The surgery was supposed to be “routine,” something people do every day without thinking too much about it. But during the procedure, fat that was meant to enhance her body entered her bloodstream and travelled to her lungs, blocking blood flow in a matter of minutes.

It resulted in a pulmonary embolism, a complication that can be almost impossible to reverse in that moment.

She did not wake up.

In 2015, another woman, 29-year-old Joy Williams, died after traveling abroad for a Brazilian Butt Lift. Fat also entered her bloodstream during the procedure and caused a pulmonary embolism, blocking blood flow to her lungs.

In 2017, Shatarka Nuby, a mother of four, died after undergoing multiple cosmetic procedures in a single session. Her body could not handle the stress of the surgeries.

In 2018, Laura Avila went in for a nose job and ended up in a coma due to anesthesia complications. She never fully recovered.

In 2021, Joselyn Cano reportedly died following complications from cosmetic surgery, sparking conversations about how far people are willing to go to maintain a certain image.

In 2022, reports surfaced online, of multiple deaths linked to a single clinic in Miami, where doctors were accused of performing high-risk procedures back-to-back with little regard for patient safety, prioritizing work volume over actual patient care.

There have been cases of botched liposuction leading to internal organ perforation, where surgical instruments puncture vital organs, causing infections that spread rapidly through the body.

There are also countless cases of dermal fillers migrating from their original location, distorting facial features permanently and requiring repeated corrective procedures that never fully restore the original structure of the face.

These are not just random incidents, they are part of a pattern, and stories like this sound distant until you realize they are not rare.

The Brazilian Butt Lift is widely regarded as one of the most dangerous cosmetic procedures in the world, with mortality rates estimated to be as high as 1 in 3,000. That means people are not just risking a bad result, they are risking their lives.

And yet, the demand continues to rise. Over the years, the number of these procedures has increased drastically, with clinics fully booked, travel packages organized, and payment plans available, making it easier than ever for people to access something that could quite literally kill them.

At the same time, there is a growing number of people silently reversing these procedures. People are dissolving fillers, removing implants, and reducing the exaggerated results they once proudly showed off.

The same bodies that were once celebrated are now being undone.

Why?

You think it’s because they suddenly became “wrong?”

Nah.

It’s simply because the standard has shifted yet again.

And that, is precisely the problem.

Trends change, but the body will forever carry the consequences of the surgical knife.

This is not just about BBLs. Breast implants can rupture or harden over time, liposuction can lead to internal complications if not properly handled, and fillers can migrate or distort facial features in ways that require repeated correction.

None of these procedures exist without risk, and some of those risks are permanent. Yet people continue to sign up, not necessarily because they are unaware, but because they are exhausted from constantly feeling like their natural bodies are not enough.

Hi, it’s been a minute, but I’m back again. Did you miss me? Because I missed you.

The original title of this post was “The BBL Pandemic,” but I changed it because if we are being honest, this is not just about surgery. This is about body dysmorphia, body image, and the nagging, persistent dissatisfaction that follows a lot of us around whether we admit it or not.

I remember when I got my first pimple right in the middle of my forehead. I was about 10, around the same time I got my first period. My brother laughed when he saw it and said, “your first pimple.”

I immediately rejected it, insisting it was just a small dot. I popped it, thinking that was the end of it.

Oh, how wrong I was.

Back then, my brother had pimples all over his back and shoulders, and I knew I never wanted to look like that.

Unfortunately, not only did I look like that, I looked even worse.

I would later resort to buying all sorts of over-the-counter creams to deal with the spread of pimples across my face, arms, back, and even my shoulders.

Growing up, I hated my face so much that I convinced myself I was ugly. I hated my big, round, stupid nose, my huge forehead and my thin lips. I hated that I had pimples scattered all over my face.

I envied the girls with smooth skin, pointed noses, and faces free of pimples or dark spots.

I envied the light-skinned girls. To me, being dark-skinned automatically meant I was ugly and undesirable.

I remember one time in secondary school when I entered a cab with my light-skinned friend. There was a man sitting at the back seat of the car, in between two women. He looked at both of us and decided to pay for her. He said he would pay for the fair, fine girl.

It was a very awkward moment for both of us, and we never spoke about it.

But I remember how I felt in that moment.
Black, ugly, and worthless.
That one haunted me for a while.

Another time, I cut my hair very low. It was almost a skin cut, tbh.

A teacher brought me out of the class and said I looked so horrible and ugly with my shaved head. He said, and I quote, “who would ever marry someone like you.”

I remember being happy my crush was not in class when he did that cause it was during lunch break.

Truth is, if I had been given the option at that time, to surgically replace my skin with something flawless, I would have taken it without hesitation. That was how bad I hated how I looked.

I was genuinely shocked when I discovered that my crush liked me back, and even more shocked when he asked me out. I didn’t think I could ever be someone a guy would actually like.

After that, I started liking my face a little more, paying more attention to it. You know how it is when you have a thing with a guy in your class.

But just as I started to develop love for my face, the hate switched to my body.

Now, this one came in two phases.

Before the face hate became serious, I had already started hating my body.

When I hit puberty, I noticed the way my body was changing, the way my boobs were growing, and the way I started having armpit hair and pubic hair.

I hated it so much that I genuinely wished I could remain a child forever. The idea of puberty had always been a nightmare for me. I hated the periods, the pimples all over my face, and my new body.

I refused to wear a bra even when it was obvious I needed one, and I stayed in that phase for a while.

Now, the second phase of the body hate started after I began to like my face.

I was in senior secondary school then, SS2, to be precise, and everything flipped in the blink of an eye. I suddenly wanted curves, I wanted boobs, I wanted to be what people would call “thick.”

I remember wearing a double-padded foam bra every Wednesday with our sportswear uniform just so my chest would bounce when I ran, and thinking back now, I honestly wonder if people noticed. I was jealous of girls with fuller bodies, and I wanted to look like them so badly.

Later in life, my body did change. I got thicker, my hips filled out, my thighs became more pronounced, and my body started to look closer to what I had once wanted.

Infact in the first quarter of 2021, people even started calling me “Lara with the ass,” asking what I did and how it happened, but the truth is, it was just genetics. My mum and my aunts are built that way, and my body simply caught up.

Fast forward to a few months into the last quarter of 2021, I started hating the comments, I hated the way men looked at me when I wore fitted gowns, the way they stuck out their tongues like depraved monsters when I passed, the way they tried to touch me.

And then I started hating my body all over again.

I began to starve myself. Some days, I would go the entire day without eating, drinking only water. Other days, I would eat just one meal, even when I was dying of hunger.

I wanted to become thin again, but all it did was give me ulcer and never-ending migraines.

However, I happened to be in a relationship then, and my boyfriend liked thick girls. He would encourage me to eat so I could look thicker, just like the girls he followed on Instagram. Even though I was already quite thick and still got all sorts of comments about my body, he wanted more.

So foolish me started wanting to get thicker. I began to think about getting supplements to look bigger and fuller, imagining how I would look as a thicker girl.

Unfortunately, no matter how much I ate or the supplements I bought, nothing changed. So I started hating my body yet again.

It became a never-ending cycle of hating and loving my body.

And it still is.

It may sound ridiculous, but it’s the truth. Some days, I like my body. My stomach is flat, my waist is defined, my hips are full, and everything looks “right.” Other days, I don’t. I notice my collarbones, how much they protrude, and I remember how my mom would complain about how thin I look, how my neck is too long, how I need to add flesh.

But the moment I gain even a little weight, the comments switch to “you’re getting fat,” or “don’t get fat in my house,” or “wait till you get to your husband’s house.” Meanwhile, I weigh about 60kg, maybe 63kg at most, and somehow, depending on the day, that is either too much or not enough.

I believe in being healthy. Obesity is a disease that can kill, and being severely underweight can also damage your body in serious ways.

But most of us are somewhere in between, and even there, we are still not satisfied.

It’s easy to say “love yourself,” “accept your body,” “you’re perfect the way you are.”

But it is not that simple.

I’ve always believed that if you don’t like something about your body and you have the means to change it, you can. It is your body, after all.

But that belief has limits, especially when it involves risking your life or permanently altering your body because of feelings that can change.

Because if I had changed my body every time I felt uncomfortable in it, I would not recognize myself today.

There have been too many moments, too many opinions, too many versions of myself I thought needed fixing.

If I had followed all of them, if I had started altering things one after the other, I know I would have reached a point where I would have to stop and ask myself who I was even trying to become.

And that’s the problem.

Cosmetic procedures are becoming more common, more accessible, and more normalized, but you still have to live in that body. You don’t get to separate yourself from the decision later.

Sometimes, instead of cutting it open and rearranging it, the harder thing is to sit with it, to understand it, to take care of your body the proper way, to ask why it looks the way it does, to check your hormones, to eat properly, to move your body, and to speak to professionals who actually understand how bodies work.

The Brazilian Butt Lift remains one of the most dangerous cosmetic procedures in the world, and people are still dying from it, from fat embolisms, infections, and complications that could have been avoided.

And I understand the temptation.

I understand what it feels like to look at your body and feel like something is off, like something needs to be fixed, adjusted, or corrected.

I understand wanting to match what you see everywhere, what people praise, and what gets more attention.

But I also know that the feeling does not end.

It just shifts.

Today it is your face that needs to look more defined, so you start injecting it with fillers, researching the best Botox doctor you can find, all in pursuit of that perfect chiseled look we see on the screens every day.

Tomorrow your waist needs to be more snatched, so you consider liposuction or even rib removal. Next week your hips and butt need to be fuller, so you go for a “little” BBL.

There is always something that needs to look better. And if you keep chasing that feeling, there is no version of your body that will ever be enough.

At some point, you have to pause.

You have to realize that there is no such thing as a perfect body, that beauty standards are an illusion, and constantly trying to change your body is costing you more than it is ever going to give you.

I would rather go to therapy and figure out why I hate my body than risk my life trying to change it every time I feel like.

Because the truth is, my body is not the problem.

And maybe… it never really was.

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Happy New Week.❤️

Be nice to yourself this week.

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It’s been a while since I wrote anything motivational, even though that was the main reason I started this blog.

So for this post, I decided it was time to go back to the drawing board, I wanted to write something inspiring. Something uplifting. Something empowering. I wanted to write something that would bring a sense of calm, of peace, in this already tumultuous world we live in.

But as I started to type, I realized I simply did not have it in me. There was not even the slightest hint of optimism, nor a shred of hope. I didn’t have the will or strength to pretend everything would be fine.

Because… will it ever be?

I’m tired.

I’m so tired.

I don’t know if it’s my hormones or the sheer horror of everything happening in Nigeria right now, but I feel this overwhelming sense of exhaustion all the time.

No matter what I do, how many hours of sleep I get (not that I get enough), I just can’t stop being tired.

Is this a disease? Am I sick?

Why do I constantly feel tired even when I’m not exerting physical effort?

Is this mental exhaustion? Am I losing my mind?

Sometimes I see things that are not there. Sometimes I’m convinced someone called my name, but when I ask, no one did.

Am I experiencing symptoms of something I don’t understand?

I don’t know what to think, or feel, or do, or say.

I wish I could take a break from everything. From life. From the noise. From the constant weight of existence. Even if just for a short while.

Why can’t I?

Why can’t we?

Why is it not allowed?

I have cried. And cried. And cried. But I don’t any feel better.

On Saturday, I watched videos of the Ozoro festival, and I cried so much. I was angry at first, but then I became sad. So sad that I could not stop crying.

Because what exactly is going on?

What kind of society allows things like that to happen in broad daylight?

Where was law enforcement when those men were performing those barbaric acts?

How is it that a culture like that still exists in this day and age?

I did some research of my own and here is what I learned about the festival.

The “Ozoro festival” is a long-standing traditional celebration known locally as the Uruamudhu Aluejo Festival, a yearly cultural observance in the Oruamudhu community of Ozoro, Delta State.

Traditionally it’s about honoring ancestors, seeking communal wellbeing, and observing ritual practices tied to the community’s beliefs.

But part of the festival has historically included a restriction on women being outdoors during certain hours (usually from dawn to sunset), for seven days or more. This was symbolic, tied to ritual observance, and not meant as punishment, harassment, or sexual assault.

But here’s my humble question: Why only women? Why are men allowed to roam freely while women are forced to stay indoors for seven whole days or more?

How exactly does that “honor” the so-called ancestors? What value does that add to the general wellbeing of the community? And why is it that traditions never favor women?

There is nothing sacred or protective about this. It is a tradition twisted to control and isolate women, giving men an excuse to commit violence, because there is simply no way a woman will not have to go out at some point.

This year, some men took this so-called symbolic practice and turned it into something far more horrifying than it has ever been.

They knew that not every woman knows about this stupid tradition, like the innocent female university students of the Ozoro community.

They knew that there were women who neither live in nor are from Delta State, women who had just moved to the community and had no idea such a practice existed.

And they preyed on them. They enforced their twisted “tradition” with harassment, intimidation, tearing of clothes, and acts of sexual violence.

Not only did they rape these women, they even raped those who tried to help them.

They forced women into sexual acts without protection, exposing them to infections and threatening their lives, because of what? Tradition? Please.

That is not tradition. That is not culture. That is men choosing to abuse women and hiding behind the name of a festival to justify it.

That was some Sodom and Gomorrah type shit. And I know God promised never to destroy the world with a flood again, but if I hear about any ark nearby, best believe I’m entering it.

I’m truly concerned that a group of men gathered together, sat down, and decided this was the best way to “honor” their ancestors.

They looked at women living freely and thought: Hmm, these women are enjoying too much. Let’s invent a way to punish them. Let’s make them stay at home for seven days. And if they refuse, they should be ready to dance to the tune of music whether they like it or not.

These men did not have daughters? Mothers? Sisters? What exactly was going through their mindswhen they made this decision?

I cannot understand it, for the life of me.

The most painful part of all this is the helplessness.

All we can do is watch, cry, get angry, and raise our voices.

But nothing changes.

They say women are not angry enough. But exactly how angry can we get before real change is effected?

We scream “protect the girl child.” But how do we protect the girl child when the very people making and enforcing the laws that should protect us do not give a flying f*ck?

We tweet and retweet.

We use all kinds of hashtags

#SayNoToRape, #EndViolenceAgainstWomen, #ProtectHerRights.

Over and over and over again.

But nothing ever changes.

If anything, it feels like things are only getting worse.

The more we cry out, the bolder they become.

The more we scream for Justice to be served, the more daring they become.

It’s like they’re taunting us. It’s like they’re saying, “Yes, we are going to continue raping you. What are you going to do about that?”

Because they know. They know they will get away with it.

In a society where there are no consequences for actions, there is no fear.

And when there is no fear, there are no limits to what can happen.

And please, don’t come to my comments to tell me that some of the perpetrators of the rape festival have been “arrested.”

Until I see them in court, until I see them tried and sentenced for what they did to those women, I will not rest.

Because the story always ends the same way. Arrests are made, videos fade away, outrage dies, and the rapists walk free without facing real consequences.

What happened to Ochanya’s rapists?

Have they been punished?

Did the law take its full course?

Andrew Ogbuja, her uncle, was acquitted of the rape and death charges, while his wife was convicted only of negligence for failing to protect her and served five months in jail.

Mr. Ogbuja, following the acquital, has since resumed his job at the Benue State Polytechnic (BenPoly), Ugbokolo even with multiple allegations of sexual abuse by former students of the institution.

His son, Victor Ogbuja, was never arrested, never tried, and has still not been convicted or sentenced.

Despite the court proceedings and renewed public outcry, justice for Ochanya remains unserved.

Each rape case gets replaced by another one. Another girl. Another outrage.

And then silence.

That is the pattern.

It’s an endless cycle.

And it is exhausting.

Because this is not just individual cruelty.

It is systemic failure.

A system that does not protect.

A system that does not punish.

A system that allows brutality to repeat itself over and over again without consequence.

The judicial system in Nigeria is so deeply compromised that I honestly do not think I will live long enough to see a time when laws are not just made, but actually enforced.

The entire country, as it is, is in a state of deep decay.

What is Nigeria?

Nigeria is a country where systems exist on paper, but not in practice.

Where institutions that are meant to protect people have instead become symbols of inefficiency, corruption, and indifference.

Where police officers will look at you like a fool if you get robbed at gunpoint and you dare run to them for help.

Where the government says one thing, does another, and is hardly ever held accountable for either.

Where men rape women in broad daylight and nothing happens to the men. Instead, women are expected to protect themselves, stay indoors, lock their doors, and hide from danger.

When the men behind the Ozoro festival decided to create this tradition out of thin air, didn’t they think for a second about the women who would have to live under it?

So what happens if a woman is in labour and needs to go to the hospital?

Will they also grape her because she dared step outside when she shouldn’t have?

Or a woman having a miscarriage and needing medical attention.

Will they tell her to stay home and bleed to death, because somehow, the gods must be honored and the community kept “safe”?

Or a woman who suddenly gets her period but does not have pads at home.

She has to lock herself inside for seven days, bleeding all over her rugs, not for her protection, but so that the community can claim the wrath of the gods has been appeased if she dares step outside?

This is the reality: women are not being protected. The tradition is protecting the community, the so-called ancestors, and the deluded men enforcing it. The women are the ones who suffer, who are confined, harassed, and violated, all so that the rest of the world can say, “the gods have been honored.”

Don’t women in that community go to work?

Is the festival an automatic “poid leave”?

No work. No going to the market. No buying food. Nothing for women that involves being outside.

I need to know, how exactly does it work?

What kind of stupid and unreasonable tradition is that? And what kind of country has permitted it to happen for so long?

Time and time again, we are told stories that sound like something out of a badly written movie.

Because what do you mean a snake swallowed ₦36 million meant for public use?

A monkey carted away ₦70 million from a senator’s farmhouse?

Termites destroyed billions in financial documents, making it “impossible to trace” the money?

