And the strangest part is that I don’t know what to do with it.

I don’t think I’ve ever been this angry before. I’ve been irritated. I’ve been hurt. I’ve been disgusted. I’ve been disappointed enough to stop speaking to people. But anger? No. Anger has always felt different.

I decided very young that I never wanted to be an angry person. I had watched anger turn people into people I didn’t recognise. Watched it make people careless with their mouths and cruel with their hands. Watched people say things because they were angry and then spend years trying to explain that they didn’t mean them.

I didn’t want that for myself.

I have always liked control. I hate losing control. Of my life. My decisions. My circumstances. Even my emotions. I like knowing what I’m doing. I like knowing what happens next. I like being able to trace a decision back to myself and say, yes, I chose this.

So I suppose it makes sense that I would be suspicious of an emotion that feels like losing control. And now I am discovering that feelings don’t disappear simply because you have nowhere to put them.

I am angry.

A few days ago in church, someone asked how we deal with emotions like jealousy and anger.

I wasn’t really listening. My seatmates were having their own counterattack to the argument about “cohabitating as Christians”, and, honestly, I had chosen my entertainment. The only thing I remember from the answer was: learn how to channel your emotions so you don’t end up regretting what you do with them.

Three hours later, I was furious.

At what? I couldn’t tell you. Not one thing I could point to and say, there. That is why.

Just fury.

So I tried to channel it. I was moving house, and despite having two very heavy bags and several people offering to help me, I insisted on carrying them myself. If I was going to be angry, at least I could be physically exhausted too.

It worked for about an hour. Then I was furious again. Which was almost insulting. Imagine carrying two heavy bags across town and still having enough rage left over.

I woke up the next morning in a foul mood with a sore throat.

Then I saw a tweet joking that maybe women should start throwing chairs instead of suppressing their anger.

It made me laugh. It also made an uncomfortable amount of sense.

Because what exactly am I supposed to do with it?

Where do I put the anger of living in a country where sometimes it feels like competence isn’t enough and knowing the right person is worth more than knowing what you’re doing?

Where do I put the anger of watching people die and watching the people who are supposed to care continue as though death is just another item on the news?

Where do I put the anger I have towards a father who seems too comfortable with things I cannot afford to be comfortable with?

Towards a mother who forgets things that I desperately wish she wouldn’t?

Where do I put the anger I feel when someone I loathe walks up to me and has the audacity to ask me to shake their hand?

Where do I put the anger of knowing that my life would probably be easier if I had been born somewhere else?

—I hate that I had no say in where I was born. I hate that I am expected to develop resilience for problems I never asked to have. I hate that sometimes people praise you for being strong when what they really mean is that you have become good at surviving things you shouldn’t have had to survive.

Where do I put the anger of realizing that some of that ease was stolen from me before I was even old enough to know I wanted it? And then stolen again because I am a woman.

Where do I put the anger I feel when men in markets and on the street decide that my body is something they can reach for?

I spat in one of their eyes the other day. It felt so good. God. It felt good.

—Maybe I’m supposed to tell you that violence isn’t the answer, or that I chose peace. But I didn’t. I spat in his eye. And for one tiny, ugly, beautiful second, I felt like something had been returned to me.

Where do I put the anger when an ex who said the most awful things to me, who carried so much hatred towards me, decides that he still “needs” to talk to me?

Where do I put all of this?

I hate this country.

I hate Nigeria.

I hate Nigerians.

I hate that the word Nigeria can make me feel twenty different things at once.

Anger. Embarrassment. Grief. Love. Helplessness. Rage.

I hate that I am here. I hate that the government can watch people die every day and somehow the world continues turning.

I hate that there are things I have no power to change but still have to live with.

I hate contradictions.

Maybe because I have spent my entire life trying to make myself one coherent person.

Yesterday, though, for a little while, I wasn’t angry.

I was sitting on a bus going home beside two girls. One of them kept talking about things she knew, and I found myself listening. I think she studies human kinetics or something close to it so she was explaining energy to her friend.

I hate biochemistry. I hated MDB in school. I have spent enough time trying to understand it to believe chemistry was personally designed to torment me. But she explained it so beautifully that, for a few minutes, I forgot myself. I remember thinking that if she had been my lecturer, perhaps chemistry wouldn’t have looked like it crawled out of the devil’s laboratory. (My mom’s a chemistry professor btw lolll)

She said she loved imparting knowledge. It tracked.

Then her friend brought up mental health. She started talking about how important it was and how badly it was ignored here. Then she told us that she had once needed to speak to someone because she was depressed.

And then she told us why.

Her aunt’s husband had assaulted her when she was a child. Her aunt blamed her for it because, somehow, protecting a marriage had become more important than protecting a child. She talked about how it shaped her. How it affected the way she saw relationships. How it affected the way she saw men. How it changed her.

I sat there listening to a stranger tell me something that should have been impossible for a child to survive.

And my heart broke for her. And I was angry again. Of course I was.

Because how many girls?

How many girls have stories like this sitting quietly inside them?

How many women are walking around with things that happened to them when they were children?

How many have been told to forget?

How many have been blamed?

How many have been asked what they were wearing, where they were, why they went there, why they trusted him?

How many have had their pain reduced to a debate?

A gender war.

That’s what they call it.

A gender war.

I am tired.

I am tired of being touched.

I am tired of being afraid.

I am tired of being followed.

I am tired of being assaulted.

Tired of having to calculate how much of our bodies we can expose, how late we can stay out, how friendly we can be, how loudly we can speak, how carefully we must exist.

I am tired of being told that my anger is ugly.

I am tired of swallowing it because nobody likes an angry woman.

I am tired of being told to forgive.

I am tired of being told to heal.

I am tired of being told to channel it.

Into what?

Where?

Where do I put the anger?

Where do I put the anger that has nowhere to go?

Where do I put the anger at the things that happened before I was old enough to understand them?

Where do I put the anger at the things that happened yesterday?

Where do I put the anger at the things that will probably happen tomorrow?

Where do I put the anger when I cannot fix anything?

When I cannot undo anything?

When I cannot make anyone understand?

When I cannot make this country work?

When I cannot make men stop touching women?

When I cannot make parents get everything right?

When I cannot make people who hurt me regret hurting me?

Where do I put it?

I tried carrying it.

I tried ignoring it.

I tried laughing at it.

I tried sleeping.

I tried exhausting myself.

I tried pretending I didn’t know what it was.

It keeps coming back.

I am angry.

I am so angry.

Tell me where to put the anger.

It’s July again.

Funny how a month can hold so much. Birthdays. My induction. Last year, it held a version of me I was convinced wouldn’t survive it. She did. The world, annoyingly, kept spinning.

Today I’m bored. Extremely bored. Like I’ve-opened-the-same-four-apps-seventeen-times kind of bored. Instagram has run out of things to show me. TikTok has stopped being funny. X is X, and Snapchat can wait.

So now I’m on Pinterest looking at orange cats for reasons I can’t explain. And somewhere between cat number forty-three and a recipe I’ll never make, a thought wandered in.

What would it be like to have nine lives?

If I had nine lives…

Twenty-four, maybe. Old enough to have left fingerprints on the people I loved, young enough that everyone would insist I had barely begun.

There’d be flowers. Too many flowers. They’d wilt long before the grief did. My shoes would still be by the front door because nobody would know where else to put them. My room would become a place people entered quietly. My books would keep little paper tabs where I’d promised myself I’d come back tomorrow. There’d be a hoodie hanging behind the bedroom door that still smelled enough like me for someone to hold onto it a second longer than they meant to. My mother would find one of my earrings beneath the bed months later and sit with it in her palm a little longer than necessary. Someone would keep sending me Instagram reels. Until one day they stop.

By the next Christmas, everyone would know exactly which chair stayed empty. A few years later, my name would come up halfway through dinner. Someone would smile before anyone cried. The flowers would be gone. The dust would’ve settled. Years later, someone would struggle to remember the sound of my voice, but still remember the way I made them feel.

Long enough that I stopped calling it beautiful.

The windows would never stay clean. Salt would settle over everything I owned. The corners of my books would curl before I finished reading them. White shirts wouldn’t stay white for very long.

I’d learn the fishermen by the sound of their engines long before I learnt their names. Every morning, just before sunrise, one of them would lift a hand in my direction. I’d wave back. Years would pass like that. We’d never really speak.

There’d always be sand somewhere. Inside my shoes. Between the pages of a book. At the bottom of my tote bag. I’d stop apologising for it.

Some evenings I’d carry the same old chair down to the shore, leaving it in the exact spot where yesterday’s tide had almost reached. Children would race past me chasing kites. A dog would insist on bringing me the same stick every evening as though we’d made an agreement neither of us remembered.

My kettle would whistle. The sea would answer. And tomorrow morning, we’d both do exactly the same thing again.

One suitcase. One tiny apartment with peeling paint and a balcony that leaned just enough to make visitors nervous.

The woman downstairs would know me only as the girl on the third floor and would leave oranges outside my door every Sunday without ever knocking. I'd return the bowl on Mondays. We'd never say much more than good morning.

I’d become a regular at the same café, the same bookshop, and the same fruit stall. By the third month, my tea would be waiting before I sat down. By the sixth, the owner would start saving the window seat for me whenever it rained. The cashier at the grocery store would ask if I’d finally learnt how to cook with fresh basil. I still wouldn’t have.

Nobody would know what my laugh sounded like at sixteen, what my mother called me when she was angry, or which memories still woke me up at night. I’d walk through streets where my past had never been, introducing myself as though I had always belonged there.

A black SUV waiting outside before I’d even finished my coffee. Sunglasses on before I leave the house. Someone touching up my lipstick five minutes before an interview. A microphone clipped to the back of my dress. Cameras. Flashing lights. My name pronounced by people who’ve never met me.

A driver who already knew I liked the windows down on the way home. My mother’s birthday would stop meaning flowers. One year it’d be a little bungalow. The next, a passport she’d never had to worry about paying for. She’d still complain that the living room was too big to sweep by herself. My nieces and nephews would disappear into toy shops with baskets far too full for children their size. I’d stand by the checkout pretending to think about it.

There’d be multiple awards on a shelf somewhere. It’d collect dust between trips. Room service at midnight. Passport stamps. Someone recognizing me halfway through buying bananas. A baseball cap pulled lower. A smile anyway.

My knees would complain before I did. I’d have a kitchen that always smelled like onions before anything else and a biscuit tin that would never actually have biscuits in it. My grandchildren would learn which cupboard held the sweets before they learned where I kept the plates. I’d tell the same stories every Christmas and they’d roll their eyes at exactly the same part, laughing before I reached the ending. Every visit would end with me insisting they take food home, as though love could be packed into plastic containers and reheated later.

Long after everyone had gone home, I'd find one tiny sock beneath the sofa. I'd smile every time I walked past it.

A little studio tucked behind an old bungalow with paint already splattered across the concrete before I ever got there. The windows would stay open all day. So would the radio.

Paint beneath my fingernails no matter how carefully I scrubbed them. Charcoal dust on the floor. Brushes soaking in cloudy jars because I kept forgetting to wash them properly.

Whole afternoons disappearing because the light on one corner of a canvas wasn’t quite right. Most evenings I’d walk to the woman who sold roasted corn at the junction, and after a while she’d stop asking if I wanted hard ones because she’d already know the answer.

Some evenings I’d carry two paintings outside just to see what they looked like in the last bit of sunlight. One would always go back inside. Not yet. The okada man would ask if I’d finally finished “that blue one.” I still wouldn’t have.

Canvases would lean against every wall in the studio. Some sold. Some waiting. Some I’d quietly decide to keep.

When people finally took a painting home, there’d be a clean rectangle on the wall where it used to rest. I’d look at the empty space for a while before leaning another canvas there.

