The Year Everything Fell Apart (And How I Put It Back Together)
There’s a saying in my family: “When life throws you a monkey wrench, bend it into a tool.” I thought I understood what that meant—until last year happened, and let me tell you, it was the equivalent of life dumping a Home Depot’s worth of monkey wrenches onto my unsuspecting head.
From heartbreaks to a crippling sense of aimlessness, it was the year that tested everything I thought I knew about myself. But here’s the thing: sometimes you have to let things fall apart to discover what’s worth keeping and, most importantly, how to rebuild on your own terms. This is the story of how I went from weeping over spilled jollof (don’t judge; it was a low moment) to stepping back into my life with a sense of purpose and clarity.
Let’s break down this journey one disaster (and lesson) at a time.
When Your Love Life Reads Like a Nollywood Script
At the heart of my “Year of Chaos” was my relationship implosion. Picture this: me, multitasking through a hectic work schedule, preparing for a much-needed solo holiday to Senegal, and balancing a long-distance situationship that I thought was on its way to becoming serious. But, like a plot twist in a Nollywood film, one innocuous WhatsApp message changed everything: “I think we should take a break.”
Take a break? My flight wasn’t leaving for another week—what was he trying to escape?
To say I didn’t take it well is an understatement. I oscillated between listening to Burna Boy’s "Alone" on repeat and ugly-crying into a tub of Fan Ice. I’m not proud of it, but that’s heartbreak in a nutshell. What made it worse was the realization that I had shaped too much of my happiness around someone else’s availability, leaving myself hollow and, frankly, lost without their validation. I wish I could tell you I jumped into an empowering montage of self-discovery right away, but I didn’t. First came the wallowing—then came the rebuilding.
Lesson #1: Feel Your Feelings, Then Rewrite Your Script
Heartbreak sucks, but ignoring it doesn’t make it better. I let myself grieve the relationship, but then I asked some hard questions: What did I ignore about myself to keep this going? What kind of partner do I actually want? Spoiler alert: someone who doesn’t “take breaks” unprompted.
Career Burnout Meets Existential Crispy Fried Edges
As I processed my heartbreak, work decided it wanted in on the chaos. For weeks, I had been feeling drained at my NGO job, where I was advocating for women’s empowerment. Empowering others while feeling utterly powerless myself was the ultimate plot twist. The work mattered, yet I couldn’t shake the creeping sense that I had hit a dead end.
Somewhere in my own sprint to help others define their voices, I had lost mine. I spent one particularly dreary London afternoon staring out a café window with a latte in hand, wondering if I’d slipped into one of those moody British indie films. I was terrified to admit out loud that I was no longer fulfilled by the path I’d spent years building. What now? Start over? Aren’t you too old to do that, Harriet?
Lesson #2: Give Yourself Permission to Pivot
Choosing to change directions felt reckless. But staying miserable felt worse. So, I dusted off my passion for storytelling and started writing in earnest, leaning into my history of capturing stories. Taking a risk didn’t immediately make me feel like a Beyoncé-level boss, but it was the first tiny step toward reclaiming my narrative.
Home Isn’t Always Where the Healing Happens
In the midst of my professional and romantic woes, my large, energetic Nigerian family wrapped me up in their love—which was both a blessing and a challenge. Nigerians have this beautiful tendency to mean well while simultaneously reminding you of your perceived failures. “When are you settling down, now?” became the loudest question at every gathering, second only to “What happened to that boy we liked?”
Being back in Abuja could feel both comforting and suffocating. On the days when I embraced their love, it was like being wrapped in the world’s warmest aso oke fabric. But on the days when I internalized their constant comparisons? I felt like I wasn’t enough—neither for my family nor for myself.
Lesson #3: Set Boundaries With Love
Learning to stand my ground meant smiling at family members and saying, “Life’s a journey, not an arrival, Aunty Ngozi,” and changing the subject to Davido’s latest hit. Boundaries mattered, but so did grace. I learned to accept their nosy questions for what they were—a sign of care—and decided not to let them define me.
The Tools That Helped Me Find Me Again
After months of living in a chaotic limbo, I realized it was time to intentionally rebuild. These were my practices, my literal lifeboats:
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Journaling Like My Life Depended On It
Every morning, I scribbled my thoughts into a leather-bound journal from a market in Lagos. Sometimes it was gratitude; sometimes it was just venting. Getting the words out made me feel lighter—and helped me untangle what I really wanted. -
The Art of Saying “No”
Whether it was declining extra work that didn’t align with my goals or skipping social gatherings that drained me, saying “no” became my superpower. It wasn’t easy, but it was essential. -
Dance Breaks to Tiwa Savage
Whenever I felt particularly disconnected, Afro-pop hit the reset button on my energy. Dancing (badly, but who cares?) served as a literal reminder that joy still existed and that I was allowed to lean into it unapologetically. -
Solo Walks Through the Chaos
My walks through the streets of London, Dakar, or Abuja weren’t just for exercise. They were for noticing—seeing the world around me and recognizing that my problems were valid but not permanent.
A Soft Landing: Rebuilding on My Own Terms
By the end of the year, did I have everything “figured out”? Absolutely not. But what I did have was a stronger sense of self. I wasn’t hinging my worth on a relationship status or job title anymore. For the first time in a long time, I was tuned into what I needed: joy, room to grow, and the courage to fail forward.
When everything fell apart, I learned to lean into the cracks, rebuild at my pace, and define my own sense of balance. And isn’t that the real takeaway? Life doesn’t give you pre-assembled tools for hard times. But we’re all pretty ingenious when we give ourselves the space to pick up the pieces—and laugh about the mess along the way.
Lesson #4: You Are Your Best Project
You’re allowed to fall apart like an overly ambitious jollof pot experiment gone wrong. The beauty is in the rebuilding—and darling, you get to decide the recipe this time.
This isn’t advice; it’s just my story—the messy, bittersweet, “add a little more seasoning next time” journey to discovering a fullness I didn’t know I was missing. Whatever challenge you’re sitting with today, know this: when life throws you its monkey wrenches, you are entirely capable of reshaping them into something extraordinary.