Billions disappear, and no one can properly explain how.

And we are expected to believe it like a bunch of idiots.

In a civilized country?

A country that has supposedly been independent for over 60 years?

How is it that in 2026, something like the Ozoro festival can exist?

That women can be raped in broad daylight under the guise of “tradition”?

And some people have the guts to say “why did the women come out?”

How is any of this even normal?

How is this acceptable?

This is what happens when people know they can violate women and constantly get away with it.

This is what happens when lawlessness and corruption have eaten so deep into the system that there is nothing left.

Just a wide, endless void that can never be filled.

And in that void, people suffer.

Girls suffer. Women suffer.

While the people responsible walk freely among us.

Unashamed and unafraid.

I did not want to talk about this. I’ve been trying to take a break from social media for the sake of my mental health, but work won’t let that happen.

There are no words to fully describe the horror, the cruelty, the brutality of what I watched, or to measure the physical pain I felt in my chest.

And men wonder why women choose the bear.

I will choose the bear.

Over and over again.

I am genuinely tired. I am exhausted.

Not just because of what is happening, but what it is turning me into.

The anger. The sadness. The constant worry about what happens next.

Is it a crime to be a Nigerian? Is it a crime to be a woman living in Nigeria? To want safety, dignity, and peace?

I hate talking about this country.

Why speak at all, when nothing ever changes?

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Happy New Week in Jesus name

I hope this week is kind to us.❤️

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“Who is this one that wants to spoil my morning today?”

“Shift,” she said to the people surrounding her desk, “let me even see her face.”

Then she saw me.

“Imagine this girl. So you don’t want to go to camp and you’re looking for an excuse to stay at home? I pity you. You think you are the only one with hemorrhoids in this world? You are such a fool. Thousands of people are living with piles and going about their normal lives.”

“All these small small girls that just want to show themselves, blocking the way for real patients to be attended to. “Please doctor,” she said, pointing to the doctor who had referred me to her, “leave this one and attend to real patients. She’s not ready yet.”

I stood in the hospital hallway while this happened. Everyone heard it. Patients waiting to be seen, nurses walking past, people sitting on benches, all of them heard this woman shouting at me and calling me names.

I should add that this is a censored version of what she said that day.

My offense?

Wanting to get a medical exeat form for NYSC camp because I have stage two hemorrhoids, popularly known as piles.

The week before, I had visited the hospital for a rectal examination and was scheduled to return the following week.

I arrived before 8 a.m. because I had been told I would be attended to quickly, that by 10 a.m. I would be done and out of there.

That did not happen.

I sat there for almost four hours, waiting to be called.

At some point around noon I went to the restroom and realized that my sanitary pad, because I was on my period, was already almost full.

It was the second day of my period, which for many women is the most uncomfortable day, filled with heavy bleeding, cramps, fatigue, and everything in between. I had not come with an extra pad because I genuinely believed this would be a quick visit.

How foolish of me.

When my name was eventually called around 1 p.m., the doctor assigned to me was male. He asked the necessary questions, which I answered, and then explained how the rectal examination would proceed.

When he finished speaking, I politely asked if a female doctor could handle the examination instead, explaining that I was currently on my period and would feel more comfortable with a woman.

He was not pleased with the request and made no attempt to hide his annoyance.

Now, I understand that this was a teaching hospital, and teaching hospitals are often overwhelmed with patients. Doctors are overworked, patients are many, and small requests are sometimes treated as unnecessary complications. In environments like that, the default culture becomes; take the doctor you are given, ask no questions, and move along.

And I remember wondering, in that moment, whether that request was somehow unreasonable. But in a normal world, shouldn’t a patient be allowed to feel comfortable during an intimate medical examination? Should asking for a female doctor in that situation really be treated like a problem?

After some back-and-forth, during which I explained the obvious discomfort of bleeding through a nearly full pad during such a procedure, he reluctantly referred me to a female doctor.

That female doctor was the one who humiliated me in the hallway.

The one who called me a whore for refusing to let the male doctor examine my anus, a rather strange accusation for someone refusing male contact.

The one who said I had been sleeping around with men and that was why my anus was swelling, along with several other horrific things that came out of her mouth.

That was not just cruelty, it was a complete failure of professional conduct.

And what made it harder to process was that it came from another woman.

Ironically, that day was Women’s Day.

What a wonderful day to be verbally assaulted by a fellow woman.

As you may have guessed, I did not go through with the examination. I ordered an Uber and left the place.

But that experience stayed with me, not just because it was humiliating, but because it reminded me of something we rarely want to admit openly, that many women are cruel to their fellow women.

The idea that women naturally support other women is deeply romanticized. People talk about it, post about it, and sing it like a hymn, but in real life it is far less practiced than it is preached.

Women do support women sometimes. But some of the harshest treatment women experience in everyday life comes from other women.

This is not an attempt to demonize women. It is simply an observation drawn from personal experiences.

In hospitals, banks, schools, offices, customer service desks, many of us women have encountered situations where the person treating us with the most impatience, hostility, or outright contempt happened to be another woman.

And it raises questions that simply cannot be ignored.

Why do we show less empathy to the very people who share our life experiences?

Why is a simple request from a woman treated like a nuisance rather than a reasonable request?

Why do we reserve our politeness for men, while treating other women with irritation or unnecessary aggression?

It is an odd pattern indeed. In public conversations, we talk endlessly about solidarity, about supporting each other, about standing together against unfair treatment. Yet in everyday interactions, in the small mundane moments that actually define how people experience the world, that solidarity often disappears.

The midwife who dismisses the pain of the woman in labour because “when you were doing it that day with your man, was it not sweeting you?”

Yet if anyone should understand the pain and fear of childbirth, it should be another woman.

The female customer service representative in the bank who treats you with unnecessary contempt, ignores you repeatedly, cuts you off whenever you attempt to speak, and barely answers your questions when she finally allows you to talk. But is all smiles with Mr. Femi beside you, patiently answering his questions and even offering him personal assistance should anything go wrong.

Yet if anyone should understand how exhausting it is to navigate systems that already make life difficult, it should be another woman.

The female lab attendant who has just met you but is already calling you an ashewo for coming in to do a retroviral screening test. But men come in all the time to do the same test and she playfully pokes them and says, “na man you be.”

Yet if anyone should understand the vulnerability and anxiety that comes with sexual health testing, it should be another woman.

The female soldier in camp who refuses to give you permission to return to the hostel to wear a pad when your period suddenly starts on the parade ground.

Yet if anyone should understand how humiliating society can make it feel to bleed through your clothes in public, it should be another woman.

And then there is the woman in the comment section of your post, the one where you shared how you discovered your ex was cheating on you. The woman who tells you that you were probably not giving him enough attention, that maybe if you had been more submissive, more available, or more understanding, he would not have cheated.

Yet if anyone should understand how deeply women are taught to love, forgive, and hold relationships together even when they are falling apart, it should be another woman.

The truth is, these things happen far more often than we like to admit.

And that is what made that moment in the hospital so difficult to make sense of.

Because if anyone should understand the vulnerability of standing in a hospital hallway while bleeding through a pad, waiting for someone to examine the most private part of your body, it should be another woman.

If anyone should understand how degrading that situation already was, it should have been another woman.

And yet, the person who chose to treat me with the least dignity that day was also a woman.

It’s only natural that if anyone should instinctively extend kindness, patience, or even basic dignity in moments like that, it should be your fellow woman.

Not because women are saints but simply because women know.

Women know what it feels like to bleed every month and still be expected to function normally.

Women know what it feels like to have their bodies examined, judged, policed, and commented on.

Women know what it feels like to be told to endure discomfort in silence because “that is what women go through.”

So if anyone should be kind to you in moments like that, it should be another woman.

If anyone should support you when you are vulnerable, simply because you are a woman navigating the same world she is navigating, it should be another woman.

And yet, sometimes, the person who shows you the least grace in those moments… is also a woman.

Empathy should really not be that difficult.

None of this removes the fact that men also mistreat women. Of course they do. My point is simply that women are not exempt from the responsibility of treating other women with dignity.

Sometimes the call for “women supporting women” feels like a slogan we repeat online, while real life interactions tell a very different story.

It feels like a fantasy. Like a social media trend where women loudly declare their love for women, but in everyday life treat other women with hostility.

These are the women who say they love you but secretly resent you.

They celebrate your wins publicly, but privately compete with you.

They say they are happy you finally find love, but suddenly they add your boyfriend on Snapchat and start sending him thirst traps while whispering lies about how you jump from one man to another.

They say “protect the girl child,” but turn the other way when another woman is being insulted, humiliated, or harassed right in front of them.

They say they hate men, yet bend over backwards to please them while treating fellow women with irritation and contempt.

And then there is the contradiction that never quite makes sense to me.

The same women who rush online to say “not all men” are often the same people who structure their real lives around the possibility that some men might actually be dangerous.

They say “not all men,” yet they would never allow their teenage daughter date freely at sixteen.

They say “not all men,” yet they would rather hire a female nanny for their children.

They say “not all men,” yet they feel safer entering a taxi where another woman is already sitting.

They say “not all men,” yet they would choose a female OB-GYN over a male one without thinking twice.

So clearly, somewhere deep down, we understand the reality of vulnerability.

We understand caution.

We understand fear.

What I do not understand is why that same instinct does not translate into kindness toward other women.

If you know how difficult the world can be for women, why make it harder for another woman?

If you know how humiliating certain situations can feel, why amplify that humiliation?

If you know what it means to be dismissed, insulted, or disrespected, why become the person doing the same to someone else?

That morning in the hospital, what I needed was very simple.

Not sympathy.

Not special treatment.

Just a small measure of dignity.

Instead, I got a public lecture, insults, and a hallway full of strangers watching one woman tear another woman apart.

And I can’t help but ask…

If empathy cannot exist in moments like that, then what exactly do we mean when we say women support women?

Is it real?

Or is it just something we like to say because it sounds progressive, powerful, and comforting?

Maybe the truth is far less inspiring.

Maybe solidarity is easier to perform online than to practice in real life.

Maybe it is easier to tweet about feminism than it is to treat another woman with basic decency when she is standing right in front of you.

Maybe the real problem is not that women do not understand each other’s struggles.

Maybe the real problem is that sometimes we understand them perfectly and still choose cruelty anyway.

And that is a truth many of us would rather not face.

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Happy New Week.❤️

Remember, it costs nothing to be kind.

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I am not being symbolic.

I am not being poetic.

And I am not referring to a man.

There is an actual, physical, pea-sized swelling currently living rent-free in my anus, with no plans of relocation.

And it is ruining my life.

I had a different topic for today. One of those deep, intelligent, potentially life-changing reflections. It came to me like divine revelation, but I was too far from my phone to note it down.

And now?

It’s gone.

Because apparently, when your butthole is throbbing, your brain also clocks out.

I am currently lying on the cold, hard, tiled floor of my room. My head is propped up by my left hand. My right hand holds my phone, which is awkwardly balanced on the floor while I type this, like a wounded soldier sending a final message home.

Not that a soldier would have access to a phone on the battlefield.

Wait, do they?

Nvm.

My body has been frozen in one exact angle for almost an hour because movement comes with severe consequences.

The last time I attempted to adjust myself, a splitting pain shot through my head and down my spine like lightning with a vendetta.

I have a headache.

I am nauseous.

And my throat hurts.

But all of that is secondary.

The real dictator here?

This pea-sized thing stuck in my butthole.

A swelling so small it could be swallowed by a toddler, yet powerful enough to bring a grown woman to her knees, or more accurately to her ribs? Since I’m lying down on one side.

I cannot sit.

I cannot stand.

I cannot walk normally.

I cannot lie on my back.

I cannot lie on my stomach.

I am stuck on my side like a compromised piece of furniture.

Who knew that something so tiny could command so much authority?

This is how empires fall.

From the inside.

Do you know what this pea-sized thing is?

I say to my imaginary class of five-year-old kids

One raises his hand

“Beans,” he says confidently.

No, I say to the class

The class gasps.

Some of them bang the tables in excitement.

Another one raises his hands, Junior, I think (why are people still naming their children Junior?)

“A bead!” he screams

“Wrong!” I scream back.

He looks offended.

The other kids laugh.

The shy girl at the back is looking at me like she knows what to say but is too scared to raise her hand, so I call out to her.

Tamara, you can speak.

“It’s a hemorrhoid,” she says softly.

“Correct!” I scream, then regret it instantly, because what was the reason?

Tamara looks at me like I’m overreacting.

But the other kids look lost

They look from me to Tamara with confusion.

I can’t blame them

Tamara is four.

But she has the brain of a straight-A twelve-year-old.

She would be leaving us soon

Her parents are rich, so she’s going to Scotland to study in a school for prodigies.

Maybe I should beg them for some money

After all, I discovered her special gift.

Ten million won’t be bad.

Too much?

Okay. Five.

Jeez. Two?

Don’t judge me.

I’m just a girl.

A mosquito violently brushes past my ear and distracts me from my thoughts

Those tiny demonic creatures.

I’ll miss Tamara.

She was my favorite kid. Obviously.

I say this out loud as I smile thinking about my Tamara, in my imaginary class of five-year-old kids.

Okay. Back to reality.

Where were we?

Ah yes.

The pea-sized thing stuck in my butthole.

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Please give me privacy while I navigate this difficult season of my life.

I say, after telling the whole world there’s something that resembles a boil living rent-free in my anus.

Happy New Week, and God bless you all. ❤️

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But at this point, I don’t really care anymore.

This was supposed to be my Valentine’s Day post.

Something soft and sweet.

But life happened, and here we are.

This post is supposed to be about love.

But it may not necessarily feel that way by the time you finish reading.

Bear with me.

Also, if your religion is not Christianity, you might want to stop here.

Because as much as I try to make my posts neutral, this one is going to be unapologetically God-centric.

So if you’re not comfortable with the idea of God, please take your leave now.

Thank you.

With that being said…

Let’s get right into it.

What is Love?

Love is one of the most overused words on earth. Everybody says it, everybody claims it, and everybody thinks they understand it.

But the truth is, love is hard to explain. People recognize it when they feel it, but struggle to define it when asked.

So I’m going to start with something simple.

God is love.

If you can love God, you can love anybody. If you don’t love God, then I’d find it difficult to believe you possess genuine love for anyone or anything, because real love is not just a feeling.

It is not desire, it is not obsession, and it is certainly not infatuation.

The Bible describes love with painful clarity.

(KJV, which is what I’ll be using throughout this post, uses the word charity, meaning love):

“Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,

Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;

Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;

Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

Charity never faileth…”

— 1 Corinthians 13:4–8 (KJV)

Simply put, love is not just butterflies or excitement. It is care. It is respect. It is the willingness to treat another person gently.

Love does not manipulate, it does not pressure you into compromise, and it does not demand what is wrong.

The Bible says love is not self-seeking. That means love is not only about what you want in the moment, but about what is good, honourable, and right.

Love does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but in truth. Love, at its core, is meant to be pure.

And yes, there are different kinds of love.

There is romantic love, the one people were celebrating this Valentine’s Day, the kind that creates intimacy, affection, and commitment between two people.

There is familial love, the love between parents and children, between siblings, the kind that holds a home together even when things are hard.

There is friendship love too, the subtle kind, the one that shows up without obligation and stays without being asked.

And then there is godly love, the highest kind, the love that is sacrificial, pure, and not driven by selfish desire.

Now that we have established love in all its forms, let’s talk about Lust.

Because this is where it gets really confusing.

Lust is not love’s twin.

It is not love’s partner.

It is often love’s impostor.

Lust is intense, it is urgent, and it is loud.

It demands. It pulls. It convinces you that what you feel must be real simply because it is strong.

But strength is not the same thing as truth.

Lust does not ask, “How can I honor you?”

Lust asks, “How can I have you?”

Lust is not patient.

It is not kind.

Lust does not endure.

It consumes.

And that is why so many people are confused.

Because lust feels like passion.

And passion feels like love.

But love is not just passion.

Love has restraint.

Love has discipline.

Love can wait.

Lust cannot.

Lust is the part of you that wants without wisdom.

The part of you that craves without consequence.

And in a generation that worships desire, lust has become normal.

We call it chemistry.

We call it vibes.

We call it connection.

But sometimes it is simply appetite.

And appetite is not evil in itself.

But appetite without boundaries becomes destruction.

This is why Scripture does not play with lust.

It doesn’t tell you to negotiate with it.

It tells you to flee.

Because lust is rarely satisfied with a glance.

It escalates.

A look becomes a thought.

A thought becomes a fantasy.

A fantasy becomes a plan.

And before you know it, you are no longer asking what is right.

You are asking what you can get away with.

That is lust.

And lust is not harmless.

Now my question is this.

Where does love end, and where does lust start?

Do they coexist? Or have we simply learned to confuse one for the other because lust feels urgent and love feels slow?

Stay with me please, I’m going somewhere with this.

The Bible says something that should honestly humble all of us. Christ Himself said:

“But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.”

— Matthew 5:28 (KJV)

Do you understand that?

You don’t even need to touch first. You don’t need to kiss first. The Bible is saying that lust is not innocent simply because it stays in the mind. The moment you entertain it, the moment you sexualize someone in your head, the sin has already begun.

And before you say, “But that verse says adultery, not fornication,” let’s be honest.

Yes, Jesus used the word adultery because He was speaking to a culture where marriage was the standard framework.

But the point was never only about married people.

The point was lust.

The point was the heart.

Christ was teaching that sexual sin does not begin in the bedroom. It begins in the mind. It begins in the imagination. It begins the moment desire becomes indulgence.

And that is exactly where fornication itself comes in.

Because fornication is not some random sin that appears out of nowhere.

It is not an accident.

It is not something that just “happened.”

Fornication is lust leaving the mind and entering the body.

It is the thought becoming action.

It is what happens when what you entertained privately finally demands expression publicly.

And this is why I don’t understand how we’ve made it so casual.

