A Curriculum in Letting Go

I am writing this with fingernails blackened from charcoal that refuse to wash out and serve as an avid reminder that on the 23rd of March at 10:30 pm, my room caught fire and burnt to the ground. But let us start this story on the 22nd of March.

On the 22nd of March at 10:30 pm, I swayed back and forth on the swing in my estate’s playground, looking for the full moon. There was no moon, but it was a beautiful starry night in Lagos, the first in many weeks. According to Instagram astrologers, today was the beginning of the astrological new year, the spring equinox, and the start of the Aries season, which would be made evident by a full moon. I am not a “charge your crystals during the full moon” type of girl, but I always welcome the idea of a new season and create rituals around ushering in this newness for myself as a part of my practice. I had spent the past couple of hours meditating and journaling about what I wanted the next season of my life to look like. Before I knew about astrological alignments, I had planned to wrap up many things in my life at the end of Q1. I planned to officially start my new year in Q2 at the beginning of April, right in time for the Spring season.

March 22nd 2023

New Beginnings

Affirmation: I live a life that is small, simple, soft, and satisfied.

I have finally come to accept what it means when…

The word satisfied was underlined twice in my journal. For the first time in weeks, while writing and reciting that affirmation, I felt a sense of peace in contrast to the internal opposition I was used to whenever I previously recited it. While my affirmation felt true to my spirit, my mind refused to accept it for the longest time. Who wants their life to be just small and satisfied?

Previously when I envisioned my next season, where I dedicated more time and resources to writing and community-building, I was engulfed in daydreams of grandiosity. I imagined my Instagram bio would read “#1 New York Times Best-Selling Author” to hundreds of thousands of followers while I jetted across continents for my international book tour. I envisioned myself in Oprah’s garden in her LA home, squealing excitedly as a crew member handed me a Super Soul Sunday mug with green tea while I got mic’d up. Lights and cameras would surround me, and my mum and best friend would stand behind the red tape with the rest of the crew flashing me smiles and thumbs up. Oprah would arrive, and I would hug her holding back tears while thanking her for the opportunity. We would sit and talk about my best-selling book. I would tell her about how I watched a video of her at Tyler Perry Studios where she was asked about her dreams, and she answered, “I live inside God’s dream for me.” and how that phrase became the life-changing affirmation that guided me ever since. Oprah would smile and nod approvingly with her eyes closed before slowly repeating the affirmation in her deep voice.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to meet Oprah, especially if her podcast has been a primary source of healing and inspiration, as it has been for me. I recently learned that I was not alone in my dream of meeting Oprah, and in fact, many writers hope that their book will be selected for her book club and undergo the “Oprah effect,” which is a guaranteed ticket to success. What was wrong was I had allowed the need for recognition and a perceived notion of success to become more important than the satisfaction of doing the actual work. I had let my ego co-opt God’s dream for me and turn it into a grandiose tale of greatness. For years I had relied on such ego tales as a source of intrinsic motivation for completing whatever goal was in front of me leading up to whatever dream I had at the time. But in recent years, I have worked tirelessly to deconstruct old notions of success and redefine them. I thought by now I knew better and could keep my ego in check, but we must all revisit some lessons. Throughout March, the universe sent me omens about this lesson of letting go of the ego’s grandiosity, one of which was Mari Andrew’s most recent Instagram caption. She spoke about her ego giving up on its own grand tale and choosing to live a more deeply rooted life. The issue with our ego’s versions of our goals and dreams is that while it creates this deeply inspiring narrative meant to serve as the springboard of action for manifesting said dreams, it actually stifles all attempts at action by keeping us crippled under the weight of great expectations. Nneka Julia explained it best in her most recent Youtube video, where she quoted David Whyte, another welcome omen this past month. The quote reads, “It is always hard to believe that the courageous step is so close to us, that it is closer than we ever could imagine, that in fact, we already know what it is, and that the step is simpler, more radical than we had thought: which is why we so often prefer the story to be more elaborate, our identities clouded by fear, the horizon safely in the distance, the essay longer than it needs to be and the answer safely in the realm of impossibility.” Through these omens, God was beckoning me to crawl out from under the burdensome expectations of greatness my ego placed upon my spirit, and my ego finally gave way.

I finished journaling. This time I wrote about a new dream, aligning with my spirit’s ethos of satisfaction instead of my ego’s desire for validation. I described the joys of what it would feel like to have a supportive partner, a thriving community, and to have my words provide healing for others. I listened to a playlist titled I Dance in The Kitchen and danced for half an hour before praying and heading to bed at about midnight.

