out of me.

I was offered a retention position where I served, but I didn’t want it. The pay was reasonable, but I didn’t enjoy the work, and I knew I didn’t want to feel stuck. Life was good, but I couldn’t fully appreciate it because I was too focused on the future, especially on where I wanted to be in five years. That question from CDS never left my mind.

After being called to the bar, I worked in a law firm for a while. I enjoyed litigation—especially criminal litigation and I was good at it. The thrill of arguing cases, the rush of being in court, the satisfaction of winning, the ego on the police officers’ faces when they saw I was a young lady, and the humility that followed when they realized my strength—I loved it all.

But my salary? Not so great. Thankfully, I had side gigs that made it all worthwhile.

Still, something felt off. I wasn’t fulfilled, and that bothered me more than I cared to admit. I had a business running on the side, but even that didn’t bring me the satisfaction I was searching for. Every time I asked myself that question—Where do you see yourself in five years?, my mind went blank. And that blankness made me feel like I was on the wrong path, like I wasn’t doing the right thing.

Then, an opportunity came. A corporate job offer. Better pay. More flexibility. A fresh start. I took it, though I didn’t completely leave litigation—I still handled personal cases. But the catch? It was in Lagos, a city I had never liked. Moving from Abuja to Lagos meant starting over yet again.

But here’s the funny thing—I love being busy, and Lagos kept me on my toes. Work was demanding but rewarding. My bank account was happy. My business flourished. Side gigs rolled in. And somewhere in the midst of all that, I got married. And I can swear I didn’t even see that one coming. (A story for another day..or should I spill? Let me know if you’d love to hear how I met the man I married)

I had been so caught up in living that I forgot to ask myself the question. And when it finally popped back into my head, I realized something—it had been five years since that blank sheet of paper at CDS. Five whole years. And looking back, I saw growth. So much growth. I had been so obsessed with the future that I had failed to appreciate the present. But in those five years, life had unfolded beautifully, and I hadn’t even realized it in the moment.

And you know what’s even crazier? If I had gotten hold of that same sheet of paper again, I know I wouldn’t have written down half of what I’ve actually achieved. Not because I didn’t want them, but because I probably would have thought they were impossible.

Now, when I ask myself where I want to be in five years, the answer is as clear as day. Maybe it’s because I’m older. Maybe it’s because I’ve found my strength. Either way, I know exactly where I want to be.

I guess what I am trying to say is,there’s no perfect time. You’ll figure it out when you figure it out, and when you do, that will be the right time. No sooner, no later.

So, if you’re in that place of uncertainty, if you have no clue where you’re headed or your dreams feel scattered and unclear, BREATHE. Give yourself a break. Live. Be present. The future will unfold in ways you can’t even imagine.  Just  keep existing. Keep moving. And most importantly, be present in the present.

.

This thought hit me hard this morning when I woke up with an idea buzzing in my head. I was so excited that I immediately sent a voice note to a friend, sharing my plans and asking for her input. After pressing send, I sat back and wondered—but how is she? Is she in the mood to respond to my energy, to match my excitement? What if she’s not? What if she saw my message and rolled her eyes, not because she doesn’t care, but because she’s not in the mental space to engage with me?

Now imagine she finally responds, maybe after forcing herself out of her low mood, only to meet me at a point where I’ve moved on or I’m overwhelmed with other things. How many times have we unintentionally played this emotional ping-pong, not realizing the nuances of what others are dealing with in the background?

A few days ago, I received devastating news that left me struggling to process my emotions. Moments later, a friend called, bubbling with excitement to share a quick gist. The first thing she asked me was, “How are you?” And without a second thought, I replied, “I’m fine.” Why? Because that’s the default response. Saying I wasn’t fine would have required energy to explain or risked making her overly concerned. I didn’t want to dampen her joy or be the “buzzkill,” so I listened, laughed, and responded like everything was okay.

Reflecting on that moment, it hit me how often we conceal our true emotions. Some of us have mastered the art of hiding pain so well that even those closest to us can’t tell when we’re hurting. Social media has made this even easier—a carefully curated highlight reel where smiles and wins overshadow struggles and tears. It’s the perfect façade for a world that rarely pauses to look deeper. For those who are not social media active, it's even easier for them to mask their pain. Afterall, no one is really seeing or asking.

But this is me breaking through that façade and asking you directly: How are you, really? What’s happening behind that smile? How are you navigating the highs and lows that life keeps throwing your way?

We’re all in different phases, carrying weights and worries that aren’t always visible to the people around us. Someone you saw laughing yesterday might be crying today, and you might think, But she seemed fine yesterday. What if she wasn’t? What if she’s just good at hiding her pain?

Checking on our loved ones is more than a casual “how are you?” It’s about being present enough to notice when someone’s fine isn’t truly fine. It’s about understanding the unspoken words behind the ‘fine’. It’s about creating space for people to be vulnerable, to say, “I’m not okay,” without fear of judgment or being a burden. Adulthood has proven to be quite challenging. It’s harder to check on loved ones regularly, even though there are easier means to do so. What an irony! I am as guilty of this as many of us are. It’s so easy to get lost in the hustle of life— trying to grow professionally, improve financially, build a home, and so much more — that we often forget to consciously make an effort to check on one another.

Not checking in doesn’t mean we hate each other. In fact, I believe people cross our minds far more often than we actually reach out to them.

So today, I’m using this space to check on you, my friends, my family, and anyone reading this. How are you? Really, how are you? 

Whether you’re in a season of joy, confusion, or pain, I hope you know that you don’t always have to be strong, and you don’t have to carry your burdens alone.

If you’re the one asking the question, let’s take it beyond routine. Let’s mean it. And if you’re the one answering, let’s be brave enough to say the truth — whether we’re fine or not. Because sometimes, all it takes is a moment of honesty to feel less alone.

So again, I ask: How are you?

Let’s start the conversation.

Side Note/Motivation: The year is moving fast. Slowly but surely, the excitement that comes with the new year is fading, and we’re reminded that each day in the new year is just another continuation of the days before. As a result, we might find ourselves unintentionally tossing out some of those resolutions. But hold up — don’t give up just yet! Tomorrow is another new day, a fresh opportunity to pick up the pieces and try again. Slowly but steadily, you can make progress. Remember, na who give up, fuck up!