The same bus every morning. The same woman outside the office gate selling meat pies before eight. The same security guard holding the door before I reached it.

Lunch at one. Coffee at three. I’d keep a cardigan on the back of my chair because the office was always colder than it needed to be. The printer would jam every Thursday like it had a schedule of its own.

Birthdays would mean supermarket cake balanced on a meeting room table and people singing just loudly enough to make someone blush.

At exactly five thirty, chairs would roll back all at once. Computer screens would go dark. I’d watch the cleaners arrive just as I was leaving every evening, wondering if the office felt different once we’d all gone home.

The keys would be heavier than they looked. Every morning I’d unlock the same tall wooden doors and the building would greet me with that familiar smell of old wood, polished floors and air that had been standing still long before I arrived.

I’d learn which paintings people walked past too quickly and which ones persuaded them to stand still. There’d be a little boy who visited every other Saturday just to wave at the dinosaur skeleton before dragging his father to the gift shop. An old man would sit on the same bench every Wednesday afternoon, staring at the same painting for exactly forty minutes before quietly leaving again.

By closing time, I’d know exactly where the last patch of sunlight landed in every room. I’d switch off the lights one gallery at a time. Check every window. Run my hand over the banister polished smooth by thousands of strangers before me. Lock the front doors. The keys would clink against each other all the way to the car.

By the time I got home, the kettle would already be boiling. There’d be muddy boots by the front door that I’d remind him—for the hundredth time—not to leave there. He’d apologize. Tomorrow they’d be there again.

We’d eat dinner at the kitchen counter because neither of us could be bothered setting the table. He’d tell me about his day. I’d tell him about the little boy who couldn’t stop laughing at the dinosaur. The neighbor’s cat would scratch at the back door around the same time every evening, pretending it belonged to us.

Before bed, he’d ask if I wanted tea. Even though he already knew the answer. In the middle of the night, half asleep, he’d reach for my hand.

And somehow, after all those years… he’d still find it.

A little desk by the window. Coffee rings on notebooks I’d promised myself I’d replace months ago. Pens disappearing into places I’d only find years later.

I’d write in the mornings until the light shifted across the floor and reminded me I’d forgotten breakfast again. There’d be a stack of books beside the bed, another on the dining table, and one balanced dangerously on the arm of the sofa because I was “still reading it.”

Every now and then I’d stop halfway through a sentence just to watch the sky turn orange. The neighbor’s children would play football outside my window every evening. The woman across the street would call everyone “my dear,” whether she knew their names or not.

Pages would pile up on the desk. Some good. Some terrible. Some I’d fold in half and hide inside a drawer because I wasn’t ready for anybody else to read them. Others would leave quietly. A newsletter. A little essay. A story that found someone awake at one in the morning. One email.

“I don’t know you, but I think you wrote this for me.”

I’d read it twice. Close the laptop. Open it again. And start another page.

But I don’t have nine lives.

I have Monday.

I keep coming back to something Eleanor Brown wrote: “You only have one life to live. Make sure it’s yours.”

So, maybe the point was never to live every possible life. Maybe the point is to love this one enough that I stop mourning the others.

I only have one life.

I think I’m finally ready to make sure it’s mine.

I’ve always believed that.

I’ve never actually said those words out loud before, and that’s not because I didn’t believe them, but because they sound strange once they leave your head. They sound like the kind of thing people say when they’ve mistaken confidence for arrogance.

I know how it sounds. Trust me, I’ve replayed this conversation in my head enough times to know exactly how it sounds. But here’s the thing; I’ve never believed I was better than anyone else.

I’ve also never walked into a room expecting it to revolve around me.

And I’ve never been the loudest person in the room. If anything, I’ve always been more comfortable watching people than being watched.

So when I say I think I’m going to do great things, I don’t mean I think I’m extraordinary. I mean... I’ve always felt like my life was moving towards something. I know that’s vague, it’s vague because I don’t have better words for it.

Maybe “great things” isn’t even the right phrase, maybe I’ve been borrowing language from a feeling I’ve never fully understood. Because when I was younger, “great things” looked like traveling the world. It looked like speaking in rooms full of people. It looked like writing books with my name on the cover. It looked like impact.

Whatever that meant to a ten-year-old.

Children don’t spend much time defining their dreams, they just know they’re going somewhere.

I was exactly the same. Only, unlike most childhood dreams, this one never left. It grew up with me. And the funny thing is, nobody planted that thought in me. There wasn’t a prophecy, no dramatic moment where someone looked into my eyes and told me I was destined for something special. My parents never repeatedly reminded me that I was born for greatness, neither did any teacher ever pull me aside after class to tell me I’d change the world. Nothing happened that should’ve convinced me of something so... ambitious.

And yet, as long as I have been aware that I exist, I have also been aware of this quiet, persistent feeling that my life would somehow stretch beyond me.

Sometimes I wonder if everyone secretly feels that way when they’re young. Maybe every child thinks they’ll change the world or maybe adulthood is simply the slow process of convincing yourself to expect less. If that’s true, I don’t know why that feeling never left me.

Because life has given me enough reasons to become realistic, enough reasons to lower my expectations. But every now and then, something happens that quietly reminds me of the little girl who carried that strange conviction around like it was the most normal thing in the world.

A door opens.

An opportunity appears.

Someone remembers my name in a room where they shouldn’t.

Life unfolds in one of those oddly specific ways that makes coincidence feel a little too convenient.

And every single time, without fail, that little voice returns.

See?

Sometimes I think that’s why disappointment has never fully broken me. I mean I’ve cried over unanswered prayers. I’ve questioned God. I’ve wondered if I heard Him wrong. I’ve watched things fall apart that I genuinely believed were meant for me. But somehow, underneath all of that, there has always been this quiet belief that my story isn’t finished yet. That somewhere ahead of me, there is a version of my life that will make sense of all the waiting.

Maybe that’s faith. Maybe it’s optimism. Maybe it’s delusion. Honestly, I don’t know. I just know it’s always been there.

...

The thing nobody tells you about graduating is that it isn’t one big ending. It happens slowly. Painfully slowly.

At first, it doesn’t even feel real. You finish your last exam, celebrate for a day or two, and convince yourself nothing has changed. Then someone packs a suitcase.

Someone else posts that they’re leaving campus.

Another friend hugs you a little longer than usual.

Your favourite food vendor isn’t as busy anymore.

The hostel gets quieter.

Every day, there are fewer voices outside your window.

Fewer knocks on your door.

Fewer reasons to leave your room.

Until one day you look around and realise... it’s ending, like the tide quietly pulling away from the shore. I think that’s the saddest kind of ending.

Five years.

I still don’t know how to hold that sentence.

Five years ago, I arrived here carrying bags that were much heavier than they needed to be because every Nigerian parent seems convinced their child is moving to another continent instead of a hostel.

I laughed. I made friends. I changed. I lost people. I found people. I became someone. Not all at once. Again... little by little. And now everyone is leaving. Some are excited, some are terrified and most of us are pretending to be one while secretly being the other.

I thought I’d be excited. I really did. Instead, I’ve been grieving things I didn’t even know I’d miss.

The walk to class.

The girls arguing in the hallway at 3 p.m.

Hearing someone shout my name from across campus.

Random conversations that lasted longer than they should have.

Even the inconveniences. Especially the inconveniences.

It’s strange the things your heart decides are worth missing.

And now there’s this silence around me and inside me. For the first time in years, nobody is handing me a timetable and telling me where to be next. No semester or exams or immediate deadline. Just... life.

People keep asking what my plans are and I usually have an answer. Something about nursing. France. The future. I smile when I say it because I do believe those things. But underneath every answer is another question I haven’t been able to shake.

What if I become comfortable? Not unsuccessful. Comfortable.

There’s a difference. Failure is loud, you know when you’ve failed. But comfort? Comfort is much quieter. It arrives politely and convinces you that where you are is enough and that you can stop reaching. That maybe this version of your life is good enough after all.

I think that’s what scares me. Because I’ve always felt like whatever God placed inside me deserved my full yes. And I’m terrified of giving Him half of one.

Maybe this is what happens when you’ve spent your whole life believing you’re called to something you can’t yet name. You start wondering if you’ve imagined the whole thing. Or worse... if one day you’ll stop believing it altogether.

That thought scares me far more than unemployment ever could.

...

A few days ago, I went to a party.

I almost don’t want to tell this part because I don’t want this to become one of those stories where people spend more time discussing the party than the point.

It wasn’t scandalous. Nothing happened that would make for an interesting testimony. I didn’t drink. I wasn’t reckless. I just... went back to a version of myself I’d quietly decided I was leaving behind.

Earlier this year, I made a decision. A quiet decision between me and God. I wanted to take Him more seriously. Or maybe, I wanted to stop treating Him casually. There’s a difference. So little by little, my convictions started changing. Things that never used to bother me suddenly did, something had shifted. Which is why the party felt different.

I’d bought a leopard-print top months before. It was one of those impulsive purchases you make because it’s pretty before you remember you don’t actually have anywhere to wear it.

Definitely not church. Definitely not fellowship. Definitely not to class. So it stayed in my wardrobe and èvery now and then I’d look at it and think,

One day.

When someone suggested one last party before everyone left school, I don’t think the decision happened that day. I think it happened the moment I remembered the top.

Funny how something as small as an unworn outfit can become a reason. Or maybe an excuse.

So I got dressed. Took pictures. Laughed with my friends. Walked into the party. And for a few hours, I genuinely enjoyed myself. I think that’s important to admit, because the guilt didn’t arrive while I was dancing. It waited. Patiently. Until I got home and the room became quiet enough for my thoughts to return. I remember sitting on my bed, looking at absolutely nothing. Just thinking about how I’d willingly walked back towards something I’d already decided to leave behind.

And I hated that feeling.

Normally, that’s where the story would’ve ended. Or rather, that’s where my pattern usually begins.

I sin. I feel guilty. I avoid God. I stop praying because I feel fake. I stop reading my Bible because I feel unworthy. I convince myself I’ll come back once I’ve sorted myself out. As though God’s presence is a reward for good behavior instead of a refuge for tired people.

I don’t know where I learnt that, I just know I lived like it was true. But somewhere, sometime this year, I came across a sentence that quietly rearranged something inside me.

“Don’t run away from God because you’ve sinned. Run towards Him.”

I wish I remembered where I heard it. I’d like to thank whoever said it, because it found me exactly when I needed it. So instead of staying in bed feeling sorry for myself, I decided I’d go to church the next morning. I didn’t know that getting there would become a story all by itself.

...

For almost a year now, Sundays had become muscle memory.

Alarm at 6:00 a.m. Always.

Sometimes I’d sleep by five because I was reading for an exam and somehow, by six o’clock, I’d already be awake. I don’t know how, I guess my body just knew it was Sunday.

There was a church bus that came to pick us up from school every week so my only responsibility was to wake up. Everything else had already been arranged.

That Sunday...

I woke up at 7:30. I stared at my phone for a second because I genuinely thought I’d read it wrong.

7:30?

That never happens.

I got ready as quickly as I could and went online waiting for the text about the bus arriving. It never came. For a second, I was confused, then I remembered. People had gone home, school was ending, and the hostel that had been full for years was slowly becoming empty. There probably weren’t enough of us left for the bus to make the trip.

So now I had to find my own way. Which would’ve been fine, except my bank app refused to open.

I wish I was making this up.

I stood there refreshing it over and over again. Nothing. No money. No transport. No idea what I was going to do.

Eventually, I found a way to get cash. I remember feeling relieved. Finally, I could leave. Except when I got outside school, all the POS stands that are usually there had disappeared.

I actually laughed. Because at that point, what else could go wrong?