Because if lust begins in the heart, why are we shocked when it ends in fornication?

And if the thought is already counted as sin, why do we pretend the act is somehow different?

Fornication is simply bringing those sinful thoughts to life. It is lust taking physical form.

So Why Is Nobody Taking It Seriously?

Time and time again, we have heard it.

Do not give your body to any man who is not your husband. Preserve yourself. Keep yourself.

But somehow, nobody is doing this anymore.

We all profess Christianity. We say we love God. We pray, we fast, we preach. God even speaks to us. We join Hallelujah Challenge. We see answers to prayers and shout, “It’s God!”

But then we turn around and live in sin like it is normal.

And my question is the one Paul asked:

“What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?

God forbid.”

— Romans 6:1–2 (KJV)

Not “it’s fine.” Not “everybody does it.” Not “God understands.” Not “body no be firewood.” God forbid.

People say it’s just a kiss. I’m not committing a sin. You can’t call this fornication.

It’s just a lip peck.

But kissing usually intensifies. One day, a peck just isn’t enough anymore, and it turns into longer kisses. Longer kisses become making out. Making out leads to wandering hands, and wandering hands become “just this once.”

And before you know it, you are having sexual intercourse with someone who is not your husband.

This is why it’s so dicey, and partly why I’ve avoided this topic for so long. Because it isn’t theoretical. It’s real life. It’s happening every day.

Now, I am not perfect. In fact, nobody is. But you cannot use imperfection as an excuse to justify repeated acts of fornication.

You cannot say, “We are all sinning differently.”

“His grace is sufficient.”

Fine. Let’s even accept that.

But would you give that same leniency to your pastor?

If you found out he was doing the exact things you do in secret, would you still call him a man of God… or would you call him a hypocrite?

Because somehow, when it is a pastor, grace suddenly becomes harder to extend.

Suddenly, we remember what holiness is supposed to look like.

Suddenly, we start asking for accountability.

So why do we excuse in ourselves what we would condemn in our spiritual leaders?

Yes, we are all growing.

Yes, we are all at different stages in our walk with God.

But there are certain things Christians should not be doing comfortably.

Not as a lifestyle.

Not as a habit.

Not as something you have already made peace with.

Because at some point, it stops being something you are fighting to resist.

It stops being temptation you still feel convicted about.

It becomes a choice.

Now, let us even define it properly.

Fornication is sexual intercourse between two people who are not married.

Sex before marriage. That is fornication.

And the Bible does not treat it like a casual mistake.

It does not package it as “modern love.”

It calls it what it is: sin.

This Is Not Just a “Regular” Sin

My problem with how common fornication has become is that people treat it like it is nothing. Like it is ordinary. Like it is just another mistake.

But Scripture says something very blunt:

“Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.”

— 1 Corinthians 6:18 (KJV)

Do you understand what that means?

The Bible separates this sin.

It is not treated like a casual slip.

It is not brushed aside as normal desire.

Every other sin is outside the body, but fornication is against the body itself.

It is personal.

It is physical.

It is spiritual.

It is sin committed against the very vessel God calls His temple.

And it goes deeper:

“What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost… and ye are not your own?

For ye are bought with a price…”

— 1 Corinthians 6:19–20 (KJV)

Your body is not a playground, it is a temple. The Holy Spirit is supposed to dwell within this body.

Do you honestly think the Holy Ghost can co-habit with you in a body that repeatedly fornicates?

In a body that is constantly spreading legs, climbing on top of someone, moaning, masturbating, and engaging in all sorts of sexual acts of pleasure?

If you were the Holy Spirit, would you dwell there?

The Spirit is Holy. Can you honestly say those acts are not unholy when they are done outside of marriage?

If you won’t admit they are, how about you have sex on the church altar.

You’ll probably say “God forbid, that’s disregard for God.”

Right?

But there’s no difference.

The church is just a building.

The altar is just wood or glass.

God is everywhere.

So how can you claim to love God while sinning grievously against Him?

Please. Let’s be for real.

Why Are We Mocking Celibacy?

Like I said earlier, I am not perfect, and this post is not intended to condemn anybody.

But I genuinely cannot understand why people are being bashed for choosing to keep themselves till marriage.

You may not agree with them, fine. But why cuss them out? Why call them fools? Is obedience to God’s word now stupidity?

Nobody is perfect, but is it really that hard to stay celibate, or have we just decided that true holiness is unrealistic and impracticable?

The Bible says:

“Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true… whatsoever things are honest… whatsoever things are just… whatsoever things are pure… whatsoever things are lovely… whatsoever things are of good report… think on these things.”

— Philippians 4:8 (KJV)

Every single thought will be judged, even before you act on them. Think about that for a moment.

God is omnipresent.

If you could picture Him in the room while having sex with someone who is not your husband, would you continue?

And for those who believe in the rapture, let me ask you something.

If God told us the exact date, if He said, “My second coming is on the 22nd of March, 2026,” and you had a staycation planned with your babe…

A weekend of privacy.

A weekend of sex.

A weekend of repeated fornication.

Would you still go?

Or would you suddenly cancel it and start behaving like someone who is actually waiting for Christ?

Someone told me, “sin sweet die. Just admit it.” But that is where being dead to sin comes into play, as Paul so dearly explained it. ( But let’s leave that one for another day).

God is merciful.

But He is also a consuming fire.

The same Bible that says:

“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

— Matthew 11:28 (KJV)

Also says:

“It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

— Hebrews 10:31 (KJV)

That contrast is insane.

Because it reminds you that God is not one-dimensional.

He is not only comfort, and He is not only warning.

The same God who invites the broken to come and rest

is the same God who is holy enough to be feared.

Grace is real.

But so is accountability.

Mercy is available.

But sin is not a joke.

God is love.

But God is holy.

The Fact of the Matter still remains

Sex before marriage is fornication.

Fornication is sin.

It is not a modern grey area.

It is not a “relationship stage.”

It is not something God overlooks because everybody is doing it.

It defiles the body, and the body is the temple of God.

You cannot separate spirituality from sexuality and pretend God is not involved.

God is against it.

Christianity prohibits it.

That is not my opinion.

That is the doctrine of the Bible.

And the truth is, deep down, we know.

We know it is sin.

We just want it to be normal.

We want grace without repentance.

We want pleasure without obedience.

But make no mistake. God cannot be fooled.

And sin does not stop being sin because everyone is doing it.

So the earlier we stop dressing fornication up as love,

the earlier we stop pretending holiness is unrealistic,

the earlier we call sin what it is…

The better for us.

Because one day, excuses will run out.

And only truth will remain.

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Happy New Week.❤️

Say NO to Fornication!

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But right now?

Right now, I do not want to be a mom.

The next part is an excerpt from my journal, written in real time, so it stays in the present tense, exactly as I felt it.

“I’m currently in church.

I’m sitting behind a young girl. She can’t be more than eleven or twelve.

She’s carrying a baby, maybe three months old, based on what I can see.

The baby is cute. I don’t know the gender, but it’s soft and small, the way babies always are, like something the world has not yet had the chance to harden.

I watch it for a while, then return my focus to the preacher.

Minutes later, I start hearing sucking sounds.

Like someone sucking on something.

The sound becomes consistent.

It’s loud, wet, and irritating.

I get annoyed.

Who the hell is making this sound? I think, scanning the chairs around me, ready to warn the person to stop doing that rubbish.

But then I see it.

It’s the baby.

Sucking its fingers restlessly.

My irritation rises. Not because the baby is doing something wrong, it’s just a baby, but because I suddenly realise something that feels almost ridiculous in its simplicity.

I cannot control this.

One, this isn’t my baby.

Two, I have no idea how to stop a baby from sucking its fingers.

Maybe it’s hungry, maybe the mother is nowhere to be found, maybe this is just what babies do.

So I endure the rest of the service with the sound of sucking and sucking and sucking.

And every now and then, I glance at the baby with a kind of helpless annoyance.

But not at the baby, really.

At the fact that this is what motherhood is.

Noise you cannot escape.

Need you cannot switch off.

Responsibility that does not pause because you are tired.

A life that does not stop demanding, simply because you want it to.

A baby that does not stop sucking, just because you want silence.

I closed my journal there. But the feeling didn’t leave.

When I see babies; toddlers, little kids, whatever category they fall into, I smile.

But the smile never reaches my eyes.

I indulge them because I can. Not because I really want to. In fact, I’d rather not.

But the stares I get when I ignore them usually get to me, so I play along, force the interaction, perform the softness people expect from a woman.

And that’s the first thing nobody tells you.

Motherhood begins long before pregnancy, it begins in expectation.

In the way society looks at you as though nurturing should come naturally, as though your reluctance to do so, is a defect that must be corrected.

I remember babysitting my sister’s child and wondering why I never felt that longing people often talk about.

Why the idea of babies never thrills me, and how I became this person.

It wasn’t always like this. Growing up, I wanted a younger sibling so badly I begged and cried to my mom for years.

But now I see children and all I feel is frustration.

Sometimes rage.

Most times exhaustion.

Did I smile while babysitting my nephews?

Maybe once or twice.

But most days, all I could think was

“Kids are stressful.”

“Thank God her husband is coming back from work soon.”

“Nothing will ever make me get pregnant out of wedlock.”

“Nothing will ever make me have a baby for an unkind partner.”

Because imagine.

Imagine bringing a life into the world with a man who doesn’t give a fuck.

Imagine doing the hardest thing a woman can ever do with someone who treats you like an afterthought.

But let’s not digress.

When I see babies, I don’t want to hold them.

I’m scared they’ll fall out of my hands.

My mind replays horrible thoughts on a loop

The baby slips.

The baby falls.

Head first.

The baby dies.

Because of me.

It plays over and over again and I cannot make it stop.

So when someone hands me a baby, my first reaction is panic.

It’s not “awww.”

It’s not “she’s so cute.”

It’s “please take your baby back.”

It’s “please get this fragile life away from me before I ruin it.”

Are these normal reactions?

Honestly?

I don’t know.

And that uncertainty scares me too.

I am scared of pregnancy.

Not in the cute “oh my God I’m going to be a mom someday” way.

I’m scared of hating my body.

Of losing my hair.

Of being bloated and swollen.

Of never-ending nausea.

Of unexplained illness.

Of waking up one day and not recognizing myself.

Of regretting it.

Of life-threatening pregnancy-induced illness.

Of dying on the operating table.

Of being one of those stories people whisper about.

“She didn’t make it.”

“That poor woman.”

“And she was so young.”

I am so fucking scared of motherhood.

Of being responsible for a life.

Of the idea that someone is depending on me to breathe.

To live.

To exist.

To grow into a decent human being.

Because that is what a child is.

It’s a life placed into your hands.

But what if my hands are not steady?

What if I blink for one second and something irreversible happens?

What if I do everything right and something still goes wrong?

What if the world takes them away from me, no matter how careful I am?

What if the worst thing that can happen… happens?

I am scared of losing my child to crib death.

To infections.

To accidents.

To terminal illness.

To sudden death.

To suicide.

And all the horrible words that should never sit beside the word “child.”

I am scared of hurting them.

Intentionally or unintentionally.

Of breaking their hearts.

Of becoming the kind of mother that makes her child say, “I wish I was never born.”

I am scared of failing as a mother.

And I know what you might say

“You’re overthinking this.”

“Maternal instincts will kick in.”

“The moment you see the baby, everything will change.”

And maybe you’re right.

Maybe motherhood rewires you.

Maybe love arrives like a miracle.

Or maybe not.

And you see…

That’s the thing.

What if it doesn’t?

What if it only gets worse?

What if postpartum depression starts and doesn’t end?

What if motherhood becomes a life sentence of regret?

What happens then?

And of course, some people will say,

“You’re a Christian. The Bible teaches us not to worry.”

To trust God.

To let Him lead.

“For I know the thoughts that I think towards you, saith the Lord…”

Thoughts of peace.

And not of evil.

To give you an expected end.”

And I believe that.

I do.

But belief does not erase fear.

Sometimes faith is trembling hands.

Sometimes faith is saying, “God, I trust you,” while your mind is screaming, But what if?

And so,

I do not want to be a mom.

I don’t want to live my entire life with the responsibility of another life resting on my chest, not like a burden, but like something I can never escape from, not even for a second.

Because that’s what it is, isn’t it?

A child is not a hobby.

It’s not an accessory.

It’s not a milestone.

A child is a whole human being handed to you in flesh and breath.

And suddenly your life splits in two.

There’s you… and there’s them.

And nothing is only yours anymore.

Rest is no longer just rest.

Your body is no longer just your body.

And your heart is no longer safely inside your ribs.

It is outside of you, walking around in the form of someone small.

And I don’t know if I’m built for that kind of vulnerability.

I don’t know if admitting that makes me selfish.

Or honest.

Or simply afraid in the way people become afraid when they understand the full cost of birthing and loving a child.

Because sometimes, in my head, I don’t want to be a mom.

And sometimes, in my head, I am.

A mom with six kids.

Twins, three times.

Little voices calling me.

Little hands pulling at my clothes.

A life so full it almost bursts.

And in that imaginary life, I can’t tell what I feel.

I don’t know whether I’m laughing…

Or drowning.

Or just existing

And maybe that’s the contradiction of motherhood.

That it can be joy and terror in the same breath.

That you can love something deeply and still be terrified of what loving it will require of you.

And maybe what I’m really confessing is not that I don’t want children…

But that I don’t know if I can survive the fear of having them.

I don’t know if I can live with how much there is to lose.

All I know is that right now, standing where I am…

The idea of motherhood feels less like a dream…

And more like standing at the edge of something vast,

knowing that if I step in,

I will never be able to step out again.

Right now, motherhood is somewhere between longing and reluctance.

Between faith and fear.

Between the life I imagine, and the life I’m not ready for.

And maybe, for now, that is enough.

I don’t have a conclusion.

I don’t have an answer that ties everything into a neat bow.

I just know that this is what it feels like in my head.

This fear.

This hesitation.

This awareness of how permanent motherhood is.

And the unsettling audacity of still being undecided.

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Happy New Week!❤️

Hug a mother today.

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Last week, my friend sent me a series of voice notes. She was ranting, rightfully so, about the governor of a certain state. Name withheld. It’s not like I’m afraid or anything, I just don’t like his name.

Apparently, this man hosted an event to celebrate the state’s 50th anniversary.

It was not a small event, as many distinguished guests were present.

The time was set for 10 a.m.

But guess when he showed up?

1 p.m.

One o’clock, after noon.

He strolled in casually with his entourage, no apology, no acknowledgment, no sense of urgency, as though the rest of the world had nothing better to do than wait for him. And let me be clear. This wasn’t an invitation he honoured late, it was his event. The show could not start without him being there.

How are you late to your own programme?

Is that normal?

No, genuinely, can that be considered normal anywhere?

I’ve been privileged to observe how seriously time is treated in many European societies, not as a personality trait, but as a social contract. Time is understood as something collective, something owed.

To arrive late is not merely a personal failing, it is seen as a subtle form of disrespect, an assumption that your time matters more than everyone else’s. Punctuality, in that context, isn’t about rigidity or perfection, it’s about mutual regard.

In this part of the world, however, time often carries a different meaning. There is little social consequence attached to lateness, and even less expectation of accountability.

We joke about it so much that it has become normalized, hence phrases like “No African time,” a saying that didn’t emerge from nowhere, but from repeated patterns of casual disregard for time.

And still, as regular people, we try. When we’re late, we jog in from a distance so our effort is visible. We apologize, we over-explain, we offer excuses; some genuine, some improvised, all in an attempt to show that we recognize the inconvenience. We want it to be clear that the lateness was not intentional, that time did not suddenly grow wings and disappear between 8 a.m. and noon in five seconds.

But that’s beside the point.

The point is this. As regular people, because we are still operating within a shared understanding that someone else’s time deserves acknowledgment, we make the effort to show that we care.

However, once a person crosses the line from being a regular person to a person of “importance,” the rules change by default. Time is no longer treated as mutual, it becomes something you own. You arrive when you please, because who is really in a position to question you?

Nobody.

Last year, I wrote a piece on greed. About how it doesn’t always show up as money-hoarding villainy, and how power has a way of subtly expanding people’s entitlement. This piece is an extension of that thought.

See, the thing is, you can’t actually say you’re not greedy until greed is an option and you refuse it. You can’t say you’re not corrupt until corruption would benefit you and you still say no. You can’t say power won’t change you until power is handed to you and you choose not to abuse it.

I’m going somewhere with this. Please stay with me.

There’s a very common phrase people love to say: “It can never be me.”

Even when you know on a random Tuesday morning, it could very easily become you.

Because of this, it’s easy for you to see a governor show up three hours late and say,

“This man is wicked.”

“So we that came by 10 are fools, abi?”

“God will punish him.”

Kelvin.

Amaka.

Chinedu.

Relax.

Until you become a governor, set a meeting for 10 a.m., and still show up before 10, you really don’t know what you’d do. Because eight years from now, you might be the same person God is allegedly punishing.

We all claim to have values,

lines we can’t cross,

boundaries we won’t break,

words we insist we would never be caught saying,

things we swear we could never be caught doing.

But when you finally have leverage,

when power gives you the illusion of freedom of choice,

when you can do what you want without consequence,

what happens then?

Do those values stand the test of time,

or do they reveal not who you thought you were,

but who you have always been once the opportunity finally arrives?

They say power comes with baggage.

Greed that starts as entitlement and subtly turns into excess; lust not just for pleasure but for more control, more influence, and more validation.

They say power brings a growing disregard for others, where people slowly stop feeling like humans and start feeling like obstacles or tools you can use and dump at your will.

They say soon after the power, nepotism creeps in, dressing favoritism up as loyalty and calling it harmless.

And once you cross that line, corruption follows fast on your heels, first as small compromises, then as routine, until bending the rules feels normal.

Somewhere along the way, there’s the sudden belief that laws are for other people, that your position has lifted you just high enough to float above consequence.

