Good news if you are reading this, you have travailed grueling circumstances and made it to the end of the year/decade- a round of applause, please. I know it’s cliche to retrospectively, summarise what our year has been like but it helps us keep stock and measure the progress made.
I broke down my year in these subsets; love, career, faith, blog and books, and tried to capture as much as possible.
On Love
As I stare at my laptop begrudgingly, thinking of moments, things, events that may have evaded my thoughts, I shred myself to mental pieces wondering if this year was as eventful as my twitter handle and Instagram claims, it was.
I shuffle through my little notepad, where I had jotted down my ambitions at the start of the year- at the top, I recognise faintly these words “I want to fall in love, by the end of the year.” I am staring back, laughing hysterically not only because love didn’t happen, but also because I won’t write those words again with the same mentality.
Not surprised I didn’t fall in love with anyone this year (y’ all this should not come as a shock), it’s a routine, I have come to accept. However, towards the end of this year, something changed about how I viewed love, who I wanted to be loved by and why. That sudden realisation was liberating, I was rebelling against every foundation my faith had laid claim, (to be continued) but I have also come to embrace who I am and whatever that means to me and the people who know me.
On Career
Like every other thing I encountered this year, my work life took a pleasant turn. As someone who comes from a communications background has lectured for a few years before deciding on grad school, finding myself in a policy field was going to be challenging.
Let’s backtrack a bit! I graduated from grad school, that in itself was a positive plot twist and y’all can read a summary here. However, after graduation, coupled with glee, that followed, I fell into a depressive and mental breakdown period, which came from the infamous imposter syndrome that accompanied comparing my post-grad life to that of my coursemates. This period lasted for 5-months, but in-between, I made new friends asked myself tough growth questions and read articles on Quartz, and the republic journal.
The decision to read those articles daily gave me the mental boost, I needed to get my groove back. Fast-forward to December, and life somewhat makes sense. I work with an amazing team are helpful, smart and encouraging, also learning to build my confidence one article, one project at a time while asking myself strong challenging growth questions.
One quick lesson- put yourself in difficult spaces that are designed to spur you to greatness, and I don’t mean toxic spaces, please.
On Faith
There is a lot to unwind on this subject alone, but I will try to summarize my thoughts and not bore y’all. If you’re a consistent reader of my blog, my faith journey is something I am proud of and share openly. However, this year I paused to find myself, to create a relationship with God outside the church and here are a few lessons I learned;
God laughs: He has a huge sense of humour, Psalms 2:4a “He who sits in the heavens laughs.” I have thought of so many times this year, I have been in a tough situation faithless and compromising and would hear God laugh and say, so, after all, we’ve been through, you still don’t get me- then I stop right in my tracks.
He keeps his bargain: God doesn’t falter on his words, He may take time to show up but comes through- the waiting process prunes us and teaches us to trust him without a doubt.
We can all find a friend in Jesus: It’s funny how one goes through the bible and gets to the new testament and see how loving and kind Jesus is. He was kind to the Jews and Gentiles, and everyone who he met with the exception of the temple incident, were people traded in ‘his father’s house.’
There is a lot I want to write on this, but won’t bore you with the excesses, however, I’ll add that I also read my bible a lot this year a favorite read John 1:12.
On Family and Friendships
I learned this year that friendships are sacred, I’ve repeated this phrase more than once, in the past couple of days and kinda sound like a clanging cymbal. But I have found solace in genuine friendships, which was built on trust and kindness.
On family: I have realised there is no gain when the family feuds and its important differences are hatched, and everyone lives in peace.
Blog
I finally hit over 1 million blog readers after 8-years of running this blog. I also grew my newsletter list to over 1,000 people and tried to post once a month (progress). I didn’t push my creativity this year, because a lot was going on but I tried to be transparent with the process, hoping to do better in the coming year (no promises).
Books
I read a lot this year. There is a type of comfort you find in books, one that reduces the pain we cannot see and stress we cannot express. My time was spent reading short articles on Medium, Quartz and the Republic Journal, also want to add that the book “my friend fear” defined how I pursued my year and I had to write a review on it. See here
If you’re reading this, most of the words, written have gone through different iterations, so I’m here acting out. Happy New Year, beautiful people and cheers to 2020, a year of written and captured words, being shared with you.
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Nice post girl!