“One Morning, She Wanted to Buy Bread and Book a Flight Back Home.”

Subtitle: What no one tells you about living abroad: one day, you will get tired. And you won’t know what to do with the feeling.

That morning, she didn’t cry.

She just stood in the middle of her kitchen, holding a half-empty loaf of bread in one hand and her phone in the other stuck between ordering groceries and booking a one-way ticket to Lagos.

The heater was on.
The light was good.
The house was quiet.
Everything was fine.

And yet… she had never felt so far from herself.

They told her,
“Go abroad. Make money. Escape this place.”
They called it japa.
They clapped when she posted that airport photo.
And when she arrived?
She smiled in captions and learned to say “I’m good, thanks” with mechanical ease.

But behind the smiles were therapy sessions she couldn’t afford.
Behind the photos were missed birthdays, buried grief, and a mother whose voice now sounded like voicemail.

 This is what they don’t say about abroad:

That one day, you’ll be standing in line at a supermarket, and you’ll hear a woman laugh and it’ll sound like your aunt.
You’ll turn…
But it’s not her.

And you’ll remember that you weren’t there when she passed.

They don’t say that the cold outside starts to feel like the cold inside.
That you’ll go from fighting for visa approval to fighting to feel anything at all.

She tried. God knows she did.

She worked two jobs.
Sent money back.
Smiled on Zoom.
Posted birthday wishes she couldn’t show up for.
Said “soon” more times than she said “I miss you.”

But no one tells you what to do when you’re tired of surviving.
When you’ve built a life abroad, but your soul still sleeps back home.

 It’s not ungratefulness. It’s grief.

Grief for:
    •    the you that never got to breathe
    •    the you that always had to prove
    •    the you that packed her bags with dreams and now unpacks them with dread

She missed random knock-knocks on her door.
She missed NEPA jokes.
She missed hearing Yoruba in public.
She missed the chaos that felt like home.

And maybe… she missed the version of herself that wasn’t always so polished, so lonely, so put-together.

That day, she didn’t book the flight.
But she didn’t buy the bread either.

She just sat on her couch.
Wrapped in a blanket that couldn’t keep out the cold of her thoughts.
Phone in hand.
Passport in drawer.
Tears refused to fall.
And for the first time since she left home…
She whispered the question she swore she’d never ask:

“Should I come back?”

To the ones abroad, smiling but suffocating. We see you.

You’re not soft.
You’re not dramatic.
You’re just tired.
And it’s okay to say it out loud.

This life? It’s beautiful.
But sometimes, it’s heavy.
And sometimes… you want to drop the bags and go home.
Even if it’s just for a little while.
Even if it’s just to feel real again.