There is something life does to a man before it breaks him. It takes away the illusion of importance, the sweet lie that you are in control, that your small plans and your careful intentions can hold back the tide. It shows you how laughably fragile you are. How despite your prayers, your calculations, your guarded optimism, it will still find a way to scatter your dignity like dust in Harmattan. This week, I lost things I can’t yet name; some too sacred, others too shameful. These losses have forced me to sit with my mortality, face to face, asking it questions that only echoed back in silence. I have stared at the ceiling and wondered what any of this means; why I am even here. On some days, purpose feels tangible, almost close enough to hold. On others, it feels like smoke: something I thought I saw until I reached out to touch it. I have written many things, small rebellions against meaninglessness, but most of them are just well-arranged nothings. Words that sound profound but heal nothing. Sometimes I sit under the sun and let it scorch my doubts, wondering if its heat might burn away the ache. But the sun does not care. It shines on both the wounded and the wicked. Yesterday, I went to see a dear friend, one of those rare souls who know how to sit with your silence without trying to fix it. I let her see my struggles, unclothed and unedited, and she received them with a warmth that felt like therapy. For a moment, I thought the heaviness had eased. But when I got home, loss was waiting for me again. It’s as though it has learned my scent, following me like a stray that believes its continued existence is somehow my responsibility. There are moments I listen to music and feel something close to peace. Other times I try to cry, but nothing comes. The tears sit stubbornly in my throat, as if ashamed of their own weakness. My father would be disgusted by this confession. But grief is a private country; even pride dressed as masculinity cannot police its borders forever. I try to laugh through it sometimes, to make jokes of my bruises, to dress my despair in humor so it doesn’t frighten anyone; doesn’t frighten me. A friend once told me not to do that, not to turn my pain into performance. I blocked her. Then I remembered she’s busty, so I unblocked her. It’s a small mercy; to still be capable of foolishness in the middle of grief. I am still young, still learning that loss is not the enemy; it is a kind of teacher. Maybe one day I’ll understand what these ruins are trying to rebuild in me. Maybe you will too; you, who have read this far, who have your own quiet catalog of things gone missing. Perhaps one day we will both find that the meaning was not in what we lost, but in what the losing made of us. Perhaps.