Almost 10 years ago, I was a bright-eyed teenager with so much to say, eager to share my thoughts and words with the world. It first started on Facebook—what was meant to be a recap of my final years in secondary school. A digital diary that would culminate in my 20th birthday. I wrote episode by episode, day in and day out. I made friends with like-minded folks entertained by my stories, debating whether they were real or just the ramblings of a random teenager.

I reopened the healing wounds of an academic rival who was astounded by how brazenly I had decided to write about his anxious, sabotaging, low self-esteem antics and how he often made an idiot of himself unprovoked. I was a crazy girl—annoying to boot. I wanted to document everything before our paths scattered in different directions, like the wind tossing sand around. It was a nod to a time when our biggest problems in life were ensuring we had clean socks for school the next day, copying our friend’s assignment and changing “create” to “make” so it wouldn’t be obvious we copied, and, oh, being fully prepared for WAEC so we wouldn’t flunk it.

Then I got into blogging. I still remember how it felt to write my first blog post for Kanzahsays 1.0—the excitement, the way I readily wrote about what I was experiencing at that very moment. The thrill of new beginnings and happenstances. The cab ride home. The apple and snack from Royals Eatery in Ilorin. The leopard-print gown I wore. The black scarf I hated so much because of its triangular cut. The feverish writing on my Techno Boom J5 phone before the words dancing delightfully in my head could run away. Tap, tap, tapping. I was always in a state of urgency.

I had gone from wrestling freshly collected newspapers from my grandpa’s hands to jabbering away at my phone’s keypad while he spoke to me. Everybody in my family knew of my “something something Kanzahsaysblog,” but they didn’t understand why I spent so much time on it. My grandfather would chuckle—half confused, half impressed—as I edited new posts, the voice of an NTA news reporter droning on in the background. In a measured tone, he would ask, “But how much are they paying you on that platform for you to be this invested?”

“Nothing yet, but soon, Grandpa, you’ll see me earning from it. If I do well, I’ll make plenty of dollars.”

“Ehn ehn?” he would ask. I would nod vigorously, and he would leave me to my business.

I was hungry to be heard! For everything I had to say to be out there.

Then it all went down the drain.

I lost myself. I got angry at myself. And then I betrayed myself.

I lost myself in mindless scrolling on different social media platforms. Swiping left and right. Up and down. Like a zombie, mindlessly consuming the opinions of others—reflections that screamed so loudly they drowned out my own thoughts. And like a zombie, they began to echo in my mind, suffocating my voice.

Distractions. Random rubbish. Short-lived dopamine.

I lost myself in relationships—the ones that led nowhere and the ones I clung to, feverishly yearning to be understood the way I believed I should be. Perhaps if I were more giving, more forgiving, they would be just as giving and forgiving.

Oh! How I betrayed myself.

Doing and doing, only to be met with the stark reality that I only know what is in my mind, not what is in others’. That just because I am kind doesn’t mean I will be met with an equal level of consideration. That friendship isn’t always about sitting on the fence; it isn’t meant to feel like walking on tiptoes, trying not to soil a newly mopped floor. That even the best of friends can have conflicts, and conflicts shouldn’t automatically make me feel like a bad person.

That friends—however angelic they seem—can also gaslight, sometimes more than a bald, bearded Yoruba Lagos man close to his 40s.

That friends, both close to home and yonder, can turn into strangers due to irrational, society-induced expectations. That they can skulk around, making life-changing plans while blatantly lying to your face about it. That these same folks will turn around and try to blame you for their betrayal of the bond you thought you shared with them.

And you will learn that humans are like fat-bellied gourds floating on water—their true contents only revealed when they tip over.

I lost myself in fear. I stopped being the brazen 20-year-old girl private messaging celebrities and famous bloggers, requesting interviews for my blog. I believed my blog was something, and they were missing out if they didn’t accept. I scored a string of interviews before I stopped, thanks to one particularly frustrating experience with a Ghanaian influencer.

She spent weeks answering just 10 questions. She barely managed five. I had to find a way to maneuver around her sparse responses while ensuring the interview remained in her voice, wasn’t misleading, and wasn’t filled with falsehoods. Imagine how psychotic it felt to put up an interview she nonchalantly answered, only for her to immediately repost it. I believe now she was just a deeply unserious human being, but back then, I was angry at what I saw as stupid pride.

And I had a fiery temper then.

I remember once DMing an artist who had a hot single around that time, fully convinced he’d be enamored by my cute little blog and respond. He never did. I wasn’t sad, just confused. Why wouldn’t you want to be on the best blog ever?

I went on to interview a slew of local artists—most of whom went nowhere with their music careers. One of them, when asked where he saw himself in a few years, said he’d be winning a Grammy.

We all had dreams.

I got angry at myself for not hitting the milestones I had set. Little did I know that life eventually rewards—either with time or not. And that’s okay. But I kept wondering why everything was taking so long, why it all felt so hard.

I was angry at the government. The system.

But most importantly, I was angry at myself—for not knowing what to do to get out of the dump. And when I did figure it out, I lacked the strength to follow through.

I betrayed myself in more ways than one.

The most painful betrayal was refusing to share my thoughts with the world because who cares?

How wrong I was!

I also couldn’t be bothered to juggle writing with finding a proper source of income. Again, how wrong I was! In fact, it’s not hard to do many things at once. What’s hard is not knowing what to prioritize—or how to arrange those priorities.

The greatest betrayal is betraying yourself.

When I started posting on Medium, a part of me felt relieved that I could share the images in my head with strangers and friends alike. It was easier—without the obligations of maintaining a personal blog.

I thought the friends and strangers who had followed my blog would finally let me breathe since I now had another platform to share my thoughts.

Imagine my shock when, after every new post, I got wistful messages asking about the Kanzahsays blog and when it would return.

Once, during a yapping session with my neighbor, he asked why I had stopped. His follow-up questions made me realize I was just afraid—afraid of committing, afraid of being responsible for the direction my blog would take.

I realized all the what ifs existed only in my head.

Lawyers! They are something!

Last Saturday, when I told him the blog would be back up by the beginning of this week, he asked, “Where do you think the blog would have been if you never stopped?”

I told him I didn’t know—because who really knows what happens to a dream deferred?