And at first, when you see these things play out from a distance, it all feels absurd.

Why would I ever do that? you ask.

But believe me, if you could, you would.

Because it rarely starts big.

It starts small.

Right now you’re just an intern at that big publishing house. You know how hard it is to be seen, how your work is constantly scrutinized, criticized, and torn apart, most times unfairly. They call it “training.” A rite of passage.

Everyone must suffer.

You must write piece after piece just for it to be dismissed. You must lose sleep, be exhausted, be depressed, question yourself daily, and be on the edge of giving up, just to be seen.

But it’s just a test.

You must prove your worth, even if it breaks you in the process.

Then, fifteen years later, you’ve “made it.” You’re a survivor, a CEO. You now own the publishing company.

And yet, the same cruelty is alive and well under your watch.

You tell yourself, I went through it and survived. Why can’t they?

Let me tell you something, that is witchcraft.

Because if you were mistreated in your days of humble beginnings, you know exactly how it felt.

You remember the nights you cried yourself to sleep, the prayers you whispered just for strength to survive another day, the anxiety of waking up, wondering what fresh humiliation awaited you.

And yet you chose to let others suffer the same fate.

When confronted, you shrug, and say “We all went through it. They’ll be fine.”

Until someone isn’t.

Until someone sinks into depression.

Until someone becomes suicidal.

Until someone jumps off the 19th floor because waking up each day starts to feel harder than the idea of not waking up at all.

Why do we do to others the exact things that almost destroyed us?

“When I was a child, they beat the hell out of me.”

“So now that I’m a parent, these children must see shege.”

You curse that governor for showing up three hours late simply because he’s the governor,

yet you oppress your siblings because you’re the firstborn.

You curse that governor for showing up three hours late,

but you’re rude to the electrician who came to fix the fridge, simply because you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth and he wasn’t.

You curse that governor for showing up three hours late,

but you’ve never greeted a bolt driver in your life, because he’s “just” a driver. Why should you wish him good afternoon?

You curse that governor for showing up three hours late,

but when last did you even show up early to anything?

You don’t say thank you to the waiter.

Or to the security guard who holds the door open for you.

Or to the people who sweep the roads every day so your world can look clean.

Are you really that different from the governor?

I don’t think so. Because it shows up in the little things.

It can never be you.

Until you’re the team lead,

oppressing your group members because you saw shege when you were just a group member yourself.

But to what end?

What is the joy in inflicting pain on others simply because you went through the same pain?

What exactly are you proving?

Are you healing, or are you just passing the wound forward?

Life is dicey.

CEO today.

Street urchin tomorrow.

It can happen fast.

Then you’re in desperate need of help, someone whispers that there’s a person who can save you. You finally meet them, and it turns out they were your student once.

The one you broke, the one who cried himself to sleep because you made him write fifty articles a week only to tear them up and tell him nothing good could ever come out of his life.

Funny thing is, his life is good now. Very good, in fact. So good that he’s now in a position where any decision he makes can either make you or mar you.

What do you think he’ll choose?

Let’s forget about what happens in high places for a moment and pay attention to our own small corner of the world, because it can never be you,

until it is.

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Happy New Week!❤️

Remember to stay healthy and hydrated.

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This statement was actually made by a human being. A living, breathing, human.

Let me tell you what happened.

It all began on what should have been a very normal Friday morning.

We had just wrapped up a toolbox session at the office and moved into a casual Q&A. The topic of the day was presenteeism; that thing where you show up physically, but your body, mind, and soul are very much on leave. (Ask Google. It’s a real thing.)

At some point, the facilitator mentioned severe dysmenorrhea as one of the situations where presenteeism can show up. And honestly, he made sense.

If your pain is so intense that you can’t function, what exactly is the point of being at work?

Being present without actually being present defeats the entire purpose.

Everyone agreed. It was logical. It was humane. Why would I drag myself to work when my uterus is staging a violent protest, just to prove I’m dedicated and committed? Please.

Because this is a familiar topic, the conversation lingered there for a while, as these things often do. Periods. Pain. Work culture. Life.

Then the HR, a 45-year-old woman, let’s call her Mrs. B, started telling a story about her friend’s daughter who got her first period at eight years old. She talked about how distraught the woman was, how the girl must be suffering so much at school, how children “these days” experience menarche so early, and how overwhelming it must be.

It was a normal conversation. A sympathetic one. I felt bad for the girl.

As someone who got her first period at ten, it was very relatable. I remembered the confusion, the fear, the nights I spent bargaining with God like it was some divine punishment that could still be reversed. Telling Him that if He took this blood away from me forever, I would serve Him for the rest of my life.

How foolish of me.

It took me years to accept that for most of my life, every month, for about five days, blood would announce itself uninvited and unapologetic. That I would bleed uncontrollably, ride the worst mood swings, deal with back aches, headaches, nausea, diarrhea, and a rotating cast of other horrors my body seemed determined to invent.

And the worst part of it all?

I would have no choice but to deal with it.

But that’s not even the point. Please stay with me.

As we all sympathized with the eight-year-old girl, the conversation shifted to how difficult it can be at that age; learning when to check, when to change, how easy it is to get stained, especially in those early stages since you’re only just getting the hang of it.

I mentioned, quite casually, that staining can happen to anyone. Not just teenagers. Adults get stained too, and the facilitator agreed. He said it wasn’t a big deal, that everyone knows what it is, and that no one should make a woman feel awkward about it. If you can’t help, if you can’t quietly tell someone they’re stained, then the least you can do is shut up, not laugh at the person or mock them, like a fool.

I agreed with him. In fact, I was in the middle of adding my own thoughts when Mrs. B opened her mouth, and what she said next changed the atmosphere in the room.

She said, and I quote, “Any woman that gets stained on her period is stupid.”

When she said this, the room went quiet. Uncomfortably quiet. We all just started at each other at first, trying to process what we had just heard. And even then, she didn’t stop talking.

“How can a grown woman make such a mistake?”she continued. “Are you a baby?”

I was stunned. Properly stunned. My mouth was open, but words were not coming out. Around the room, people shifted in their seats, some scratched their heads, others stared blankly at the table. We all respected Mrs. B, and that somehow made it worse.

But there was no way we could let that slide, because she didn’t just say it once and stop. She kept going. She argued. She defended it. She tried to justify the rubbish she had just let loose into the room, so one by one, we pushed back.

We talked about bodies not being machines, about how being female already means carrying so much without apology or explanation.

About waking up for work while your stomach twists, sitting through meetings while your lower back aches, checking your clothes every time you stand up, planning your day around bathrooms and spare pads, and still being expected to show up on time, productive, pleasant, and smiling.

We talked about hormones, and hormonal imbalances. About PCOS. Menorrhagia. Endometriosis. Fibroids. Adenomyosis. Thyroid disorders. Bleeding disorders. Stress that wrecks your cycle. Medications that turn your life upside down. Trauma that lives in the body long after the mind has tried to move on. Miscarriages. Perimenopause. Life itself.

We talked about how none of this is rare, how none of this is imaginary, and how often women’s pain is treated as normal simply because it’s common.

And we told her plainly: you cannot reduce something this complex, this personal, this biological, to stupidity.

You cannot say that.

You should not say that.

And you will not say that.

We won’t allow it.

What annoyed me most wasn’t even the ignorance. It was the cruelty tucked neatly inside it, the way judgment had dressed itself up as “sense.” Because that was cruelty, plain and simple.

Having a light flow should never become a moral high ground. Never getting stained is not proof of intelligence or discipline. It’s luck. It’s biology. It’s circumstance. Nothing more.

Sometimes heavy bleeding isn’t just “a bad period.” Sometimes it’s fibroids growing silently inside your body, stretching you, draining you, leaving you bleeding for days that turn into weeks.

Imagine bleeding uncontrollably for two weeks. Two weeks of uterine blood flowing through your vagina. Two weeks of cancelled plans. Two weeks of explaining yourself, or not explaining yourself, because you’re tired. Because you’re embarrassed. Because you’re already carrying enough pain.

Now imagine sitting across from someone, a woman like you. And then you hear them say, out loud, that women who get stained are stupid.

What they’re really saying is this:

You’re sick, and that makes you stupid.

Your pain makes you stupid.

Your body makes you stupid.

And somehow, being a woman becomes the evidence of it all.

Do you hear how insane that is?

Coming from a woman, at that.

Mrs B said “ThankGod my flow is light. Just 3 days and I’m done. I don’t even need to change my pad more than once”

But here’s the crazy thing.

Apart from the fact that some women bleed heavily and still get stained, even after changing pads multiple times a day, even after being careful, even after doing everything “right.” Others, like Mrs B can have lighter flows and still get caught off guard because they didn’t fix a pad properly, or their cup shifted, or their tampon failed them on a random Monday morning.

What about hormonal imbalance, the kind that doesn’t ask for permission before turning your day into a nightmare, the kind that rearranges your cycle however it likes?

The kind that also shows up on your face as acne that doesn’t care how old you are, how clean you are, how much water you drink, or how carefully you follow the rules. One day your skin is fine, the next you’re standing in front of a mirror wondering when your body decided to betray you again.

Or PCOS, where your period shows up late, early, unexpectedly, or all at once?

And please don’t tell me, as a PCOS sufferer, to walk around with a pad or tampon at all times. What if I just want to quickly step out to buy biscuit from Mama Nkechi? What if I forgot to put an extra pad in the new bag I was excited to carry that morning? What if there’s a pad in my bag but my period starts while I’m sitting down, quietly, with no warning at all?

I’d still get stained.

Extra pad or not.

That’s it.

That’s the whole mystery.

The absurdity of it all hit me later, when I realised I was on my period myself, and suddenly I was thinking: If I get stained today, would Mrs. B think I’m stupid? And then another question followed; Why is this even a thought I have to carry?

Sometimes I’m bleeding and I don’t feel a thing. No cramps. No warning. I stand up to pee, walk into the restroom, and realise my pad is full, overflowing, and it’s only been a few hours. I stare at it, confused, replaying the math in my head. By my calculations, I should have had at least three more hours.

So what does that make me?

Stupid?

Or just human, in a body that doesn’t always announce what it’s about to do?

That’s the part people forget. That bodies don’t always give notice. That blood doesn’t ask if it’s convenient. That being female means constantly negotiating with unpredictability, and still being expected to carry it silently, neatly, without ever slipping.

And when we fail at that impossible standard, even once, we’re called stupid. We’re called nasty. We’re called sloppy.

It just shows how unaware people are of the weight their words carry, how easy it is to sit comfortably in your own body and weaponize that comfort against others.

Period stains are not a moral failure. They are not a measure of intelligence. They are not evidence of irresponsibility or immaturity. They are evidence of being human, in a body that does not always follow rules.

If you’ve never been stained, congratulations.

And if you have, welcome to the club.

You’re not stupid.

You’re just a girl.

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Happy New Week!❤️

Don’t be like Mrs B.

Remember to check whether your head is still correct before leaving the house.

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Before

“Jenny, for God’s sake, switch off the damn tap!”

Marissa’s voice cuts through the apartment like she’s auditioning for the role of Angriest Woman Alive. The sound bounces off the tiled kitchen walls, sharp and echoing.

This is the third time she’s called my attention to it. I have AirPods jammed into both ears, even though I’m not listening to anything, and I heard the first two times she told me to switch off the tap.

I sigh dramatically and smile despite myself, because if I don’t frustrate her at least once a day, who will?

I hurry over and twist the tap shut. The sudden silence feels heavy. She looks at me, notices the AirPods are still in, and makes a face.

I don’t know why I like doing this to her, pretending I can’t hear her just so I get to watch her scream her lungs out. Seeing her get worked up has a strange way of calming me.

It’s satisfying.

Disturbingly peaceful.

Twisted, I know.

Marissa loves me.

Like, LOVES me.

In a fierce way that sometimes scares me.

I mean, we’re sisters, but the things she’s willing to do for me…

Jesus.

Call me selfish but I’ll let a car run me over twice, before I ever consider putting anyone first.

I honestly don’t get how people do it. “Oh, that’s just the humane thing to do.” Please. It’s pathetic.

Marissa once almost took a bullet for me. Literally.

The year was 2001. We were in high school. It was a Friday, and everything was fine until it wasn’t.

There was an active shooter at school.

At first, everyone thought it was a routine safety drill. Until they realized it wasn’t.

I still remember the screaming. Lockers slamming. People running for their lives.

I remember Marissa finding me in my classroom and dragging me along with her. Her grip, tight and desperate, her palms slick with sweat, the way they always got when she was nervous or scared.

I managed to break free and veered into the other hallway, the one where the shooter stood, firing bullets at anyone who dared walk through.

Of course, no one did.

Except me.

I’ll never forget the thrill of standing right in front of him as he pointed the gun at me. It was electrifying.

The best moment of my life to date.

Until Marissa ruined it.

I couldn’t believe it when she jumped in front of me, shielding me with her body; arms out, braced, ready for the impact of the bullet, like her life was worth less than mine.

What a joke.

It was so annoying, considering I was the real mastermind behind the whole thing, and she had just ruined my perfectly laid-out plans, snatched my moment of glory, and taken my spot in one swift swoop.

Derrick was supposed to shoot me. My shoulder. Precisely.

The bullet would land just beneath my clavicle, grazing the deltoid muscle, close enough to the subclavian vein to bleed convincingly without killing me.

I’d fall to the floor, clutch my throat, and burst the small nylon pouch of extra fake blood hidden in my palm. With the blood spreading upward and the CCTV angle catching only part of the frame, it would look like the bullet had grazed my neck.

Everyone would think it was over.

But I’d survive. Miraculously.

The media would swarm.

There’d be interviews.

I’d go to therapy.

Skip school for a year, maybe more. Go on tours. Maybe even write a book.

I’d be a living legend.

Except none of that got to happen. Because Marissa had to be the annoying big sister,

standing in my way. Literally and figuratively.

As for Derrick? He was just a fucking coward. A pathetic loser.

A sorry case of bad genes and soft parenting; born weak, raised weaker, destined to fold the moment things got real.

He was the kind of person whose life was never going to amount to anything.

I was supposed to give his life some sort of meaning.

But he threw it all away at the slightest inconvenience.

What happened to shooting her first and then shooting me?

It could’ve been more heroic.

Maybe I’d save her. Then save myself.

My name would’ve gone down in history.

I was furious.

Running away was dumber than thinking he ever deserved to make history with me. And I made sure he paid for that mistake.

The bullets were real, by the way. I was really going to get my shoulder messed up.

A small price to pay for fame.

Well. At least I’m famous now.

Just not exactly in the way I planned to be.

Marissa has been sleeping over at my place a lot lately. At first, I thought it was because she missed me. We live in different cities now.

Until I found out the truth.

My house is just her escape from the failing sham she calls a marriage.

We warned her about him. Me. Mom. Dad. Even Grandpa and Uncle Eugene, who were both capable of loving anything. Even a rock.

But love has a way of making people stupid. Granted, she was never really the bright one. The shooting incident made it painfully obvious, still I expected better.

How can you be bad at everything in life?

Taking a bullet for me was going to end her life sooner than it ever should’ve, and I wasn’t against that. But she should’ve at least tried to run. To save herself , and let me be the heroine of my own damn story.

It was the most logical thing to do. Don’t you think?

Who takes a bullet for their sister? That’s fairy tale. Those things exist in books and movies. Not in real life.

As she bends over the sink, her back to me, arranging the dishes, I wonder how anyone could be so clueless about how the world actually works.

That kind of ignorance has a way of choosing a dim-witted, lying, cheating bastard of a husband for you.

She ignored all the red flags, waved right through them, and married him anyway. Now she’s thirty-eight, knee-deep in a messy divorce, two kids in tow, and enough bitterness to salt the sea.

Me?

I married the love of my life at 21. Pete.

Who, right on cue, should be walking through the door any second.

The doorbell rings.

I smile. It’s 7:00 p.m. on the dot. Like always. He always makes it home by 7. Never a minute later. Never. Not even if he tried.

I pull off my washing gloves and start walking towards the door, already picturing our hug, our kiss, and if I’m lucky, maybe a brief make-out session on the couch.

Hopefully Marissa stays in the kitchen long enough for us to get through it.

The bedroom feels too far away tonight.

I’m a little excited.

But the ringing doesn’t stop.

Pete usually rings once. Then he walks in. He likes announcing himself before bursting through the door. I’ve always loved that about him.

So why is today different?

Why is the doorbell so loud?

It keeps ringing. Louder. And louder. And louder.

“Why the hell is it so loud?” I mutter, clenching my teeth, as I cover my ears with my palms.

Just as I reach the door, it’s yanked open violently. Light floods in, blinding me.

But it’s 7 p.m.

Why is it so bright?

Pete, what the f—

“Inmate eight-zero-two-zero!”

The voice snaps me awake.

The guard is back.

With everything he represents.

The concrete. The darkness. The sour smell of metal and disinfectant.

The heavy groan of my cell door opening.

“Someone’s here to see you,” he barks, disgust curling his mouth as he cuffs me and drags me toward the waiting area.

No one ever comes to see me anymore. Not my parents. Not my friends. Not my coworkers. Not even Grandpa or Uncle Eugene.

At first, it hurt.

Then I got used to it.

I have two weeks left until my execution. There’s nothing anyone can do now. And honestly, I don’t think they want me out anyway.

I’m a murderer.

As we get closer, my visitor’s face comes into focus.

But something’s wrong.

No.

That’s not possible.

This person is dead.

They can’t be here.

They’re dead.

My mind is playing tricks on me again.

We finally get to the chair and I sit down, dazed, struggling to force air into my lungs.

This isn’t real.

You’re dead.

You’re dead.

I killed you

You’re not real.

I mutter it over and over under my breath.

The face in front of me suddenly breaks into a smile.

Cold. Calculated. Dangerous

Like they’re enjoying this. Watching me gasp for air. Watching the color drain from my face.