At first, when I heard this comment, I thought it was just a compliment. But gradually, it stopped sounding that way to me. The more I hear it, the more I start to wonder—and the last time I checked, compliments shouldn’t leave you questioning yourself.

I jokingly told my husband once to get me a ring with a bigger stone—maybe something like what KieKie wears. Perhaps then it would be more obvious that I’m married.

I remember one time when a guy stopped me on the road to ask me out. I told him I was married, and the next thing he said was, “You don’t look married.” For a second, I thought I had forgotten my marriage badge at home! Funny enough, I get this “compliment” from women more than men.

I understand that most people mean no harm, but I just don’t find it as flattering as I once did.

I just remembered that an acquaintance’s husband once asked her to stop being friendly with me because, apparently, I’m a bad influence. LOL! Why? Because how could I be married and still be free? I didn’t think freedom and marriage couldn’t coexist—especially not in this AI century.

A few days ago, I ranted on Snapchat about how absurd it is for someone to tell a married woman not to wear a particular outfit simply because she’s married. Sure, I agree that some outfits might appear indecent or immodest, but why should marriage be the reason a person shouldn’t wear them? Do you get my point?

Because if you’re telling me not to wear something solely because I’m married, does that mean it’s perfectly okay to wear the same outfit as a single person? Make it make sense, please.

And for those already reading this and rolling their eyes because they agree that married women should have a “uniform,” let me just say this: the phrase “You Don’t Look Married” isn’t limited to outfits. According to the YDLM WhatsApp group, as a married woman, you’re not supposed to be socially happy. Creating content, posting regularly on social media, going to the gym, or just being yourself is a major violation of their imaginary law—and for that, you should be severely punished.

The question is, what does it even mean to “look married”? Apparently, there’s a secret handbook I missed the day I said “I do.” From what people tell me, looking married involves an elaborate uniform: wrappers, boubous, minimal makeup (because somehow, bold red lips scream “single”), and maybe even a headscarf tied a certain way to symbolize “responsibility.” Basically, you’re expected to adopt a style that shouts, “Look at me! I am taken and no longer allowed to enjoy life!”

I have another question: who made these rules?

I know someone who decided to “look married,” and I can tell you for free that she hasn’t been happy about it. Now, there are people who genuinely love embracing the “married look,” and that’s absolutely fine. But if you’re forcing yourself to fit the mold just because society demands it—yet you’re unhappy—I pray for you.

The funny thing is, no one ever comments on a man’s appearance with, “You don’t look married.” And if men face similar issues, that’s their story to tell—the floor is theirs. But honestly, I haven’t heard of it. At least, my husband hasn’t been ranting like I do.

As long as a man isn’t walking around shirtless, he’s good. But for women, marriage seems to come with an invisible dress code.

It’s no news that I love fashion. I dress how I feel—whether that’s casual, streetwear, or full glam. It’s my way of expressing myself, and getting married hasn’t changed that. I also try to be modest, not because I want to “look married,” but because it’s a personal commitment—one I’m glad to embrace.

Let’s talk about these outdated norms. The idea that marriage should “look” a certain way is so deeply ingrained in our culture. But here’s the truth: marriage isn’t about how you look—it’s about how you live. It’s about love, mutual respect, and building a partnership that works for you. How does my choice to wear jeans and a top affect any of that?

I attracted my kind of man—the one who sees me and loves how I express myself. So why should I change that just because the YDLM community says so?

For me, looking married isn’t about clothes—it’s about the glow on my face because I’m genuinely happy. I mean, I’m crazily in love with a man who is madly in love with me! Looking married is about the confidence in my stride because I know I’m loved and supported. It’s about the laughter and secret gossip I share with my husband because we’re best friends.

If someone can’t see that, then maybe they’re looking for the wrong signs.

At the end of the day, marriage is a deeply personal experience. Comparison never works in that institution. How I choose to dress—or not dress—doesn’t define my commitment, love, or maturity. It’s just me being me, and my husband wouldn’t have it any other way.

So, no, I don’t “look married,” and I’m okay with that. In fact, now that I’m putting this out there, I think it’s a compliment.

Marriage is not a dress code—it’s a vibe. And as long as you’re living in love and authenticity, you’re doing it right. After all, the best way to “look married” is to look happy!

I have so many things to write about, but where do I start? Perhaps from the middle. I don’t think there are any rules to it anyway. And if there are, I choose not to follow them tonight.

I come from a family of four: my mum, my dad, my older brother, and me. A very small and comfortable family that has had its fair share of life’s hurdles. I always believe that everyone is going through or has gone through something difficult, and as a result, I am rarely, if ever, intentionally unkind to people.

Lately, I have been more intentional about gratitude. This intentionality has made me realize that every day, I have something to be grateful for—something different, something new.

If you know me well, you’d know that I am a very spiritual person. I am big on God! I can’t have a lengthy conversation without mentioning Him at least three times. I mean, who am I without Him? He has proven Himself many times in ways I cannot fully describe or explain.

I am also very observant; I pay close attention to details and patterns, which has shaped me greatly. My attention to detail and my awareness of my surroundings have helped me navigate my path in life.

There is always a reason for everything—who we meet, where we go, the cities we have lived in, the people we have loved—these are all parts of our story. Our story is unique because of these details. They are the pieces that make our puzzle whole. Hence, I don’t take anything for granted. I also know when it’s time to let go because if you don’t let go when you should, you end up stuck in one place. It’s like watching an episode of a series that usually lasts 45 minutes but taking 3 days to finish. You’re stuck on that episode and won’t know what happens next unless you’re willing to finish it and move on. The sooner you learn to let go of certain things, the easier it becomes to move forward and let new things unfold in your life.

I love God so much, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get my fair share of life’s challenges. When I go through tough moments, you’ll hardly know unless you’re with me at that exact time. I don’t just have a high threshold for physical pain but also for the unseen emotional pains. A few weeks ago, I was in severe pain, and I saw plans change in the blink of an eye. I told my friend, ‘If childbirth pain is worse than what I just went through, then we’re really in for it!’ Lol. She knows my pain threshold is high, so for me to say that, the pain must have been intense.

