I Hate My Life

and Other Things That Happened This Week

i don’t think I’ve hated my life as much as I’ve done in the past few hours.

it’s 6:37 on Monday morning and I woke up angry at my room again.

Not the normal kind of anger where you hiss, stand up and start arranging things. I mean the kind of anger where you open your eyes and immediately wish you could close them back because nothing around you looks survivable.

My clothes were everywhere. Some hanging off the armchair like dead bodies, some on the floor, some mixed into each other in one confusing heap that would definitely smell strange if I got close enough. The laundry basket was starting to overflow again. My cosmetic products had migrated to one side of the bed so I could have space to sleep. My laptop was on the floor. My books too. My reading table looked less like a reading table and more like evidence that somebody was quietly losing their mind. Awards. Drugs. Empty plates. Used cups. Empty snack nylons. Receipts. Hair products. Random paper bags. One earring. Half a pack of gum. The room already felt hot even though it was barely morning.

I stayed still for a while and just looked at everything like the room belonged to someone else. Then I started removing things from under my body one after the other.

• A hanger.

• My comb.

• A towel.

• My necklace

• Groundnut bottle.

• Face Mask

• Jewellery box.

• Notebook.

• Mouse.

• Perfume bottle.

• ATM card.

At some point, I genuinely wondered if I slept or if I just collapsed softly on top of rubbish and passed out.

Then my housemate opened the door to borrow my iron. She borrows it almost every morning now, so neither of us even reacts to it anymore. I didn’t move, I didn’t greet her, and I didn’t sit up. I just stayed there under the duvet pretending I was still asleep because I wasn’t ready to be awake yet.

Used to our usual morning routine, she innocently walked to the window and opened it for me. I believe it was for all the best intentions. But the smell that entered my room immediately reminded me of how much I hate my life.

Hate my house because the smell outside always enters first before fresh air does

Hate my neighbourhood because it smells permanently like pee, wet gutter water, and suffering. The trenches part of Lagos where houses look exhausted. Where every compound has one generator that sounds like it is begging God for retirement. Where the walls are permanently damp and tired-looking. Where it feels like every drain is pregnant with diseases.

And suddenly, I hated the entire year too because it had been one problem after the other. Every week, introducing a fresh disaster like life was doing episodic releases.

I groaned softly, pulled the duvet over my head and used my leg to push the things on my bed further to one side. Then I picked up my phone and texted the group chat. My besties from work.

“guys, I’m not coming to the office today cause I’m not feeling good. I can’t even come if I want to cause my clothes were destroyed yesterday. Please tell MD that I couldn’t make it cause I’m sick. What other meeting do we have today?”

I switched off my phone immediately after sending it, dragged the duvet over my face again and started crying quietly into the pillow, pressing my mouth shut because I didn’t want my housemate to hear me.

Was I actually sick? Technically, yes. Cause I am sick and tired of this life.

Do I feel good? No.

Am I in this state because Wunmi cheated on me? Well, yes and no.

I stared at the ceiling for a while after my crying session, still under the duvet like it could hold my life together if I stayed there long enough.

My phone was already face down. I didn’t want to look at anything. Not notifications. Not time. Not even the reality of my life, including my room.

I just lay there thinking that I was probably sick, technically. Because there is no normal explanation for waking up and feeling like your entire existence is pressing down on your chest.

Wunmi was part of it. Of course he was. That kind of betrayal doesn’t just sit in one corner of your life quietly. It spreads. It enters everything else like smoke. But even that wasn’t the full thing.

Because the truth is, I have been tired for a long time. Tired in a way that doesn’t announce itself dramatically. Just small accumulations. Small delays. Small escapes. Staying in Ikeja a little longer. Avoiding my room a little more. Ignoring things until they become unignorable.

And now everything is just here at the same time. On my body. On my room. On my work. On my head.

***

Sunday evening was when I came back to the house. I didn’t want to but then I remembered that Monday was waiting for me whether I liked it or not.
So I packed my things and headed back to my apartment.

The plan was simple.

Step 1: Go home.

