What’s in her bag ?

A story about Adaeze, and the Saturday she started becoming herself.

June 2026      .   5 mins read

Adaeze was the kind of girl who read every comment section before making a decision. Foundation shade, restaurant choice, perfume she wore, whatever was trending, bought whatever an influencer held up to a camera. It was not that she was insecure. She had just never stopped to ask herself what she actually liked.

Then one Saturday, she wandered into a boutique on Lagos Island and saw a bag named Sicollete. Black leather, clean lines, a gold S at the center. She stood back and looked at it the way you look at something that already belongs to you. She did not open Twitter. She did not text anyone. She counted her money, paid, and walked home with.

 

 

“It was the first thing she had chosen in months purely because she wanted it.”

She cleared a shelf in her wardrobe just for it. Then stood back and realised she had no idea what to put inside. So she went through her room, looking for things that gave her the same feeling.

Her journal came first. University-era, barely touched since graduation. She sat on her bed and wrote about the market, the bag, Monday. Eleven minutes later, she felt lighter. In it went.

Then her ElsasPro lip gloss, shade A09,  a warm pink she had bought simply because she swatched it on her hand in a store and thought: that’s nice. Not for anyone online. Just because she liked what she saw in the mirror. It lasted all day too, which mattered for a girl about to start her first real job. In it went.

The  Dream Mist  perfume she almost missed. A birthday gift from Chisom, still wrapped on her windowsill. She opened it now, sprayed once on her wrist. Citrus first. Then florals. Then vanilla, warm and certain. She had never smelled something and thought that is me,  but this did.

 

“Some gifts arrive before you are ready for them.”

Chisom, a girl who barely knew her, had somehow seen something she hadn’t yet seen in herself. She sprayed it properly this time. Neck, wrists, the inside of her elbows.

Dream Mist went into the bag. Then her laptop, AirPods, a hair clip for the Lagos heat, hand cream for the office air conditioning, plantain chips,  because she had grown and she liked them, and that was reason enough.

She zipped it. Looked at it sitting on her bed,  full with intentional.

Sunday night she set three alarms and barely slept. Monday morning she lined her lips, swiped on her gloss, sprayed Dream Mist on both wrists, and picked up her bag and for the first time, she felt ready. Not because she had arrived. Because she had, finally, begun.

Everything in her bag was chosen. Everything was intentional. Everything for the first time was hers.