I met her on a Wednesday afternoon at a crowded bus terminal in Lagos. I was twenty-three, just out of university, broke, and disillusioned. That day, the sky hung low with heat, the kind that pressed against your skin like a warning.

I had just missed an interview at a media company I had dreamed of working with since secondary school. The danfo I was in had broken down in traffic. When I finally got there, sweaty and out of breath, the receptionist barely looked at me before saying the panel had already left. I wanted to scream.

I walked out to the bus park, numb, unsure whether to cry or curse the universe. That’s when I noticed her. She was older, maybe in her late fifties. Her wrapper was neat, her gele tied with that kind of practiced elegance only aunties seem to manage. She sat on a wooden bench with a nylon bag beside her, humming quietly to herself.

The bench was mostly empty, so I sat, not expecting a conversation. But after a moment, she turned to me and smiled. The kind of smile that didn’t ask for anything.

“Are you okay?” she asked, her voice low but clear.

I hesitated. I wasn’t okay, but I wasn’t used to strangers asking. I gave a weak nod, staring at the crack in the concrete by my feet.

She watched me for a moment longer, then said, “Sometimes, the path closes because your feet aren’t meant for it.”

I looked at her, confused. She just smiled again, like she knew I wouldn’t understand yet.

“You seem like someone carrying too much inside,” she said. “Life will take things from you. It’s not wickedness. Sometimes it’s clearing space.”

That sentence lodged itself somewhere in me. Not in my brain. Somewhere deeper.

We ended up talking for an hour. I don’t remember everything, but she asked questions no stranger usually asks. What makes you feel alive? What did you dream of as a child? When was the last time you failed and tried again? She didn’t offer advice, just listened with this kind of presence that felt rare.

When her bus arrived, she stood up and handed me a folded paper from her bag. “I don’t know if it’s useful,” she said, “but you might want to look into this.”

Then she walked away, disappearing into the crowd like a scene ending too fast.

The paper was a flyer for a creative writing workshop. Free entry. I almost laughed. Writing had been my secret joy as a kid, before adult expectations swallowed it up. I hadn’t written anything in years. But something about the way she gave it to me made me go.

That workshop cracked something open. For the first time in forever, I wrote with no fear of being good enough. I met people who thought the way I saw the world wasn’t strange, just honest. One of them later became the editor who published my first essay. And from there, one opportunity led to another. Today, I write for a living. It’s not always perfect, but it’s mine.

I never saw that woman again. I don’t know her name or where she was going that day. But she saw me when I was invisible to myself. And she gave me the smallest push in a direction that changed everything.

Sometimes I wonder if she was real, or some kind of divine detour. Either way, I carry her words with me.

Sometimes the path closes because your feet aren’t meant for it.