Lagos swallowed me whole.
Not violently tho but completely.
One day I was in campus, surrounded by familiar faces and familiar struggle. Next day I was in a one-room apartment in Yaba, surrounded by strangers and unfamiliar silence.
The room cost ₦60,000 a year, paid for six months upfront. The landlord didn't care that I was new, he didn't care that I was alone, he just took the money and gave me keys.
Welcome to Lagos.
The job started Monday.
The office is in Ikeja, a small media company, ten staff, everyone there was young and hungry.
They put me in a corner desk with a desktop computer that took five minutes to boot.
"You'll get used to it," my supervisor said. A woman named Bimpe, she's in her late twenties, sharp eyes, sharper tongue.
I got used to it.
Got used to waking up at 5am to beat traffic coz mehnnn Lagos!!.
First month, I barely thought about campus, too busy learning, learning the job, still learning the city, learning how to survive in a place that moved faster than I could think.
Content deadlines, client revisions, team meetings... Omor ehn.
Different from campus tho. It is more structured and more demanding.
But also more rewarding.
My first paycheck came in.
₦120,000.
I stared at the alert for ten minutes.
Most money I'd ever had at once. I sent ₦30,000 home, my mother cried on the phone.
"God has answered our prayers."
I wanted to tell her it wasn't God, It was me, my work, my sacrifice, but I just said "Amen."
I paid rent in advance, bought groceries, real groceries, not just garri and bread.. lol
Rice, beans, chicken, vegetables.
Cooked my first proper meal in the new apartment.
Ate alone.
Tasted like achievement and loneliness.
Second month, the loneliness got louder.
Work was fine tho, I was good at my job, I got praised in meetings, got assigned bigger projects.
But outside work, I had nothing.
No friends, no connections, no one who knew me before Lagos.
I tried, went to a hangout spot my colleague invited me to, met people, exchanged numbers.
But the conversations felt empty.
Everyone was networking, calculating...
"What do you do?"
"Where do you work?"
"Do you know anyone at—?"
Nobody asked how I was doing.
Nobody cared about anything that didn't benefit them.
I stopped going.
Stayed in my room instead.
Worked, ate, slept... Repeated.
I talked to Kunle once a week.
Phone calls, never long.
"How's Lagos?"
"Busy, you?"
"Same, school is school."
"Tunde?"
"Still around, still smoking, still Tunde."
"And—" I never finished the question.
But Kunle always answered it.
"She's okay, focused on school, doesn't really talk about you."
"Good."
"Is it though?"
"It has to be."
Silence would fill the line.
"I should go," I'd say.
"Yeah, take care."
"You too."
We'd hang up.
And I'd feel farther away than the three-hour distance between us.
Third month, I got promoted.
Senior Content Writer.
₦150,000 monthly.
More responsibility, more pressure buh more money.
I moved to a better apartment, still one room, but in a quieter area and better security.
₦100,000 a year.
Worth it.
Bought a new laptop, a good one. The kind I used to dream about. Bought new clothes, nice ones, the kind that made me look like I belonged in Lagos. Bought a phone too, not the latest but new enough.
Sent more money home.
My mother kept praying for me.
My sister kept asking when I'd visit.
I kept saying soon.
Soon never came.
Four months in, I ran into someone from campus.
Guy named Chidi, we weren't close like that tho, we just knew each other.
He was at a restaurant in Ikeja, I was picking up food.
"Guy! Is that you?"
I turned, recognized him.
"Chidi, what are you doing here?"
"I work around here, Insurance company, you?"
"Content writing, media company."
"Nice nice, you're in Lagos now?"
"Yeah bro, since February."
"How's it treating you?"
"Fine, you know... Just hustling, nothing more."
"Everyone is hustling."
We exchanged numbers, said we'd link up.
Never did.
But seeing him reminded me, that I used to be someone else, somewhere else.
That version of me felt like a lifetime ago.
Five months in, I stopped checking campus group chats. They were still active, people were still posting, joking, struggling.
But I had nothing to contribute.
My struggles were different now.
I thought about Zainab sometimes, not every day but some days.
Wondered what she was doing.
If she'd finished that painting.
If she was eating properly.
If she thought about me too.
I'd pick up my phone.
Scroll to her number.
Stare at it.
Never called.
Never texted.
Just stared.
Then put the phone down coz what would I even say?
"Hey, I'm doing fine without you"?
"Hey, I think about you but not enough to come back"?
"Hey, you were right about everything and I'm too proud to admit it"?
None of it felt right.
So I said nothing.
And nothing became permanent.
Six months in, something broke.
I was at work, normal day, writing an article about digital marketing trends.
My colleague Bimpe came over.
"You good?"
"Yeah, why?"
"You've been staring at that screen for twenty minutes without typing."
I looked at the screen.
Blank document.
Cursor blinking.
"I'm fine," I said. "Just thinking."
"About?"
"Nothing."
She didn't believe me but she left me alone.
I tried to write.
Nothing came, not because I didn't know what to write.
Because I didn't care.
For the first time since I started, I didn't care.
The work that used to save me felt meaningless.
That night, I sat in my apartment.
Stared at the wall.
Nice apartment, quiet area, good furniture.
Everything I thought I wanted, and I felt nothing. I had no peace, there was this emptiness. I'd achieved the goal, got the job, got the money, got the respect, got out, and somehow, I felt more trapped than ever.
Trapped in a city that didn't know my name.
Trapped in a job that paid well but meant nothing.
Trapped in a life that looked good from outside but felt hollow inside.
I picked up my phone.
Called Kunle.
"Hello?"
"I think I made a mistake," I said.
"What kind of mistake?"
"Coming here, leaving, all of it."
He was quiet for a moment.
"You miss it? Campus?"
"I miss feeling something, anything, here, I'm just... existing, working, surviving, but not living."
"That's what you wanted though, ain't it?Survival."
"I know, but I didn't know survival would feel this empty."
"So what are you going to do?"
"I don't know."
"You want to come back?"
Did I?
Could I?
What would I even come back to?
A degree I didn't finish?
A girl who'd moved on?
Friends who'd learned to live without me?
"I don't know," I said again.
"Well, figure it out, coz being stuck in the middle is worse than being anywhere else."
We hung up.
I sat there.
In my nice apartment.
In my new life.
Feeling more lost than I'd ever felt.
The city kept moving, traffic kept flowing, people kept hustling, life kept happening, and I kept surviving. But somewhere along the way, I'd forgotten the difference, between surviving and living, between moving forward and moving up.
I'd won.
Got everything I fought for and somehow—
I'd lost everything that mattered.
That night, I opened my laptop.
Not for work.
For me.
Started writing.
'I thought leaving would save me, I thought distance would heal me, I thought success would complete me, but I'm here now, six months in, and I've never felt more incomplete. The city keeps moving and I keep moving with it but I don't know where I'm going anymore, I don't know who I'm becoming, I just know I'm not who I was and I'm not sure I like who I am... sigh'
I wrote for hours.
Until my eyes burned, until words ran out.
Then I saved it.
Titled it: "Confessions from a City That Doesn't Sleep."
Closed the laptop, lay in my bed.
Stared at the ceiling and for the first time in six months—
I let myself feel.... honesty, raw, overwhelming loneliness, and the city outside kept moving, Indifferent to my pain, coz that's what cities do.
They keep moving, whether you're ready or not.