“It is always hard to believe that the courageous step is so close to us, that it is closer than we ever could imagine, that in fact, we already know what it is, and that the step is simpler, more radical than we had thought: which is why we so often prefer the story to be more elaborate, our identities clouded by fear, the horizon safely in the distance, the essay longer than it needs to be and the answer safely in the realm of impossibility.”

The next day, I was still riding the high of my newfound peace, but very quickly, a series of unfortunate events, including a returning infection, a negligent doctor, a dismissive friend, and the memory of a recently lost loved one, had me spiraling in despair. I returned home later that evening after visiting almost every pharmacy in Lekki and slumped onto my bed, defeated and heartbroken. After an hour or so of crying and phone calls to everyone I knew in the medical field, I said a prayer and decided to self-soothe by practicing self-care before bed. I put on the air conditioner, chose a neo-soul playlist, and lit a scented candle to set the mood before going to the bathroom to run a bath.

A few minutes into brushing my teeth, I began to smell smoke and wondered where it came from. I entered my room to find a portion of my desk ablaze. I froze briefly before running to my dad’s room and screaming, “FIRE!” Frantic, I ran back into my room, where the fire spread fast, and quickly opened a window with shaky hands. At this point, my dad had already run downstairs and put off all the electricity in the house. Trembling in the darkness, I began to fill half buckets of water in the bathroom and ran into my room, attempting to put out the fire. I finally understood what people meant when they say in a crisis, your body goes into fight or flight mode. I was in shock and riddled with fear, yet my body kept moving. I kept fetching buckets of water and running into my room, pouring the water without any sense of direction but hoping it was reaching the flames. My attempts were futile. The last thing I remember was helplessly scurrying into my room with a quarter bucket of water, choking on fumes and surrounded by burnt pages of my journals and books as I witnessed my entire bed covered in flames that reached the roof. My dad dragged me out of the room and slammed the door shut, instructing our housekeeper and me to run outside. My dad is usually very calm; I had never seen him like this. When we got outside, we met a crowd of neighbors gathered at our now-open gate, watching the fire from the window.

Barefoot and half-dressed in an oversized button-down, I stood stunned in silence, watching the flames pour out of the window and the smoke dance towards the sky, forming a black cloud. The rest of the night felt like a bad dream I could not wake up from. Neighbors tapped, hugged, squeezed, and questioned me, but I did not move or utter a word. The estate security guards ran into the house in pairs carrying fire extinguishers. Neighbors darted around the compound in a frenzy carrying buckets of soapy water in one hand and detergent in another. I stayed fixated on the flames rising through the window into the sky as I imagined my belongings turning to ash. I had to escape the chaos and went to sit on the swings in the estate’s playground. My next-door neighbor joined me, and we sat in silence. In typical Nigerian fashion, the fire services arrived after the fire had been put out. We spent the next hour making sure all the electricals were disconnected, dismantling the AC, and recalling the night’s events.

At 12: 30 am, I called my mum to tell her what had just happened while fighting back tears. She comforted me and helped me find my center. Exhausted by the night’s events, my dad covered himself in his duvet and tiredly waddled to the guest room, the only room with electricity, to sleep. He encouraged me to come in and get some rest as well. I told him I would come in soon and went upstairs to my room. I used a torch light to scrummage through the rubble, delusionally searching for my phone. After a few minutes, I gave up and went outside. I walked around my estate in a loop for hours till I was greeted by early morning joggers and cyclists, and eventually took respite at the playground, where I sat on the swings till the sun came up.

Sometimes I feel God can be a bit dramatic when she is trying to prove a point. My room was thankfully the only room impacted by the fire. This made the whole experience feel too personal, targeted almost. My room has been my sanctuary for many years, the one place where I could escape the chaos and overwhelm of Lagos life since I moved back. Having undergone multiple decoration projects that reflected my current life season, the last of which I completed within the past 3 months, this room housed my body, books, thoughts, and emotions. It was the breeding ground for my infamous “Dark Night of the Soul” season. It was the place where a majority of my healing took place. It was small, but it was mine, I had carved out a little space for myself and called it home, and now it was gone.

The night of the fire, I desperately rummaged through my mind searching for motifs, metaphors, and anecdotes to console my spirit as I looped around my estate. I remembered Lot’s wife. I imagined this biblical character running away from her home in Sodom and Gomorrah as it was consumed by flames and using every remaining ounce of strength in her body not to look back as God had instructed. But in a single moment of weakness and heartbreak, she turned around and, consequently, became a pillar of salt, forever stuck because she longed for her past. I wondered if I had been a pillar of salt these past couple of months, returning to relationships I should have left only to repeat cycles of heartbreak. If each time I created a caricature of myself with every LinkedIn revamp and reconsidered a previous career choice, the salt particles that made me were hardening in place.

