Tape: Confession Box

Father congratulate me because I have fucked about and I have found out.

It is the 27th of November 2025, and sitting with my boyfriend, I think, ‘God, he would have adored a previous version of me,’ and it starts to hit me. How much I’ve changed, how much was ‘worth’ it and was it necessary? Let’s see.

2025 started very seriously because I was job hunting, and what I didn’t foresee was still looking for a stable job till now, but here we are. I have found that the most forthright catalyst for change is need. I have amended my behaviour so many times this year because I needed my life to work, especially professionally. I derive so much fulfillment from my work that not being able to do it and earn money nearly drove me mad. But at almost the last second, I have zoomed out to find fulfillment in other ways. Life is a whole adventure; we must try to remember that. With not being able to afford therapy for the bulk of the year, I fell into a trap of taking advice from the internet, and while there is some good stuff, I find that the wrongest bit of most of the advice is the ‘Fix it Felix’ nature of it. You can make things in your life better, but because you can’t control them, you can’t fix it. Especially outside stuff.

They say when bad things happen to you, they make you silent, and I know what that means now. At first, I liked my silence because I had been tricked into believing that my oversharing was the reason for my misfortune. Fuck, this year I truly believed that I was the reason things were shit in my life, but now I’m relinquishing that because somehow I’ve fallen in love with my shittiness.

I’ve never been a quiet person, and now I know for sure that it’s not because I can’t but because I’m a talkative babe, a yapping princess, a sentimental cunt if you will, and it’s okay for me to be that way: I am allowed. I have indulged in an unhealthy self-censorship because I desperately wanted my life to work after a barrage of unfortunate events. Isn’t it? I have pivoted, shifted, adjusted, taken notes, received serendipities, manifested, spelled, and I’m not saying they don’t work; I am saying that they don’t work as a solution to a problem. I think they are more helpful or healthy habits, if you will.

I believed for the bulk of this year, perhaps because I was grappling with heavy odds like unemployment, poverty and homelessness, that all I needed to do was something that knocked the domino, so perhaps my intention was poisoned, and it’s hard you know, to set right intentions when things are so dire. Even now, I’m hoping that this is the essay that “changes everything,” but I think what’s true is that we don’t know, we don’t know until much later. A butterfly flaps its wings and some girl has an orgasm, but it’ll still take north of 5 minutes.

Things take time. God, I feel like hissing at this lesson, I feel like hissing because this year I became an accurate time keeper. I’ve been writing for twelve years, working for eight, and I should have gotten my big break now, but because it has not happened, I’ve sort of given up checking the clock because I guess it’ll happen when it’s time. A watched pot doesn’t twerk or something like that. Things take time, and we can’t control them or make them go faster. Powerless, I know, but what are we gonna do? Spend it, I guess. After all, time na money.

It is okay to be myself. Christ, this was the relief. At the beginning of this year, I sent out a tape saying I’m curious to see how this new economy will favour us for a newsletter that was born from oversharing. It’s safe to say it didn’t. You see, because I was embarrassed mostly by things not working out, I learned to keep quiet and it drove me insane. I hated being selective, I hated giving disclaimers, I hated distrusting people, and most of all, I hated feeling like I had said too much. It is perhaps one of the biggest Ls I’ll take that I tried to edit myself to be perfect despite knowing it doesn’t work. But I guess I so desperately wanted the outside world to work in my favour that I was willing to tweak the insides. It was on that night, sitting on the sofa with my boyfriend, realizing how clenched my buttcheeks were in our interaction it hit me. There was nothing wrong with me; I just needed to wait. I think if we change too much, we miss out on who we are, and we should never do that. We are who we are, and we are allowed. Because I’ve found him as I am, I believe that if I can wait enough, I can find the job of my dreams or have it find me.

Romance. Despite not talking about it out of shame and tilting my focus, it found me. And recently I have had to be honest with myself that before now I have always been a lover girl, so why stop now? I fear we’ve entered very dangerous waters with romance, especially on social media. I think that most of us have been shamed into hiding, shamed out of fear of disappointment, believing in evil eye, being approached as a woman, la di da. We even have the famous is having a boyfriend embarrassing now.

Tbh, the article reeked of fear — and it tapped into a growing exhaustion-induced avoidance I see in a lot of women. We’re so scared of being hurt that we’re starting to opt out of desire altogether. Sound familiar?

I don’t know, I said this a year ago, even with the relationship that didn’t work out (in my groundbreaking essay), the choice is simple: do not torture yourself. If you find being with men atrocious, then don’t do it, but don’t do it and punish yourself. To this stance, I read a lovely essay I regard as a reply to ‘is having a boyfriend’. And that essay woke me up. First, about the fact that my writing is confessional and conversational, so I need to return to confessing secrets I owe no one and oversharing. Secondly, we should be embarrassing. Clean girl aesthetic is messing up our humanity, so Feng Shui that bitch. Everyone now has rules and advice and shit that makes you a shadow of yourself. What happened to fucking around and finding out? To be honest, I know, it’s expensive, but hey, it’s a price only bad bitches can pay, so be a bad bitch today! I know being this way is costly but not being myself has been far more expensive, and hey, there is validity in me. The way that I am is right for my life no matter who critiques it, and I am very okay with that, gladdened even.

I’m writing a book, or at least I’m trying to, and hopefully after it’s facelift and enough time, you will get to read it. It’s part of why I went quiet for six months: I wanted to “preserve the best of my writing for the book,” lol, as if. This shit just flows out of me, so why cap it?

Life is difficult, and we are all trying to navigate its challenges. People often say that challenges come when growth is needed, and then that makes growth irritating. But rather than try to rush the process to bypass the challenges quickly, I’d recommend growing like a tree, little by little, day by day. Don’t stay still, but I hope you stay steady. All the things I’ve gained this year are internal, safe for my super awesome boyfriend, who is sweet and kind and has taught me to love myself in a kind way. I have learned to be easier on myself this year and kinder at the tail end of the military regime, not producing results. Sometimes the only way to stop crucifying yourself is to run out of nails, and I did so, I came down, ate jollof rice and took a nap. Everything will be okay, maybe, maybe not, but not all of it is my fault. I’m satisfied with what I’ve done this year because I did what I could.

I’m waiting on some important news regarding my visa, and I hope it goes well for obvious reasons, but whatever the case, I tried, and even if effort is hard to gauge, I am learning to accord it intrinsic rewards because it is all I have to give myself.

I have really come into the validity of myself this year after bending and shape shifting for years to be accepted, to be right and be safe. Well, I’m me, and I like me. I fart 20 times a day, but I also write poetry. I worry a lot, but I cook a good pasta. I’m not very patient and quite clumsy, but I’m gentle with animals, and I listen when people talk. As I said, we can try to make things about ourselves better, and we should especially after some life-altering circumstances, but not too much tampering; we balance out. Improve yourself as a habit, not a goal.

To answer, I have changed a lot, grown. It was worth it, not in the way of getting results but in the way of being aligned or right for my life. Was it necessary? Not all of it tbh, but for some of it, I’m grateful.

So, it’s really good to write to you again. I missed it, and exerting control over this has been very helpful in feeling autonomous after the passenger car ride that this year has been. Your hobbies will save you, I guess, and yeah, be good to yourself, happy full moon day to all who celebrate and see you later x