Dear Diary,
I’ve always told myself I’d figure things out step by step. But today, the weight of decisions felt heavier than usual. I don't know how to self improve this year. The CFA exam — its fees alone could swallow three months of my salary. ICAN, the Nigerian certification, seems more affordable, but where do I even begin? My weekends are already booked with teaching at FundQuest Academy. Every time I try to map out a plan, it feels like choosing between drowning and suffocating.
Two gates loom: one gilded, one veiled in dust—
Each demands a price, each mocks my trust.
Two roads diverge, yet neither bears my name,
A choice unmade, two paths, yet same.
Then, on my way home from a meeting, I bumped into an old schoolmate. We were classmates in secondary school. Back then, his father’s mansion felt like a palace, and this old schoolmate wore designer uniforms while the rest of us patched ours. His father is literally a King somewhere in Port Harcourt! Still, today, he stood in faded jeans, a loose shirt, dusty feet, and his hands cracked from apparently scrubbing cars. At least so he said. He said he’d tried starting a business in Ghana last year, but it collapsed. When I asked why he didn’t return to his family in Port Harcourt, he just shook his head. “Some doors close forever,” he said. I didn’t press further.
The clock’s hands turns, no time to spare
Fate laughs at kings, their heirs threadbare.
Where gold once flowed, now rust contends,
A pendulum sways, but who knows where it ends?
It is evening, and my browser is cluttered with CFA pages and ICAN videos on YouTube. Old schoolmate’s face keep flickering in my mind. Half of my friends have japa’d — Canada, the UK, anywhere but here. Some are bartenders and Uber drivers now, trading careers for survival. Others fare better, with similar opportunities to what they have built opening up for them. But what’s worse: staying to nurture a crumbling dream or fleeing to bury it? My mail buzzes with a FundQuest reminder. I closed the tabs. The questions in my mind didn’t close with them.
To leave is to sever the soil where you bloom,
To stay is to wilt in a self-dug tomb.
The map has no answer—no “here” or “there”—
Just storms that howl, and howl everywhere.
I used to laugh at peer pressure. Now it feels like a tide dragging me under. Old schoolmate's hollow eyes, my friends’ filtered photos from abroad, the certifications I can’t afford — they all seem to be shouting louder than my own voice. Maybe tomorrow I’ll find clarity. Tonight, I let the questions hum like the fan close to my bed: constant, unanswered, but mine.
Let the chorus of doubt scream, let it roar—
I’ll plant my feet here, for I’ve been here before.
No foreign sky, no borrowed shore,
Just my stubborn heart… and one day more.
#SladenSpeaks
#IfWordsWereNudes
I have finally caved, and decided to do a diary series...
It will be a mix of prose and poetry, and will detail in minute form (hopefully), the events of my life.
Thank you for reading.