The Woman I Am Becoming

I used to wear my life like an ill-fitting dress, tight in all the wrong places, stitched with the threads of other people’s expectations. My voice was a mirror of what I thought the world wanted to see. I smiled when I wanted to scream. I said “yes” when my spirit was clawing for “no.” And I called that survival.
I was the girl who swallowed her dreams so others could digest their comfort. The one who turned herself into an apology before even being asked.

Can you imagine sitting in an exam hall, knowing the answers, all of them—every definition, every twist of logic and still choosing silence? Not out of confusion, but fear. Fear of being noticed. Fear of being the girl who “knows too much.” I remember shrinking deliberately. Dimming myself like a light too bright for the room.

I used to suffer from a kind of illness, timidity dressed as modesty. I sat at tables where my voice was needed, and still, I kept it buried in my throat. I smiled when I disagreed. I nodded when I wanted to say, “This is not right”. I called it being humble. I called it being respectful.

But really, I was just afraid of taking up space. I was taught to be a good girl, which really meant: be quiet, be grateful, don’t take up too much space, and most importantly don’t want too much.

I used to apologize before I even had reason to. I learned to smooth my rage into politeness, to iron my ambition into something more acceptable. And in trying to be everything for everyone, I became almost nothing to myself.

And so I shrank, and shrank until one day I woke up and didn’t recognize myself anymore.

There was a time when my skin felt borrowed. As though I was wearing a version of myself that had been stitched together by other people’s hands—tight where it should’ve been loose, muted where it should’ve shone.

But the woman I am becoming… She is beginning to feel at home.

My skin now rests easily on my bones. There are days I catch my reflection and recognize her—really see her—and I nod in a kind of knowing she has lived. She is living. She has finally stopped asking for permission.

“It gets easier for women as we grow older”, Chimamanda once said. And she was right.

Somewhere along the line, you reach into the bag to count how many fucks you have left to give, and you find none. And oh, what a beautiful emptiness that is.

Now I know what I want from life. Not in the crisp certainty that youth often pretend to own, but in the slow-burning clarity that only comes from doing the hard. I want softness. I want desire that doesn’t apologize for itself. I want friendships that nourish and solitude that strengthens. I want to be a full woman, complex, inconvenient, unapologetically so.

Life is fickle. One moment it is full of color, of noise and possibility, and the next it is tender and quiet and asking you to sit with your ache.

I have seen myself in many versions—some frightened, some furious, some brilliant and shining with a light I hadn’t yet learned to claim.

But the woman I am becoming carries all of them. She says no without guilt. She chooses herself without needing anyone’s blessing.

She is loud in the places I told her to keep quiet. She doesn’t flinch when her name is called. She looks back at her reflection and sees someone who has come home to herself.

I won’t pretend I have it all figured out. I still talk to myself in the mirror like it’s a TED Talk. I still rehearse comebacks for arguments that happened two years ago.

Some days, I feel like Beyoncé. Other days, I cry over burnt plantain and ask “what am I doing with my life?” and wonder if adulthood is just a scam with WiFi.

But in all that chaos, something has shifted—I no longer betray myself just to be liked. I no longer shrink so others can feel tall. I show up. Maybe with shaky hands. Maybe with lip gloss and unresolved childhood issues. But I show up. I have learned to hold myself with both hands—one gentle, the other firm.

The woman I am becoming. She laughs more. Loudly, even. She desires without shame. She loves with both caution and courage. She wears red lipstick on Mondays—because why not? Life is too fickle to save the good perfume for a party that may never come.

And now, when I look inside the bag where I used to keep my self-doubt and unnecessary apologies, I mostly find empty old crumpled papers and receipts from old lives I no longer live.

It truly gets easier for women as we grow older, especially when you realize that you are allowed to take up space—and wear earrings the size of small satellite dishes if it pleases you.
The woman I am becoming still doesn’t know how to contour her face, but she knows how to draw a boundary. And that’s a kind of makeup, too.

I no longer feel guilty for wanting more—for joy, for peace, for the last piece of suya.

So no, I am not the girl who kept quiet in the exam hall anymore. I am the woman who raises her hand, corrects your pronunciation, and then eats jollof rice in peace.
And honestly?

She’s quite a lovely company.