Episode 6: When Everything Almost Fell Apart
From Lagos to London: My First Year Abroad
I always thought the hardest part of being abroad was getting here. Visa applications, flight bookings, saying goodbye to your old life — those are all brutal in their own way. But no one tells you what happens after you’ve unpacked your bags, settled into a routine, and started calling your studio apartment “home.”
That’s when the real storm starts.
By spring, London had started to feel familiar. I could navigate the Tube without Google Maps. I had a corner shop where the guy behind the till knew my name. I had a favourite shawarma spot in Peckham and could tell when a bus driver was about to skip a stop — a true sign of local status.
But inside, I was drowning.
The Money Wall
Money. It’s always money. No matter how well you plan, there comes a point where London humbles you.
My rent was due. Again. And this time, my side hustle as a freelance graphic designer wasn’t cutting it. My job hours had been slashed — “budget cuts,” they said. Funny how employers always have a way of making their problems yours.
I’d borrowed from everyone I could — back home and here. And now, even Amara.
She had helped a couple of times without question, but I could see the way she hesitated now. The slight pause before sending a transfer. The way she would say, “Are you sure you’re okay?” when I swore I was fine.
I wasn’t.
I had skipped meals that week. Bought expired bread because it was discounted. The kind of stuff you don’t put on your Instagram story.
And yet, I was too proud to tell her the full truth.
Drifting Hearts
Amara and I… we were different now. Not in a dramatic, fighting-every-day kind of way. But more like a phone battery slowly dying — still working, but fading.
We saw each other less. I was always either working, in school, or recovering from both. She had started preparing for grad school applications and interviews. Her life was moving forward while mine was stuck on repeat.
The little things started adding up.
She’d ask me to hang out on weekends, and I’d say I had a shift.
She’d send me long messages, and I’d respond with one-liners.
She’d bring up the future, and I’d go silent.
One night, after she’d waited nearly an hour for me at a café and I forgot to show up, she finally said it.
“I feel like I’m dating a ghost, Emeka.”
I didn’t have a defense. I was exhausted, emotionally numb, and didn’t know how to explain that I was scared — scared of dragging her down, scared of failing, scared of becoming one of those Nigerian boys abroad who never made it.
So I just stared at her. And she walked away.
Learning the City, Losing Myself
As the days blurred into one another, I started to notice something strange. Despite all the chaos — I was finally starting to feel like I belonged.
The old man who ran the Nigerian barbershop near Dalston started calling me “London boy.”
I didn’t flinch anymore when someone said, “Bruv” or “Safe.”
I learned how to fake confidence at job interviews and how to nod politely at white professors who thought my name was “Em-E-Ka.”
In a twisted way, struggle had become my new normal. I knew which supermarkets had late-night discounts, which bus routes let you ride free after your Oyster ran out, and how to navigate British bureaucracy with just the right amount of fake accent and irritated tone.
But what scared me most wasn’t the hardship — it was how numb I was becoming to it.
The Breakdown
One Thursday evening, I came home to a rejection email from a graduate internship I had pinned all my hopes on.
I sat on the edge of my bed, holding my phone, and for the first time since I landed in this country — I cried.
Not quiet tears. No. I sobbed. The kind of crying that racks your chest and leaves your face soaked.
I cried for my father who had sold his car to help me leave Nigeria.
I cried for my younger brother still at home, looking up to me like I was already a success story.
I cried for Amara, for the space growing between us, and the love I felt slipping through my fingers.
I cried for me.
The boy who left Lagos with dreams bigger than his suitcase, and now sat in a freezing flat with broken dreams and mold on the windowsill.
A Moment of Clarity
That night changed something in me. I wiped my face, looked in the mirror, and decided I wasn’t going to be a victim anymore.
No one was coming to save me — not Amara, not my family, not some magical job offer. It was me, and only me.
I opened my laptop, deleted the old CV, and rebuilt it from scratch. I joined three new online job boards. Reached out to a few Nigerian communities for remote gigs. I even started volunteering at a youth center to get UK experience on my résumé.
I didn’t hear from Amara for weeks. But I didn’t chase. I figured if we were meant to find each other again, we would.
London hadn’t broken me. It had reshaped me.
Final Reflection
Looking back now, I realize this city doesn’t just give — it tests. It squeezes, bends, and almost breaks you. But in that process, you find the truest version of yourself.
You learn to survive heartbreak and hunger. You learn to rebuild without applause. You learn that love, no matter how beautiful, sometimes takes a backseat to survival.
Most of all, you learn that your story doesn’t have to be perfect — it just has to be yours.
And mine… was just getting started.
To be continued…