Before I knew it, I found myself in an operating room for the second time in my life. The surgeon took a picture of me right before the procedure, and there was a smile on my face. I sent the picture to my friend who had been following the whole situation, and she was surprised I could still smile so broadly despite everything I was going through.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared. I was terrified. I asked the surgeons tons of questions, and my husband and brother consulted other doctors for reassurance. We were all worried, yet I remained calm because I knew God wouldn’t forsake me. I was so sure of that, and Alhamdulillah, everything went well.

You see, I have my fair share of life’s sourness too. It’s not always rosy, but when I talk about these things, I don’t make them seem as challenging as they truly are. What’s the point, anyway? I’ve already poured it all out to God. He sees everything. He is my therapist.

Another thing happened recently—I received a rejection email for something I had been looking forward to for months. Normally, I always think about the other side of the coin. What if things don’t go my way? I usually prepare for the possibility and have a plan B, so I’m ready for whatever outcome comes my way. But this time, for reasons I still don’t understand, I didn’t consider the ‘what ifs.’ I was certain I’d get favorable feedback.

To say the rejection email was heartbreaking is an understatement. I cried so much, and then cried again because I couldn’t console myself. Every word of comfort and sympathy from loved ones fell on deaf ears, and I just kept crying. I would sleep and hope that when I woke up, the nightmare would be over. But there it was, staring right back at me the moment I opened my eyes.

In all of these, I wasn’t angry at God, not once. That’s when I knew that my faith had truly strengthened. That was yet another answered prayer. In the past, I used to stay angry at God when things didn’t go the way I wanted (Astagfirullah), especially when I had prayed fervently for them. But this time, the feeling was different. I was sad, I felt shattered, but I didn’t blame God for my situation. In fact, I feel it was for the best, though that didn’t stop me from hurting.

I want to emphasize that believing in God doesn’t stop me from feeling hurt. I wasn’t hurt because I felt disappointed in God, but because the situation itself was a painful one. As a human, I was affected by it emotionally, but that doesn’t mean I don’t trust God to bring something better. It’s important to sort through and differentiate our feelings. I’ve learned that I can be sad about a situation without losing faith in God’s plan. Trusting God doesn’t mean we won’t feel pain; it just means we believe something greater is coming, even in the midst of that pain.

I always say it’s hard to talk about God to someone who doesn’t know Him. They might think you’re crazy. But when you have a relationship with Him, it’s soothing, it’s calming—and yes, it might seem crazy to others. Sometimes, people may even consider you a fool. I used to be really shy about discussing my faith or my relationship with God, maybe because I don’t fit the stereotypical appearance of someone who is religious or spiritual.

But just because my imperfections are visible doesn’t mean others don’t have theirs hidden somewhere. I’m not glamorizing my flaws, but as far as I know, we’re all struggling and imperfect in our own ways.

Some may say that it takes time for God to answer prayers and that He’s not always fast, but who’s counting time when your faith is fully in Him? Prayer without faith is like going to a battlefield with a sword but without a shield. You cannot pray for something and still be worried or filled with doubt. It doesn’t work that way. You have to remain unpressured and patient.

You also shouldn’t wait until you’re overwhelmed before seeking God’s help. You don’t approach God with a Plan B. You can’t ask for His protection while relying on something else—like wearing a waist bead you believe protects you. You can’t claim to trust God and still visit clerics at every chance you get. When you do that, your gratitude isn’t solely to God. You end up being thankful to the woman who gave you the waist beads or the man who claims to foresee your future.

I pray about everything, even down to choosing my outfit for the day. No concern is too small to bring to God. Pray about it, have faith, and put in the effort. Make prayer a habit, like having a conversation with God. There’s no special technique to it. Remind Him of His promises—not because He has forgotten, but because He loves to be reminded.

Sometimes, we get too lazy to pray, or we might want to dwell in our misery, even though we know that if we seek help, He will come through. After all, we are human, and we are not perfect.

One thing I am definitely sure about is that prayer works! You can tell me many things, and I might believe them, but if you say prayers are overrated, I’ll definitely raise an eyebrow.

A quick side note: Don’t be too hard on yourself; you are doing well.

Read that again.

In a world where everything is a “trend,” it’s perfectly okay to be different. Just because everyone is heading north doesn’t mean the path to the south is any less viable. Society has labeled everything, creating distinctions between what “good” people do and what “quirky” people engage in. Certain actions are glorified, and if you don’t participate, you’re considered out of touch. These actions aren’t necessarily sins. In fact, sin is subjective. If something doesn’t feel right to you, you don’t have to do it.

Growing up, we never had a generator, even though they were becoming popular and almost every household had one. I don’t know if it was because we couldn’t afford one or if my parents just disliked the noise. We used candles and lanterns instead. While our neighbors had their generators running, I would be preparing to clean the lantern lamps. We were different, but I never felt any pressure because of it.

As for peer pressure, I’ve never fully believed that friends can compel you to do something against your will. Whatever actions you take, especially those you might consider bad, are ultimately your choices. You can’t blame others for your decisions. You have your own mind, guided by your conscience, and you should be in control of it.

I have always known what I wanted and what I could do, and I set clear limits for myself. I know my boundaries and never cross them. For instance, when I attend events or parties with friends who drink alcohol, and I decline their offers, I’m often met with shocked, even embarrassed looks. These reactions surprise me—what’s the big deal if I don’t drink? Why do people assume I’m missing out? Just because almost everyone else is drinking doesn’t mean I haven’t passed the vibe check.

I’ve been to nightclubs on a few occasions. My friends are hilarious, and I appreciate that we usually share the same mindset. When we went clubbing, we never drank. I can bet that we acted crazier on the dance floor than the drunkards. I always say I don’t need a substance to feel high. In those moments, we didn’t care about anything else; we just wanted to be ourselves, and for us, drinking wasn’t part of that. We danced joyfully, screamed along to the DJ’s music, and went home when we were tired. Those were moments I really enjoyed.

If someone tells me they’ve never been to a club, why would I assume their life is boring? Why would I feel the need to convince them to try it?