So I kept walking. I finally found somewhere to withdraw money only to realize that where I’d stopped wasn’t even a bus stop anymore. Which meant I had to keep walking and the distance I’d been trying so hard to avoid was now unavoidable. So I walked. The sun was already out and my crocs suddenly felt heavier than usual, and every few minutes I’d check the time, I was definitely late.

Everything about that morning felt inconvenient. Looking back now, I smile. Because at the time I thought I was fighting transportation, maybe all morning God was gently asking me a different question.

Are you still coming?

And somehow... I kept saying yes.

By the time I finally got to church, service had already started. That, too, was unusual. For the past year, I always sat in the same place. Near the front. The church bus always got us there early enough to claim those seats.

This Sunday though, someone else was there. Or maybe I just wasn’t. So I sat farther back with nobody beside me. Just empty seats, which somehow felt fitting because that’s exactly how I’d felt since the night before.

The choir was already ministering but I was still thinking about everything.

The party. The guilt. The long morning. The unnecessary obstacles. The first song they sang was about not going back, about honoring God. I remember standing there thinking,

This feels a little too specific.

Then they started another song. I don’t know how to explain this without sounding dramatic. Maybe every Christian has one song that feels like home, that one song that somehow says everything they never quite know how to pray.

That’s what this song is for me.

It’s the song I sing when it’s just me and God. When I don’t have words anymore, when prayer becomes quieter than language. When I heard the first few notes, I closed my eyes almost instinctively. I already knew I wasn’t going to survive it. I tried not to cry. I really did. The tears had been sitting behind my eyes all morning. I just kept telling myself,

Not here.

Please, not here.

I lost that fight almost immediately.

The first thought that crossed my mind wasn’t,

“I messed up.”

It wasn’t,

“I’m so ashamed.”

It was something much simpler.

He sees me. He’s here. And He’s not angry with me.

I don’t know why those words broke me.

Maybe because I’d spent so much of my life believing I had to earn my way back into God’s presence every time I got something wrong. As though He only welcomed the version of me that had everything together.

But there I was. Sitting in a seat that wasn’t mine. On a Sunday that looked nothing like my usual Sundays. Crying quietly where nobody could really see me. Singing the song that had become ours. And all I could feel was welcomed.

And as I stood there, another verse I’d been carrying around for weeks came back to me.

“You are the light of the world.”

I’ve been thinking about that verse a lot recently. Not because I think I’m particularly bright, but because I think light doesn’t exist for itself. It exists for whatever it touches.

And maybe that’s what I’ve been getting wrong all these years. Maybe I’ve spent so much time asking God to make me great that I forgot to ask Him to make me the light.

Because those aren’t necessarily the same thing, or maybe they are. Maybe greatness, in the Kingdom of God, has never been about being seen but about seeing people. Maybe it’s about carrying His presence into rooms that would’ve been darker without you. And maybe it’s about reflecting Someone whose light was never yours to begin with.

I still believe I’m going to do great things.

That little girl hasn’t disappeared. She still quietly believes her life is moving towards something beautiful. But these days, when I say those words, they don’t sound like ambition anymore. They sound like surrender. Because maybe the greatest thing I will ever become is someone God can trust with His light.

I don’t know what happens next. I don’t know where nursing will take me. I don’t know what France will look like. I don’t know how many doors God will open, or how many I’ll have to knock on myself.

But I know this; the distance I thought was between God and me was never really there.

Maybe that’s the first great thing He’s ever shown me.

P.S.

A while ago, someone sent me this.

I almost didn’t include it because this essay isn’t about proving that I’m meant for great things. If anything, it’s about admitting I don’t think I understood what “great” meant. But when I reread this message after writing everything above, it made me smile.

Because it reminded me that sometimes other people notice the dreams we’ve been too afraid to say out loud.

I don’t know when this became a habit. Maybe it always was and I’m only just noticing. The hostel is quiet, well not completely quiet, because nowhere with this many girls ever is.

Somebody is laughing down the corridor. A door just slammed. I can hear the hum of a generator somewhere outside. But for the most part, the day is over.

I should probably be sleeping but instead, I’m sitting cross-legged on my bed with a half-finished pot of noodles balanced beside me, because washing an extra plate at midnight feels unreasonable. My mother would disagree. According to her, eating from the pot is how poverty enters a home.

Hilarious. I think poverty has bigger fish to fry than a final-year student eating noodles in bed.

The noodles are slightly overcooked, exactly how my brother taught me to make them. I spoke to him about an hour ago. The call wasn’t particularly emotional. No dramatic declarations. No “I miss yous.” Just the usual catching up, the kind of conversation you’ve had so many times that it becomes muscle memory.

And yet. Here I am. Missing him. Again.

Distance is such a strange thing. It sneaks up on you. You’re fine until you’re not.

Until something good happens and you want to tell them first.

Until you’re eating noodles from a pot at midnight and suddenly remember being eleven years old in a kitchen somewhere while your older brother showed you how not to burn them.

He’s braided his hair now. I still laugh every time I think about it. My mother would absolutely lose her mind. Though if I’m being honest, his rebellion has become incredibly useful so every questionable thing I want to do now comes with the comfort of knowing somebody got there first.

Hair dye. Tattoos. Whatever comes next. Thank you for your service, big bro.

Earlier today, I had to buy a perfume.

A surprisingly difficult task for someone who wears the same scent every day. I ran out of my usual one, couldn’t get it at home, had to settle, and somehow, out of every perfume in the store, I walked out with one I used to wear years ago. A perfume I stopped buying for a very specific reason.

There was a period of my life attached to that scent. Or maybe a person. I don’t know if there’s a difference anymore. All I know is for a long time I couldn’t wear it without feeling like I was standing in the middle of an old memory, so I stopped buying it. Problem solved. Or so I thought.

Today, I sprayed it on my wrist for the first time in years, I told myself enough time had passed. You know, people are always talking about time like it’s some magical thing.

Give it time. Time heals. Time makes things easier. Time, time, time.

So I bought the perfume, came back to school, sprayed it once, took a deep breath and immediately felt sick because suddenly I wasn’t here anymore. I was there, back in that version of my life.

It’s strange how little it takes. A scent. A song. And suddenly you’re grieving things you thought you’d already survived.

Maybe that’s why I’ve spent the last week watching wedding videos of strangers.

Maybe that’s why I miss my brother more than usual.

Maybe everything is connected.

Or maybe it’s just midnight and my brain is making associations that don’t exist.

Either way, I didn’t stop thinking about it.

I spent the rest of the day reading The Parlour Wife. Or trying to. Every few chapters I’d find myself back on Instagram, specifically on Mfon and Mayowa’s page.

I know.

Trust me, I know.

I’ve become insufferable.

I’ve spent the last week talking about them so much that my friends now groan whenever I mention their names. The funny thing is that every single one of them ended up obsessed too, all it took was two videos.

I remember their wedding day.

I had an exam that afternoon. A proper university exam, one that should have had my full attention. Instead, I was glued to Instagram stories watching complete strangers get married.

Which sounds insane now that I’m typing it. Maybe some things should stay in drafts.

Your Smile by Tjan is playing in the background as I write this. It was their first dance song, and now I can’t stop listening to it.

Actually, if you happen to find your person someday, do me a favour. Add it to your wedding playlist. Pleaseeee.

I’ll be rooting for you!

What gets me isn’t even the romance. Everybody thinks it’s because they’re cute. Which, to be fair, they are.

But that’s not the reason. It’s the way they look at each other. No, that’s not it either.

It’s the way they exist around each other. Like neither of them is wondering or lying awake at midnight trying to figure out whether they’re lovable enough.

And every time I watch them, I feel something uncomfortable shifting around inside me, because I don’t know if I’ve ever believed that kind of thing could happen to me. The certainty. The absence of wondering.

I wonder all the time.

About everything.

Whether I made the right decision.

Whether people actually like me.

Whether I’m being dramatic.

Whether I’m annoying.

Whether my lecturer secretly hates me.

Whether this perfume was a stupid purchase.

Whether my mother will survive seeing my future tattoos.

Everything.

So maybe it makes sense that I wonder about love too. Actually, “wonder” is a nice word, a prettier word than the truth. Because some nights it doesn’t feel like wondering. It feels like fear. There. I said it.

Fear.

Sometimes I worry that I’ll spend my whole life being easy to love temporarily.

The kind of person people adore for a season.

The kind of person people remember fondly.

The kind of person people miss.

But not the kind they stay for.

And before you say anything, I know how ridiculous that sounds. I know. I have friends who love me, family who loves me. A brother who lives in another country and would probably fight somebody for me if necessary.

I know I am loved.

That’s not the issue. The issue is that romantic love feels like a different language sometimes.

One I can read but not speak.

One I understand in theory.

One I’ve seen happen to other people.

One I’ve even experienced, maybe.

People talk about finding your person like it’s inevitable. Like if you stay alive long enough, eventually someone will arrive and everything will click into place. I used to believe that. Or maybe I wanted to. Now I’m not so sure.

Sometimes I wonder if there are people who are simply meant to witness love instead of experience it. People who become experts on it from afar. Who can recognise it in a crowded room. Who can write about it. Root for it. Cry over it in movies. Celebrate it when it happens to everyone else. But never quite find it themselves.

That’s a horrible thing to admit.

I think that’s why I’ve never said it out loud before. Because once the thought exists outside your head, you have to look at it properly, and when I do, I realise it isn’t even love I’m afraid of missing.

It’s being chosen.

The idea that somewhere in the world there is someone who would wake up tomorrow and choose me. And the next day. And the day after that. Because given every option in the world, they would still arrive at me. Again. And again. And again.

Maybe that’s why the perfume upset me so much. Because for a second I wasn’t thinking about the person, I was thinking about the version of me that existed when I loved them. And she was so certain. She believed love was something that happened to other people and would eventually happen to her too.

And I realized tonight, standing in my room with perfume on my wrist and nausea in my throat, that I don’t think I feel that way anymore. I think somewhere along the line, I stopped expecting it. Not consciously, I didn’t wake up one morning and decide I’d given up on love. It’s quieter than that. It’s in the way I imagine my future. The things that appear easily. The things that don’t.

I can picture my apartment.

The bookshelves.

The career.

The trips I want to take.

The city I might end up in.

I can picture all of it so clearly.

But whenever I try to imagine the person standing next to me...

Nothing. It’s blank. And every now and then I wonder if that’s because they haven’t arrived yet.

Or because they’re never going to.

ps: to the universe, this is NOT a sign to send me the love of my life yet. I’m still a work in progress. tenkss.

I should probably be asleep. Actually, I definitely should be asleep. I’ve spent most of today asleep already though, so now my body has decided that midnight is the perfect time to be awake.

Being sick is such an annoying experience because you’re somehow exhausted and restless at the same time. My nose has been running all day. My eyes won’t stop watering. Every time I wipe one thing, another thing starts leaking. I genuinely don’t understand how people look beautiful when they’re sick because right now right now I resemble a Victorian child fighting tuberculosis.

The brightness from my phone feels aggressive. Everything feels aggressive. The screen. The light bulb. The world. I’m currently wearing sunglasses indoors because it’s the only way I can stare at my phone long enough to write this. The sunglasses are not mine, I borrowed them from one of my friends.

Borrowed is a generous word, actually. Let’s call it a long-term loan.

Growing up is hard, guys.

I know that’s not a groundbreaking observation. Millions of people have grown up before me and millions more will do it after me. But every now and then I experience something that makes me want to sit everyone down and ask, “Were we all just pretending this wasn’t difficult?” 😥 Because one minute you’re worrying about WAEC. Then you’re worrying about getting into university. Then you’re in university. Then suddenly you’re leaving.