Step 2: Pick my clothes from the wire.

Step 3: Iron something for work.

Step 4: Sleep.

Step 5: Pretend life is manageable again.

I got home, greeted my housemates and headed outside immediately to the wire. Then I froze.

It had rained heavily earlier that morning and every single piece of clothing was on the floor. Not normal floor. Wet compound floor. The kind with slippery green spirogyra and mud and dirty rainwater and God knows what else.

My shirts. My trousers. Everything. All on the floor.

I just stood there staring at them for a few seconds before sitting down in the middle of it and crying. Not graceful crying. Not cinematic crying. I cried like I got scammed.

Because why was life behaving like this? Why did every inconvenience suddenly feel deeply personal? Why did it feel like the person writing my story kept adding unnecessary side quests to my character’s suffering?

I eventually went inside to get a bucket and started picking the clothes up one by one. Then I took them to the bathroom that my housemates and I share with about twenty other tenants.

The bathroom smelled exactly how sadness smells.

As I started rinsing the clothes, I realised rinsing would not be enough. The stains were too stubborn. Too ugly. Some of my favourite shirts now have weird greenish-brown marks that look less like mud and more like what I don’t know. And the thought of Spirogyra staining and ruining my shirts broke me, again.

So there I was, in a dirty bathroom that smelled like pee. Heartbroken, exhausted, holding wet clothes and crying over algae.

I rinsed them anyway because I didn’t even have the energy to properly rewash them anymore. Then I carried the bucket back to my room. The room was still scattered. Still ugly and suffocating. I looked around briefly, too tired to clean anything, shifted the things on my bed to one side and slept like that.

But that wasn’t the worst part of the week. It started earlier than that…

***

Before the rain, before the mud, before the Spirogyra ruined everything, there was the kitchen in Ikeja on Sunday morning.

I had woken up and immediately remembered. That’s the annoying thing about sleeping after emotional devastation. Morning always reintroduces it to you like a secondary notification.

I called my sister first to ask how my kids were doing. She said they were fine. She gave the phone to them, and they sounded happy in that careless way children do when the adults around them are quietly drowning. I asked about my husband. She said he was acting normal.

Of course he was. Men will impregnate somebody in secret for ten years and still ask whether there’s stew in the fridge.

After the call, I told my friend everything. She listened quietly before telling me not to confront him yet. “Focus on your work first,” she said. “you still have that huge project. finish this phase first before dealing with all this.”

And the annoying thing was that she was right. Because capitalism unfortunately does not pause for emotional collapse. Deadlines still exist. Deliverables still exist. Slide decks still exist.

So I nodded like somebody serious about regulating my emotions and went to the kitchen to eat. My friend had cooked jollof rice earlier, so I took the plate, sat down and started eating.

I ate the first spoon of jollof rice. Ate the boiled egg. Ate two slices of plantain. Then the second spoon. Third spoon. Fourth spoon.

Then suddenly I dropped the spoon and started crying so hard I couldn’t breathe properly.

The confusion, betrayal, anger and sadness moved through my body so violently it almost felt physical. Like somebody was dragging sharp objects through my chest.

I cried until my nose blocked. Cried until my eyes hurt. Cried until I became tired. Then after crying, I cleaned my face and nose and continued eating. This life na vanity upon vanity, make I chop first.

The rest of Sunday passed in a blur. I binge-watched a series, cried at intervals, and scrolled social media mindlessly. Ignored my thoughts. Ignored reality. Ignored myself.

The devastation had begun the night before, disguised as a party.

***

For one week, I had been staying at my friend’s place in Ikeja, and life had temporarily stopped feeling like punishment. You can’t blame me; it doesn’t smell like pee when you open the windows.

Most times, I only stay there for one or two nights whenever we have deadlines at work, and I need a more conducive environment to get my work done. “Conducive environment” in this case is just being corporate language for basic human living conditions. There’s light. There’s water. There’s actual space. And most importantly, the toilet and bathroom are inside the house, as civilisation intended. Sometimes I go there planning to work overnight, but I always end up sleeping early because apparently my body becomes less suicidal once it experiences comfort.