I remember a funny incident recently. I was invited to an event with a group of people, and one of them asked me, “I hope you’re not planning to wear one of your boring outfits?” I looked at her and replied, “You mean the same boring clothes you always try to steal from my closet?” Everyone just laughed.

You can call me a sleepyhead or say I’m not a social butterfly, but you can’t criticize my fashion choices or my beauty. I know myself better than anyone else, and even if you point out a bad habit of mine, I probably knew about it before you mentioned it. The comment from the girl didn’t make me reconsider my fashion choices or feel sad because I believe it came from a place of envy or simply because we have different tastes in fashion. So girl, walk with your head held high! 

I knew the kind of wedding I wanted. In fact, I envisioned a smaller wedding than what I ended up having, but coming from Ilorin, making that happen was a struggle. I love glamorous weddings when I see them—I gush, I scream, and I get so excited. But I knew that wasn’t for me; it’s not what I wanted. The reality of parties exhausts me.

I remember when I was called to the bar, I told my parents not to come to Abuja. Most people had their parents there, but I didn’t want that because the whole process was too stressful for me. It was worth the stress, sure, but it didn’t change the fact that it was stressful. I don’t regret my decision. Even if many people had their parents there because that’s what they wanted, I got what I wanted, too.

This reflects my broader approach to life. I value knowing myself and making choices that align with who I am, even if they don’t match societal expectations. Whether it’s my fashion choices, my wedding, or my graduation ceremony, I prioritize my comfort and authenticity. People might label me as unexciting or not a social butterfly, but I take pride in knowing myself better than anyone else. I refuse to let others’ opinions dictate my actions or make me feel inadequate. I believe that staying true to myself is more important than conforming to others’ expectations, and that’s something I will always stand by.

Just because many women are voicing their decision not to have kids, you suddenly think, “Yes, that’s what’s in vogue now, so I won’t have kids either.” Or perhaps you see a post from your favorite influencer criticizing women who choose to be housewives over career women, and you notice the comment section is filled with support. You think, “Why not just follow the crowd and say the same?”

Having a different opinion from the majority does not invalidate your perspective. I have a friend who always knew that business wasn’t for her. She never tried it and isn’t willing to. She works her 9-5 job, complains about it, but wouldn’t have it any other way. You might see someone start a business, and because 95% of your contacts are business owners, you suddenly feel threatened and decide to leave your comfortable 9-5 job because it starts feeling stressful. But ask yourself, is that what you truly want? Would you rather be a career woman or a housewife? Would you rather have kids?

Consider whether the circumstances around you support your choices. Then, make your decision and nurture it into reality. Don’t just follow trends or succumb to peer pressure. Understand your own desires and let those guide you.

Know what you want and dare to be uniquely different. If you want to stay a virgin until you are ready, the choice is yours. If you don’t like dressing a certain way, then don’t. If you prefer not to be a social butterfly, embrace your introversion. The world may be a stage and we are all actors, but make sure to play your part authentically. You don’t have to conform to societal norms.

Stand by your convictions, and don’t be swayed by trends or peer pressure. True confidence comes from understanding and honoring your own values. Remember, not being in vogue is the new vogue. Be true to yourself, and let your individuality shine. It is okay to be different.

This is the topic that makes us all cringe; the one we avoid discussing with parents and elders, and speak about in hushed tones with friends. It’s the topic we’re all “innocent” of. 

If you guessed sex, you’re right. I have  been pondering on what to write for a while now, and every time I do, my mind keeps returning to this topic. I’ve been avoiding it, but since it continues to linger in my thoughts, here we go!

From a very young age, I knew what sex was. I read extensively and was aware of many things that my peers typically wouldn’t know. Because of this, I  associated with people older than me. Most of my cool friends back then were my teachers, guardians, and some aunts who were always willing to spill the tea with and around me since I never acted my age.

When I got to university, my friends and I fantasized about our wedding nights because, naturally and reasonably, that was the night of sex. We would talk about the lingerie we’d wear and how we’d call each other that same night to chat about how everything went. We laughed, imagined different scenarios, and even dramatized how we’d moan when it happened. I remember one friend saying she’d run around the house, playing chase and catch with her partner before they had sex. Looking back, it sounds really weird and crazy, but you can blame the minds of excited teenage girls. Sex was a big deal to us—something huge, sacred, romantic, the pinnacle of love. We looked forward to our first sex with great anticipation.

In university, I had an amazing clique of friends, and I am glad we still maintain that friendship, which makes writing this essay even more enjoyable. We knew that, religiously, we were supposed to wait until marriage to have sex, but that wasn’t our yardstick for delaying it. For us, it was more about the readiness of the mind. We would say, if the urge to have sex came today, we would go for it, but if the urge came after marriage or could be controlled until then, so be it. Our minds were our only restriction, and because of that, I don’t think we ever had any regrets.

I remember when a friend of mine, who was like a school mother and senior sister to me, got married. She was my first guide to understanding and appreciating the spiritual essence of Islam. After her wedding, I asked her about her wedding night, and she told me how they performed ablution and recited some prayers before having sex to prevent shaitan (satan) from being a third party. I laughed so hard because it seemed funny to me and asked, “If you have sex three times, do you perform ablution each time? Doesn’t that kill the mood?” We both laughed really hard. I did some research and was relieved to find out that while it’s a recommended practice (Sunnah) of the Prophet (PBUH) to pray on your first night of having sex, it’s not an obligatory act for every night. Alhamdulillah!

My mother, though a disciplinarian, was never too strict to discuss sex with me. I was very curious and asked a lot of questions, and she knew I was too smart to be lied to. She never told me the story of “If a boy touches you, you’ll get pregnant.” When I started my period at the young age of 9, I felt a bit shy to tell her. But I remember that day clearly—she sat me down and explained everything I needed to know about sex at that age. She knew I already knew a lot because she was the one who bought me novels. This openness helped me feel comfortable discussing these topics with her and my friends, even if not with other elders. 

It’s funny how my mother never asked if I had started having sex. Maybe she trusted that I was still a virgin, or perhaps she didn’t want to be disappointed by my response. Oh, wait, I do remember—she asked me once.

