Let me tell you about Chidinma, who held onto her safe cocoon until life forced her to spread her wings.
For ten years, she worked as a secretary at the same company in Port Harcourt, sitting at the same desk, taking the same route to work, and eating lunch at the same staff canteen. Her mother called it “job security.” Her friends called it “playing it safe.” Chidinma called it “being responsible.”
Every evening, she’d return to her small flat and dream about the fashion designs sketched in notebooks she kept hidden under her bed.
She had hundreds of them, gorgeous Ankara fusion pieces that blended traditional and modern styles. But those dreams stayed trapped in those notebooks, just like she stayed trapped in her comfort zone.
“What will people say if I leave a good job to sew clothes?” she’d whisper to herself. “What if I fail? Better to stay where it’s safe.”
Then one day, her company announced they were going digital. “We won’t be needing traditional secretaries anymore,” they said. Just like that, her safe cocoon began to crack.
At first, she was terrified. She spent days crying, clutching those old notebooks like a lifeline. But slowly, something started stirring inside her, like a butterfly’s wings testing the air for the first time.
Instead of hunting for another secretary position, she took her severance pay to Aba Market. With trembling hands, she bought her first batch of fabrics.
Her fingers remembered the sewing skills her mother had taught her years ago, back when she was too young to fear failure.
The first few months were terrifying. Some nights, she’d stay up questioning everything, missing her comfortable old life. But with each garment she made, her confidence grew. Her designs, hidden for so long, finally had a chance to breathe.
She started small, making clothes for friends, then friends of friends. Each satisfied customer became a walking billboard. Soon, market women who used to sell her fabric were stocking her designs.
Some years later, her pieces were walking down runways at Lagos Fashion Week. When journalists asked about her “overnight success,” she’d laugh. “Nothing overnight about it,” she’d say. “I just finally let go of the branch I was clinging to, so I could catch the wind beneath my wings.”
Now, watching new designers showcase their work in her studio, she sees herself in their nervous eyes. “Fear will tell you to stay in your cocoon,” she tells them. “But cocoons are meant to be temporary. They’re not homes; they’re launching pads.”
See, transformation isn’t just about what we become. It’s about what we’re willing to leave behind. Like a caterpillar must trust that letting go of everything it knows is worth the promise of wings.
Sometimes what feels like an ending is just life’s way of cracking our shell so our true self can emerge.
After all, no butterfly ever soared by clinging to its cocoon.
