#BN2025Epilogues: Despite Being Stretched Beyond Limits, Fatima Abdulrahman Had a Flexible 2025

2025 was a year that stretched me in ways I didn’t expect. A year where joy, sadness, survival, confusion, hope and healing existed side by side. It was a year that reminded me that becoming is not a destination; it is a journey with sharp corners and soft landings.

I have always believed life is flexible, something we can bend and shape if we are patient and intentional enough. But this year challenged that belief. It almost convinced me that life does not always obey our plans or prayers. Yet, despite everything, one thing remained true: I manifested only good things. While they sometimes came late or came wrapped in challenges, they came.

I spent the early months of the year sending out CVs like a ritual. I attended interviews; some hopeful, some discouraging, and others which taught me resilience without saying a word. While navigating all this, I watched my friends get married one after the other. I smiled, danced, supported them and returned home to face the emotional tension in my own relationship. But life has a humorous way of surprising us. In the middle of confusion, he came, the kind of arrival that felt like timing finally aligning after years of waiting.

But February came differently. It carried a surgery I didn’t mentally prepare for. That moment slowed everything down and reminded me that family is more sacred than I sometimes admit. I didn’t inform my sisters about an issue because they weren’t around, because I convinced myself it was minor, and I’d be fine. I thought handling it alone was my way of protecting them from fear. But when they found out, their tears and guilt struck me deeply. It showed me that love is not just about shielding others from pain; sometimes, love is letting them carry the weight with you.

Books saved me this year. I read stories that held mirrors to my emotions and offered comfort when life felt overwhelming. African and Nigerian writers, especially, inspired me. I journeyed through The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives, Nearly All Men in Lagos Are Mad, Ogadinma, Odufa, Only Big Bum Bum Matters, and ended the year reading The Silent Patient. Each story became a world I could escape into, and a reminder that human experiences, no matter how different, always connect somewhere.

Finishing my mandatory youth service brought its own confusion. The familiar 77k stopped coming, and suddenly the question, “What next?” felt louder than ever. In the middle of that uncertainty, I wrote a self-inspired book, Letters From a Restless Heart. It was my way of documenting the storm and the calm, the fear and the courage, the drowning and the rising.

I stepped into content creation, moving from one industry to another, learning, unlearning and adapting. It wasn’t easy. Some days I felt confident; other days, sapa humbled me without warning. But I kept going.

Prayer held me together. Even when I felt stretched beyond my limits, prayer gave me small pockets of peace. I worked hard, hoped for gigs, managed salary anxieties and kept moving. I documented snippets of my daily life and commuting experiences, reflecting on how much I was changing, how much I was becoming.

Consistency wasn’t my strongest strength this year, but I grew. Every day I tried again. I improved in my craft, deepened my understanding of myself, and committed to becoming better, slowly, gently, honestly.

Through it all, I held onto one quote: “When life throws it at you, you either toss it or lose it.” And this year, I tossed everything life threw my way. Somehow, I am still standing. Still learning. Still becoming. Still writing letters from a restless heart.