I was very selective about the men I dated, and even then, I didn’t have the patience to tolerate any kind of relationship issues. If there was even a small amount of stress, I would leave the relationship. If I saw that someone lacked ambition, I would leave. Any minor issue, and I was out. It might have helped that my mom knew all my exes. She actually had to know them because of my curfew and the need to explain my movements to her every time. If we were dating, you had to know my house, and for dates, you had to pick me up from my parents’ house. So, my mom knew whenever I was in or out of a relationship. When I broke up with someone, I would just tell my mom, “Mom, you won’t be seeing xyz anymore because we broke up.” She would say, “Okay, why?” I’d explain, and she would usually stay silent.

One particular day, my ex was the one who broke up with me, and it suddenly hit me how much I truly liked him. I cried so much, and that was the first time my mom saw me cry over a man. She was so shocked that as she comforted me, she looked at me and asked, “Hawa’u, did you guys have sex?” Because to her, what else could make me cry like that? Lmao!

When I got married, I faced a significant challenge—one that I later discovered many of my friends also faced. It was a dilemma between sex and prayer. You might wonder how?

In Islam, after sexual intimacy, one must perform a ritual bath called Ghusl Janabah before performing any of the five daily prayers. This bath is essential to cleanse oneself of impurities and discharge before standing before Allah in prayer. It is mandatory to perform this bath, and you can learn more about it through this link:The Major Ablution (Ghusl Janabat) | Islamic Marriage Handbook  During this bath, it is crucial to wash the entire body, including the head.

I was aware of all this before getting married, but I never anticipated it could become a practical challenge. Just imagine when my husband and I feel a sexual urge right after I’ve bathed, completed my skincare routine, and then he sends that wink! In the blink of an eye, we’re swept away, and then I have to bathe again! Or having to bathe before my early morning prayers because we had sex right before going to sleep. Or for me, who takes Tahajjud (night vigil) seriously, and having been intimate a few hours earlier—meaning I have to bathe again around 3:00 am!! Subhanallah!

For a few days, I struggled to maintain consistency in my prayers. Finding a balance was incredibly challenging. I reached out to a few of my married friends to share my frustration, and they all lamented with me, welcoming me to the club. I found it amusing how devastated I was, wondering how many other Muslim women might have experienced similar concerns without my knowing. I asked them how they coped and why they hadn’t informed me earlier, at least before I was initiated into the married world.I even did some research to see if married women were exempt from the ritual bath and if ablution alone would suffice. During our lengthy call, my friends and I lamented for hours, and some mentioned how this requirement alone diminished their sexual desire, as the realization that they needed to bathe after sex affected their enthusiasm. because the moment you realize that you have to bathe after sex, your sexual “steeze” just reduces. One of them even opted for a low haircut because, as I mentioned, the bath involves washing from head to toe. Some of my friends even devised convenient timetables to ensure it didn’t interfere with prayer times. Isn’t that crazy? And let’s not forget, as a skincare enthusiast, my products won’t last as long as they used to, and these things can get expensive. How many times do I want to moisturize my body or apply sunscreen? Now, it’s enough to make me want to cry.

The fact is, men are affected too. They also have to participate in this ritual bathing, but you see those men, they just aren’t bothered. If they have to bathe ten times a day, as long as they’re getting the tea, Ride on girl! The only frustrating part is that my husband uses my skincare products too! Just imagine the struggle! Sigh!!!

For me, I want everything. I want the sex, whether planned or spontaneous, even the quickies. I also want to pray at the correct times and enjoy uninterrupted tahajjud. This is where I’ve come to realize that once again, intentionality wins. Sometimes, I decline sex (though it’s rare), and if I don’t, I must be very intentional about getting up, bathing, and praying if necessary. Plus, my husband now buys all my skincare products, so I can’t really complain about that, even though I am still slightly pained.

An Interesting discovery from my research was that Aisha, the beloved wife of the Prophet (PBUH)(my everyday woman crush), reportedly said that washing the entire head can lead to hair loss. She also mentioned that it takes a long time to dry, and when not properly dried, it can produce an unpleasant smell, which goes against the principle of cleanliness being next to godliness. Therefore, she recommended that just a handful of water is sufficient to wash the entire head three times.

I won’t withhold the truth like some of my fellow married Muslim women about how challenging it can be to balance sex and prayer life. I am still angry with y’all for not telling me this. Lol. So, here I am telling all the singles: be prepared for the struggle! But when it arises, let intentionality prevail.

My fellow married Muslim women: Let’s hear from you…

I believe many of us yearn to live in a different world, one that harbours our hidden truths. Each of us has a side of our personality that we don’t fully embrace, whether it’s positive or negative. In this imagined world, we might envision ourselves as actors, models, musicians, painters, or writers. Because this world is alluring and often unattainable, we refer to it as our alter ego.

 In a world that often imposes rigid expectations and judgements, many of us find ourselves in the closet, concealing our true selves. A metaphorical closet we have created where we grapple with our thoughts, desires and identities, often wondering how different life might be if societal/religious norms were more accepting.

As I was growing up, I dreamed of becoming many things: a lawyer, an actor, a ballet dancer, a cook, a club owner, and countless other roles. Whatever would have my name ringing in the ears of the world, You name it, I wanted to be it. Yet, the fear of judgment was the padlock that kept my dreams locked in the closet.  I was held back from exploring my desires, majorly by societal/ religious values. Iwo omo Ilorin, Omo Musulumi, Taabi ni Ile Ire, O fe ma shey feemu (You, a child well brought up with  an Islamic background, from Ilorin wants to be an actor) constantly rang in my ear whenever the thought of fueling that desire came to mind. 

I used to attend a Muslims-only school where I felt my wings were clipped. When I switched schools, it felt like gaining freedom. There were numerous social activities that captivated me, and I eagerly embraced my newfound interests. Though, the muslim community in my school frowned at some things I did like drama, dancing my ass out on social nights, singing boldly with my hilarious voice publicly. I was different from the girl I used to think I was and that helped shape my academics. I became one of the best students in class, led in academic and social activities. I was free. I could wear tops that did not cover my buttocks, even had my hair open most times cos we wore berets. These were small things but a big social freedom for me. 

