"I moved across the world to prove something to my family. Three years later, I'm still not sure what."

Lagos to London. The plan was simple: leave, succeed, return triumphant. Show them that the girl they worried about had turned into someone worth believing in.

What I didn't account for was that I'd bring myself with me.

The first year was adrenaline. Everything new, everything sharp, every small victory magnified by the fact that I'd done it alone. I called home and said the right things. Yes it's cold. Yes I'm eating. Yes I'm fine.

The second year was harder. The novelty wore off and underneath it was just life — rent, loneliness, a career that moved slower than I'd expected, Sundays with nowhere to be. I started to understand what homesickness actually felt like. Not missing a place, exactly. Missing the person I was there. Missing being known.

The third year — this year — I've started asking the question I came here to avoid: what was I proving, and to whom?

My family never told me I wasn't capable. That was a story I told myself, and I needed an audience for it, so I cast them without their knowledge. They thought I was following a dream. I thought I was winning an argument that only I knew we were having.

I'm still here. I have a flat I love and a job I'm proud of and friends who've become family. London is mine in a way now that surprised me.

But I also call home differently. Less to report, more just to talk. My mother's voice sounds like something I almost forgot I needed. I'm learning the difference between running toward something and running from it — though some days I'm still not sure which I did.