I did not anticipate change coming so fast, like a dressed groom knocking at his bride's door when she is still in her night clothes. Life is so pervasive that it pushes us out of our comfort zone even before we are prepared.
The trajectory of my life changed one hot afternoon in Lagos when I heard the voice of my mother coming down the corridor "Temi, your admission letter is here!".
At first, I didn’t move. I was reclining in the old couch half unconscious with my phone on my chest after another unsuccessful attempt to refresh the JAMB portal. I have had nervous nights before thinking whether I was going to get in to the university or whether all the studying I had done, the late nights reading, the sacrifices I made and the praying had been all a waste.
Hearing what my mum just said, I believed that she was playing a joke, just in the middle of my thoughts, she opened the door with a brown envelope in her hand as though it were a golden ticket, then she shouted with joy “You got it, you have been accepted into the University of Ilorin".
That was the point when everything became different, I had spent all my life in Lagos and I grew to like its craziness, which is the danfo drivers quarrelling with the conductors, the scent of roasted corn on the road, the capricious NEPA lights under which we spent evenings etc. To leave it all that behind was like to leave a part of me. However, that letter was freedom, a future, a gateway to the next stage I had been desperately hoping to achieve, although I did not realize it would also shatter me, shape me and later reform me.
On the day I left home, my mum was praying excessively with my little brother yawning in between prayers. My father only laid his hand on my shoulder and said "Be strong and do not forget why you are going". I made attempts to smile but I knew I was living behind a world I was used to, when our bus moved out of the park I could see the city fading away through the window, the familiar faces, the orange tops, the never ending traffic. It was as though I were bidding my farewell to my old life.
The quietness was the first impression I got when I got to Ilorin. The air was not the same, it was light, cool and slow. The people addressed me in a decent manner, especially the bus drivers and that wasn't what I was used to. I would have said I loved it instantly but it was all alien.
It was a huge campus and I continued to lose my way between the lecture halls and hostels. My roommates were welcoming yet different as one was from Kano, the other was an Anambra and both of them appeared more self assured than I did. On the first night I was awake listening to the hum of insects and the laughter of people in other rooms.
It became glaring to me that I was alone, as I have never been before in my life. No mother to call me to dinner, no father to watch the news in the sitting room, no brothers to quarrel over the television remote. I would have cried but pride held the tears, so I said to myself "You begged to have it, now live it.”
The next couple of weeks were a dream of lectures, enrollments and long lines, I found it difficult to maintain the speed. Lecturers were talking in haste, the notes were stacking up fast and the rules of the campus were disorienting. I was missing home food, I was missing Lagos noise, I was even missing the sound of the generator that annoyed me. My grades began to decline and one night when I failed in a test, I sat under a mango tree in the back of the hostel and was like a total loser.
That was when I met Amaka, she was also an undergraduate in her first year but contrary to me, she walked with the self confidence of a person who had got life figured out. She sat beside me without uttering a word after spotting me weeping under the tree. After some time, she inquired "First semester stress?" I nodded so she smiled and said “You will be fine, just breathe, we are all in this together".
That was were we started our friendship, we began to read together, go to church services, eat together and support one another. I was able to learn through her on how to balance the life between my studies and social life. Slowly, I began to adjust.
By my second year, Ilorin had ceased to be a stranger, it was now home. I enrolled in a campus fellowship where I started to write short stories, which were an expression of my new experiences. I found my way out in writing, it was my method of trying to make sense of the confusion, loneliness and beauty of a new beginning.
However, life tested me once more at the time when I believed that I had finally attained some sense of stability. In my third year, my father was jobless and our family was suffering due to the economic pressure. My school fee was also late and I was even forced to defer a session. I remember how I was sitting in the bursary office explaining my case to the clerk who did not even look up much. As I walked out, I cried on a bench again, as I had cried in my first semester. My next chapter was crumbling as it seemed.
However, somehow help came. I got a scholarship given to me in my department as one of the top five students. I didn’t even know I qualified. After I informed my parents, my mother cried on the phone telling me that, see how God writes the next chapter when we least anticipate it.
Many years later when I finally put on my graduation dress and stood under the scorching sun at the convocation field I knew that it was all worth it. The shyness of the Lagos girl who used to weep under a mango tree have transformed into a courageous woman who was able to confront the world.
My second chapter was not only about the University entrance, it was the way to survive, adapt, to part and to evolve. It has shown me that no matter how painful an ending may be, there is always a seed of a new beginning in it.
Today, when I am holding my certificate and looking at the future, which is not clear yet with NYSC, career, adulthood still pending, I can sense that another chapter is unraveling. This time, I am not afraid. Since I have also learned that not all next chapters are the conclusions of a story, but the beginning of becoming who you are supposed to be.
Thank you for staying with me this far, I hope you had a good read, see you next time 🤗.
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