People like to think weight is always something physical, like carrying a heavy bag, lifting a load, or standing on a scale and seeing numbers you don’t like, but honestly, some of the heaviest things people carry cannot even be seen.
I realized that properly one evening while sitting outside our compound with my friend, Tunde.
NEPA had taken light, as usual, and the whole street had that soft evening noise of generators humming from far away, children playing football with slippers as goalposts, and one woman somewhere shouting at her child for entering gutter water.
Tunde was unusually quiet that day.
Now this is somebody that normally talks too much, the kind of person that can gist for Nigeria and still have extra stories left, So when he sat beside me quietly for almost ten minutes, I knew something was wrong.
“You dey alright?” I finally asked him.
He forced a smile, “Yeah, I’m good.”
I laughed immediately, “See your face. That one no be ‘I’m good’ face.”
He stayed quiet again before shaking his head slowly.
“Omo… I’m tired.”
The way he said it caught me off guard because it didn’t sound like normal tiredness, It sounded heavy.
“What happened?”
He leaned forward and rested both elbows on his knees.
“Everything just feels like pressure lately.”
I didn’t even interrupt him after that because sometimes people don’t really need advice first, they just need space to talk.
“My younger sister’s school fees is due, my mom keeps calling me about house rent,foodstuff etc, work is stressing me, and I am trying to act like I have everything under control”, He laughed weakly, “Meanwhile, I don’t even know what I am doing anymore.”
That one hit me.
Because being young men, especially here in Nigeria, there is this silent expectation that you should always be strong no matter what , always composed, and always figuring things out.
Nobody really prepares you for the emotional weight that comes with adulthood.
People only talk about responsibilities like they are motivational quotes until you are the one carrying them.
I looked at Tunde and honestly, I understood him more than he knew.
Because even me, there were days I felt overwhelmed too, days where I smiled and joked around but deep down my mind was carrying too many things at once.
Bills.
Expectations.
Fear of failure.
Trying to become something in life before people start calling you, “potential man”
That pressure alone can weigh on somebody.
“You know the funny thing?” Tunde suddenly said, “Everybody thinks I am doing well.”
I nodded slowly.
“That is how it always is.”
Sometimes the people carrying the heaviest weight are the ones still laughing the loudest.
For a while we just sat there quietly, the streetlights still had not come on because, well… Nigeria.
Then he looked at me again.
“How do people even handle all this?”
I laughed softly, “I don’t think anybody truly knows, I think most people are just trying their best and hoping it works out.”
That made him laugh for real this time.
Small, but real.
Then I told him something my mum once told me years ago.
“Life becomes heavier when you try to carry everything alone.”
He repeated it quietly like he was thinking about it properly.
And honestly, I think that is true.
A lot of us are carrying emotional weight silently because we feel like we must, like asking for help somehow makes us weak.
But sometimes just talking changes things a little.
Not because the problems disappear immediately, but because the weight no longer feels like it is crushing only you.
That evening did not magically solve Tunde’s problems.
His responsibilities were still there.
Nigeria was still Nigeria.
But after that conversation, he seemed lighter somehow.
And I understood something too.
Weight is not always what you carry in your hands.
Sometimes it is what you carry in your mind, sometimes it is expectations, sometimes it is fear, sometimes it is pretending to be okay when you’re actually struggling.
And the truth is, almost everybody is carrying something, some people just hide it better than others.
[image Generated with Chatgpt]