Notes of a Nostalgic Nigerian

Young Nigerians are leaving home in droves due to economic hardship. Many have found legitimate routes to the West and are settling and thriving in their chosen fields. This mass exodus is both beneficial and unsettling. Beneficial in the sense that the migrant leaves as an act of love to support their families back home. Unsettling, because the homefront is destabilised by this separation, thereby rocking familial equilibriums. In these essays, I write about this tug and pull between the necessity of an exit from home and the homesickness that comes after. I also detail ways that I cope in America, the methods that keep me afloat in a strange place. Most of the coping mechanisms are fashion, dating apps, therapy, and of course, writing. In the essay on fashion, I write about how I wear myself as boldly as I can so as not to drown in a sea of anonymity. In the therapy piece, I discuss my origin and ways its memories keep me grounded and tethered to my true identity. Some of the essays are written in epistolary format: to strangers that I have met on my way, who leave remarkable impressions and make me see ways I negotiate my existence in the world as a migrant and also as a woman. Another letter is addressed to family members, where I relay my American experience. This is overall a work of nostalgia, an anchor cast between a new country and an older country that is truly my home.