The chair beneath me is hard, bolted to the floor. My wrists ache where the cuffs bite into skin.

I hear a soft chuckle as the face leans in, close enough now that I can see every line around the mouth, every familiar angle I hoped I’d never see again.

The mouth moves.

And then I hear the words I’ve been dreading, low and deliberate, meant only for me.

“Hello, Jennifer.”

“Did you miss me?”

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Thank you for reading. ❤️

TINTWS (03) drops next Friday.

Stay tuned!

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Not long ago, I wrote about grief through the lens of a loss that wasn’t mine; a child taken too early, a life cut short by negligence, a silence that felt a little too loud to ignore. I don’t know why, but that piece stayed with me. Longer than I expected it to.

A few days later, I was walking down my street when I noticed a burial banner hanging on a school gate. I almost walked past it, but the face on the banner looked familiar, so I stopped to look more closely. When it finally clicked who it was, I stood there for a moment, stunned.

I pass by this school almost every day because it’s literally on my street. I see the students and the teachers; the new ones, and the ones who were there when I attended the school for a term about nineteen years ago.

The face on the banner was one of my teachers. I used to see her from time to time whenever I was home for the holidays, and her face was one of the few I could never forget.

Why?

Because she was one of the reasons I left the school. She flogged the life out of me one day. It was so bad that my parents pulled me out of the school shortly after. I was a child, not a criminal. My only offense was playing with boys.

It later became something we could smile about, and over time we even laughed about it whenever I happened to run into her.

Years later, she became the headmistress of the primary section. The school itself had grown too, expanded, added a secondary section.

When I asked about the circumstances surrounding her death, I was told she had suddenly fallen ill, something strange and untraceable that slowly destroyed her body.

It was tragic, really. She was just fifty.

I shook my head and continued on my journey.

But a few days later, another tragedy occurred, one that eventually led me to attend the burial of my next-door neighbour. A woman in her fifties as well. She’d been battling cancer for a while, and eventually, it took her.

This one hit close. Really close. She taught me almost everything I know about driving. She was part of my everyday life in her own little way; always checking in, always present. The kind of things you don’t fully value until they’re gone.

I think the accumulation of it all got to me.

The way death kept showing up, casually, back-to-back, until it started to feel overwhelming.

And somewhere between burial banners and funerals, between old memories and fresh grief, I started thinking. Really thinking.

What’s the point of living just to die?

Why am I even here?

Am I just moving through life, counting days until my own turn comes?

Does knowing this help me live a better life,

or does it quietly reduce my will to live?

Yet, despite all these questions, I’m still here.

Breathing. Showing up. Writing. Again.

Doing the things I’ve always done.

Thinking about doing other things.

Living my life.

There is something almost audacious about that.

About continuing to exist in a world that keeps reminding you how fragile existence is.

About staying, when others don’t get to.

But thoughts like these are subtle and dangerous. They creep in slowly.

You welcome the questions at first, mistaking curiosity for clarity, unaware of how deeply they intend to stay.

And before you know it, life, the thing that once felt obvious, sure, steady, starts to feel uncertain and unfamiliar.

It’s strange how grief works. How mourning someone else slowly turns inward, like a tide that retreats only to pull something loose beneath the surface.

At first, the questions are expected:

Why them? Why now?

But soon, they change shape. They become harder to answer, harder to ignore.

Why am I still here?

What does it mean to remain when others are gone?

Why did they go first?

What if I’m next?

And maybe the real question is this:

What does it take to stay anyway?

These questions open doors you never meant to walk through. Doors that lead not just to sorrow, but to philosophy. To history. To the oldest human questions about existence, purpose, and what it means to live.

This isn’t new. Humans have always turned to these questions in the aftermath of loss. Ancient philosophers did it. The Stoics wrote about death not to glorify it, but to teach people how to live well in its shadow.

Medieval theologians wrestled with suffering as a test of faith. Existentialists like Albert Camus and Søren Kierkegaard questioned whether meaning could exist in a world so indifferent to human pain.

Grief has always been the doorway.

And once you step through it, the questions stop being historical and start becoming personal.

When I think about death, I think about existence. And from existence, my thoughts move inevitably to purpose. And somewhere between death, existence, and purpose, what I’m really thinking about is life.

Not necessarily in the biological sense, but in the human one; the lived, felt, questioned experience of being here.

Science offers one explanation. A compelling one. We are the result of cosmic chance: colliding particles, expanding galaxies, evolutionary mutations that somehow produced consciousness. In that framework, existence is accidental, and meaning is optional, something we invent to cope with randomness.

I understand that perspective. I respect it. It explains how we arrived.

But there has to be more.

It doesn’t explain the weight of experience, why love rearranges you, why loss fractures your sense of time, why purpose feels essential rather than decorative. These things may not be measurable, but they are undeniable.

So when I say there has to be more, I don’t mean science is wrong. I mean it feels incomplete.

Existence may have begun without intention, but living as though nothing matters has never aligned with the human experience.

Even in history’s darkest moments; through wars, plagues, and enslavement, people searched for meaning. Because without it, survival itself would have been unbearable.

Purpose doesn’t have to be grand. It doesn’t need applause or permanence. Often, it’s quiet. Relational. Temporary. Sometimes it’s only visible in hindsight.

It’s there even when life feels empty, and I think we can all admit that sometimes, life does feel empty.

The fact that you are still here should mean something. Your breath, your presence, your inner wrestlings are not neutral events.

To exist is already to be involved.

To keep living without certainty is not weakness.

It is courage most of us don’t know how to name.

Nature makes this obvious. Nothing exists without function. Trees give oxygen. Bees pollinate. Rain nourishes soil. Even decay, the thing we associate with endings, becomes the condition for new life.

Nothing exists in isolation. Nothing exists without consequence.

Humans are no different. We don’t just sustain the physical world; we sustain meaning itself. We carry stories. We hold memories. We witness each other. We give shape to invisible things like love, grief, hope, and faith.

Your existence becomes fortified when you begin to believe that purpose exists, even before you fully understand what yours is.

Because the moment you stop believing your presence matters, something dangerous happens. You don’t stop breathing, but you begin to stop living.

This is why depression is so destructive. Not because of sadness alone, but because it erodes meaning. It convinces people that their absence would change nothing.

History shows us how societies fracture when meaning collapses, and how individuals withdraw when purpose dissolves. When a person loses their “why,” life starts to feel like a burden instead of a gift.

Which tells us something important: purpose isn’t optional. It’s essential.

Life is more than existing. Existence is being here. Life is what you do with being here; the risks you take, the connections you form, the way you respond to joy and devastation alike.

Life is messy. Unpredictable. Often unfair. It’s a constant negotiation between chaos and meaning, between control and surrender. Some days you feel fully alive. Other days, you drift, going through motions, trying to remember what being alive is supposed to feel like.

But even in the drifting, life is still happening.

Maybe life was never meant to be understood all at once. Maybe it was meant to be felt, the joy, the grief, the confusion, the hope. The moments that only make sense years later.

And maybe the point isn’t to arrive at perfect answers.

Maybe the point is to keep living.

To keep feeling.

To keep asking.

To keep searching, even when the answers remain unclear.

Because even in the search itself, you are already doing something profoundly human.

You are still here.

And in a world that keeps taking people without explanation,

that alone feels quietly audacious.

.

.

Happy New Week!❤️

I hope this week is better than the last.

.

.

Is Jennifer a murderer, or is she losing her mind?

From death row, she revisits marriage, motherhood, and the memories that led her there. But memory is unreliable, and truth never arrives whole. As past and present blur, what matters most isn’t what happened, but what she believes did.

When the narrator can’t be trusted, what becomes of the story?

***

Before

The faint hum of a distant car breaks the silence of my room. I roll over and sigh deeply, wondering who it is.

A nurse, coming home from a late-night shift, hands heavy on the wheel, knuckles pale, wrists aching, blinking against the exhaustion that won’t lift.

A group of tipsy girls, laughing too loud, clinging to their boyfriends in the backseat as they stumble home from a party. Behind the wheel, another kid swaying with the car, tipsy, barely holding it together as they ride into the night.

Maybe it’s an Uber driver on his last ride.

I imagine his tired eyes under the dashboard light. Hands rough from work that never stops. Trying to make ends meet. Dreaming of a bed he might never see.

Or the cheating doctor, the one who stormed out of the house in the guise of an emergency, but is really heading to see his new girlfriend, one of his female patients, because his wife doesn’t excite him anymore.

I like to think about people.

I like to imagine their perfect little lives, or their sad, miserable, pathetic ones.

It’s a convenient distraction from my own life.

I can’t afford to think about my life.

Not if I want to keep breathing.

It’s five minutes past 3:00 a.m. here in Los Angeles, but my pitch-black blinds are drawn, so I can’t see the city. I’m sure it’s dark outside, though.

A stark contrast to my room, where lights blaze from opposite ends of all four walls.

The bedside lamp is on too, unnecessary, really, because the room is already bright enough.

Seriously. It doesn’t get brighter than this.

The glow bounces off the pale yellow walls, making the framed photos in the corner seem sharper than usual, almost accusing.

It’s not the reason I can’t sleep, though it’s a contributing factor. I mean, who sleeps with their lights on anyway?

I roll over to the other side of my king-sized bed, swing my legs down, sink my feet into my plush, cotton-padded Dunlop slippers, and shuffle to the bathroom next to my bed.

When I get in, I splash cold water on my face. My eyes unintentionally catch my reflection in the mirror, and I sigh.

I haven’t been able to get a full night’s sleep in one year and four months. It’s no wonder I look like a haunted witch.

My hair is all over the place. The eyebags under my eyes look like throw pillows, and the space between my collarbones could scoop at least half a teacup of water, if you get what I mean.

My nails are chipped from biting them nervously all the time, and there’s a permanent pain on the right side of my jaw.

The mirror is cracked, splitting my face in half. The light from the bathroom bulb catches the jagged edge, throwing sharp lines across my reflection, making the image I’m staring at, myself, more jarring than usual.

I make a mental note to get rid of it. There’s no point looking at my reflection every day and seeing the same thing over and over again.

Ironically, those are the most beautiful parts of my body. The rest are covered by my nightgown.

The scars that run from the middle of my back to my inner thigh. The one just above my abdomen on the left side. And the one on the space that should have been my left breast.

I rinse my mouth with the mouthwash on the sink, watching the foam swirl down the drain.

When I’m done, I walk back into the room, sink onto the bed, and fold my arms over my chest.

Should I shut my eyes and continue forcing myself to sleep, or try to get some work done? I’m not sure which would be more helpful, so I decide to go to the kitchen to fix myself a very early breakfast.

When I get there, my daughter is sitting on a kitchen stool, sipping a glass of wine. The dim light from the fridge casts long shadows across her face, sharpening the tension in her jaw.

It takes only a fraction of a second for the shock on my face to fade, replaced by something else I’m not ready to name.

It’s past 3:00 a.m. Amy is fifteen. She’s not allowed to take any form of alcohol at this age.

“Hey, Mom,” she says, looking up from the glass. “What are you doing up?”

I eye her from the corner of my eye, teeth clenched, holding back the surge rising in my chest.

“Can’t sleep,” I reply evenly, forcing my voice to sound normal. “I came down for some water,” I lie, since Amy being here makes it impossible for me to make the breakfast I actually want.

I wanted toast, eggs and peanut butter toppings.

Amy is not allergic to peanut butter, but Gretchen, her former best friend, died from a peanut allergy, and the sight of anything peanut-related really upsets her. Sometimes she gets erratic.

It was too early in the morning for any episode.

She was supposed to spend the night at Julie’s, her new best friend’s place. I don’t know why she isn’t there right now and I’m not going to risk asking.

“Okay,” she says, flatly, her eyes shifting to the space behind me, towards the dull kitchen window where streetlights cast faint stripes on the counter.

“That wine contains fourteen percent alcohol,” I say carefully, pulling a cup from the rack and filling it up with water.

“I know,” she replies. “That’s why I’m drinking it.”

I don’t say anything else. I finish my cup of water, turn away, and walk back towards the hallway leading to my room, the hardwood floor creaking softly beneath my slippers.

“Did you enjoy it?” Amy says suddenly

Her voice drips with something bitter, something I can’t find the words for.

I glance back. She’s standing now. Her eyes are blazing. She looks… different. The light behind her throws her shadow long across the linoleum.

“Enjoy what?” I ask, my stomach tightening. I don’t understand what she’s asking.

“Killing Dad,” she says, a lopsided smile tugging at her lips.

“Did you enjoy killing him?”

“Did it excite you?”

“Did you get a kick out of it?”

With each question, her voice climbs higher, sharper, the rising pitch slicing through the kitchen air like glass.

Then she screams, a raw, ragged sound that rattles the walls. She rakes her hands into her hair, scratching frantically, almost tearing at it.

I stand frozen, words caught in my throat, unsure where to look.

A beat passes. She takes a slow, deliberate breath, refills her cup with more wine, and sits back on the kitchen stool.

The bottle of wine is empty now.

It’s almost like she’s two different people,

the one who just screamed, and the one who calmly refilled the cup.

“Amy,” I say quietly, forcing calm over the panic rising in me. “You should stop drinking.”

“Or what?” she shoots back.

“You gonna kill me too?”

We stare at each other for a long time. Then I turn around and walk back to my room.

***

Now

Prison has a way of bringing up memories.

Sometimes they feel so real you can almost taste them.

The way the burger felt in your mouth that day, the soft give of the bun, the grease soaking into your fingers, the salt and heat hitting your tongue all at once.

You can feel the heat from when your husband made love to you that hot Sunday afternoon.

The way your body came alive, waking up in places you forgot existed.

How every touch meant something, lingering, intentional.

The ache.

The hunger.

The quiet, desperate need to feel and be felt.

To see and be seen.

To touch and be touched.

And then it vanishes.

As fast as it came.

Very fleeting.

Prison is a vacuum.

A long, windowless hall with cages, where souls go to die and bodies follow shortly after.

A concrete box of emptiness, where the walls press close and the air tastes stale, clinging to your clothes, your hair, your skin, your entire being.

Here, the memories don’t ask for permission. They crash in anyway, vivid and impossible to ignore.

Blurring the line between reality and imagination,

between truth and lies,

between what you did and what you think you did.

You’re left wondering if any of it was ever real.

Or if you imagined it.

In here, I’m just inmate 8020.

But before all of this, I was a person. A human being. A regular woman. A mother, living a normal life.

I was so…

Shit. I’m on the verge of spiraling again. It’s too early for that. First things first. Let me introduce myself properly.

My name is Jennifer Lockewood. I’m currently confined to a prison on death row. But contrary to what you may already be thinking, it’s not for the murder of my husband. It’s not even for the murder of my daughter, Amy.

It’s for—

.

.

Thank you for reading. ❤️

TINTWS (02) drops next Friday.

Stay tuned!

.

.

I remember exactly where I was, in the kitchen, one hand flipping stew, the other holding my phone, scrolling through Instagram.

When I saw it, my first reaction was disbelief.

No.

It was too early in the year for news that brutal.

I told myself it had to be false. A cruel fabrication.

I was already preparing to curse whoever would release something so gory, so careless, and so unkind.

But when I entered the comment section, I realized it was, infact, the truth.

Chimamanda had lost one of her twin sons.

I looked at the headline again, slower this time, and the weight of those words finally sunk in.

The spoon slipped from my fingers and fell into the pot.

The sound was dull, almost disrespectfully normal.

Life, continuing as if nothing had just shattered.

My eyes turned misty, and it wasn’t because I was standing over a boiling pot of stew.

Then the tears came, uninvited.

And I didn’t try to stop them.

It was just too painful.

People say I’m too emotional. Maybe I am.

I’ve cried over other people’s losses. Lost sleep over strangers.

I’ve carried grief that didn’t belong to me, like it was personal.

Sometimes I wonder how I’d survive my own, if it ever came.

No grief should ever be this intimate when it isn’t yours.

And yet, every loss, especially needless loss, finds a way of reaching inside you,

echoing like a personal wound.

But this was not just another story on a screen.

It was a mirror,

a reminder of how close grief always is,

how easily it crosses the distance between “them” and “me.”

The next day, a statement was released, outlining the cause of the child’s death, in clinical terms.

It was medical negligence.

That phrase, cold on the page, hides how violent it feels in the body.

Growing up, I wanted to be a doctor.

My father is one.

My mother is a nurse.

I grew up in hospitals the way some children grew up on playgrounds.

I inhaled hospital corridors and exhaled pride.

But as I got older, reality seeped in.

I saw the weight they carried.

The way heartbreak was part of the job description.

I watched the way my father fought for every life.

The way a patient’s death would follow him home.

How it sat at the dinner table with us.

How it silenced the house for days.

The television would be on, but nobody was watching.

The lights would be on, but something felt dim.

I didn’t like it.

Doctors carry lives in their hands.

That is not metaphor, that is literal.

And it is a heavy thing to carry.

Some carry it with humility.

Some carry it with quiet sorrow, feeling every loss long after it has passed.

Some carry it as a weight they cannot acknowledge, burying guilt beneath routine.

And some… lose sight of what is sacred in the work, treating errors as acceptable, as inevitable, as if a preventable death were just another statistic.

When that happens, hospitals, the very places meant to heal can also harm.

According to the World Health Organization,

one in every ten patients experiences harm in the course of care,

and more than three million deaths occur each year due to unsafe care globally.

In low- and middle-income countries, harm from care is even more common.

In Nigeria, unsafe hospital care kills about one in every 24 patients, according to expert reports, and nearly half of all health professionals surveyed, admitted to medication errors.

National data indicates that, “a significant proportion of patient fatalities in hospitals are due to error, and many of those are preventable.”

These are not abstract numbers.

These are bodies.

These are futures.

These are families rearranged by absence.

