Nobody Prepared You For This - by Letters From Delight ⁠♡♡

I wonder if there was a manuscript for life, maybe we would have lived better. But this, they say, is the beauty of life: not knowing the contents of tomorrow's cup. Not being able to tell whether the sun would rise from the east or west by dawn. I wonder if there is a hidden version of life, one that is meant to unfold itself in due course but is too shy to. Every day, humans wake up, and all we do is run. We keep running into plans, meetings, schedules, time, places, and seasons. And sometimes, life in its volatile form appears like a wind and cuts short the life of Mama Deji, the woman who sells provisions in front of my house, leaving her five young children without a father. But just when I think that life is cruel and does not extend a hand of sympathy to the poor, I also remember that it gruesomely cut short the life of Herbert Wigwe, the Nigerian banker and co-founder of Access Bank and Access Holdings, who died in a helicopter crash in California on February 9, 2024, alongside his wife, Chizoba Wigwe, and their son, Chizi Wigwe. So I come to the conclusion that life is no respecter of persons. I think of the child born into Nigeria. If only it had a choice, maybe it would have gone back to its Creator from the womb. Because being born into a country like Nigeria is to be introduced to uncertainty before you are old enough to understand the word. You learn early that life can change without warning—not because you have done anything wrong, but because the systems around you are fragile. You are born into a country where the future is often spoken about as though it were a distant place. Where people make plans, but power outages, insecurity, unemployment, inflation, poor healthcare, and failing institutions constantly reminding you that plans are only wishes with dates attached to them. My thoughts drift back to the boy on the highway who ran after my bus on my way to Kogi State. I looked outside the car window and watched this black, handsome child—his curly hair, average height, a grey, torn, baggy top, and black trousers. His slippers barely fit anymore. A young boy in his teens, as he ran after my bus with his chips pushed into the bus window, begging me and other passengers to buy chips for ₦500. Two contrasting scenarios. He was running for his daily meal. I was running for my academics journey. Both of us were in the same country—a country that could, perhaps, make me equal to him tomorrow—if fortune doesn't shine on me. I stared at him in despair, and it immediately dawned on me that I was no better than this charming dude. It is privilege. We both have dreams.<img alt="" src="/media/inline_insight_image/Screenshot_20260722-130907.jpg"/>My brain flashes to the not so young woman I saw on the street, with a tray of boiled groundnut on her head. You could tell from her appearance that she is a walking sponge— who have absorbed every pain and cruelty life had offered her. Her cheek line stretches down her jaw as she raises her face with a broad smile appearing on it. Her skin telling a very clear story of what the sun had gruesomely slapped rather than kissed. And I wonder what was funny as she smiled. Is this what they call hope?. She probably has 6 or more children at home, with a husband waiting for her return. She is the families saviour. She was once a girl with dreams, I thought. The Political Science student in his first year. He doesn't know it yet, but all the theories of Aristotle, Thomas Hobbes and the likes of them, are totally different and nothing close to the reality of what is practiced in the Nigerian Political System. Who would tell him that the current president of Nigeria was busy campaigning for his next tenure while 40+ children and teachers were in the hands of terrorists?. Or that the first lady Oluremi Tinubu donated vehicles worth billions of naira to APC women leaders in Abia, Anambra, Bauchi, Osun, and Oyo States. Which were expected to be used for party activities. But a few days after, she would urge Nigerians to consider small businesses like selling akara, roasting corn, or making kulikuli, saying they require little capital to start. {I'm really sorry Tinibu is ruining your 20’s}. And just before you complain about your government being apathetic, don't forget that the masses are not any different. If power were given to you, would you be any different from the government that rules you?. ----------------------------------------And then, quickly, I return to myself—to the core of my own realities, past experiences, and uncertainties. Life has caught me off guard too, introducing me to different versions of myself. I have been forced to build emotions I do not understand, abandon plans, rethink roles, and choose alternatives. All without a manuscript. Without a guide. This is a glimpse of the inconsistency life has to share. And perhaps it is wise to bring ourselves to the fore of other people's reality too. It is humbling. Sometimes, I wonder if life has been trying to tell us something all along, but we are always too busy arriving somewhere else to listen. Perhaps there is a manuscript after all—only that it was never written for us to read ahead. Perhaps it is written as we move, one uncertain step after another, and the only way to know what comes next is to keep walking.<img alt="" src="/media/inline_insight_image/Screenshot_20260722-130758.jpg"/>And so we walk.Into mornings we did not ask for. Into evenings we did not plan. Into people we did not expect to meet. Into versions of ourselves we could never have imagined becoming.<img alt="" src="/media/inline_insight_image/Screenshot_20260722-130812.jpg"/>Maybe this is what they mean when they call life beautiful: not that it is always kind, or easy, or even comprehensible, but that it keeps its secrets until we are ready to meet them.

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