Nobody tells you how quickly the middle part goes.

My bunkmate is on the phone. I think this is the newest talking stage. I can’t be certain, I’ve stopped trying to keep track. They’re flirting by interpreting Yoruba adages for each other which is possibly the most Nigerian form of romance I’ve ever witnessed. Every now and then she laughs, and every now and then I remember that people are constantly meeting each other.

Isn’t that strange?

Right now, somewhere in the world, somebody is becoming somebody else’s favorite person.

Somebody is sending a first text.

Somebody is having a conversation they’ll remember years from now.

Somebody is creating a memory without realizing it’s a memory yet.

I wonder if that’s how all important things happen, without anybody realizing they’re standing inside something they’ll miss one day.

I’m listening to Rahama by Kaestrings. I love listening to him. I always feel like he disappears somewhere when he worships. Like he enters a room the rest of us can’t see and somehow invites us in. I don’t know how to explain it. All I know is that late-night music is dangerous. Because one minute you’re listening, the next minute you’re thinking, then remembering, then missing.

Tonight, I miss a friend. A really close one.

The funny thing is, I wasn’t even thinking about him, the thought found me. I was looking through my project acknowledgment and then it hit me. His name wasn’t there.

I stared at the page for a while.

I scrolled up. Then down. Then up again. As if another look would change something. It sounds ridiculous now, but I genuinely couldn’t stop looking.

Because what do you mean? There was a time when his name would’ve been one of the first names I wrote down. A time when the idea of graduating university without acknowledging him would’ve seemed impossible. And somehow I had done exactly that. I simply never thought of him while writing it, and for some reason that realization hurt more than if I had intentionally left him out.

Because when exactly did that happen?

When did someone go from being part of my everyday life to someone who didn’t cross my mind while writing one of the most important documents of my university experience?

I don’t know. I genuinely don’t know.

University is strange like that. First you’re sixteen, trying to get in. Then suddenly you’re twenty, submitting your final project and becoming a registered nurse. University doesn't end with a grand finale, it just sort of ends on a random Tuesday.

One day you’re sharing lecture notes and complaining about tests. The next day you’re signing clearance forms.

One day you’re seeing someone every week. The next day you’ve not spoken in months. Then years. Then you’re lying awake at midnight wondering how that even happened.

If you went through my Google Photos from 2021 to 2023, you’d probably think we were attached at the hip.

Screenshots. So many screenshots. Entire months of conversations. Inside jokes. Random jokes. Funny arguments. Voice notes. Things that weren’t even funny but became funny because it was us.

We talked about everything; his love for his girlfriend, my love for my then-boyfriend. And nothing. There was a period of my life where if something happened, he was one of the first people I wanted to tell. Good news. Bad news. Funny news. No news. Sometimes I would open my phone specifically because I had something ridiculous to tell him. Sometimes there wasn’t even anything to say. We just talked.

He was one of the kindest people I knew.

I remember struggling with mathematics. And when I say struggling, I mean suffering. I’d send entire pages of equations and questions and every single time he would send explanations back. Pages and pages. Step by step. Again and again. Without ever making me feel stupid. As if he wasn’t tired. As if he had all the patience in the world.

Then..

I remember study sessions. I remember laughing so hard I couldn't breathe. I remember feeling known.

And I think that’s what I’m actually grieving tonight. A version of my life. A version where I was younger, where university felt endless, where I assumed certain people would always be around. Because that’s the thing nobody tells you. When you’re young, permanence feels natural. You don’t consciously think your friendships will last forever, you just behave as if they will.

Tonight it also occurred to me that I never congratulated him when we became registered nurses. That realization hit me like a truck. Because what do you mean we both achieved something we’d worked towards for years and I didn’t even think to send a message?

What do you mean life moved that far?

What do you mean we’re here already?

If you had told seventeen-year-old me that we would both become nurses and not even exchange congratulations, I would’ve laughed.

No, seriously. I would’ve laughed.

Because there was no universe where I could imagine us becoming strangers. And yet here we are.

That’s the thing about growing up that nobody warns you about. Sometimes friendships don’t end, people just slowly drift beyond the edges of your life until one day you look around and realize they’re gone. Not gone gone, just gone from here. Gone from your routines. Gone from your everyday stories. And somehow that’s harder to notice, because there is no funeral for friendships. No mourning period. Life simply continues.

Assignments become projects.

Projects become licenses.

Students become nurses.

And somewhere along the way people become memories.

I don’t know what to do with this realization.

I don’t know if I’ll ever reach out. I don’t know if I want the friendship back. I don’t even know what “back” would mean. We are different people now. Four years is a long time when you’re twenty.

I just know that tonight I am sitting in a dark room wearing sunglasses indoors because my eyes won’t stop watering, and for the first time in a very long time, I let myself miss him. The version that existed alongside me. The one in the screenshots. The one who explained mathematics like it was the easiest thing in the world. The one who occupied so much of my university experience that finding no trace of him in my acknowledgment felt like discovering a missing chapter in a book I thought I knew by heart.

Maybe tomorrow this feeling will pass. Maybe I’ll wake up, take medicine, continue packing up the life I’ve built here and keep moving.

Maybe this piece will embarrass me by morning.

Maybe I’ll read it back and wonder why I was being so dramatic.

But right now, at midnight, with Kaestrings playing softly in the background and my bunkmate laughing at something somebody said on the other end of a phone call, I am thinking about a friend.

And I think my heart hurts a little.

Everything feels strangely far away from me. My faith, my friendships, my own personality even. It’s like I’m performing a version of myself I can no longer fully connect to. I laugh at the right moments, say the right things, post normally, pray normally, exist normally, but underneath all of that there’s this quiet disconnect I cannot shake.

I keep wondering when I started feeling like a stranger inside my own life.

Maybe this is what people mean when they talk about imposter syndrome, but it feels deeper than simply feeling inadequate. It feels like I’m floating slightly outside myself at all times. Like everyone else was handed a script for how to be alive and I somehow missed the meeting.

And the worst part is how underwhelmed I feel by everything. Like life is happening in front of me and I’m unable to fully reach it emotionally. Nothing feels sharp enough. Nothing stays long enough. Even joy arrives muted these days.

I think loneliness changes shape when you grow older. It stops looking like empty rooms and unanswered texts. Sometimes it looks like being deeply surrounded and still feeling unseen. Sometimes it looks like not feeling chosen anywhere. Not romantically, not platonically, not spiritually. Just existing quietly in the background of everything.

And I know people will say “God chose you” and maybe He did. I think He did. But sometimes faith becomes difficult not because you stop believing, but because you stop feeling. And nobody really talks about that part enough.

The strange numbness of still praying while secretly feeling far away from yourself.

The exhaustion of trying to reconnect with a person you used to access so easily.

I miss myself.

That’s the simplest way to put it.

I miss feeling present in my own life.

I miss certainty.

I miss softness.

I miss experiencing things fully instead of intellectually understanding that they are happening.

Maybe this feeling will pass.

Maybe I’ll wake up one morning and feel real again.

But tonight all I know is that I am here, awake at 1am, trying to write myself back into my own body.

We move through life thinking we’ve figured things out, like we are more aware, more evolved, more exposed. But sometimes, all we really are is positioned differently. Placed in a part of the world where certain things reach us, and others don’t. And because we don’t see it, we think it isn’t happening.

The only reason I am not a girl somewhere else in the world, living under restrictions I can’t even fully imagine is not because I did something right. It’s not because I earned this version of freedom. It’s because I was born here. That’s it.

Geographical lottery.

And once you see life that way, it becomes harder to feel neutral about anything. Harder to dismiss things that don’t directly touch you. Harder to pretend that inaction is harmless.

Because at any point, on a different map, that could have been you.

Lately, I’ve been noticing how easy it is to not know. You can go through your day, attend classes, laugh with your friends, scroll through your phone and never fully grasp that in another part of this same country, people are dying. Because if it’s not happening around you, it doesn’t feel real. It feels like news. Like something far. Like something that will never reach you.

On the 13th of April, about 100 people were killed in Yobe.

A whole 100 people. And the country is quiet. Nigeria is at war, and it doesn’t even feel like we’re allowed to say it out loud.

Christians are being killed, over and over again, and there isn’t enough coverage for people to even understand that everywhere is burning. If you’re not paying attention, you won’t know. It’s like we’ve adjusted. Like we’ve made space for it. Like it’s just another thing that happens.

And that scares me. Because how do you get used to that? How do we move on so quickly?

I talk to people and they don’t even know. Or they’ve heard about it but not really. Not enough to feel it. Not enough for it to change anything about how they move or what they think matters.

And I get it. I really do.

But I also don’t.

Because if a part of the country is burning, it is only a matter of time before the entire country is engulfed in flames. Distance is not protection. And the only reason some of us can still afford to be indifferent is because of geographical luck.

That’s it.

And now, with the elections around the corner, I keep hearing the same thing: “my vote won’t count.” We’ve become so politically apathetic as a nation, but I get it. I really do. It’s exhausting to believe in a system that hasn’t given you much reason to trust it.

But choosing not to participate doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It doesn’t just end with you. Because if enough of us decide it doesn’t matter, then we quietly hand over the outcome to the people who do show up regardless of what they stand for.

Choosing not to vote is saying you’re okay with four more years of this.

Four years is not small. Four years is people’s entire lives changing. Four years is systems getting worse. Four years is people dying in ways that could have been prevented.

Eight years? That means you’ve watched it happen and still said nothing. And the craziest part is, we really think we can just hustle our way out of this.

As if hard work can outrun a system that is already designed to fail you.

As if grinding is going to fix hospitals that don’t have oxygen.

As if minding your business is going to protect you when everything around you is collapsing slowly.

It doesn’t work like that.

You are one emergency away from becoming a victim of a broken system.

One accident. One emergency. One wrong day.

And suddenly, the systems you thought you could ignore are the only things standing between life and something else.

Politics is not a game.

It’s your life. It’s my life.

It’s whether you survive something you shouldn’t have to fight that hard to survive.

It’s whether one bad day turns into something irreversible because the system failed you at the worst possible time.

And we’re here… being nonchalant.

And the truth is, the ability to be that nonchalant… is just privilege. It’s the kind of thinking that comes from being just far enough removed from the consequences.

Far enough that insecurity still feels like a conversation, not a reality.

Far enough that failure of systems feels frustrating, but not life-threatening.

And even if—even if—things are not perfect, what is the alternative?

Sitting at home? Doing nothing? What is the justification for that when there is fire on the mountain?

Change is not going to happen in one day. Or one election. Or one miracle moment. But it starts somewhere. It starts with deciding that it is possible. With training ourselves to believe that things can be different, and acting like that belief matters.

Because it does.

We have a responsibility here. No one else is coming to save us. Nobody.

At what point is it going to be enough?

At what point do we stop acting like this doesn’t concern us?

Because the people who have died didn’t choose that. They didn’t choose to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But we have a choice now. And we’re treating it like it doesn’t matter.

Ignorance truly is bliss.

I am exhausted. Tired of waking up and not knowing what kind of news I’m going to see. Tired of feeling this constant low anger that just sits in my chest because everything feels like it’s quietly falling apart and nobody is reacting the way they should.

This country fills me with so much rage sometimes, and I don’t even recognize myself. Because how is this normal? It’s always something. And it’s getting closer. Whether we want to admit it or not.

So I don’t know… maybe this is me begging a little.

Please, let’s stop acting like this is normal.

Please, let’s stop acting like our voices don’t matter.

I hear people say they want to leave. That they’re tired. That they don’t see a future here.

And I understand that too.

But I also wonder what it means if, at the same time, we disengage from the very things that shape the direction of this place. Because leaving is not a plan for everyone.

And even for those who can, it doesn’t change the fact that this country will continue to exist, with or without your participation in shaping it.

So what happens if things get worse? If the same patterns continue, not because people agreed with them, but because too many people decided their voice didn’t matter?

What does that leave us with?

So please, stop saying your vote won’t count.

Please.

Go and get your PVC.

This distance is not protection. It’s just luck.

And eventually… luck runs out.

I hope it doesn’t feel like a burden, or something that needs effort just to be sustained. I hope the love I give in return is enough to hold its weight, to make up for the moments when I’m difficult, when I fall short of who I want to be.

I want to believe there’s a kind of love that feels natural, something that flows easily between two people, without either of them having to bend or break to keep it alive.

I hope loving me feels like coming home, not like climbing something steep and exhausting. I hope it’s filled with quiet understanding, shared laughter, and those small, gentle moments that make everything feel worth it.

More than anything, I hope the people who choose to love me never feel the need to second-guess that choice. I hope they find in me something steady, something deep, a love that makes the world feel a little softer.

I hope that, in the end, loving me feels like a gift rather than a sacrifice that had to be convinced it was worth it.

Dear Diary,

It has been far too long since I’ve written like this, and I’m realizing I’ve actually missed it (how did I let months pass without a proper entry?). There’s something about sitting down to make sense of things I don’t fully understand yet that feels… familiar.

Anyway—

Something about the way I relate to God has been shifting, and I don’t know when it started, which is annoying because I like to trace things back to a moment.

I wasn’t going to write about this.

Partly because I don’t fully understand it yet, and partly because I don’t know how to talk about God without feeling like I’m performing a version of faith instead of actually living it.

And if I’m being completely honest, my intentions aren’t entirely pure either. A small part of me is thinking about who might read this. But a bigger part of me knows something real has been happening between me and God, and I don’t want to ignore it just because I can’t package it neatly.

Before this, my relationship with God felt… structured. That’s the word I keep coming back to. Like I knew of Him. I believed in Him. I spoke to Him. But there was still a quiet distance I couldn’t quite name. A kind of carefulness. Like I was approaching something holy but not entirely sure I was allowed to be fully seen there.

Now, it doesn’t feel like that.

Now it feels like I am with Him. These days, I would say God speaks to me — but even as I write that, I can already hear the assumptions that come with a sentence like that. So let me say what I mean.

God does not speak to me in an audible voice.

I have never heard Him call my name out loud. I have never seen signs written across the sky or shapes in clouds that look like something I’m supposed to interpret. Branches still look like branches to me. Clouds still look like clouds (and I checked twice, just in case).

And that used to make me feel like I was doing something wrong. Like maybe I wasn’t close enough, or attentive enough, or spiritual enough to hear Him properly. But lately, that thought doesn’t sit right with me anymore.

Because God isn’t human.

We are the ones with limits — voices, language, bodies. He isn’t. So it doesn’t make sense that He would only speak in the one way I’ve been taught to expect. And when I stopped waiting for something loud, I started noticing how much I had been missing.

The small things, mostly.

A stranger’s kindness that lingers longer than it should.
A strange, unshakable feeling in my chest that I can’t logically explain (and no, I did not eat something weird beforehand).
Laughter that catches me off guard.
Goosebumps in moments that don’t seem important enough to hold that kind of weight.
A quiet appreciation that grows so slowly I almost miss it.

None of these things announce themselves as “this is God speaking.” They’re easy to overlook. Easy to dismiss. But I’ve started to notice that when I actually sit with them, they don’t feel empty. They feel… intentional. Like a voice, just not one you can hear.

Sometimes I think people are waiting for something louder than that. Something that removes all doubt. But in doing that, they might miss the quieter ways God has already been speaking all along. Not like fireworks. More like a steady flame. Something that doesn’t overwhelm you, but stays. The kind you can return to. The kind that, if you’re honest, has been there longer than you realized.

I think I’m learning to recognize that warmth. I see it in creation, yes but more than that, I see it in people. Brief flashes of something good and steady and undeniable, the kind of goodness that doesn’t start with them. And every time I notice it, I can’t help but think, that looks like God.

And then there are moments — quiet, almost forgettable moments — where it feels like everything softens just enough for me to understand something without being told. Moments where, if I let myself lean into them, I can almost make out what He is saying. Not exactly in words, but in meaning.

And if I had to translate that meaning into something human, something I could write down without sounding completely unhinged, it would be this:

“I love you this much.”

It’s a strange thing to feel spoken to without hearing anything. To feel known without being explained. To feel close to something you cannot see, and yet somehow trust that it is there.

I think the strangest part is that I feel closer to Him than I ever have. Which is confusing, because if you asked me to explain what exactly I’m doing differently, I don’t think I could give you a clear answer (if anything, I would probably just start rambling like I’m doing right now).

I still struggle with consistency. I’m not someone who reads my Bible every day, or even as often as I think I should. There are days I avoid it entirely. And there’s a part of me that wonders what that says about me.

There’s also a part of me that questions things—about Christianity, about the way it’s practiced, about the parts of it that feel at odds with who I am. I think about what it means to be a woman in a faith that has, in many ways, been shaped by patriarchy. I think about the tension between belief and identity, between devotion and autonomy.

And I don’t have clean answers for any of it.

But somehow, in the middle of all that uncertainty, this remains:

I find Him.

Or maybe… He keeps finding me — patiently, which I appreciate, honestly.

And for now, I think I’m starting to believe that this — this imperfect, searching, inconsistent, deeply felt thing — still counts. Maybe not as much as I think it should. But more than I used to believe it did.

Also, for the record, I still don’t know how to pray without getting distracted halfway through.

Anyway… that’s all I’ve got for now.

Sincerely,
Your favorite semi-confused believer (with optional commentary).

This is a safe space. This is a learning environment. Please take notes.

1. Starve the crush

This is the most obvious one.

Stop checking their page. Stop rereading their posts. Stop trying to “understand their mind.”

I personally have not done this, but I believe in theory it should work. I don’t know why I am still seeing his posts.

Actually, I do know. I open them.

But that is not the point.

The point is I should not be opening them, and yet here we are, reading full paragraphs like my brain demanded it at gunpoint. Why is this my life??

2. Romanticize literally anything else

The sky. Your future. Bread.

Literally anything.

I have tried this. It works briefly. I can look at the sky and feel something. I can think about my future and feel motivated.

And then, somehow, my brain circles back. Unprovoked. This isn’t me.

3. Remember you don’t know him

You don’t know him. You don’t know him. You don’t—

—but also, unfortunately he is on substack and he has thoughts. Real thoughts. Like why are you a pretty stranger with a functioning brain??? Pick a struggle???

Now it’s not even a normal crush anymore. Before, it was very manageable. Very harmless. Just “oh he’s cute” and I move on with my life like a stable individual. Now I am reading things and going hmm.

And I don’t like that hmm. That hmm is where everything starts going downhill.

4. Get the ick

Imagine him doing something mildly embarrassing.

Unfortunately, my brain refuses to generate any icks. He could probably trip in public and I’d write a think piece about the fragility of man.

Or worse, I would understand it.

At this point, I don’t think the ick is coming. I think I might be the problem. Yes. This is bad.

5. Touch grass

Go outside. Meet new people.

I have not gone outside.

I am, in fact, in my bed. Consistently.

Which I thought would help, because if I am not seeing him, then logically I should not be thinking about him.

And yet. Here we are.

Because apparently physical distance does nothing when the problem is in your head. Also, even if I did go outside, I would still have to see the same people. And I am tired of seeing the same people.

This is not helpful to me.

6. Give it time

Time is supposed to fix these things.

You wait. You let it pass naturally. You don’t interfere. You trust that eventually it fades and you move on like a normal person.

It has been time. A lot of time. Enough time that I should not still be here explaining this.

At the beginning, it made sense. You assume these things expire. This one has not expired. If anything, it has settled in. It has roots now. I think it is laughing at me. This is embarrassing. Why am I like this??

7. Block him

Out of sight, out of mind.

Let’s not get carried away, I will not be doing that.

8. Accept it and move on

At some point, you are supposed to accept the situation for what it is and move on.

Simple.

I don’t actually know what this means in practice because I feel like I’ve accepted it,
I’m very aware of what’s happening. It’s the moving on part that is unclear. Brain refuses. Brain is not cooperating. Brain is clearly having fun at my expense. I hate my brain.

Anyway.

I hope someone finds this useful because I cannot. I cannot relate. I am the living proof that these steps do not work. I am fully aware of the absurdity, the chaos, the way my brain keeps rewriting the rules while I sit here thinking, “surely I am doing something wrong.”

I don’t even know if I want to get rid of it anymore. I just want… a break from thinking about it. 48 hours. A week. Maybe a month of quiet. Where I am not thinking about this man unprompted.

So yes. Take notes, my dear students. Learn from my mistakes. Understand that this is a crash course in how not to get over a crush because the truth is, sometimes theory does not meet practice. Reality has its own rules, and my brain is clearly writing them as it goes.

If you are here and have experienced this, and successfully moved on and managed to reclaim your brain, come forward. Please come and testify. Share your secrets. Save me. I am begging. Seriously. Show up with your wisdom, your formulas, your magical brain hacks (because clearly mine is on strike) and your reassurance that humans can emerge from this alive.

Because right now? I am lying in bed, scrolling, thinking, overthinking, and documenting my failure for all to see. And I hope—truly hope—that someone out there reads this and learns something. Anything. Even if it’s just, do not be me.

I watched a TikTok a few days ago that has been sitting in my head longer than most things on that app usually do.

You know how TikTok is. You watch something, maybe you like it, maybe you send it to someone, and then two minutes later you’ve already forgotten it because you’re ten videos deep into something else. But this one wouldn’t leave me alone.

The lady in the video said something like, “Do not rob the world of you.”

And I’ll be honest, my first instinct was to roll my eyes a little. Social media loves a big dramatic sentence. The kind that sounds nice on a graphic. But then she said something else that made me pause. She asked, “Am I really going to sit back and rob myself, rob God, and rob the world of the person I was created to be?”

And unfortunately… that line got me.

Because if I’m being honest, fear has quietly crept into a lot of things in my life. Not in some huge obvious way. It’s not like I wake up every morning thinking I am afraid today. It’s much quieter than that. It shows up in small decisions. Me not doing something because I’m scared of the outcome. Me talking myself out of things before I even try.

I’ve always had this quiet rule for myself: stick to what you’re good at.

Which sounds like a very responsible rule when you say it out loud. But the more I think about it, the more I realize it might also be one of my favorite hiding places. Because if you only do things you’re already good at, you never have to experience the discomfort of being bad at something in front of people. You never have to look uncertain. You never have to try and fail publicly.

And trying — really trying — is a vulnerable thing.

Also unfortunately for me, I’m the kind of person who can do a lot of things. I’m dynamic. I don’t fit neatly into one box. I enjoy learning new things. I move between ideas pretty easily. But somewhere along the way, I started to feel like the world prefers people who are easier to categorize. People like to know what to call you.

Writer. Nurse. Creative. Academic. Something clear. Something stable.

But what do you do when you’re a little bit of many things?

For a while, that question made me shrink instead of expand, because when you can do a lot of things, choosing one suddenly feels like a very serious decision. Like you’re closing the door on all the other versions of yourself that could exist.

What if you choose wrong?

What if the thing you commit to isn’t the thing you’re best at?

What if you realize halfway through that you actually wanted something else?

Questions like that can make staying still feel very reasonable.

So sometimes, for someone like me, sticking to nothing has felt easier than committing to something. Which is… a very polite way of saying fear has been running the show.