I often wonder what we could become if the world were not so judgmental. What if we were allowed to be ourselves, disregarding the consequences? Would we be more daring? Perhaps we would say no on days we currently say yes, choose to remain unmarried, or decide not to have kids. When we are hidden in the closet, we frequently revisit our true selves. Some of us nurture these thoughts, letting them fuel our dreams and ambitions, even if kept secret. Others may bury their desires to conform to societal expectations. The closet becomes a mental battleground where these thoughts either flourish or are suppressed.

The question remains, are we expected to fuel these thoughts or brush over them? I will say it depends on whether they are negative or positive thoughts. Then again, what's the yardstick to determine the positivity or negativity of thoughts? Religion, or Societal values? There are times I want to flaunt my hair, just go out without covering my hair ( a major struggle lately). I recently asked my husband what he thought about me going out without my hair covered, and he said, “I don’t mind, just be yourself.” That could have been a valid excuse for me to go out with my hair uncovered that day, but somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. 

As a Muslim, I must cover my hair when going out in public. I’ve practiced this so diligently that not covering my hair feels like going out naked. Many, if not most, people go out with their hair uncovered. For them, it’s not wrong—their religion and societal beliefs don’t oppose it. But for me, it’s considered wrong. That doesn’t mean I don’t feel the urge to do it sometimes. It’s the same with some of the hairstyles I do or some I’d like to try. Another thing I would love to have are tattoos. Oh, I love tattoos, but Islam says NO! So, Henna to the rescue. Nurturing these desires is challenging because they conflict with my religious beliefs, yet the urge persists. So, it can be quite difficult at times. However, does this mean I am not being true to myself? I don't believe so. This is where self-awareness/consciousness  comes into play, and a lack of it could lead me astray. LOL!! 

How I determine whether or not to fuel a thought is understanding that positive thoughts might include aspirations that align with our passions and bring us joy, while negative thoughts are often those that evoke fear or guilt. However, societal norms can skew these perceptions, labeling certain desires as inappropriate or unworthy. I care more about what my religion says than what the society will tell me. That is my yardstick. Sometimes, I choose to ignore what is religiously correct and turn deaf ears but none of us are flawless, are we? I try, I thrive.

The Closet is  a place where our alter egos thrive, holding on to the hope of one day living authentically, and openly, in alignment with your true identity. In a less judgmental world, this journey would be less fraught with fear, allowing all of us to live more genuine and fulfilling lives. By acknowledging these hidden parts of ourselves, we take the first step towards bridging the gap between our inner truths and the lives we aspire to lead. “Who are you in the closet?” is a deeply personal question that invites introspection and honesty.

Imagine a world free from judgment, where authenticity is celebrated. In such a world, many of us would dare to live out our dreams and desires openly.  Who would you be? I’ll go first: I would be an actor, embracing every role with passion, including the kissing scenes and all. No limitations, just pure, unapologetic self-expression. I might also become a screen diva or a ballet dancer, pursuing the arts with unrestrained enthusiasm.

Breaking away from all fantasies, I am a lawyer, an entrepreneur, a devout Muslim, and a wife. I am fulfilled, content, and confident that I will achieve even more.

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One word I believe to hold so much gravity is friendship. I have few friends in my circle, not because I suck at friendship but because I am too sensitive to feel any sort of lack of   genuineness from people. 

I’m not the type of friend who checks in every day, but I’m the kind you can always count on. Life has taught me to be deeply mindful of kindness. I recall praying as a child for wealth, believing I’d use it to help others because of my good heart. That prayer remains, but now I find myself limiting how much I give, not due to a lack of generosity, but as a safeguard against those who feel entitled or harbor negative intentions. Who ever said the world isn’t harsh?

We often discuss romantic heartbreaks, but have you ever experienced the pain of a friendship betrayal? It stings, crazily. I treasure my friends deeply, often forgiving even their gravest mistakes upon seeing genuine remorse. I reflect on the times they’ve been supportive and present, and I simply tell myself, “It’s just one of those things.” It’s ironic how forgiving my friends is easier for me than forgiving a romantic partner.

I often grant numerous chances for friendships to reconcile until I reluctantly admit to myself that I’ve reached my limit. It pains me to acknowledge this, but once I do, I realize it’s truly over. More often than not, I shy away from uttering those words “I’M DONE” because I’m not prepared to endure the heartbreak and subsequent healing process. Yet, can we evade such moments indefinitely?

As I mentioned, the pain of losing a friend is profound. I experienced such loss over a year ago with someone who was once incredibly dear to me. We were really close, and I regarded her as a sister. However, we never addressed our issues directly or amicably. In fact, she never expressed her grievances or concerns with me directly, which became a significant obstacle in our friendship. Ultimately, I had to let go. It was challenging to maintain a friendship with someone who wouldn’t openly communicate when they were upset or hurt but instead confided in third parties, all while maintaining a facade of normalcy with me.

In the past year, I’ve experienced achievements that I would have eagerly shared with her, relishing in laughter, screams, and shared excitement over the phone. There were also moments of sadness when I longed to find solace in her embrace. However, it’s crucial for me to acknowledge that those are experiences confined to the past. Not everything from the past can be carried into the future, and I’m learning to accept that. I don’t harbor any ill feelings toward her; I’ve merely moved forward. I’m currently in the acceptance stage.

The pain of experiencing a friendship heartbreak is one of the reasons I tend to distance myself from having close friends. I struggle to find a middle ground; it’s either all or nothing for me, and adjusting is a challenge. So, you can imagine the hurt I feel when I realize that while I’m giving my all to a friend, they’re only offering a fraction of themselves in return. Admittedly, I can be possessive as a friend, but that’s not the main issue here. I value being on the same page with my friends; it’s what binds us together.

It's disheartening how friendship nowadays often seems to be driven more by utility, meant for just some purpose. Within a circle of friends, it troubles me to see that instead of directly addressing concerns with one another, some individuals choose to confide in mutual friends about their grievances. Why not reach out to the friend you have an issue with directly to resolve matters? What’s the rationale behind involving a third party? Are you truly friends if you can’t communicate openly and resolve conflicts directly? What does friendship mean to you?

I want to do more than gossip. Yes, gossip is a common occurrence for many of us, but I prefer not to be a part of a social circle primarily built on gossip. Count me out of that. 