These are mothers who wake without a breath to kiss good morning,

whose arms still curve in sleep, reaching for weight that is no longer there.

These are fathers who learn too late that strength cannot negotiate with loss,

who stand still in rooms they built for laughter, that now echo with silence.

These are daughters who grow up learning the shape of love from photographs,

who call memories “inheritance” because touch was taken too early.

These are sons who inherit grief before they inherit language,

who sense absence long before they understand death.

These are siblings who learn how to count by subtraction,

who speak of “what might have been” like a second language.

These are grandparents who bury what should have buried them,

carrying a grief that violates the natural order of time.

These are homes where toys remain exactly where they were left,

not as mess, but as evidence.

These are families who learn that time does not heal everything,

some wounds simply learn how to exist beside breathing.

A few years ago, during my internship, I met a doctor.

He was brilliant on paper, but dismissive in practice, and callous in bedside manner.

His reputation was known, yet nothing changed.

His errors were whispered, not corrected.

His mortality rate was tolerated, not questioned.

Until the wife of a prominent man lost her life, and an unborn child inside her, to the same indifference he showed others.

No one said anything until it was someone powerful.

This is the grotesque calculus of our empathy:

we only outcry when a tragedy happens to someone whose name carries influence.

The rest go unheard. Unmourned in public.

Invisible statistically. Invisible socially.

But this isn’t just a problem of broken systems,

it is the consequence of broken accountability.

As the WHO reminds us, more than half of harm in healthcare is preventable.

But preventable only if there is recognition, intervention, practice, system reform, and accountability.

Medical negligence is not a philosophical concept.

It is not one of those things that just happen.

It is a failure.

A choice.

A breach of trust.

When health professionals fail to do everything medically possible,

not just what they thought was enough,

every preventable death becomes an indictment of our collective failure to value life.

In some countries, negligence costs billions in compensation.

In the United Kingdom, for instance, the public health system has paid hundreds of millions to bereaved families whose loved ones died as a result of serious medical blunders.

But money can never restore a heartbeat.

It cannot rewind a life.

It cannot un-rip a child from a mother’s arms.

It cannot rewrite the never-beens.

What if we treated preventable death with the moral seriousness it deserves?

What if negligence was not defended as inevitability but condemned as failure?

Every human life is an unrepeatable story.

A library of possibility.

A future stolen is not a statistic, it is a silence we cannot fill.

There is nothing more painful than losing a child.

Nothing.

Especially when that death could have been prevented.

It is a grief that should not exist.

A tragedy that didn’t need to happen.

A wound that didn’t need to be opened.

Doctors must be held accountable.

Not as enemies, but as custodians of our most fragile trust.

When trust is broken badly enough to take life, justice should follow, not deflection.

Accountability is not bureaucracy.

It is respect.

Respect for humanity.

Respect for the sacredness of life.

No one should bury what should never have died.

No parent should wake to a world that has already taken their child.

The smallest graves are the heaviest,

not because they contain the largest bodies,

but because they contain the weight of all that was yet to come.

And if we do not fight for reform, for responsibility,

for systems that protect lives instead of excusing their loss,

then every preventable tragedy becomes not an exception, but the rule.

…

I pray for strength,

for parents learning how to breathe around an emptiness that will never close,

for healthcare workers who still carry conscience in a system that rewards numbness,

and for a world that stops calling preventable loss “inevitable”

simply because accountability is uncomfortable.

May we stop mistaking silence for peace.

May we stop mistaking survival for healing.

And may we finally understand that what we tolerate today

becomes the grave we dig tomorrow.

.

.

Happy New Week.❤️

I hope this week is kinder to us…

.

It is a convenient illusion, one that shields us from the uncomfortable responsibility of genuine self-transformation.

A silent assumption that time alone will succeed where discipline, consistency, and self-confrontation have repeatedly failed.

Remember when you said 2022 was your year.

Then it slipped through your fingers before you could fully grasp it.

2023 presented itself as a correction, the year you swore would be different.

The year you’d finally get it together.

The year you’d outrun your patterns.

And yet… it disappeared just as quietly.

2024 eventually arrived: clean slate, fresh resolve, renewed motivation.

You started strong. January was promising. February held potential. You even survived March.

But somewhere between responsibility, distractions, fatigue, and familiar habits, the year collapsed into itself.

2025 was supposed to be “the” year.

You were done playing games.

This time, you were confident.

You had plans. Systems. Structure.

You told yourself, this year, I won’t play around.

And for a while, it worked.

Things were moving.

Progress was happening.

Until you fell back into the familiar cycle: procrastination, exhaustion, and what my friend rightfully calls mental masturbation.

Now here you are, standing at the edge of another year, hoping, again, that this will be the year everything finally aligns.

But let’s be honest with ourselves.

If nothing changes, nothing changes.

This isn’t about motivation.

It’s not about manifesting or speaking things into existence.

It’s about patterns, and how stubbornly loyal we are to them.

Because here’s the truth we don’t like admitting:

Not every hardship is fate.

Not every delay is divine timing.

Not every struggle is a “necessary season.”

Some of the things we go through are simply the consequences of our own choices.

Some of the pain is self-inflicted, not out of malice, but out of avoidance.

Avoiding discomfort.

Avoiding discipline.

Avoiding the responsibility that comes with becoming who we say we want to be.

There comes a point in life when restarting stops feeling hopeful and starts feeling exhausting.

When the thrill of a fresh beginning is replaced by the quiet shame of unfinished cycles.

And that’s a dangerous place to stay.

Because what’s heavier than failure is potential unrealized.

What’s more painful than falling short is knowing you could have done better, if only you had shown up consistently.

It’s the awareness that you were complicit in your own stagnation.

And this is the part we rarely say out loud:

Opportunities don’t always disappear because they weren’t meant for you.

Sometimes they disappear because you weren’t prepared for them.

You had the access.

You had the tools.

You even had the vision.

But you didn’t have the discipline to sustain it.

That realization stings, but it also empowers.

Because if the problem is consistency, then the solution is within your control.

Would you believe it if I told you that this post was written a year ago?

Yes, this very post sat in my drafts all through 2025.

The first week of the year I revised it. Edited it. Overthought it. Almost deleted it.

Then I decided not to post it at all.

“Who cares anyway?” I said to myself.

Eventually, I changed my mind, but ended up posting something completely different.

How to set SMART goals for 2025.

But that single decision, small and almost insignificant, changed the trajectory of my year.

Not necessarily because the post itself was extraordinary, but because it marked a shift:

I stopped waiting to be ready.

I stopped trying to be perfect.

I started moving.

………

That one act created momentum.

That momentum created opportunities.

And those opportunities reshaped my year.

That’s the part people don’t talk about enough.

It’s rarely the big, dramatic move that changes your life.

It’s the quiet decision to act, before you feel ready.

So if you’re reading this with an idea sitting in your notes,

a plan you keep revising,

a vision you keep postponing,

This is your sign.

Someone else is already working on the thing you’re still debating.

And one day, you’ll see it launched and think, I had that idea.

The difference won’t be intelligence.

It won’t be talent.

It won’t even be timing.

It will be courage.

And action.

So no, 2026 is definitely not your year.

It will only become your year if you decide to show up for it.

Consistently.

Imperfectly.

Relentlessly.

That’s the real work.

And that’s the only way forward.

Do you want to end 2026 saying,

“Ah… the shege I saw this year, I hope I never see it again”?

Or do you want to say,

“This was my best year yet”

The choice is yours.

.

.

See you in my next post.

Happy New Week! ❤️

.

.

I mean, I’ll never be just “good enough.”

I’ll do better than that.

I’ll be the best.

The best of the very best.

Forgive the rage-bait title. I’ve been away from this orange app for far too long, and being a little dramatic for my (maybe) comeback post felt right.

Today is the last day of the year, so… this is my 2025 wrapped. Or whatever you people are calling it these days.

………

Do you need to know what I’ve been up to?

Probably not.

Will that stop me from telling you?

Absolutely not.

This year wasn’t just a rollercoaster.

It was the rollercoaster.

I tried a lot of things.

From returning to my first love, writing, to learning content marketing so I could actually promote my work, to managing social media accounts for strangers (which is funny considering I abandoned my personal accounts… so why they trusted me, I truly don’t know).

Anyway, as I was doing the most…

I also took courses in CRM, HRM, HSE, BDM… and many others (emphasis on many).

I was actually on a roll. Wow.

Forgive me for being too lazy to type the full names.

If you really want them, ask nicely in the comments.

What excites me most about all this is that at the start of the year, I had no idea I’d end up doing any of it. I only knew I wanted to write, and I was curious about marketing.

But being able to expand my scope, not just learning new things but getting certified in them, was no small feat, at least for me.

I said I would lock in, and for most of the year, I actually did.

Even with distractions.

Even with moments where I dropped the ball.

Oh and for the final plot twist: switching into the oil and gas industry around July.

Who would’ve thought?

It’s a 9–5, and I’m not a 9–5 person, probably never will be, but for now, I’m enjoying the experience. I’m taking baby steps, and so far, so good. By this time next year, I should be working remotely in the industry.

***

Every time I reread my post about how to set SMART goals for 2025, the one that gave me a bit of visibility here, I cringe a little.

But truthfully, that post changed my life.

So, little back story.

In 2023, I made my first million at 22.

In 2024, I was a broke, jobless graduate.

It happened so fast.

I was tired.

Angry.

Depressed.

I had just finished school and had zero interest in pursuing a career in microbiology.

So I went back to writing.

Not strategically, or professionally.

Just as an outlet for my thoughts.

I discovered Substack around that time, and honestly, it was one of the best things that ever happened to me.

I started posting what I wrote.

For fun.

For myself.

For strangers on the internet.

And somehow, that opened doors I never imagined would open.

Yet in the middle of all these wins, I realized something:

I am still incredibly lazy.

I didn’t even know it was possible to be both hardworking and lazy at the same time, but here we are.

I know I can do more. I know I can be more.

I know laziness turns into procrastination.

And procrastination kills dreams.

And I have too many dreams to let that happen.

I even wrote a controversial piece on procrastination is just a fancy word for laziness

And yet…

***

Overall, this year wasn’t bad.

But next year, I don’t want to say “it wasn’t bad.”

I want to say it was great.

I took my blog seriously for the first half of the year (and I’ll get back to it).

I started serving my country. Yay (**screams internally)

I landed so many ghostwriting gigs I had to turn some down because of my 9–5.

I became a social media manager and content strategist for three startups that are doing really well.

I finished my first book (currently proofreading. I’ll talk about it soon).

I started my second.

I grew my LinkedIn… then disappeared again.

I tried growing my X… then abandoned it.

I created another Instagram page for writing. I’ll share it when I start posting consistently.

Add inconsistency to the list of things I’m actively working on.

I know I could’ve done more.

But I’m still incredibly proud of how far I’ve come.

………..

This chaotic little mix of words won’t be complete if I don’t say this:

My relationship with God this year was different from anything I’ve ever experienced.

I saw answers to prayers.

I saw His hand in ways I can’t even begin to explain.

One thing is certain.

God is real.

And I wouldn’t be here without Him.

If there’s one thing I’ll encourage you to do in the coming year, it’s this: build a relationship with Him.

The ROI?

Out of this world. Literally.

So yes,

2025 was my year of discovery.

2026 will be my year of consistency.

So help me God.

I’ve missed being here.

And I’m looking forward to showing up more.

See you in 2026. 🤍

I can’t believe it’s two months to my one year substackversary. One whole year.

It still feels like just yesterday when I nervously hit “publish” on my very first short story here. My hands shook, my heart raced, and I asked myself, “What am I doing? Who even wants to read this?”

Okay, scratch that. My hands did not shake, neither did my heart race. I was in a cab on my way to school for my final clearance. I had no idea what I was doing. Something popped into my head, I just wrote it out and posted it.

At the time, I didn’t know the dynamics of this orange app so I didn’t really care how it looked or sounded. And honestly sometimes I wish I could go back to not caring about engagement and views and likes and all of that sh*t. I mean, I want people to see what I write but it shouldn’t get me depressed and anorexic.

But people did read. They actually stayed, engaged, and some even call me their president to this day. What started as an experiment, a way to take my words out of journals, notepads, numerous pink jotters, and put them into the real world, became something bigger: an outlet, a sanctuary, and a reminder that stories matter.

Now, here we are. The end of From A to Zen: Your Guide to an Empowered Life. Twenty-six letters, twenty-six lessons, twenty-six reminders that growth is a journey worth taking. And today, we close it out with Z.

Funny how I almost didn’t finish this. My last post here was 55 days ago. Almost two months. That’s the longest I’ve ever gone without really showing up.

At first, I excused it: “Life is busy. I’m so exhausted. I’ll get back to it when I can.” But the truth is, there’s always time for what matters. If I didn’t write here for that long, it’s because I didn’t really prioritize it. I didn’t make out time for it.

And that, my friends, is where the idea of zoning out comes in.

We’ve all been there. Life comes at you fast. The 8 to 5 job drains your energy, your health starts sending warning signals, and before you know it, you’re running on vibes and deadlines.

For me, zoning out meant disappearing from Substack, declining free gigs, chasing the bag, and shelving things I love because I felt too tired to keep up.

I’m not saying this to shame myself or anyone, but rest is necessary, even though it feels like laziness sometimes.

Yes, consistency is important, but not at the expense of your wellbeing. If your legs are swollen from sitting for long hours, your weekends are consumed by “mandatory” trainings, and you feel more like a machine than a person, something has to give, and you shouldn’t have to feel guilty about it..

But the thing is, zoning out has layers. There’s the harmless kind: putting your phone on DND, stepping away to breathe, giving yourself permission to pause.

And then there’s the harmful kind: disengaging from life, silencing your passions, ignoring red flags, pretending not to see what should never be overlooked.

For instance, something happened recently that made me question myself.

So in my CDS group, a lady posted a picture of her daughter who had just turned one, with a simple caption. “Help me wish her a happy birthday.”

Maybe I’m overcritical, but I asked myself: why? Why do strangers need to flood the comments with birthday wishes for a one-year-old who can’t even read them? Is it for the baby? Or for validation? I don’t really get it. But fine. That wasn’t the real problem. To each their own.

The real problem came when one of the exco members, a grown man, said this:

At first I wanted to overlook it, as I’d been overlooking a lot of things lately but I changed my mind when I saw the reactions to it.

How any “normal” person would not immediately see it for what it was: disturbing, distasteful, and completely out of line, was really beyond me.

I knew I had to say something. There was no way I was just going to ignore it, so I gave it to him straight: “This is inappropriate. You can’t say such things.”

I told him he was lucky this didn’t happen on X because once you hit post, it’s game over. Even if you delete it, someone has likely taken a screenshot, and screenshots are forever, the internet loves a good comeback story. No one cares about your new personality.

I tried to communicate this as politely as possible.

But you know what? He didn’t see it that way. Instead, he argued. Told me I was overthinking it, he said “it’s not that deep.” That it’s a popular joke that all happened to us as kids.

Nothing I said was getting through to this guy. It was like pouring water on a rock. Eventually, my irritation hit it’s limit. And you know what they say, communication without comprehension is just noise.

When you’re arguing with someone who has no intention of understanding, you feel your brain cells slowly withering away. It’s like talking to a wall that answers back, but only in nonsense.

So I let it go for my own sanity.

But something else that really shocked me was the number of people who supported him. And not just anyone, mostly girls.

It was truly disheartening because many of these are the very same women who, if their own child were ever brave enough to confide in them about “a certain uncle” crossing boundaries, would be more inclined to silence the child with punishment than to offer protection. They would accuse them of lying, exaggerating, or even “inviting” it.

These are the women who trivialize predatory behavior, brushing it off as “just a joke” or “nothing serious.”
The women who excuse it when the perpetrator is their brother, their cousin, their childhood friend, choosing loyalty over accountability.

And yet, when the truth eventually forces its way into the open, they are the first to wail in shock, insisting they “never knew” such things were happening right under their noses.

That incident riled me up, and despite the fact that I didn’t get my message across, I was still relieved I passed the message anyway.

But that’s what zoning out looks like at its most dangerous. Choosing ignorance. Choosing silence. Choosing to dismiss rather than confront.

I was proud of the few people that understood my point and backed me up.

Even though his orientation would probably never change, he’d never make such a comment in the group, because he knows peace will leave the chat the moment I see anything like that.

You see, zoning out is easy. It’s safe. It keeps you from conflict. It lets you pretend the world is fine, even when it’s burning right in front of you. But the truth, however uncomfortable it is, is that whether you like it or not, zoning out can make you complicit.

When you scroll past harmful comments without calling them out.

When you ignore red flags in your workplace, friendships, or relationships.

When you dismiss your own exhaustion and pretend you’re “fine.”

Zoning out can feel like rest, but sometimes it’s neglect.

Neglect of yourself, of your values, of others who need you to pay attention.

We all need breaks. But breaks are not the same as abandoning your voice, your power, or your responsibility to see things clearly.

If there’s one thing this Substack journey has taught me, it’s that writing is both an act of zoning in and zoning out.

When I first started, writing here felt like zoning out from the chaos of life, a release valve for my unhinged thoughts, a space without judgement. But over time, it became about zoning in: focusing, showing up, creating something real from the mess inside my head.

And now, as I wrap up From A to Zen, I realize the balance matters.

Zone out when you need rest.

Zone in when it’s time to speak up.

Don’t zone out so much that you lose yourself.

Don’t zone in so hard that you destroy yourself.

Life is about knowing when to step back, and when to step up.

So here we are. The end of the alphabet. The final letter. Z.

I want to say thank you to everyone who has been in my corner. To those who read my words, left comments, shared posts, or simply sat silently but faithfully on the other side of the screen. You made this more than just a series. You made it a conversation.

Substack has been a stepping stone for me. A bridge between my private world of notebooks and my public world of storytelling. For that, I’ll forever be grateful.