Even writing this right now, I can feel it a little. That small voice that asks if any of this even resonates with anyone reading. The voice that wonders if maybe I’m just talking into the void. But that sentence from the video keeps coming back to me.

Do not rob the world of you.

And I keep thinking… imagine if fear is the reason you never fully become the person you were meant to be. That would be such an expensive thing to lose. Because the truth is, fear doesn’t just rob the world of you. It robs you of you. It robs you of the things you might have tried. The versions of yourself you might have grown into. The paths you might have taken if you weren’t so busy trying to guarantee the outcome.

And maybe that’s where the real cost is.

I think for a long time I’ve also had this quiet anxiety that I’m somehow behind. Like everyone else has figured out their lane and is confidently walking down it while I’m still standing at the entrance looking around. But lately I’ve been wondering if that’s not entirely true.

Maybe I’m not behind. Maybe I’m becoming. Becoming is slower than we expect it to be. It doesn’t move in straight lines. Sometimes it looks like trying things and changing your mind. Sometimes it looks like wandering for a bit before you figure out what direction feels right.

And maybe that’s okay.

Maybe the point isn’t to eliminate fear before you start moving. Maybe the point is just to stop letting it make all the decisions. Because the more I think about it, the more I’m realizing something:

Fear doesn’t always ruin your life in loud, obvious ways. Sometimes it just quietly convinces you not to live parts of it.

So lately, I’m trying something different.

Smaller steps. Trying things even when I feel unsure. Letting myself be new at things again. Letting myself be seen figuring things out.

Not fearless, but afraid… and doing it anyway.

Here’s to doing it afraid.

Omoluabi — the Yoruba idea of the well-behaved, respectful child. The one who keeps quiet, endures, and never embarrasses anyone.

A lot of Nigerian culture is rooted in respect.

Respect for elders. Respect for authority. Respect for people who came before you.

In Yoruba culture, this idea is captured in the word Omoluabi and on paper, it sounds beautiful but somewhere along the way, respect stopped being a virtue and started becoming a weapon. Because what we now call respect often looks a lot like silence.

Months ago, a youth corps member publicly criticized the NYSC over the conditions corps members face. Instead of accountability, the conversation immediately shifted to something else entirely.

Not “Is she right?”

Not “How can this be fixed?”

But “How dare she?”

How dare she speak that way? How dare she address her elders like that? Where is her respect? And just like that, the issue disappeared. Accountability vanished. The real problem became the tone of the person who spoke up.

This is where the Omoluabi culture becomes dangerous.

Because in practice, it often demands that the younger person swallow injustice quietly. You can be wronged, but if the person who wronged you is older, suddenly the burden shifts to you.

You must apologize. You must keep quiet. You must not embarrass them.

There is even a saying people love to repeat: “Agba kii wa loja ki ori omo tuntun wo.” Or the idea that an “elder does not lie.”

The idea is simple: when elders are present, things should not go wrong. Their wisdom is supposed to guide the community.

But what happens when things do go wrong? What happens when the elders themselves are responsible for the dysfunction?

Suddenly the proverb stops being about wisdom and becomes a shield against criticism. Because in practice, many Nigerians treat age as if it automatically guarantees honesty, competence, and moral authority.

But elders are human.

They lie.

They make terrible decisions.

They abuse power.

They build broken systems and then expect the youth to politely inherit the mess without complaint.

Age does not automatically produce wisdom and pretending it does only protects people from being questioned.

This same culture bleeds into our politics and institutions. Authority is rarely challenged, and when it is, the response is not reflection but outrage.

How dare the youth speak up?

How dare they question their leaders?

And that is how accountability dies. Slowly. Quietly. Wrapped in the language of respect.

The Omoluabi culture, in its current form, is not producing a society of honorable people. It is producing a society of people trained to endure dysfunction politely.

In a country where the median age is under thirty, the people who are most affected by decisions are the ones expected to stay quiet about them. A society where citizens apologize for demanding basic governance.

A society where fear replaces criticism.

And the most tragic part is that this fear is not even enforced by the government alone.

We enforce it ourselves.

We shame the people who speak. We attack the people who question. We lecture the people who refuse to stay quiet. All in the name of respect.

A few days ago, a girl made a video complaining that BRT buses were nowhere to be found. A completely normal complaint about a public service that is supposed to serve the public. But instead of asking why the buses were not available, people jumped straight to outrage.

“How dare you talk like that?”

“Where are your manners?”

“Tell your father to provide buses then.”

?????

Tell my father to provide buses??

Hello????

Is my father the governor?

Is my father the transport commissioner?

Is my father the Lagos State government?

This is exactly how accountability disappears in Nigeria. Someone raises a legitimate concern, and suddenly the issue is no longer the problem being raised. The issue becomes the audacity of the person who raised it.

And that audacity, apparently, is unforgivable.

Because how dare young people question authority?

How dare they speak loudly about something that affects them?

How dare they refuse to perform the ritual of silence that Nigerian culture demands from the young?

So instead of asking leaders to do their jobs, we scold the youth for having the courage to ask. Instead of demanding answers, we start moral lectures about respect.

It’s a perfect system if you think about it.

But the problem goes deeper than just respect.

There is an almost obsessive need for control in Nigerian society.

People want you to be quiet.

They want you to be submissive.

They want you to accept whatever nonsense is handed to you without resistance.

Questioning authority is seen as rebellion.

Demanding accountability is seen as arrogance.

Refusing to endure dysfunction quietly is seen as bad upbringing.

So what happens?

We are raised to fear power instead of interrogating it. And the result is a country where people are struggling to survive while being lectured about respect.

I am in my twenties.

And I am tired.

Tired of constantly thinking about money.

Tired of calculating survival every single day.

Tired of living in a country where basic living feels like a luxury.

You cannot afford hobbies.

You cannot afford rest.

You cannot even afford to dream properly.

Everything is about survival.

And yet when people complain, someone will always appear to say the same tired things:

“Nigeria will be better.”

“Just hustle.”

“Keep grinding.”

But you cannot hustle your way out of a broken system.

Recently, statistics suggested that over 100 million Nigerians are living in multidimensional poverty. Think about that for a moment.

Over one hundred million people.

But we have become so desensitized to these numbers that they barely shock us anymore. They should. Because behind those numbers are people who cannot afford food. People who cannot afford water. People who live under scorching heat without electricity.

Right now, the sun outside is brutal. Imagine experiencing that without power, without water, without relief.

This country is suffocating its people.

And yet when someone points this out, the response is not urgency.

The response is:

“Why are you talking like that?”

“Where is your respect?”

Excuse you? Respect for what exactly??

Respect for systems that are failing millions of people?

Respect for leadership that refuses to take responsibility?

Respect for a culture that would rather silence the youth than confront uncomfortable truths?

What we call respect in Nigeria has become a mechanism of control. A way to make citizens feel guilty for demanding the bare minimum. And if we are not careful, the Omoluabification of Nigerians will not produce a polite society. It will produce a silent one.

And silence has never saved a dying country.

It took me a long time to learn how to express what lives inside me — my thoughts, my questions, my quiet storms.

Sometimes I still wonder:
Is anyone reading this?
Can my words really reach you?
Do they make any difference?

I don’t know the answer to that. But I still try.

Because along the way, I started to understand something about myself. I began noticing the patterns like the things that drain me, the things that ground me, the things that leave the sky inside me clear or heavy.

I know my low points now. I know the days when the weather inside me turns dark. And I know the fragile moments when hope returns like sunlight through clouds.

As cliché as it sounds, I’ve always believed in treating others the way you’d like to be treated. But life teaches you another lesson too: you cannot control how others think, how they treat you, or what storms they bring into your life.

And sometimes those storms stay longer than you expected.

There were moments when I lost hope. When my confidence was shaken so deeply that I felt like I was standing on the edge of collapse. Times when everything inside me felt chaotic, like thunder without warning.

But somehow, with time and awareness, I always found my way back. Because I realized something important: I want to show who I truly am and not the version of me that others project or misunderstand. I want to share the way I see the world, the way I think about things, the way I believe life could be softer if we tried a little harder to understand one another.

I want to reach the people who are carrying storms of their own. Because when I was in my darkest moments, what I needed most was understanding. Someone who could say, I see the storm inside you. Someone who could help me name the chaos I didn’t know how to explain. Someone who could sit with me in the rain instead of pretending the sky was clear. But when that person wasn’t there, I had two choices.

And I chose to fight.

I wanted to understand myself — where my thoughts came from, why the emptiness appeared, why some days felt unbearably heavy while others felt calm again. And that search forced me into a kind of growth I never imagined for myself a few years ago.

I’ve always been someone who feels things deeply. Sometimes too deeply. Most times it feels like my heart experiences the world at a higher volume. I notice the shifts in people, the unspoken tension in a room, the quiet sadness behind someone’s smile.

For a long time, this sensitivity felt like a weakness. When you experience everything intensely, it can hurt you in ways others may never notice. It can make the world feel louder, sharper, more overwhelming.

But slowly, my perspective changed. Maybe this sensitivity isn’t just a burden. Maybe it’s also a way of understanding the world and the people in it more deeply.

Because when you feel everything, you also learn to recognize storms in others. You learn to see the clouds forming before they break. You learn to sit with someone in their rain without rushing them toward the sun.

And maybe that’s the real reason I write. Because I know what it feels like to search for someone who understands what’s happening beneath the surface.

So I think that’s the question I want to leave with you.

Not “How are you?”
We ask that all the time without really listening.

The better question might be:

How’s the weather inside you today?

And maybe if we listened a little more carefully we’d realize that most of us are just trying to survive our own quiet storms.

If you’re reading this and the weather inside you feels heavy today, I hope you know storms don’t last forever.

I see you. And I hope the sun finds you soon.

Actually, I have.

Somewhere between past questions, lecture notes, and “just one more chapter,” I accidentally built a whole personality around being tired and academically stressed. My professional exams start in a few weeks and somehow, I still feel underprepared. Not in a “I didn’t try” way. In a “I tried, but TikTok also tried, and TikTok won” way.

Maybe it’s because I lack self-discipline. Maybe it’s because I sleep too much. Maybe it’s because TikTok refuses to let me go.

Our parents were right. It’s this damn phone.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how strange it is that life keeps moving even when I feel like I’m buffering. Like everything is loading, and I’m just staring at the spinning wheel, waiting for motivation to appear.

My alarm goes off in the morning and I always think, “Okay, today I’ll be serious.” Today I’ll wake up early. Today I’ll read properly. Today I won’t open TikTok until night. And then somehow, by 9:17am, I’m already watching someone organize their fridge for the fourth time.

I don’t even own a fridge.

Sometimes I wonder if my phone knows me better than I know myself. It shows me videos I didn’t ask for but somehow needed. A girl crying over her exams. Someone romanticizing studying in a café. A motivational quote with lo-fi music. A pastor preaching in aesthetic lighting. A couple doing a “how we met” story time.

And suddenly, I’m feeling seventeen different emotions in ten minutes. I’ll be inspired. Then insecure. Then hopeful. Then tired. Then hungry.

All before noon.

I think about how younger me thought adulthood would feel powerful. Like I’d always know what I was doing. Like I’d wake up confident and decisive and organized. Instead, I’m here googling “how to focus” for the third time this week.

I’ve also realized I have a lot of imaginary routines. In my head, I’m very disciplined. I drink water regularly. I journal every morning. I stretch. I read my Bible daily. I revise every evening. I sleep early.

In real life, I negotiate with myself like a lawyer. “Just five more minutes.” “Okay, ten.” “Last video.” “Okay, actually last.”

I’ve been thinking about how lonely it can feel to be constantly online but still miss people. To see everyone’s lives in highlights and not know where you fit in anymore. To type “we should hang out soon” and never choose a date.

