On Lagos, Love, and Learning to Be Seen

It’s been a while since I wrote here. Quite frankly, being back in Nigeria has been overwhelming.

There’s so much life here: noise, heat, generosity, and an intensity that asks everything of you. I came back thinking I was coming for my father’s memorial; and somehow ended up hosting a book reading that I still haven’t fully processed. It sits quietly at the back of my mind like a dream I’m still trying to wake up from. Every time I think about that Sunday, something rises in my chest — not quite joy or even disbelief, but a soft, steady awe.

The Lagos book reading was supposed to be small. Just me, reading a few pages aloud to whoever showed up. Instead, it became a room full of love and warmth. Music, poetry, friends, strangers, community, food: a space where grief, memory, art, joy and beauty sat together without conflict. I didn’t expect to feel so held. I didn’t expect the tightness in my belly when I saw people show up for something I wrote alone, in my living room, on my bathroom floor, in a moment of deep loss.

Lagos is a lot.

The women here are a lot.
And being surrounded by my friends, my people, even more so.

There’s a particular boldness to Lagos women: not just in how they walk or dress, but in how they exist. They move through this city as if it owes them softness, and somehow, even in a city as chaotic as this, they still manage to create it. Being around them has been a mirror, but so has being surrounded by friends; the familiar laughter, the shared history, the effortless understanding.

I haven’t dated in years. I spent years in London avoiding women, closeness, and myself. Then suddenly, here I was, in Lagos — the worst place to be open — feeling the tiniest door inside me shift.

My friends have teased me endlessly. Someone told me he doesn’t talk to Lagos women because he’s terrified of waking up one morning and realising he lives in Lagos. I laughed when I heard that, but I understood. This city has a way of demanding too much. It will pull at you; your time, your patience, your boundaries; until you learn to fight for your quiet.

And yet, I’ve never felt more beautiful.

Maybe it’s the heat. Maybe it’s my friends holding me close. Maybe it’s being surrounded by women who carry themselves like gold and thunder, who speak loudly, laugh loudly, and wear their confidence like perfume.

Maybe it’s the beauty of sameness, of not having to explain myself. Of people understanding certain things without me needing to translate. Of seeing a reflection of myself in others: loud, soft, grieving, loving, surviving.

It’s strange, how the same city that overwhelms you can also soften you.

This year, I’ve been learning to receive. To let people hold me the way I’ve always held others. To believe that my softness is not a burden.

I’ve also been learning to be seen. I was recently published in Lolwe, a fact that still feels surreal to say out loud. I’ve always been terrible at putting myself out there. For years, I hid behind my words, behind other people’s stories, but the moment I decided to share mine, everything changed.

It’s strange — this book, this year, this return — it all feels like a slow, unfolding conversation between who I was and who I’m becoming.

Maybe that’s what Lagos does. It pulls the truth out of you, even when you try to hold it in.

And as I sit here, writing this, I think of that Sunday again — the music, the faces, the laughter, the light. The way my friends stood by me. The way strangers hugged me with their eyes. The way the air felt full.

It took me 32 years to learn how to be held.

And somehow, impossibly, beautifully — coming home made me realise I already was.