But this isn’t the end. Not really. If anything, it’s a new beginning. I’m starting a new series soon, one that reflects where I am now, what I’ve been learning, and where I’m going next. Because even when you think the alphabet is finished, there’s always another story waiting to be told.

So here’s my final lesson from A to Zen:

Don’t zone out of your own life.

Don’t leave yourself on read.

Zone in. Pay attention. Show up.

.

.

See You Next Monday.❤

Wishing you the courage to bet on yourself.

.

.

Everybody caught their respective subs and tables shattered beyond repair.

So today, let’s talk about one specific brand of unnecessary nonsense people do that never fails to irritate me:

Coming online to write long-winded epistles judging people for sinning differently from them, as if their own flaws are any holier.

Already, there’s a particular nerve in my body that twitches whenever someone starts dishing out advice no one asked for.

But when you’re clearly in no position to talk, yet somehow believe you’re qualified to offer advice, that’s when I start having real problems with you.

Because seriously, what’s wrong with you?

Do you just enjoy being the center of attention?
Is everything okay at home?

I have an acquaintance that has refused to leave the juvenile phase.

There are things you’ll do at a certain age that just makes you look tacky. Not edgy, not mysterious. Just messy.

Like, you’re an adult now, stop with the experimenting.

But I don’t care because it’s not my life, she’s not my friend,

and to be honest, she’s one of the most dishonest and disloyal people I’ve ever met in my life.

Even the acquaintanceship is forced from her end.

I’d much rather not having anything at all to do with her.

Let’s call her B.

B comes online to bash girls for doing one thing or the other.

All her posts revolve around what girls should or should not do.

Quotes, epistles, and whatnot.

But I know B, and B is doing all the things she’s telling other girls not to do and calling them names for doing.

She’s also not doing the things she’s telling other girls to do.

B is a hypocrite.

And it’s annoying because just stop talking at this point.

B is the same person who goes around telling girls, “Don’t send nudes,” like it’s her obligation to do so.

She’ll openly curse out girls whose nudes get leaked, not the guys who violated their trust, but the girls themselves.

In B’s eyes, it’s not about consent or privacy; it’s about being “foolish enough to trust a guy.”

That’s where all her energy goes; victim-blaming, not accountability.

But life has a sense of humor.

Because one random day, B accidentally posted her own nude on her WhatsApp status.

Probably while trying to send it to someone.

B thinks no one saw it because she deleted it immediately, but at the time I was using GB WhatsApp, if you guys remember that horrible app.

That demonic model of WhatsApp that would keep deleted stuff. Texts, posts, whatever.

I hope they sued whoever created that thing because what was the reason?

Anyway, imagine the irony of that?

Now, a little back story on B.

I stayed in the same hostel with B during my pre degree program and at 17, she was doing things even adults would be scared of doing.

We were all awed by her bravery to be honest.

I cannot count the number of times B’s father, who worked in armed forces, carried diesel and threatened to burn down our hostel because of B.

Tough times, I must say.

Or the number of times he shaved her hair to punish her.

Nothing worked.

She just evolved.

Like I said earlier, I really don’t care.

My issue is the unsolicited advice and unwarranted judgement of girls every single day.

On few occasions, I’ve subtly warned her to just stop with the posts but she laughs and thinks I’m joking.

Until last week when I posted this:

Her response to this post? unworthy of this piece.

B is a case study for one side of the coin.

Now let’s talk in general.

It’s easy to talk about growth.

Easier still to share the quote, post the reel, say all the right things:

“Protect your peace.”

“Boundaries are self-love.”

“Choose yourself.”

But here’s the hard truth:

You can’t keep preaching what you haven’t even started practicing.

And this isn’t about perfection.

It’s about honesty. Alignment. Integrity.

Because saying the right things while living the exact opposite?

That’s not self-awareness.

That’s performance.

***

In today’s world, all it takes to sound “wise” is a few buzzwords and a calm tone.

People will applaud you for knowing the language of healing, even if you’re quietly breaking every rule you claim to live by.

You can write about boundaries and still keep chasing people who don’t respect you.

You can say “I love myself” and still settle for half-hearted love.

You can talk about peace but thrive on chaos, confusion, and overthinking.

You’re not fooling your soul.

Not really.

It knows when your words don’t match your walk.

***

I’d say sometimes we say things out loud because we’re trying to convince ourselves.

Other times, it’s a way to keep up appearances.

You might tell the world you’re choosing yourself, but behind closed doors, you’re still begging to be picked.

You might tweet about letting go, but deep down, you’re still holding onto memories that haunt you.

And it’s okay.

We all have gaps.

Places we’re still growing.

But those gaps become dangerous when we cover them with pretty language instead of doing the work.

***

Practicing what you preach means admitting when you’re not there yet.

It means catching yourself in the act.

When you're ignoring your own needs to please someone else.

When you're calling it “love” but it's really self-abandonment.

When you post about “healing” but haven’t sat with your pain in weeks.

This work?

It’s raw.

It’s messy.

It’s not aesthetic.

But it’s real.

And real will always beat polished.

***

Before you speak on something, ask yourself:

Do I live this, or do I just like how it sounds?

Am I willing to be silent while I figure it out?

Can I admit when I’m still learning?

You don’t need to be the example for everyone.

But you owe yourself the chance to be honest.

Because when your life and your words match, even imperfectly, there’s a quiet kind of power in that.

A peace you don’t have to post about.

A lesson people feel when they’re around you.

***

This isn’t a call-out.

It’s a mirror.

One you might’ve been avoiding.

Not because you’re fake.

But because you’re scared to start from where you really are, instead of where you wish you were.

And I get it.

The internet rewards appearance.

But you?

You’ll only grow in the places that are real.

So the next time you feel tempted to “say the right thing,” pause.

Ask yourself:

“Is this something I’m actually living?”

If the answer is no, don’t panic.

Just start there.

Start small.

Start true.

Because the world doesn’t need more well-packaged advice.

It needs more people willing to live the truth they speak.

.

.

See you next Monday.

I hope your week is as kind to you as you are to everyone else.

.

.

But I’m already writing,

So I might as well go with the tide.

Okay, maybe I do know what it is.

It’s gossip.

The not-so-juicy kind.

Or maybe it is, depends on who’s reading.

First of all I want to ask a question.

Aren’t you people tired of all these gender wars?

Because I am.

Truly.

This never-ending battle of the sexes,

“As a man, you should….”

“As a woman, you must…”

It’s exhausting.

It’s like we wake up every day looking for new ways to tear each other down.

We don’t talk to understand anymore; we talk to clap back.

We don’t listen; we just wait for our turn to drag someone.

And for some reason, this past week, my FYP was drowning in it.

Post after post.
Tweet after tweet.

The endless think-pieces. The "alpha male" hot takes. The podcasts nobody asked for.

Everybody suddenly knows what a “real man” or a “valuable woman” should be.

The rules are always changing. The expectations always one-sided.

And in the middle of all the noise, people forget that we’re human first.

Not archetypes. Not gender roles. Not clapback content.

Just human. Wanting love. Stability. Peace.

How about we all take a deep breath?

Better yet, how about we just stop assigning blueprints to people’s lives?

Lately, everywhere I turn,

It’s a parade of sweeping generalizations:

Someone must have messed with my FYP because why am I seeing things I’m not even remotely interested in?

“Men like this.”

“Women are wired that way.”

“You can’t be a wife and chase your dreams.”

“Lover girls always lose.”

God, can we just rest?

I love my career.

I love love too.

Why must these things be at war?

Why is it suddenly unserious to want companionship?

Why do we treat women who openly desire romance like they’re unserious or naive, like they haven’t seen life?

It’s not weakness to want love. It’s not foolish to try.

And it’s definitely not anti-feminist to admit that you want both the bag and the boy.

The truth is simple:

There are good men. There are bad men.

Good women. Bad women.

Men cheat. Women cheat.

And some people… just want peace.

***

Last week I noticed a trending challenge among couples.

“How many months have you known him/her?”

Two people stood out to me, not just because of how long they’ve been with their partners, but because of how different their lifestyles are.

Janemena

Debyoscar

Now these are two women who challenge the narrative that love slows you down.

They’re both content creators but different in every possible way.

Perfect examples of how love and career don’t have to clash.

Janemena is widely known for her twerk videos. Her brand is heavily performance-based, raw, unapologetic, unbothered and bold.

She leans into sensuality without shame, and she's been consistent in that lane for over a decade.

Guess who’s been by her side through it all?

Her husband.

She built her brand with her man in the picture, not as a background character, but as someone who supported her openly.

In a world that often punishes women for being “too sexy” or “too public,” especially when in committed relationships, Jane pushed against that.

Her love life didn’t limit her content; it coexisted with it.

She met her husband over a decade ago, 2011 to be precise. And they’re happily married with two kids.

Today, she’s not just a wife, she’s a brand.

People tried to scandalize her name.

She stood tall. Business stayed booming.

Love held. Career thrived.

Then there’s Deby Oscar who met her husband back in 2008, long before the fame, the glow-up, or the curated soft-life aesthetic.

Over the years, she’s grown into a content creator who blends love, lifestyle, and faith so effortlessly.

She’s vocal about her Christianity, often using scripture and testimony to frame her love story.

A partnership rooted in mutual support and real-time hustle.

Deby is someone who grew her brand alongside her man; quietly, steadily, and intentionally.

Her love life wasn’t loud or in-your-face, but it was always present.

They didn’t wait till they “had it all” to commit; they built while loving.

She shows that you can be deeply in love and still have direction.

She didn’t abandon her goals for love, nor did she ignore love for ambition. She blended both.

Oh and Deby’s wedding?

If you’re looking for wedding inspo, you have to check hers out. Trust me.

It was magnificent and beautiful in every possible way.

Okay back to our gossip.

What both women show is this:

You don’t have to “choose one.”

You can have a soft life and a strong career.

You can be a nurturer and a strategist.

You can be all things, and still be whole.

If you want to focus only on your career, that’s perfectly fine.

But don’t turn your preference into a commandment.

Stop preaching like everyone who wants love is doomed.

We don’t all have to carry the trauma you haven’t healed from.

Just because love hurt you doesn’t mean it can’t be safe for someone else.

Some people are learning how to do it differently; with care, patience, and healing.

Please, let them.

Now let’s circle back to Simisanya.

***

(Simisanya is the first name I mentioned in the title, that’s why I’m circling back)

If you’re Nigerian, you should know who Simisanya is. Please tell me you do.

Last week, Femi engaged her, two years after they started dating, despite the controversies surrounding him ( by this, I mean he’s famous for dumping girls).

Here’s a picture from the engagement party incase you live under a rock.

Now here’s where the real tea starts.

If you’re chronically online you should know this part already.

Two years ago, just when they started dating, a lady that happened to be involved in the whole Femi mess, tweeted and warned Simi to stay away from him.

She said:

Simisanya probably bookmarked the tweet, just so she could tag and prove her wrong.

Because as soon as she got engaged, she swiftly tagged the post simply saying:

Petty? Yes

Something I can do? Maybe.

Relatable? Extremely.

So many people in the comments section warned her to be careful, that they’ve not gotten married yet and she’s already doing this.

But honestly? It’s not that deep.

Anything can happen at any time.

People divorce.

Even marriage is not final.

Let people be.

Maybe Femi has changed.

Maybe not.

But why are you hating under someone’s engagement post?

Are you a witch?

Maybe love is for everyone.

Maybe love isn’t for everyone.

Some people never experience heartbreak.

Others do, and recover.

Some do and never recover.

But to force others to dismiss love entirely just because you got burned?

That’s not wisdom. That’s projection.

Be mindful of your words.

You could be protecting someone from pain.

Or you could be pushing them away from something beautiful.

You won’t always know which.

And let’s be real for a second:

All these “walls,” “tests,” and “boundaries” we keep preaching in relationships?

Sometimes they’re less about standards… and more about fear.

Love is risk.

It’s messy. It’s vulnerable.

There are no guarantees.

If you’re not ready, cool.

Take your time.

But stop trying to ruin it for those who are.

And maybe, just maybe.

If you’re in everyone else’s love life more than your own.

The problem isn’t them.

It’s you.

.

.

Until next Monday,

Xo xo… Gossip Girl.

.

.

****

Some mornings, the sky doesn’t look blue.

It looks like grief. Heavy. Flat. Endless.

And if you've ever sat in bed wondering what the point of it all is, you're not alone.

I have too.

There’s a version of this story I could tell with a smile, the kind that makes people nod and move on.

But this one? This one isn’t filtered through false cheerfulness.

This is the version I tell when I’ve run out of strength to pretend.

It’s been seven years since I lost my best friend.

Not to the cold hands of death,

but to the cruel silence of broken communication.

I was supposed to go to BU.

Me, studying medicine.

Him, computer science.

We had a plan.

But I fell in love… with some guy. (Looking back, it wasn’t love at the time, it was infatuation)

And so, I stayed back, chose Uniport instead cause that’s where the guy was.

My best friend went ahead with BU.

I didn’t get into medicine.

And I broke up with the guy eventually.

Life got quiet.

Too quiet.

I lost interest in becoming a doctor.

But my parents didn’t, so I was forced to do a pre-degree program for it.

My best friend was in 100 level. I was still in pre-degree.

We didn’t talk as much anymore.

He wasn’t angry. He wouldn’t be.

That wasn’t his style.

We both believed in love so he understood my decision.

But the distance stretched us thin.

We saw each other only during holidays,

but when school was in session… mostly radio silence.

I felt like I was the only one trying.

Fighting to keep the friendship alive.

We argued about it more than once.

He said texting was draining. That he was doing his best.

But his best wasn’t enough for me.

The silence grew.

From days to weeks.

Then months.

But I was still in his life, on the edge of it.

He introduced me to some of his friends in school.

I had a thing or two with a couple of them.

But every time I had issues with any of them (because men will always be men),

he took their side.

For some reason, that was the final crack.

The one that left a permanent mark.

I felt replaced.

Like he no longer had space for me in his life.

My bestfriend.

The one I’d send pictures to before sending them to anyone else, or before posting.

He’d pick out the best ones, the good angles.

We’d bicker over some of them but most times, in the end we’d go with his choice.

The one I’d call at 1am to cry to.

The one who’d know I was hurting even before I agreed to admit I was.

The one who took my advice everytime, regardless of how stupid they sounded sometimes.

We’d been through so much together.

So much.

And I just couldn’t understand why it had to end the way it did.

Not after a big fight, or something dramatic.

Just quietly.

Almost like it was meaningless.

I think that was what broke me the most. The fact that whenever I talked about it, it felt more and more foolish.

I saw him last year at a social event.

We talked… a little.

He has a girlfriend now.

He’s doing really well for himself.

It used to hurt when I saw pictures or videos of him living his life.

But you know what? It didn’t hurt that day when I saw him.

Because I guess I’d already grieved.

Grieved all the milestones I missed.

All the years we hadn’t spoken.

All the memories of our friendship.

Life has changed. But still…

I wonder what could have been.

I wonder what my life would look like with him in it.

We still have each other’s socials.

But we don’t talk.

Just watch each other’s posts. Then move on.

Maybe I haven’t healed.

Maybe I have.

But sometimes, I miss having a best friend.

In my final year of school, I was drowning in depression.

I’ve had low moments before.

But this one?

It was a permanent ache.

A dull, endless throb that wouldn’t go away.

I thought about all the losses

the loss of my best friend,

the loss of my boyfriend,

the loss of close friends,

the loss… of myself.

I went back in time,

relived every argument,

every moment I let pride speak for me.

Every time I didn’t say sorry when I should have.

Every time I was mean, hostile, rude, overbearing.

And I started thinking:

Maybe I’m the problem.

Maybe I’m too much.

Maybe I’m impossible to love.

Maybe I’m too difficult.

Maybe I’m a bad person.

Maybe I have issues.

Maybe I shouldn’t have been born.

Maybe I need therapy.

I thought about a lot of things.

But the question that haunted me,

the one that sat with me every single day,

was this:

“Why am I still here?”

Sometimes the question isn't “How are you?”

It's “Why are you still here?”

I don’t ask that to romanticize the pain.

I ask because if you're still here, even when the world has gone quiet around you,

even when sometimes you think about what it would be like if you weren’t here,

I want you to know:

You’re not the only one holding on by a thread.

***

Let’s talk about the weight people don’t see.

The version of yourself you carry behind your smile.

The one who cries in the shower.

The one who stays up all night, scrolling, waiting, wishing someone would notice you’re not okay.

But somehow also not wanting anyone to notice,

because even if they did, would you really be willing to talk about it?

***

Let’s talk about how love can break you in ways it never promised.

How something so beautiful can leave you so undone.

You give your heart like a gift; open, trusting

and it comes back in pieces.

Now every song, every corner of your room, every picture you forgot to delete…

echoes what you lost.

***

Let’s talk about how you can give everything, and get nothing in return.

You try. Over and over again.

To be kind. To be thoughtful. To show up.

And still… you get left behind.

Or worse, replaced.

***

Let’s talk about how even your closest friends can become strangers.

One day, you're laughing together, dreaming about the future.

The next, you’re watching their lives from a distance.

Wondering how you became someone they used to know.

And no, it’s not always dramatic.

Sometimes it just… fades.

And that slow fading?

It hurts in ways sudden heartbreak never could.

***

Let’s talk about how, despite all the noise around you, you feel unseen.

Like you could disappear, and the world would go on spinning.

Like your presence is optional.

Like you’re shouting into a void where no one ever responds.

People say, “reach out.”

But they don’t always want the truth.

They want the digestible version of your pain.

The one that fits into neat sentences.

And ends with, “But I’m okay now.”

They want you to bleed quietly.

To stitch your wounds behind closed doors.

But what if you’re not okay?

What if your heart is tired of hoping?

What if the loneliness doesn’t go away,

not after the third journal entry or the fifteenth unsent voice note?

What if you’ve convinced everyone you’re strong,

so they stop checking?