Sometimes I miss being bored. Real boredom. The kind where you stare at the ceiling and start imagining things. Now, boredom lasts about seven seconds before I reach for my phone.

I’ve missed writing.

I was supposed to keep uploading my drafts, but drafts are strange little things. They’re frozen emotions. You write them when you’re sad at 1:43am, and then two weeks later you’re okay and suddenly editing them feels like reading someone else’s diary.

Like, “Who hurt you, babe?” Oh. It was me.

Right now, I feel like a floater.

Not happy. Not sad. Just… regulated. A self-regulated queen. I’ve prayed. Replied family texts. Updated TikTok and Instagram. Studied more than usual. Drank water (proud of myself).

And now I’m here. Talking. Typing. Hoping someone, somewhere is listening.

I miss talking to people.

I used to have six-hour conversations with strangers I met every three market days. We’d talk about life, love, money, God, dreams, childhood trauma, and where to buy the best puff-puff. Now I can’t even commit to one. My social life has become a series of read receipts, I reply late. I disappear. I resurface with “sorryyyy.”

And worse, I barely go anywhere.

I think I’m too comfortable on my bed. It has seen too much of me — late-night crying, 3am snack binges, study breakdowns, TikTok spiral recoveries, weird journaling experiments…

I miss side quests: waking up and deciding to go somewhere for no reason, joining random activities, laughing until my stomach hurts, sports that leave my lungs screaming, swimming (I suck, but I learned how to float).

I want to learn how to ride a bicycle, but I’m scared of falling. Which feels like a metaphor, but also… I genuinely don’t want to scrape my knee. Maybe I’m actually scared of trying anything I’m not instantly good at. And that’s okay. Let’s not unpack that today.

I learned about personal convictions recently — how they’re meant to soften into guidance, not harden into rules. Revolutionary, honestly. Like, maybe I can be disciplined without hating myself.

I love my church. I love going to church. It feels like home. It feels safe. It feels like God actually likes me there. And importantly, it focuses on impacting knowledge, life skills, God, growth and not just “submit, submit, submit.” But I’m tired of the relationship talks. And the podcastification of our pastors. I’m sorry but I don’t want to hear about romantic love six days out of seven when I’m actively struggling to read my Bible consistently.

I don’t need more dating advice. I need discipline. I need depth. I need grace. I need God, not just God-shaped content.

And maybe it’s because of that — because church teaches me to notice, because faith reminds me to see — that I catch myself noticing the little things that feel miraculous. Walking home with headphones, streets feeling like a cinematic indie movie, someone’s laughter echoing somewhere. The kind of stuff you screenshot in your head for memories.

I practice conversations in my head: with old friends, imaginary future selves, God, and the audience I’m pretending exists. Writing feels like the only place where all those conversations can coexist.

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. I’ve been lowkey looking forward to it all week. I had a whole plan: get cake, get naked, binge-watch the Avatar movies (I’m obsessed, I wish I was a Na’vi, ugh). Just me, my snacks, and a little escape into Pandora.

But of course… life said no. No cake, too much reading, too little time for movies. And to make it worse, my best friend is leaving to do Valentine things with her significant other. Screamssss internally.

There’s a movie night in school tonight, celebrating the season of love, but idk. It’s not my scene. I’m tired of the everyday faces, the recycled drama. So instead, I’ll float. I’ll keep my little quiet plan alive in my head. Maybe sneak in five minutes of Na’vi escapism before collapsing into textbooks. Maybe scroll TikTok and laugh at couples I don’t know but somehow relate to anyway.

Also, why is it that socks refuse to match, even in the set you bought online? And why do I make playlists I never listen to? Why is there a raccoon stealing pizza in my fyp at 2am and I somehow feel seen?

I keep thinking about what I should be doing, but mostly I’m thinking about what I want: cake, Avatar, maybe a nap, maybe a random dance in my room, maybe answering someone’s text but also maybe ignoring it, maybe scrolling for fifteen minutes too long and calling it “research.”

And maybe tomorrow I’ll do all of that. Or maybe I’ll just lie here, and that will be enough. Who knows? Who cares?

I wonder if anyone else is floating like this too. Probably not. Probably yes. Probably watching TikTok and thinking about Avatar. Probably eating chocolate. Probably planning a dramatic Valentine’s confession they’ll never send.

Anyway, time to check TikTok one last time. Or ten more times. Probably ten more times.

I’ve realized that your 20s are messy. That’s not a bad thing, it’s the point. They’re not meant to be perfectly organized or figured out. You’re not supposed to have all the answers, or know exactly where you’re going, or have the perfect plan. You’re meant to try things. To fail. To feel things fully. To stumble into moments you didn’t see coming. This is the decade of exploration, of learning how to be in your own skin, of testing boundaries and discovering what feels like you. And yes, sometimes it’s awkward, sometimes it hurts, sometimes it’s confusing but that’s how you learn. That’s how you grow.

People like to talk about 20s like there is a checklist: career, love, adventure, stability but honestly? Your 20s are for you. You get to decide. I’m learning that it’s not about hitting milestones. It’s about finding small moments where you feel like yourself. A night where you just talk and laugh with friends. A Sunday morning sitting in silence with a coffee. The first time you do something for yourself without worrying what anyone else thinks. The first time you go on a solo date. The first time you start documenting your life, just for yourself. That’s growth. That’s life. That’s yours.

A few weeks ago, I tried cooking something different for the first time. I thought it would be easy. I didn’t follow the recipe properly. The kitchen smelled burnt, and half of the food was inedible. I laughed at myself, threw most of it away, and made something familiar instead. And that felt… fine. It was a tiny moment, but it reminded me that failure isn’t the end, it’s just part of the process. That’s what my 20s are shaping up to be: a collection of small experiments, some messy, some beautiful, all mine.

I’ve been sitting with the realization that I’m never going to be this young again. No one is going to reward me for being the most well-behaved girl in her twenties. There’s no prize for shrinking, for waiting, for holding myself back just to seem like I have it together. These are the years I get to make mistakes. The years I get to try things without knowing how they’ll end. The years where it’s okay to wear the short skirt, to go out, to stay in, to change my mind, to start over. I can still be responsible — I am — but I don’t have to be harsh with myself while I’m figuring things out. This is the appropriate time to be gentle with my becoming.

And I think we forget that life wasn’t meant to be completely understood. It’s meant to be felt. Every quiet morning, every chaotic evening, every mistake, every laugh, every tiny victory—all of it shapes who we are. And sometimes the most important thing isn’t the lesson or the outcome. It’s just letting yourself live it. Letting yourself breathe, letting yourself feel, letting yourself try again.

So do it. Change your hair, bleach your eyebrows, get that piercing, get that tattoo you’ve been eyeing for months. Learn to cook a meal that doesn’t burn. Wear that micro skirt. Try a sport and be terrible at it. Gain weight, lose weight, fall in love, break your heart, travel alone, sleep too much, sleep too little. Thin your eyebrows out… okay, maybe not if yours are basically invisible like mine.😭

And yes, most times I still find myself wondering about all the things I “should” be doing. Who I’m supposed to be, where I’m supposed to go, how life is supposed to look. And then I remind myself: there’s no rush. The beauty of your 20s is that you get to make it yours. To figure out what matters to you, not to anyone else. To mess up and learn slowly. To try new things without pressure. To stumble and get back up. To rest. To wander. To breathe.

Life isn’t a checklist. It’s about being in it. Feeling it. Living it.

So if you’ve just hit 20, or 21, or 25—take a deep breath. Let your 20s be messy. Let them be soft. Let them be loud. Let them be quiet. Let them be confusing. Let them be beautiful. Let them be yours.

And most importantly, let yourself breathe through it all.

It sounds ridiculous, but it seems important to mention that I started writing this in my sleep. I woke up, reached for my phone, and opened my notes app before my eyes were fully open. My body knew something my mind hadn’t caught up to yet.

Anyway, back to my crush.

It started as something harmless. Silly, even. I saw him at church on a Sunday I don’t remember much else about. It was around the time I had just crawled out of a nasty breakup that cracked something open in me. So when I noticed him, it felt like mercy. A distraction. A small, harmless thing to look forward to.

It also helped that he was insanely attractive. Like, unfairly so.

So while I was still mourning the loss of the person I thought was the absolute love of my life, I was also actively stalking someone else. Let’s call him Mr. A.

Mr. A was perfect because he was silent. I never heard him speak, never knew what he believed, never learned what made him angry or gentle or cruel. He was just there, beautiful and available for imagination. I filled in the gaps myself. And I filled them generously.

But slowly, without realizing it, I started centering him.

I’d make decisions and pause to think: would he like this version of me?
I’d pick clothes, words, interests, even moods as though I was being watched. As though I was already part of a story I had not been invited into. It didn’t matter that we had never spoken. In my head, we were already familiar. Already close.

I didn’t even notice when my life stopped being mine.

Recently, I caught myself in the middle of this and felt embarrassed. Like walking into a room and realizing you’ve been talking to yourself the whole time. Delusion land had been fun, but it was time to grow up and pack my bags.

So I let him go, which was easy. By the next Sunday, as I walked out of church, it felt like I was leaving something behind — not just him, but also the girl who needed him. I watched her disappear in the parking lot and felt strangely light. I’m learning I can cut people off very easily (a fact I will absolutely not be unpacking right now).

However, what was harder to let go of was the life I had rearranged around someone who probably doesn’t know my name. That part hurt. It made me sit with an uncomfortable truth: maybe I was too afraid to be alone, afraid of sitting in the quiet without an audience. Afraid of choosing myself without someone else’s approval attached. I craved that validation so badly that I was willing to become a completely different version of myself just to fit into a picture that was never drawn for me.

So I created a character. A witness. Someone to look at me and say: yes, this version of you is good. This version is lovable. This version deserves to exist.

And somewhere in the process of auditioning for love, I forgot something painfully obvious.

I forgot that I am already here.
That I have been showing up every day. Through the breakup.
Through the loneliness.
Through the Sundays that felt too long and the nights that felt too quiet.
Through the versions of myself I outgrew and the ones I tried to shrink.

And it hit me that the love I was searching for had been practicing on me this whole time.

Learning me.
Choosing me.
Staying.

I think that’s why it felt strange to let him go, because I was finally turning back to myself. And that kind of honesty is hard. It requires you to see how often you’ve abandoned yourself in the hope that someone else would do a better job at loving you.

So yes, I had a crush.
But more than that, I had forgotten something important.

How silly of me to forget that I am the love of my life.

ON SURROGACY

I used to be so indifferent about surrogacy but the more I look at it, the more it becomes clear that it’s a system built to benefit people with money, at the expense of women who don’t have it. And calling it “choice” doesn’t change that.

Yes, women can choose to be surrogates. But if that choice is made because they need money to survive, then we need to be honest about the kind of choice that is. When financial desperation is the motivator, consent stops being free and starts being coerced by circumstance.

Surrogacy operates inside capitalism. It allows wealthy people to outsource pregnancy — the risk, the pain, the body changes, the medical complications — to poorer women, while they keep their own bodies and lives intact. That imbalance is the point.

Don’t you people wonder why surrogate mothers are almost always poor or low-income women?

Ask yourself: if these women had financial security, would they still be renting out their wombs? Or would they finally have the freedom to say no?

This is why I’m against anything that turns a woman’s body into something that can be bought and used. Prostitution. Surrogacy. Anything that treats a woman’s body as a service rather than a human being. It is inherently violent and exploitative.

People love to say, “But it’s consensual.” So is a subordinate(e.g maid) sleeping with a boss so she doesn’t lose her job. That doesn’t make it ethical. When there is a massive power imbalance, consent becomes murky.

And then there’s the entitlement.