I may not always be the easiest person to be friends with. There are days when I crave solitude and want to be my own best friend, and as a friend, I hope you understand that. I value having a life outside of our friendship. However, even on those days when I seek solitude, if you, as my friend, reach out to me for help, you can trust me to come running a thousand miles for you. That’s just the kind of person I am—I’m sweet like that.

In a friendship, I believe in reciprocity. If I offend you or do something wrong, and neither of us can address it, then what we share isn’t genuine friendship. Likewise, if I’m unable to forgive you, then you can’t truly be my friend. I want our friendship to include messy fights, knowing that we’ll always find a way to resolve things. Care and trust are essential in my friendship. Loyalty is paramount to me, even if life pulls us in different directions and we don’t communicate as often. When we do talk, it should be a conversation that uplifts the spirit.

We may playfully call each other naughty names, but at the core, there’s mutual respect. Being my friend means nurturing a bond that enriches both of our lives and endures the trials of time.

So I ask you, Are we truly friends?

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One term we encounter frequently is “Marriage”.  Throughout our upbringing, we’ve consistently witnessed the union of a man and a woman in matrimony. If you come from an intact family, it’s evident that your parents are married. 

As a woman, as you reach a certain age, the concept of marriage becomes a constant refrain, to the extent that it might seem like the sole focus in life. Aunties would remind you of your age and the need to find a man. Mothers would remind you of their age and the urgent need to see their grandbabies and the first prayer that every adult you know mutters to you is laced around marriage. Marriage, Marriage, Marriage! 

Although I am unmarried, I have had the opportunity to listen to, observe and engage in conversations with many married couples. Hence, my perspective. 

For some individuals, marriage represents love, for others, it symbolizes security, and for some, it embodies both aspects. In certain situations, overwhelming romantic feelings are not deemed essential. Some prioritize love before marriage, while others prioritize love after marriage; for some, it’s primarily companionship, and for others, it’s a means to have children within a legitimate framework.

Where do you stand on this spectrum?

I’ve witnessed marriages built entirely on love. They both fell deeply in love before tying the knot, experiencing the spark in their eyes and the butterflies in their stomachs. They couldn’t resist each other, and even their disagreements felt like monumental challenges, like the world would crumble. These individuals marry because of the profound love they share, prioritizing their feelings above all else. Despite the saying that “Love doesn’t conquer all,” for this group of people, it truly does. Love is their top priority, and without it, they wouldn’t enter into marriage.

For certain individuals, marriage serves primarily as a means of attaining security. As long as the man exhibits qualities of a gentleman, is financially prosperous, generous, and capable of providing for the family, it meets their requirements. In their perspective, the quality of sexual intimacy takes a back seat as long as babies can be made. It’s common to hear them express a preference for a partner who can shoulder responsibilities. When a man meets these material expectations, demonstrates impeccable manners, and showcases responsibility, society often questions, “what else are you looking for?, what else do you want?”  Similarly, if the woman is perceived as virtuous, godly, morally upright, and possesses desirable genetic traits, she is called a wife material and considered ideal. These marriages prioritize security as the foundation of the union, with both parties finding contentment in meeting each other’s expectations.

For certain individuals, the focal point of their marriage is sex. At times, sex can be so good that you misconceive your hormonal wants and desires to be your life aspirations. For them, resolving conflicts often involves making amends through sexual intimacy, and expressing joy is synonymous with sex. They view sex as a fundamental tool in their relationship, and for them, it defines the quality of a successful marriage.

The urge for companionship is often the driving force behind some people’s decision to get married. It stems from a sense of loneliness, where individuals feel so isolated that they simply crave someone to share their lives with. Once they find that person, it feels like enough, and they are ready to commit to marriage. 

For some individuals, marriage is simply a contractual agreement—a method to finalize a deal. Whether they choose to stay or leave after the agreement is settled is entirely their decision.

Certain individuals, particularly men, may assert that love is not the most important consideration in a relationship. They believe that love can develop over time and tell you to prioritize their existing qualities that they believe make them suitable partners. Consequently, they perceive love as secondary. Some women align with this perspective and proceed with the marriage. However, the question remains: do you truly fall in love with them, or do you simply get used to them, adapt to their presence over time?

I’ve been asked by men about what I desire in a partner, but the reality is, even after outlining all the qualities, attraction remains paramount. I must feel a strong, undeniable attraction towards you. You could possess numerous wonderful qualities, yet if I’m not drawn to you, it won’t matter. If you then inquire about what a man can do to ignite attraction within me, the answer is simple: nothing. While attributes like physical attractiveness, wealth, and spirituality are important, they must complement and accompany the primary factor of attraction. Safe to say, my attraction to a man cannot be sustained without these aspects aligning.

Numerous marriages, encompassing the various perspectives I’ve outlined, have endured, while others have faltered. Couple A may find success with certain routines in their marriage, yet Couple B could adopt the same practices and experience immediate discord. The key takeaway is that what proves effective for one couple may not yield the same results for another. There’s no definitive right or wrong perspective to adopt. Choose what resonates with you, ensure it aligns with your partner’s outlook, and that’s what truly matters. It’s not necessary for your perspective to conform to societal norms. Just because it differs from the mainstream doesn’t render it inferior. Ultimately, prioritize what works best for you and your relationship.

Hopefully, when I am married, I will revisit this article to assess any shifts in my perspectives. But for now, let's roll (cruise) with this.

This week, I lacked the inspiration for words or a topic. Yet, I could not resist the urge to write an article for you to read.

While contemplating on what to write, I asked my colleague Ife, “What topic would you enjoy reading from me this weekend?’’ Out of the blue, she replies “Explore the theme of Teenage Lust.” 

I resonated with the topic instantly and I thought, Let’s word it!!!

I am confident that many of us, if not all, have experienced a fleeting emotion, be it a crush, lust, or perhaps, should I label it as love during our teenage years? I think the innocence laced around this feeling is what makes it exquisite.