I remembered one of my favorite storytellers and inspirations, Issa Rae. Issa didn’t survive a fire. Instead, for her assigned tragedy, the universe chose a robbery. With the little she had, she had bought camera equipment and had been working on a few projects, all of which were stolen from her dingy, New York basement apartment. In interviews, Issa speaks about this moment as pivotal because it influenced her to move back to LA. Shortly after returning, she created Awkward Black Girl, which kickstarted her career and changed her life. I am not claiming to be the next Issa Rae, but this fire has given me a gift of clarity and urgency to create like never before. For several months I had been struggling with creative blocks and procrastinated efficiently by spending my time overplanning, preparing, and over-organizing instead of creating. I complicated processes aiming for perfection and spent more time finetuning my pitches and reading other people’s work. This fire cleared my physical space, I lost years of work in burnt journals and writing plans, but it also cleared my mental space. I cut out all the superfluous processes and stopped obsessing over publishing protocols. Having lost everything, the question of what was truly important and necessary for my survival echoed in my mind, and I applied this thinking to my creative practice. What did I need to get my words written and out into the world? Issa had minimal equipment and self-published Awkward Black Girl on YouTube, and I could do the same. I need a journal and a pen, no fancy writer’s residency or validation from a publisher. Everything I need has always been inside of me.

Right before I fell asleep the morning after the fire, my spirit softly whispered the beloved bible verse “Beauty for ashes.” to me. The verse was strikingly appropriate, making the entire thing borderline cliche. Still, it effectively assuaged my grief because this was a verse I was constantly reminded of during difficult seasons. In the past, I prayed this verse earnestly, hoping that the proverbial ash in my life would magically be made anew into something beautiful. The imagery of a dirty cinderella clothed in rags being whimsically transformed in a cloud of fairy dust, courtesy of her Godmother, into a glittering Disney princess was what I imagined God would do for me. With time, I learned that the power to create beauty was always within me. For years I have been turning my ashes into beauty. I have taken my painful experiences and the difficult lessons learned and turned them into something beautiful; an essay, an Instagram caption, a community, or an encouraging voice note. A piece of content vulnerably and creatively crafted from the ashes of my life and readily accessible to many because beauty should be shared. In this situation, I will once again turn my ashes into beauty.

Yesterday evening, I walked into my room for the first time since the night of the fire. The debris had cleared, the windows gutted, and the walls covered in patches of varying shades of black. The room felt hollow with no ceiling. I sat on the floor staring at the empty space when a piece of paper covered in dust caught my eye. I picked it up, dusted it off, and saw it was a picture of Janet Mock and Oprah conversing in her garden with two Super Soul mugs on a little coffee table in between them. I had printed this picture out over a year ago and placed it on my vision board in my room, but about a month ago, when my spirit prompted me to let go of the ego’s version of my dreams, I grumbled about yet another thing I had to let go off and took the picture down. I had no idea how it got there or why it was the only thing left in this room, but it was a pleasant memento to remind me of the importance of letting go.

A few years ago, this experience would have shattered me. I would have been devastated for weeks, reminiscing on everything I had lost, plunging into a depressive episode. But the universe has been teaching me the art of letting go for some time now, and it seems I have finally built the emotional muscle and spiritual capacity from my previous lessons because although I am grieving, I have a strong awareness that “All will be well.” The curriculum on active surrender was reassigned to me by the universe at the start of the calendar year. Over the past 3 months, I have had to surrender things concerning my career, some relationships, personal goals, a solo trip, and my ego’s desires. Although painful at the time, the experience of letting go was ultimately liberating. I knew I was freeing up emotional and mental real estate that will hopefully soon be occupied again by the things meant for me. This fire felt like the final exam, a grand finale to close out this semester of learning.

I want to thank my family and friends, who have been incredibly supportive throughout this difficult period. Words are not enough to express my gratitude for having a community to lean on at this time. I would like to thank all my neighbors and estate security guards, the way you all galvanized to put out the fire as if it was your own home restored my faith in humanity. I want to thank my dad, he was the real MVP of that night, and I can not imagine what would have happened if he had not been around. Finally, I would like to thank God for preserving my life and reminding me that there is beauty ahead.