Nobody is owed a baby!! A lot of the defense of surrogacy has nothing to do with children and everything to do with ego, bloodlines, and “I want what I want.”

There was a woman who publicly said she had eight miscarriages, used a surrogate to have two children, and wants more because she wants a large family. And people defended this. But if pregnancy was so dangerous that she couldn’t keep carrying, why should another woman be expected to take on that risk — especially one doing it for money?

That’s the part no one is talking about enough.

It’s not about medical necessity anymore. It’s about entitlement.

Adoption exists.

Being okay with the children you already have exists.

But those options don’t satisfy the need for control, so another woman’s body is used instead.

And in Nigeria, this is even worse. Surrogacy is marketed as a “business opportunity” but in reality, it treats poor women like disposable services. Once the baby is delivered, the woman is no longer relevant. We are not talking about this enough.

ON BILLIONAIRES & POLITICIANS’ CHILDREN IN NIGERIA

The private jets and designer lifestyles you see on social media are not just aesthetics. They are stolen infrastructure. They are unpaid salaries. They are hospitals without equipment and roads that kill people.

That money came from somewhere.

And yes, I will say it clearly: we do not hate politicians and their offspring enough.

Every time someone says “hate is a strong word,” I agree. Exactly. It should be strong because the damage is strong. Because the suffering is strong. Because millions of people are poor on purpose.

And I genuinely don’t understand how people are defending it. People forming parasocial relationships with politicians’ children. Calling them “fellow girls”. Calling the rest of us bitter babes for pointing out the obvious.

Can we all be serious? The multidimensional poverty Nigerians are experiencing didn’t fall from the sky. It was created by decades of systemic corruption by people in power. And corruption doesn’t end with one generation.

Guess who benefits?

Their children.

Their families.

Their grandchildren.

That is what “generational wealth” looks like here. Not hard work. Not discipline. Stolen resources laundered into inheritance and flaunted in front of the people it was taken from. And the argument is ”work hard for your own”? please be serious, there is no amount of hard work that gives you that level of wealth in Nigeria without corruption or proximity to power.

So yes, people are angry.

And they have every right to be.

Talking about “If you were born into those families, you’d do the same thing.”

Okay??? And if I did, you’d be right to resent me too.

For unto us a child is born.

I’ve read this verse every Christmas.
Sometimes out of habit. Sometimes without thinking too hard about it.

At first, it doesn’t ask much of me.
It’s just words I’ve known for a long time — like the smell of jollof on the counter, or the scrape of chairs across the floor.

The days fill up anyway. There’s food to be made. Messages to reply.
People arrive. Chairs are moved closer together.
Someone is always in the kitchen. Someone is always laughing too loudly. Old jokes float through the air, tangled with new memories.
And for a moment, just a quiet moment, I notice it: the soft chaos of being together again.

And then, quietly, it settles. Time slows, almost accidentally.
Phones are put down. Stories repeat themselves.
Nothing extraordinary happens.

And still, something feels full.

Only later does the verse make sense.
Not as an announcement, but as an explanation.

For unto us a child is born,
small enough to be held,
yet carrying the weight of promise.

Unto us.
Not distant. Not abstract.
Close enough to be held,
Close enough to belong.

A son is given.
Love offered freely.
Not earned. Not negotiated.

And the government shall be upon his shoulder.
All of it.
The burden of the world, placed not on many,
but on him alone.

And his name shall be called Wonderful.
Because his coming changes everything.
Because grace itself arrived in flesh.

Counsellor.
Because he listens.
Because he guides without force.
Because he carries what we cannot.

Mighty God.
Power, not diminished by gentleness.
Strength wrapped in humility.

Everlasting Father.
Steady. Present.
A love that does not expire.

Prince of Peace.
Peace — not as an idea,
but as a presence.
Peace sitting at the table.
Peace found in gathered rooms, in familiar faces.

And somehow… all of that fits into a child. Into ordinary, messy, human life. Into Jesus, the reason we gather, slow down, call home, show up. The reason the ordinary feels holy for a moment.

And maybe that’s the point. That the extraordinary is hidden in what we usually overlook—the laughter, the clinking plates, the warmth of hands held without thinking.

I’m grateful for presence.
For family, however imperfect.
For friends who feel like answered prayers.
For being here, together, at the same time.

This is the gift.
This has always been the gift.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Thank you for being here with me, even in words. I hope you all had the best day filled with small joys, soft laughter, and moments that feel like home.^^

It’s Saturday, 5:05, and I’m lying on my bed, a place I seem to exist more than I leave now, to the point where it’s hard to tell where I end and where the bed begins. Three books are open and scattered around me, waiting for attention I can’t seem to give them. I’m supposed to be reading for a test, but my mind won’t settle. I keep drifting, coming back, drifting again.

A song plays softly in the background — What You Want by Ojurere — its gentle rhythm threading through the room like a quiet companion. It’s soft, unobtrusive, but insistent enough to make me notice things I hadn’t before: the faint smell of rain before it even hits, the way the light shifts against the walls, the subtle tension in my own hands as they rest on the bed.

My tablet sits by my feet, right at the edge of the bed. I think about stretching my legs just enough to push it off. I don’t. I’ve gotten better at catching my impulsive thoughts before they turn into action. A puzzle plays on the screen, a picture of a cat missing five pieces. I know exactly where they go. I can see myself sliding them into place. I don’t. I don’t know why, only that stopping feels easier than finishing.

It’s about to rain. The air smells heavy and sweet, the kind of smell that makes you pause. I don’t understand why it’s still raining in December, but the sky doesn’t seem to either. A moment ago it was blue, open, almost hopeful. Now it’s grey and thick with clouds, as if it changed its mind halfway through becoming something else. I think we have that in common.

From the next room, I can hear my roommates talking about love. I think they assume I’m asleep. That’s fair. I’m always here anyway.

Their voices drift in and out, soft but steady, the way conversations do when people feel safe enough not to perform. I don’t catch every word, just fragments — someone saying I don’t think love is supposed to be that hard, another pausing before replying, like they’re choosing honesty over comfort. I notice how one of them laughs lightly, but not fully, and how the other fills the silence too quickly, as if afraid of what might surface if they don’t.

It’s strange, the things you notice when you’re not meant to be listening.

I start to think about how love sounds when it’s real. How it lives in the pauses, in the tone shifts, in the things left unsaid. How much of it has nothing to do with big declarations and everything to do with attention. With presence. With someone caring enough to stay long enough to notice. In holding onto the small details of you, not because they were announced, but because they were seen.

I lie there, listening, wondering when I learned to crave that kind of love. The kind that doesn’t rush you. The kind that pays attention. The kind that notices and remembers.

I think I’ve always been someone who notices.

Not in an impressive way. Just in the quiet, inconvenient way where you register the small things people don’t realize they’re revealing. The way someone’s shoulders tense when a certain topic comes up. The way they reach for reassurance without asking for it. The way silence can mean more than whatever fills it.

Noticing feels passive, but it isn’t. You have to be present to do it. You have to be looking. And when someone notices you — really notices you — it does something to you. It makes you feel real. Anchored. Seen.

If you ask me how I want to be loved, I’ll tell you that I want to be seen.

Seen in the small ways. In the details that don’t feel important enough to announce. In the habits I don’t realize I have. In the parts of me that only surface when I’m tired, or comfortable, or afraid. Because being seen is what tells you that you matter enough to be observed, not just glanced at.

And I think being seen is what slowly turns into something deeper.

Consideration.

Consideration is what happens when noticing stays. When it doesn’t disappear after the moment passes. When it’s remembered. When it’s carried into decisions, into actions, into restraint.

I want to be considered. Not in a dramatic, sweeping way. In the everyday sense. In the way someone thinks of me before they make a decision. In the way they remember what makes me retreat into myself, or what makes me feel safe. In the way my existence factors into their choices, even when I’m not in the room.

I’ve realized that consideration might be the love language that holds all the others together. Because quality time means nothing if you’re not considering how someone wants to spend it. Gifts only feel like love when they come from knowing. Acts of service only land when they account for what someone actually needs. Even words of affirmation require attention — to timing, to tone, to what will truly be received.

You can’t consider someone you don't know. And to know them, you have to notice.

You have to notice the way my hand reaches for the pendant on my necklace when I’m anxious. The way I go quiet when I’m overwhelmed, not because I don’t care, but because I care too much. The things I say casually and the things I only whisper.

To notice these things is to remember them. And to remember them is to carry someone with you — into your actions, your decisions, your restraint.

I think that’s where love becomes real. Not in intensity, but in intention.

I’ve been in love before. I know that much. But I don’t think I’ve ever felt truly considered. I’ve felt wanted, desired, chosen in moments but not held in the quiet in-betweens. Not factored into the everyday math of someone else’s life.

And maybe that’s why it always felt incomplete. Like something essential was missing, even when the feelings were strong. Because to be loved, to me, is to be seen clearly and still kept in mind. It’s knowing that someone notices me and then lets that noticing shape how they show up.

I crave that kind of love — the intimacy of being remembered. Of realizing that the details of you were worth keeping. That your softness didn’t go unnoticed. That your silence was listened to just as carefully as your words.

So maybe that’s what the art of noticing really is. Not just paying attention, but caring enough to let what you notice change the way you show up. Not just seeing someone, but choosing them in the small, ordinary moments where love actually lives.

To be loved is to be considered.

And to be considered is to be seen.

I want to be seen — even when the world hides me.

To know that I am loved for all that I am, and all that I am not.

For the longest time, I used to avoid blocking people. Not because I was being noble or patient or enlightened — nothing that profound. I just convinced myself that blocking someone meant I cared too much. Like it made the situation louder than it needed to be. So even when someone was obviously irritating me, I’d leave them there, floating around my digital space, simply because I didn’t want it to seem like I was pressed.

Looking back, that was such an unnecessary performance. Because… why?

Why am I holding onto people I don’t even like on an app I can close anytime?

I realized how fun blocking can be when the most random men pester me for my number and then flood my phone with calls and texts. I blocked one of them, and since then… well, I give it out and then block. There’s a certain satisfaction in it like taking back control, quietly and efficiently.

I’ve noticed we forget the block button exists for a reason. It’s literally just a tool, a fine tiny boundary on a tiny screen. Like why am I raising my voice in my own head? Why am I reading nonsense? Why am I arguing?
Block.
Stupid-ass comment?
Block.

I do it everywhere. Literally — block block block block.

On TikTok, if I see you leave a mean comment under someone’s video, I block you. If you’re being homophobic, unnecessarily rude, or just loudly foolish — block. If you’re asking strange questions or giving off weird energy — block. Half of these people don’t know me and I don’t know them, and honestly that’s even more reason to remove them.

I think we forget that we’re allowed to curate our spaces. We scroll past things that annoy us, or argue with strangers, or let random comments ruin our mood when the block button is sitting right there like, “hello?”. We don’t have to fight, explain, argue, justify, or absorb everything we come across online. Sometimes the healthiest thing you can do is remove access. Quietly. Without noise.

Blocking, for me, has turned into a small act of self-maintenance like cleaning your room or deleting old screenshots. It makes the internet feel less chaotic. And honestly? I think more people should romanticize that. The peace that comes from not engaging. The freedom of realizing you don’t owe everyone your attention. The calm that sits in your mind when you’re not carrying unnecessary voices around.

It feels like one of the easiest ways to protect your space. And frankly, I’m not letting anyone stress me through my phone. It’s never that serious.

So, incase you haven’t figured it out yet: I love the block button. Truly. It makes the online world feel like somewhere I actually want to be and free of voices I never invited in the first place.

And sometimes peace isn’t a big transformation. Sometimes it’s just a small red button you finally decide to tap.

So, don’t forget guys — if it drains you, block it!

snickers with delight