That evening, after devouring a shawarma that was generously peppery, I found myself in what I can only call a kind of post-shawarma clarity, that acute awareness that settles like dust when the pleasure fades and the price reveals itself. A noble man of this bullying capitalism, I sat with a mental calculator, the one that adulthood sharpens in us early, computing transport fares, food expenses, the thousand little emergencies that adulthood insists on. I inhaled deeply and muttered, almost involuntarily, “Oru oyibo.” The white-collar job.
And yet, that shawarma, in hindsight, wasn’t even that sweet.
I paused. I remembered our parents, mostly traders, people who made just enough and were proud of it, how they still dreamed aloud of the prestige of office jobs, how they romanticized shirts tucked into trousers, air-conditioned offices, and a salary at the end of the month. Maybe the world has changed. Maybe it hasn’t.
My phone buzzed. I looked down.
“Guy, I fit get 90k from you?”
It was a message from a friend. Ninety thousand naira kee, Chim. Before I could respond, another message came. This one from someone I had only just begun speaking to: “Bro, please help me with small 10k. I need to buy drugs. I’m sick.”
The phone became heavy in my hand. I placed it face down and inhaled again.
And then I remembered, as I often do these days.
I was maybe five. I was in our family home in Enugu. I had just finished washing the dishes, my hands still wet, soap drying white on my fingers. My eldest brother, eighteen years older, sent me to fetch something from his room. On my way, another sibling redirected me, and then another. I stood in the middle of the parlour, tiny and tired, and screamed in frustration, “I just want to grow up and leave this house!”
They laughed. The loud, unbothered laughter of adults who understood something that I, in my smallness, did not.
Back then, my sister Ogochukwu would “police” my afternoons, forcing me into siestas I detested. I wanted only to play. But now, as a grown man, in a world where capitalism does not let you nap, I am beginning to feel the water, once on my feet, grow up to my belly and come to my chest. I find myself longing for those silenced afternoons. I want to sleep in the middle of the day. But I cannot.
Adulthood has hands. Adulthood is grabbing.
Just last week, I was talking with my sister about how everything now costs too much, how every day feels like a negotiation with hunger, with hope. She laughed, not cruelly, but knowingly.
“Do you remember Mr. Kay?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“Remember how we used to call him ‘Brother Aka-gum’ because he never gave us money?”
We burst into the kind of laughter that carries both memory and apology.
Back then, Mr. Kay was just another adult who, in our childish minds, was stingy. We did not know that he was still finding his feet, still figuring out how to be an adult. But now we know better. Now, he’s doing well. Life has been kind to him. I smiled that deep, understanding smile that adulthood teaches you, the smile of hindsight.
These days, when I bill my older siblings, I imagine how often they must have given me their last card, without grumbling, without letting me see the hole it burned in their pockets. That kind of love, Ife erika.
With each step I take now, I find myself revisiting the past, matching names and faces to emotions I finally understand. Was this what he was going through? Was that why she was always tired?
Adulthood is not a straight road. Sometimes it’s a loop, or a wave. Sometimes, it is simply a mirror held up to your childhood. There is no rest. If it’s not money, it’s illness. If it’s not heartbreak, it’s death. If it’s not your own pain, it’s your friend’s, your cousin’s, your country’s. Rejection letters multiply. Businesses crumble. Lovers leave. Rent is due. The world tightens.
And still, we wake up. We find small joys in ordinary things, in conversations, in bread and tea, in the sound of rain on zinc, in a meme that makes us laugh hard enough to forget, just for a moment. In all, Ndubuisi. Life is the most important.
Wherever you find yourself, whether on the mountain of abundance or the valley of dry bones, remember: your chi will not hand you a cross too heavy. Grace may not always shout, but it is there, quiet, enduring, present.