What if you’ve built such a believable mask,

no one notices you’re slipping?

***

Let me be the one to say it:

Life is hard.

Sometimes unbearably so.

And it’s okay to admit that.

It’s okay to say: I’m not okay.

It’s okay to say: I miss being loved.

It’s okay to say: I’m afraid I’ll never find real connection again.

You don’t have to sugarcoat the ache in your chest.

You don’t need a poetic caption or clever metaphor to explain your sadness.

You don’t have to explain it at all.

You don’t have to wrap up your sadness in a lesson to make other people comfortable.

Your pain is not a performance.

You don’t owe anyone a bow at the end of your breakdown.

You are allowed to just… feel.

Fully. Deeply. Without shame.

Because, still, you’re here.

Somehow.

Maybe for your sibling.

Maybe for a friend.

Maybe because you promised your therapist.

Maybe because you’ve seen enough light to know there’s more.

Maybe because a part of you, even the tiniest part, still believes something might change.

Even if you don’t know why,

You’re still here.

And that?

That counts for something.

Actually… that counts for everything.

So if you’re reading this and the sadness feels too deep, too wide, too constant,

I see you.

And I hope you find the words to say:

“I’m hurting.”

“I feel lost.”

“I don’t know how much longer I can pretend.”

Say it.

Write it.

Whisper it if you have to.

But please, don’t carry it alone.

You’re not weak for feeling this way.

You’re human.

And humans break sometimes.

But we also heal.

Slowly. Quietly.

In community. In truth.

In the moments we finally stop lying to ourselves that everything is fine.

We heal in honesty.

In connection.

In the courage to say: “This is hard. And I need help.”

So again, I’ll ask:

Why are you still here?

And whatever your answer is, or isn’t,

I just want you to know:

I’m glad you are.

.

.

See you next Monday.

Wishing you a lovely week ahead.❤️

.

.

****

There’s a moment after pain, after the betrayal, after the breakdown, when everything is quiet, but not peaceful.

You’re no longer bleeding, but you’re not healed either.

You’re somewhere in the middle.

And in that space, the world starts to look at you differently.

They think the dust has settled so they expect you to be okay.

People stop asking how you're doing.

They assume time has done its job.

They assume you're fine because you're functioning.

They get tired of hearing your story.

They start asking less and expecting more.

And if you’re still hurting, if you’re not smiling wide and speaking like you’ve graduated from your pain,

the labels start.

They whisper it:

“Victim mentality.”

It rolls off tongues like a diagnosis, like they’ve cracked the code to your failure.

It’s thrown around like it’s a character flaw.

Like grief has an expiry date.

Like trauma is something you should’ve outgrown by now.

But what they don’t see, what even you, barely understand, is that this isn’t a mindset.

It’s a scar that never quite healed right.

It’s a life that rerouted itself around damage.

It’s a nervous system that flinches, even when there's no visible threat.

They don’t see the work it takes just to show up every day.

To get out of bed when your body still remembers what your mind is trying to forget.

To keep living when life already stole so much from you.

And yet...

Sometimes... that label isn’t entirely wrong.

Sometimes, you’ve built an entire identity around your wound.

You’ve made your pain the main character.

And while you say you want healing, what you really want is validation, again and again and again.

Because Pain Is a Shape-shifter.

It will hold your hand and rock you to sleep.

It will sing lullabies about how the world owes you softness because of what you’ve suffered.

And it will lie to you, every single day, that you don’t have to try anymore.

Pain is a Brilliant Storyteller

And it’s persuasive.

It tells you that staying small is safe.

That lowering expectations protects you from more disappointment.

That no one understands anyway, so what’s the point of trying?

And eventually, pain stops being something that happened to you, and becomes something you become.

You’re not choosing it consciously. You’re not weak. You’re just... tired.

Tired of fighting. Tired of pretending. Tired of hoping and being let down.

But the thing is;

Pain will never hand you back your power.

It will comfort you.

It will justify your stagnation.

It will whisper that people should treat you better, that life owes you, and maybe it does.

But Pain has no interest in setting you free.

Only you can do that.

There’s comfort in being broken.

There’s power in being wronged.

And if you’re not careful, that pain becomes your language, your currency, your name tag.

You begin every conversation with your wound.

You forget who you were before it, and who you might become after it.

This Is the Danger

The danger of “victim mentality” isn’t that it makes you weak.

It’s that it makes you forget your strength.

It convinces you that healing is betrayal.

That letting go is disloyalty to your younger self.

That peace means pretending it didn’t happen.

So you keep picking the same wounds.

You keep calling it “coping”, but it’s really just reopening.

You’re not healing.

You’re rehearsing.

And maybe no one told you this, so I will:

You are allowed to stop performing your pain.

You are allowed to outgrow your suffering.

Not because it didn’t matter. But because you do.

Let’s be clear.

The term “victim mentality” has been weaponized.

People have used it to shut down survivors, to silence anyone who dared to say, “This hurt me.”

They’ve hurled it at people navigating racism, poverty, abuse, grief.

They say it to avoid listening.

They say it when your grief makes them uncomfortable.

They say it because they don’t want to acknowledge the systems that broke you in the first place.

As if strength means never talking about what broke you.

As if silence is a sign of resilience.

That’s not healing, that’s emotional suppression.

That’s how we breed a culture of high-functioning, smiling, depressed adults who think being numb is the same thing as being strong.

But if you’re not careful, you might weaponize it against yourself too.

You’ll stop reaching.

You’ll stop hoping.

You’ll tell yourself that people like you don’t get to be happy.

That you missed your chance.

That healing is for other people.

And you’ll be wrong.

Devastatingly wrong.

Because healing isn’t a reward for being perfect.

It’s a birthright.

But only if you choose it.

So yes, people misuse “victim mentality.”

They toss it around like a slur to silence people mid-sentence.

To end conversations before they begin.

But rejecting the phrase altogether? That’s just as dangerous.

If we throw the whole thing away, we risk never confronting the real issue,

we risk living our entire lives in emotional limbo.

Because if you’re not willing to ask yourself whether you’re stuck in your pain,

you’ll live there forever.

You’ll decorate it.

Call it your personality.

Name it “healing” when it’s really just hiding.

Calling everything a trauma response doesn’t mean you’re healing.

Sometimes it just means you’ve stopped growing.

There’s a difference between acknowledging where it hurts…

and refusing to ever walk again because of it.

We don’t like to admit when we’re stuck.

We’d rather blame the world, our parents, the system,

and sometimes those things really did hurt us.

Sometimes they still do.

But at some point, the pain becomes familiar.

And then it becomes comfortable.

And then it becomes home.

It’s easy to stay there, surrounded by justified anger, by softness you’ve earned through suffering, by stories you’ve told so often they feel like gospel.

But here’s the question no one wants to ask:

What if the story is true… and still not where you’re meant to stop?

What if the next chapter doesn’t begin when life stops hurting,

but when you stop waiting for life to carry you out of it?

And it’s hard because no one really talks about the ache of outgrowing pain.

The quiet shame that comes with healing.

The guilt of finally laughing again.

The fear of becoming someone who’s no longer easy to pity.

Because when you’ve built your life around being the one who suffered, who are you when you’re no longer broken?

That’s the scariest part of healing.

It’s not just about letting go of what hurt you.

It’s about letting go of who you were when it did.

You will miss that version of you, even though they were tired.

Even though they cried more than they laughed.

Even though they were surviving, not living.

But that version of you got you here.

And it’s okay to thank them... and then move on.

Don’t Romanticize Suffering

Trauma isn’t a badge.

It’s not a personality.

It’s not your brand or your justification for every failed relationship, every outburst, every missed opportunity.

It’s part of your story, but it’s not the whole thing.

You are not inspiring just because you’ve been through pain.

You’re inspiring when you take that pain and refuse to let it shape the rest of your life.

When you choose love after betrayal.

When you choose hope after disappointment.

When you choose to show up, for yourself, even when no one else claps.

So Let This Hurt a Little

Let this be the ache that finally moves you.

Let it sting enough that you stop blaming the world for not rescuing you, and start rescuing yourself.

Because your trauma may not be your fault.

But it’s now your responsibility.

And no one, no one, can carry the weight of your life but you.

You don’t have to be a victim.

You don’t have to be a warrior.

You don’t have to be anything for anyone.

But you do have to choose.

To stay in the story,

Or to write the next one.

The Choice Is Yours

You can stay stuck.

You can keep repeating the story.

You can live in emotional reruns forever, if that’s what feels safe.

Or you can do the hardest, most terrifying, most revolutionary thing:

You can begin again.

You can admit you’re tired of being angry.

You can decide your life is worth more than survival.

You can start writing a new chapter, one where you’re not the victim, not even the hero...

Just someone finally learning to live.

And I won’t lie, it’ll hurt.

The healing.

The changing.

The mourning of who you were.

But there will come a moment, maybe quiet, maybe in tears, where you’ll realize:

You didn’t lose yourself. You just hadn’t met this version of you yet.

And that version?

She’s not begging to be seen.

She’s standing.

Ready.

Unapologetic.

Whole.

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See you next Monday.

Wishing you a lovely week ahead!❤️

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…..

This has been in the drafts for a while. And I’ve not written on it because it was difficult and, quite frankly, too painful to accept.

Recently, I answered the clarion call (for non-Nigerians reading this, it’s something called the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) Scheme).

Because I wasn’t looking forward to the whole thing, writing chronicles about my daily experiences was the last thing on my mind.

Sorry not sorry, guys. The only thing I miss about that place are the friends I made, who thankfully are all in my city now, so… win.

In my honest opinion though? Skip camp if you can. It’s just unnecessary stress. As long as you’re in this world, you’ll make friends as you go.

Now, back to the reason for this newsletter.

Network in that place was shit. Utter rubbish.

MTN—Everywhere you go?

Not in Nonwa Gbam Tai (Rivers State orientation camp)

I feel sorry for the people posted there.

How does anyone survive without good internet? That’s like a death sentence.

I planned to use the SAED lectures to work a bit… the little I could do from my phone.

But when I say I couldn’t even browse?

I’m not even kidding.

How do you build a beautiful hall, with state-of-the-art facilities, but somehow internet access didn’t make the blueprint?

You built heaven on earth but forgot network? Who does that?

Shouldn’t that be a crime?

Wait let me show you some pictures.

Do you get it now?

Imagine sitting quietly under perfect air conditioning and fan, for a boring 5-hour lecture, every single day, and not even being able to doomscroll to pass time.

If you wanted to torture us, just say so.

I was enraged, to be honest.

Everything that required data demanded serious patience and perseverance.

The P in my name? It stands for Patience.

Do you see it?
That’s right.

But as frustrating as it was, there was nothing I could do about it. So I decided not to dwell and just accept my fate.

The lighting system there was also pure shit.

I charged only my power banks, but for some reason they never lasted more than a day. At best, two days.

Charging two different power banks every day for almost three weeks at the cost of 400 naira each?

You do the math.

I’m not going to talk much about food.

Of course, I never used my meal ticket.

The food at the mammy market was slightly bearable, though everything in that place was ridiculously overpriced for the very poor quality of items sold.

Shit.

I remember saying no chronicles. Well, I was making a point.

(Just realized I’ve been saying “shit” a lot more than usual since camp. Hmm)

….

Because of how unnecessarily hard it was to keep my two power banks up and running, thanks to my poor battery health, I was forced to stay away from apps that drained my battery.

Top on the list? Substack.

Followed closely by Snapchat. Then X.

And LinkedIn.

Bummer, because I only recently started taking the whole social media presence thing seriously.

But oh well.

Guys, I got gigs in camp. (I smiled when I typed this.)

It’s funny, but somehow people reached out to me to help them write stuff… optimize their LinkedIn, etc.

Let me just put this out there once and for all.

Let it be known by all and sundry, that I did not participate in parade.

Thankfully so, because I didn’t even march, and yet, my feet were swollen the entire last week of camp.

I stayed at OBS for a while before I ran; too much stress, little reward.

Joined drama and dance and got to perform on stage.

Joined all the non-voluntary organizations I ever came across. Because why not?

Safe to say I actively participated in all camp activities (except cooking and parade).

But in the midst of all these, I felt overwhelmed.

Not necessarily because of all the activities I was participating in, but because I couldn’t do everything I intended to do while in camp.

I had drafts.

Planned content because I wanted to at least keep up with my A to Zen Series and Friday stories.

But I couldn’t.

couldn’t think straight.

couldn’t focus.

couldn’t function for some reason.

It was painful, really.

I’m so used to doing everything I say I’ll do, and not being able to keep up with my regular life?

That was a new and uncomfortable experience for me.

I didn’t have the slightest drive to post on X, LinkedIn, or whatever.

So I decided to tell myself I was taking a break, until I found out I was really taking a break.

I love writing and posting twice a week on Substack.

But somewhere between working three remote jobs and building my brand…

I got burnt out.

I didn’t even realize at some point I’d started performing.

Showing up not because I wanted to, but out of fear of what would happen if I didn’t.

Until I got to camp.

Someone texted me one random afternoon and said:

“Shey e don clear for your eye?”

On another day I would have laughed and said something funny back.

But that day, I came to the slow realization that I really couldn’t do this.

And I had to stop holding onto the glimmer of hope that I could, for the sake of my mental health.

We live in a world that expects you to be available like a 24-hour customer service hotline. Every. Single. Time.

At work? Always on.

In friendships? Always there.

In family? Always reachable, fixable, reliable.

And when you're not?

You're cold.

You're distant.

You're selfish.

You're too much, or even worse, not enough.

But here’s a quiet truth that will save you years of burnout and confusion:

Unavailable isn’t broken.

It’s not a personality defect.

It’s a boundary. A very necessary one.

And you don’t owe anyone an apology for it.

Let’s Talk about Work

In the workplace, “professionalism” often looks like performative exhaustion.

You're rewarded for replying to emails at 2 a.m.

For never saying no.

For being “adaptable,” which somehow always means doing someone else's job without recognition.

When you draw the line, when you set a meeting boundary, protect your off-hours, or (God forbid) turn your phone off, you’re labeled as “rigid” or “not a team player.”

But let’s be clear:

Always being available doesn’t make you committed. It makes you a target for emotional labor exploitation.

Burnout culture loves to wear self-sacrifice as a badge of honor.

But you don’t have to die on that hill.

You can rest. You can close the tab. You can decline the “quick call.”

And no, your worth doesn’t decrease when your calendar isn’t fully booked.

If you’re a freelancer like me, you can say no to that client because you’re not mentally in the right headspace to work.

Stop feeling guilty about not being available 24/7.

Even God rested on the seventh day.

If they don’t get it, then maybe you shouldn’t be doing business with them in the first place.

Some clients only respect boundaries when they’re written in invoices.

Others think because you work from home, you must be available at all hours.

Don’t let that mindset rob you of your peace, or your creativity, which can’t survive under pressure and guilt.

Availability isn’t a skill.

It’s a choice.

And if someone can’t honor that, they don’t deserve your brilliance.

Now Let’s Talk About People

Not romantic partners, just… people.

Friends who think ride or die means never have a boundary.

Family members who expect unlimited emotional access because they changed your diapers in 1997.

Community members who confuse your silence for disrespect.

We’ve all met them.

Hell, maybe we’ve been them.

They don’t ask how you’re doing before dumping their drama.

They expect you to be available for every crisis, every venting session, every unprocessed feeling.

And when you’re not?

You’re changing.

You’re acting brand new.

You’re pulling away.

No, you’re just learning to honor yourself first.

There’s nothing noble about being everyone’s emotional safety net, especially when nobody’s checking if you’re tangled in your own mess, too.

If your friends can’t make peace with the fact that sometimes you need time off.

That it has nothing to do with loyalty or being a bad person,

That it’s just your way of recharging and coming back strong…

Then are they really your friends?

And Then There’s You

Sometimes, we label ourselves “unavailable” like it’s a scarlet letter.

We think we’re broken for not being emotionally present all the time.

But ask yourself this:

How many times did you have to shrink to stay liked?

How often were you emotionally available to people who never offered it back?

How many times did you say “I’m fine” while quietly drowning?

If you stopped showing up that way, maybe it’s not dysfunction.

Maybe it’s healing.

Maybe the wall you built wasn’t to push people out, but to finally keep you in.

Availability, like any resource, has a limit.

You’re not weak for not having the bandwidth anymore.

You’re just no longer volunteering your soul for scraps of approval.

Let Me Tell You

There’s a certain power in learning how to withdraw without guilt.

To stop overexplaining your quiet.

To stop apologizing for your self-protection.

To stop showing up out of fear and start showing up from truth.

Unavailability isn’t the absence of connection. It’s the presence of intentionality.

You’re choosing what you let in.

Who you let in.

And how far.

It’s not rejection.

It’s discernment.

It’s not emotional distance.

It’s emotional hygiene.

In This Life

People will call you unavailable when they no longer benefit from your over-accessibility.

They’ll call it “selfish” when they miss the version of you who never said no.

They’ll call it “cold” when they can’t control you with guilt anymore.

But here’s what they won’t say:

That your peace threatens their power.

That your distance reveals their entitlement.

That your silence exposes their noise.

And here’s what you don’t have to do:

Defend it.

You are allowed to set boundaries without becoming the villain.

You are allowed to stop performing presence for people who don’t notice your absence.

You are allowed to be unavailable.

Not because you’re heartless.

But because you finally understand:

Your peace is not up for public consumption.

And if choosing yourself makes you harder to reach,

then maybe you were too easy to access for too long.

Protect the version of you that had to survive without applause.

Honor the silence that saved you when noise demanded your attention.

This isn't withdrawal. It's return.

Not escape, but arrival.

Back to yourself.

Whole. Unrushed. Unavailable...

And deeply at peace.

***

I’ve missed being in your inbox.

Can’t wait to be back here next Monday.

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Wishing you a refreshing and rewarding week ahead.

Happy new week! ❤️

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