A young child  feeling some affection for the opposite sex, dreaming, imagining, fantasizing about them. Giggling at dry jokes, exchanging love letters in class, exchanging bags of goodies on valentines day. If you were living in the hostel, your school daughters and school sons would be your courier service. On social nights, you’ll mime love songs by Bracket, Wizkid,D’banj to your lover and If they were sick, you'd be the first to use your “pocket money" to buy snacks for them and take them to the sick bay. If your teenage sweetheart was in school, you’d eagerly await the end of holidays, preparing with excitement for their return when school resumed. If your teenage sweetheart was at home, you’d find yourself counting the ceilings, days, and months  until the eagerly anticipated day when you’d go home to meet them.

Tell me what you just read did not evoke sweet memories or bring a smile to your lips.

Allow me to inquire, where is your teenage sweetheart now? Do they still hold a presence in your life? Has the intensity of your feelings remained unchanged, or would you characterize your emotions then and now differently?

Penning down these words took me on a journey down memory lane, and as you read, I hope it transports you to those sweet, childlike memories.

I’m certain you’re eager to hear my story. However, today isn’t so much about me but about you. Though I have a brief tale to share.

I was 11. I heard his captivating baritone voice that instantly swept me off my feet. We grew closer, conversing on the phone, yet we never met. Strangely, I had no desire to meet him. I relished the mystery, playing with my imagination, fearing that meeting him might shatter the ideal image I had created in my mind. Here is the funny part. Whenever this guy was out of airtime, he would send me a “call me back, I love you" message. Upon receiving the message that concluded with “I love you” for the first time, sleep eluded me. I wandered on my bed for hours, opening my eyes in the middle of the night to check my phone, staring at those words. They evoked a profound emotional response, carrying a weight I never thought could be merely spoken for amusement – it had to be genuine. Except that the “I love you” was never from him.

Do you remember the MTN generic message sent for free by people who lacked airtime? Exactly! That's what he sent to me! And that was all I needed to start steering. That's what I love you could mean to me. The guy take MTN enter me.

I have asked some of my friends to share their teenage lust stories with me and you'll get to read some of them here. Though, I will not be using their real names.

Let us start with Amal. 

Kulu: “Tell me about your teenage love experience”.

Amal: “Not sure I have teenage lust o. But here is one.

I’ve only ever had feelings for two men – my soon-to-be husband and my first love. Our paths crossed back in secondary school when I was in SS1. He was persistent, always around, expressing his strong affection for me. Despite his unwavering interest, I wasn’t reciprocating those feelings. He, an Ilorin guy, pursued me shamelessly, even mentioning me in his tweets over a decade ago. Interestingly, I was already in a high school relationship with my fiance during that time.

Later on, I grew closer to another guy since my boyfriend became less available. Despite not meeting him, we spent hours calling during the days of Etisalat's free minutes. Eventually, my boyfriend and I broke up because he sensed my waning interest and my growing fondness for the other guy, which was true. It was the first time I liked someone without understanding why. We remained friends for a while but eventually drifted apart. 

I regret unintentionally leading him on, but the experience of meeting him has been truly beautiful. Despite the regrets, I wouldn’t change anything about the memories we shared; if given the chance to do it all over again, I wouldn’t alter a thing. He made me realize love is blind and beautiful”.

Hmm, Can this be described as love or lust?

Let's hear Mr B’s story.

“I knew very early in my teenage years that I had quite a good sexual connection within. This drove my lustful desire. I didn’t do anything until 19 when I had my first kiss and smooch. 

From then on, I knew I’d enjoy sex even if that took some time too. But the impact of seeing those area aunties on the street and wondering what happened between them and those Egbon Adugbos (Area Brothers) was a significant experience. I was once sent to buy condoms as a young teenager and those things clearly shaped my experience as I grew older”.

Apparently, teenage desires have their perks too.

J shared hers with me as well and here is what she had to say;

J: “My love (or lust) interest was in a boarding house and it was really cute looking forward to the little time we had together during the holidays. I had my first kiss with him and it was blissful. I ended up heartbroken sha because he left me for our mutual friend😂”

Kulu:“How old were you?  I’m sure then, you’d say you were in love but looking at it now, would you say the same?”

J: “I was 13 ish when we started dating but I knew him since I was 11 or so. I think it was more of an infatuation, not in an entirely lustful way but all those butterflies were just the infatuation from all the thoughts in my head. Thinking about it now, I didn't even know him well enough to be in love.

Bonus points for laughter, he confessed his love to me in chinese characters and told me it meant that he loved me so much. I know he used to watch a lot of chinese film but that thing can be lamba like that😭” 

J’s story really cracked me up! Things that get to us as teenagers!

I have a voice note from a male friend about his experience. Listen

My friend the Masha’Allah Brother!

The last story I’ll be sharing is from Mrs K

Mrs K: “ When I was in Jss 3, there was a guy I liked. We used to hate each other though. I think that was where the love sprouted from. He was the hottest guy in school, the guy everybody wanted, he spoke French too and was very intelligent. 

I really liked him back then but looking back at it now, I feel I was more attracted because he was the guy that everybody wanted but he wanted me. It made me feel special. I won't deny that when we dated, it was a nice experience. He was the first person who encouraged me to read at night and I remember he told me that, if I don't earn at least three prizes at the end of the term, he would break up with him. I didn't want him to end the relationship because I was the cool girl dating the fine boy.So, I made sure I read more. Eventually, I discovered he had a discussion with his friends who informed him that having me was deemed impossible due to my reputation as a no-nonsense girl. They had a bet and that was it. Even though he claimed to have fallen in love while getting to know me, it didn’t sway my decision to end the relationship. However, I have no regrets dating him because by the end of the academic session, I received five different awards. Despite the challenge of being in the same school as exes, it was comforting that he still harbored feelings for me and he protected me from seniors. Summed up together, it was a good experience”.

Should we label what we experienced as teenagers, love or lust? Was it definable and does it even matter? The indefinability of our emotions could be the very essence that adds spice to it. Call it love, lust or as our parents would call it Arrant Nonsense, it's a phase that must be experienced. A natural call. Afterall, we have all been adolescents. 

As young people who are getting married, setting to become parents or are parents already, the coming years will see us be guardians/parents to teens and when our teenage kids show this trait, remember it's a phase just like the one you faced. Look at them and see that they are you, and you were once them.