A Homage To 2021

Sometimes I struggle with finding the right words to use, I struggle with the order of words that would leave an impression on your mind. How do I write to a year that touched my soul? How do I tell a story that I hold dear? How do I express my gratitude in  the simplest way? 

I will start with this one that chooses to remain in my head. I am a bad dancer with limited knowledge of dance but if I take the time to reflect on the year and how far it has brought me, I would relate it to a Waltz, or any other slow dance. I would mention the soft caress of my soul and the deep longing it left in me. I would mention how much the year lacked a lover’s touch and how slowly dancing across the year left me with the audacity to finish this dance with a flourish because even if it was slow and lonely, even if it was filled with a longing for something more, even if the universe couldn’t stop to make things right for this one person, everything looks so perfect, serene and a bit untouched and for some reason, I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

Source: Pexels.com

Likewise, I could also start this with my love for the grand little things and the way the year has slowly but surely revealed all the layers there are to being well me. There is a saying in recent times to stop and smell the roses and this year, I have gone ahead not just to smell them but to do a bit of planting myself. I have noticed how blue the sky can be, I have fallen in love with the varying shades of purple sunset seem to have, I have discovered the smooth refreshing water brings to a parched mouth and above all I have learnt how much uncomfortable loneliness can be. 

Now that we have moved away from the introduction, I have a question to ask the year and it is, how much gratitude did you have in store for me? Maybe not only gratitude but also how high was the level of unbothered was I supposed to attain? Because as the year is coming to an end, I am becoming more unruffled by the situations and happenings around me and as Po tried to in the second instalment of that wonderful franchise, I might have attained inner peace. And aren’t you proud of me? You know how I started, you know how much I was stuck trying to see what the year after recovery was going to feel like, to those that don’t know, I am a recovering people pleaser and maybe that’s why that heartbreak hurts as much as it did. I didn’t want to put up a lot on my vision board and you caught that drift, so with just three things to work on and the inability to accept that maybe changing my mind is not a bad thing, I armed myself for the year, for you. But you were not having it that way, the Lord and Creator of the universe, my Abba was not going to allow that so as I stepped into the year, the first curveball was a breaking. 

They say that you know that you are about to reach and become a different person when there is a break. It could be a breakout, a breakup, a break-in, a breakthrough or even a breakdown. And with me, there was a breakdown and I had to sit and reconsider what I held dear to me. I had to learn to sit with myself, and you with your soft caress, like the gentle tap of the waves at the seashore, the soft flow of the stream eased the process. I have mentioned to those who cared enough to give ears to my cries that I lost count of the “I am tired” I said through the second quarter of the year. But in that breakdown and burnout, I found things to be grateful for, I found moments to celebrate. I learn to sit with my emotions and query my sadness. I learnt to ask myself what all this is for and to those the answers I found, I am grateful and for those that seemed to elude me, maybe I get to give it another shot.

But that was not all, I learnt how to let go of things, and I understood to grow is to die, so I geared myself up and attended as many funerals as I could for the parts of me that died and the ones I had to take their lives. Maybe we don’t understand the importance of thinning as much as we do weeding. We know that in weeding, we remove the unwanted crops, those with the ability to choke the seed we have planted and that was what 2020 was about, removing the things that had no use and serve no other purpose but to hurt and tear me apart. But I learnt the essence of thinning, that even though those plants are desired, even if we sowed them ourselves, we had to remove those that are either not fit enough to continue or that have somehow become a burden to us. 

By the end of the third quarter, though, I imploded. It is different to fall outside yourself and spill onto others. It is different to fall and have casualties and leave a visible scar for others to point at. It is easier to garner sympathy when people can see what has gone wrong, but what is tougher, what no one notices, is the feeling of falling into yourself. It is to be aware that your walls are not strong enough, it is the understanding that everything is closing in on you, and it is the moment you decide to either fight, I am not sure against what, or let the wave take you in. I am a good student, and I would like to think I am a fast learner. If I know anything about stars, it is that some of them fall into themselves and at that moment there is a chance of becoming even greater than before. So with the experience from earlier in the year and the way I have embodied the prayer someone said on my birthday, “Oluwaseyi, may you learn to trust yourself”, I fell into myself. I am not sure what the pathway was like, and I cannot for a second explain the process, but it led me here, inner peace, gratitude, a bit of trust in myself and a lot more in Abba. 

What about November, and the level of pain that seems to come over and over again? They say bad things happen in threes or is it, “the third time's a charm” sort of lesson?  I broke my phone again and had to borrow my friend’s “torchlight” phone, I had to replace my laptop’s screen because of an unfortunate accident involving my bookshelf and the carpenter that didn’t nail it to the wall properly, and after having the most unbearable pain in my left ear for a week, I was told I had Otitis Media and because of late presentation at the hospital, it caused the tympanic membrane of that ear to rupture. I read somewhere that being alone can be two things; loneliness, the pain of being alone and solitude, the joy of being alone. I moved into a new place with the hope of finding solitude and with the way things are turning out, it is loneliness all over again. I can’t describe how I felt having to take care of myself through the pain and show up every day when I am supposed to. But that level of peace was still there and I am so grateful.

So here we are, at the end of my piece, with a grateful and tranquil heart. I know that I didn’t get to fix a lot of things, I know that this year revealed how scared I am and can be. I am aware that there is a battle upfront, and I am not as prepared as I want to be. I got to learn new things and start different, I got to meet wonderful people, when I had opportunities of being a good friend and I took as much as I could. I wrote a lot this year and my writing didn't contain as much pain and hurt as the previous year. I am trying to find where my courage went, I am realizing I am allowed to change my mind and I want to.  I am giving myself grace because I can,  I want to and because my soul deserves it. 

Barry Allen: Do you have any idea what else might be down there?
Leonard Snart: Doesn't matter. There are only four rules you need to remember: make the plan, execute the plan, expect the plan to go off the rails, throw away the plan. Follow my lead and you'll be fine.
The Flash (TV Series)

In doing so, in focusing on the destination, not the journey, in focusing on where I want to be, not how to get there, I have learnt to see the beauty in serendipity and that is what 2021 brought me. And this piece is for you, a year that touched my soul.

This is the second part of the "It's A Wrap" mini-series. You can find the first part here. The last part should be out next week by the grace of God. 
Merry Christmas to you.

With Love,

The Estherian.