I had gone there the previous Monday because we had a huge demo presentation at work on Tuesday. Then the demo shifted to Thursday. So I stayed. Tuesday became Wednesday. Wednesday became Thursday. Then Thursday finally came, and the demo at the office went surprisingly well. Everybody was excited. I should have been excited too, but all I could think about was sleeping.

On Friday evening, I finally went back to my apartment because I needed clothes for the next week. I unlocked my room, looked around at the mess and immediately felt irritation climb into my throat. My room had this talent for making me feel like a failure within thirty seconds of entering it.

I washed only my best clothes because the laundry pile had become too intimidating to attack all at once. My favourite pants. My favourite shirts. My favourite slutty gown. I scrubbed them carefully, rinsed them, spread them neatly on the wire outside and left almost immediately because I couldn’t bear to stay. My housemates are already used to me disappearing for days at this point, so I said bye to them and escaped back to Ikeja.

Saturday was my friend’s birthday. Her brother lives abroad and had planned with one of the housemates to surprise her by midnight with flowers, money and cake. I was part of the planning, but sometime around 11:38 pm, I accidentally fell asleep. The use of the word “accidentally” is such a choice because sleeping off is very on brand for me.

I woke up the next morning beside her and immediately sat up.
“where’s your flower?”
She looked at me and started laughing.
“you knew about it?”
Well yes. I just happen to always sleep off.

The day moved quickly after that. We watched football together, spent too much time arguing over food, and then started talking about going to a party later that evening. At some point, I realised I didn’t actually have clothes for the party. So I rushed back to my apartment to pick up something decent to wear.

I had washed one of my favourite slutty gowns the day before, so I quickly picked it from the wire outside without even entering the house properly. The remaining clothes were still there, but they weren’t dry yet, so I left them. I closed the gate and went back to Ikeja.

That should have been my sign to just carry everything inside.

But life likes hindsight.

I was almost done dressing for the party when my sister texted me.
“when you’re less busy, please call me”

Immediately, I knew something was wrong because that text sounded nothing like her. First of all, my sister hates calls. Secondly, whenever she has gist, she just texts “I have gistttttttttttttttttt.”

So I stared at the message for a few seconds before replying.
“what’s up? I dey go party o”
She replied: “you and party. sha call me when you’re back”
I asked again. “what’s going on? what is it about?”
And she said: “don’t worry, just call me later”

Now, if there’s one thing I hate, it’s suspense. Especially Nigerian family suspense because nobody ever says “call me later” for good news. Nobody.

But I was already halfway into my makeup, and my friends were shouting about Uber prices in the living room, so I let it go.

We went to the party. I drank tequila shots like I was trying to erase my fingerprints from existence. Then I discovered pina coladas. Such a heavenly drink. By the time we got back home, I was tipsy enough for bad news to sound theoretical.

I called my sister once. Twice. Three times. No answer.
Then she texted: “I missed your call”
I replied: “yes”
She said: “your son is here so I don’t want to talk about it, I’ll just type”

Immediately, my chest tightened a little. My sister has been living with my husband and kids in Osogbo since I have to stay in Lagos for work. Then the message came.

“your husband has been cheating on you and impregnated someone 10 years ago, he’s planning on bringing the child to the house. the elders in the family are here now to discuss it. from what they’re saying, they knew about it before, they even attended the naming ceremony. I just wanted to tell you so you won’t be shocked when you come back home in July”

I stared at the message for a long time. The strange thing about terrible news is that sometimes your body refuses to catch up immediately. Especially when alcohol is involved. Especially when you’re tired. Especially when life has already exhausted your ability to react dramatically.

So I just looked at the text and replied:

“wow, interesting”

Then:

“I’ve always suspected him”

And went to bed.

***

Which brings me right back to where I started.

it’s 6:37 on Monday morning.
I just woke up.
And I don’t think I’ve hated my life as much as I’ve done in the past few hours.

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music recommendation for today:

movie recommendation for today: Swapped

book recommendation for today: Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie