The first thing Akin learned about adulthood was that reality does not knock before entering your life. It barges in uninvited, unapologetic, and sometimes unexplainably heavy. At twenty‑four, he already felt older than the sun that rose every morning over his small, restless neighborhood in Lagos. The world outside his window moved quickly, but inside his chest everything felt slow, tangled, and unsure.
He used to believe life was a straight road: you dream, you try, you succeed. Teachers said it. Parents repeated it. Motivational speakers screamed it. But somewhere between graduating and becoming "a real adult," Akin noticed something: hope could feel like a drug, sweet in the beginning, then quietly addictive, and sometimes painful when it fades.
Some mornings he woke up energized ready to conquer the future, rewrite destiny, break generational patterns. Other days, he lay still, feeling strangely disconnected from the world he once thought he understood. And in those moments, his mind whispered questions he never asked out loud:
What if everything I believed was only half true? What if the assurances I grew up with were illusions meant to comfort children, not adults? What if hope itself is a trap?
It wasn't depression. Not exactly. It was more like standing between two mirrors one reflecting who he used to be, the other showing a blurry version of who he might become. The space between them was where confusion lived.
Akin believed in meaning. He believed in destiny at least the idea of it. But lately, meaning felt slippery, like water cupped in trembling hands. He kept searching for signs, guidance, a whisper from the universe. Instead he found silence… or maybe noise disguised as silence.
On this particular evening, the city hummed with chaotic life. The sky was painted with that deep orange that Lagos does so well, a color that always felt like both an ending and a beginning. Akin stood on the balcony of his cramped apartment, watching okadas weave through traffic, children chase each other barefoot, and neighbors argue over generators and unpaid bills.
Life was happening everywhere. Loud, messy, complicated.
And yet inside him, something quieter but far more intense was unfolding.
A subtle shift. A tilt.
Reality was rearranging itself not violently, but slowly, like a planet changing orbit.
Akin placed his hands on the railing, breathing in dust, salt, and the faint scent of fried food drifting from a buka down the street. The world felt too real, too raw, too present. The kind of real that cuts through illusions and forces you to see things you've been avoiding.
He remembered his childhood belief that "God speaks clearly to people with purpose." Back then, he imagined divine voices, glowing signs, visions that guided destiny. But adulthood taught him something different: most guidance feels like confusion first. Most breakthroughs begin as breakdowns. And most revelations hide inside discomfort.
As the sun finally dipped beneath the rooftops, Akin whispered to no one in particular, "What exactly am I becoming?"
He didn't expect an answer. But deep in his chest, something responded not in words, but in sensation.
A shift. A stirring. A subtle recognition.
Reality was hard. Yes.
But something inside him was awakening too.
Something that felt like the beginning of a journey he didn't yet understand