Ashtrays and Other Things That Stayed

I had a LinkedIn profile before I had a beard. I was 16 when I wrote my first CV. It was terrible. It had no content, no jobs, just ambition and the lie that ambition is enough. But I polished it like it mattered. I drafted it the way someone might draft a dream. I genuinely believed that if I built a professional shell early enough, the world would forget to ask what was inside it. I wanted a career. I wanted it so bad it became my entire identity. My life became a cover letter I was too scared to sign with my real name.

Once upon a time, I was someone else. He wore more color. He was softer, louder, maybe even hopeful. But eight days before my birthday, he got cheated on. That sort of thing should come with a warning label: Caution—this might kill you, but in a really boring, drawn-out way where you still have to go to work the next day. The pain didn’t come as fireworks, it came like dust—settling over everything until I no longer recognized the person beneath it.

Six months later, I stood in front of a mirror. Hair disheveled. Spirit bankrupt. I shaved my beard that day—not for grooming, but because it felt like an exorcism. In that moment, I didn’t want to trim the old me. I wanted him gone. My face emerged, raw and alien. I killed him. And in his place, I left a promise: I would help others build the careers they dreamed of. Because maybe—just maybe—if I couldn’t become the person I wanted, I could help someone else become theirs.

That was three years and six mental breakdowns ago.

Now I excel at what I do. I’m praised, even. My emails are eloquent, my spreadsheets meticulous. I wear business casual like it’s a second skin. But every day I wake up a little more confused about who’s inside the suit. I’m not growing. I’m changing. Morphing into something my 16-year-old self wouldn’t even recognize. A functioning adult, yes—but with the soul slowly filed down like the corners of a company laptop.

I hate corporate. I mean it. Not in the performative, tweet-it-once-a-month way, but in the marrow of my bones. I hate the language, the posturing, the fluorescent lights, the way rest is treated like a character flaw. But I keep showing up. Not because I love it—but because I have to build something better. I want to create a culture I never got to experience. A place where the misfits like me—who drafted CVs at 16 and lost themselves at 23—can feel like they’re not aliens in collared shirts. I want the outcasts to feel normal. I want comfort to be free, not earned through exhaustion.

But in the background, life keeps slipping.

I failed to say goodbye to my mom—twice. She flew back to Africa, and I didn’t make it in time. Twice. That kind of regret builds a permanent room in your chest. I see my father every three months, sometimes less. We speak like strangers who used to be family. I barely maintain friendships because now that, too, feels like a full-time job. Every connection demands energy I don’t always have.

I’m eccentric. Not in the charming, mysterious way. Eccentric in the way that makes first dates uncomfortable. Because what do I talk about? My dreams of building a company culture where people can cry without shame? My obsession with job descriptions? My inability to flirt because I’ve optimized myself for labor instead of love?

The world appreciates charm and ease. It doesn’t know what to do with the person who shows up to a conversation like it’s a strategy session. My worst nightmare? Hitting thirty unprepared. Not financially—emotionally. Spiritually. Unprepared to be a husband. A father. A soft place for someone else. Try explaining to someone that your grind isn’t for money—it’s for the family you don’t have yet. Try making that sound romantic.

Sometimes I feel like I speak a different emotional language than the people around me. I commit, they drift. I build, they float. I think ten years ahead, they think ten seconds ahead. And no matter how much I try to bridge the gap, it always feels like I'm the one dragging the weight.

And yet, through it all, my best friend might be my ashtray.

It has seen versions of me no human ever will. It sat quietly through my university years, and it sits with me now as a man trying to keep it together. It’s always near. I keep ashtrays not just for utility, but because they’re storytellers. They preserve moments. They witness the quiet victories, the loud breakdowns, the mornings after. They’ve seen me burn my lungs in both excitement and sorrow. They’ve held onto remnants of nights I wish I could forget, and others I wish I could relive.

I often wonder what my ashtray would say if it could speak. What it would think of me now. Would it see someone stronger? Or someone simply more tired? More polished on the outside but duller within? It’s seen it all—the ambition, the heartbreak, the grinding, the longing. And still, it stays.

I don’t know what real rest feels like. Even when I sit still, my mind’s scheduling meetings with ghosts. Dead friendships. Dead ideals. The dead version of me who thought a good CV would solve everything.

I’m not who I was. I’m not who I wanted to be. I’m someone in between. A half-built sanctuary for strangers, an architect of safety for others, still sleeping in emotional rubble.

But I’m trying.

I’m trying to build the kind of world where people

 don’t have to shave their souls off to survive in it.

Maybe that’s enough.

Maybe that’s how you love people before you’ve even met them.