Joy, Joy, Joy

On Wednesday I started a three-day no food fast. It was my first time doing a no food fast, and if I’m being honest I didn’t want to do it, but I believed I needed it. I was praying for many things, but I specifically wanted to experience the joy of the Lord. I wanted to believe that I just as I am, that God loves me. It’s strange to admit that. That after almost 9 years of being a Christian, I sometimes question whether if God loves me. For me it is so easy to believe in His love and power for others but I find myself questioning my worthiness of His love (and love generally).

The first day was difficult. I felt weak. I was slightly irritable, but at each meal time I decided to read the Word, listen to a sermon or play some worship music and it really encouraged me to continue (Matthew 4:4). On the second day, I woke up feeling weaker. I felt tense in my shoulders and slightly heavy. I was starting to feel discouraged, but I remembered that I knew the fast would be hard and messaged my friend for some encouragement. I kept wondering why my fast wasn’t glorious spiritual experience where I would hear the choir from heaven singing, but it really wasn’t like that.

My fast was crushing. It dealt a lot with my pride because I really couldn’t share how beautiful and amazing it was because it did not feel that way at all. By the end of Thursday, I crawled into bed and prayed to God in my frailty. I was reminded of my humanness, my imperfection and that in my weakness His strength is made perfect (2 Corinthians 12:9). I prayed that God would reveal Himself to me in my dreams and He did. He met me right where I needed Him to. He told me that even if the thing I fear the most were to happen, He is able to turn it around for my good. It was so specific to me and an internal battle I’ve been fighting.

So when I woke up on Friday after two days of not eating, I woke up energized. The scripture that came to mind immediately was Nehemiah 8:10, the joy of the Lord is my strength. I had so much energy I actually felt like dancing. I did not feel the weakness from the prior days. I was still hungry, but I was full.

I thought that when it came time to break my fast I would be ravenous, but I didn’t really feel the need to eat so much. This is not to say that food isn’t important, but instead to emphasize the importance of holistic nourishment. Today, all I feel is joy and I know I won’t feel this all days but I am grateful that I can come back to this and remember.

I have to thank Demi Osunsina who leads skinneedsofficial on Instagram for leading this three day fast. I am so grateful.

Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.

Graduating from college was tinged with sadness. On the one hand I was about to start a new journey moving to New York City to begin a career on Wall Street. On the other hand, I was saying goodbye to my friends and place that I had grown to love.

To be honest, if there had been an option to stay for one more year I might have thought twice about it. I loved the safety of being within a few minutes walk of my closest friends. I loved academia because I was good at it. I had no idea what New York would have for me, and I really didn’t know what being out on my own would mean.

New York, I’ve learned, is an incredibly intoxicating city. In less than two years, this concrete jungle has become my home and I really couldn’t imagine being anywhere else. 

In the past year however, I have been forced to reckon with the brutality of the pandemic and all the best parts of my new life being taken away. I’ve had to look at the city, streets quiet, buildings emptied and ask myself is this what I want?

This reckoning lead to many questions, some that I am still grappling today. I am sitting in the discomfort of not knowing what I want while knowing this isn’t what I want. In the past twenty days though, I have practiced becoming brave enough to create more of what I want.

I no longer want to cower to difficulty, but open my arms to them because they will come. Each day, showing up has had it’s challenges but I am so proud of myself for showing up anyway.

I can now say with surety that I am a writer (because I write), and I will continue to write everyday. But I want to ensure that my writing isn’t performative so I may no longer be posting everyday though I hope to continue sharing when and where I can.

I thought I would be sad to end this challenge, but it is quite the opposite. This challenge isn’t really an ending, but an opening to something more. In Untamed, Glennon Doyle said, “every life is an unprecedented experiment” and after a year of so many unprecedented situations. I look forward to more experiments and creating my own path focusing solely on my own desires.

Thank you for going on this journey with me.

20/20  

Comparison is The Thief of Joy

In the age of social media, comparison has become a natural instinct. I imagine when my mom was growing up and she wanted to imagine ‘better’ she had to do that, imagine. Now in the palm of our hands, we are able to see beyond our wildest imaginations.

We no longer simply fear missing out, but we have anxiety of what could be. Whenever we see a new 30 under 30 list, some of us look at ourselves and feel the impending doom of turning 30 with ‘nothing to show for it’. When we see someone our age that is married/a homeowner/wealthy/insert whatever you want but don’t have, we begin to question how it is possible for them and not us?

A few years ago, I wasn’t content with the life I was living and becoming doubtful in myself as a writer. My friend Modé, told me that comparison is the thief of joy. It was the first time I heard the phrase and it hit me in my soul. By comparing myself to my literary favorites, I was robbing myself of the joy of becoming my own favorite (and yours). By comparing myself to the lives of people around me and getting bogged down what what I lacked, I wasn’t appreciating what I had and wasn’t recognizing the autonomy I had to work towards the life I want.

We have conversations about how Instagram is a toxic space that perpetuates unrealistic standards, but we don’t unpack why these standards affect us in the ways that it does? I don’t say this to belittle anyone and any negative experiences on Instagram. But what if we created our own standards to live by that aligned with our own values? What if we were able to scroll past images that don’t align with our beliefs as easily as we skip songs on a playlist. Societies standards are constantly changing and evolving, and if we tried to keep up we wouldn’t even be able to. It’s unsustainable.

@nafisabakkar posted on her Instagram stories, “What if actually someone’s Instagram is not a highlight reel and in fact the tip of the iceberg of their fantastic life? What then? How do you process that?”

How do you process that? If someone chooses to only post the highlight reel, why is that any less real or valid than the pain? Why do we compare their best with our worst?

I don’t have the answers to these questions. But I am thankful that I am in the process of defining my values for myself and undoing my need for external validation. I am believing in myself more and more that I don’t need to compare myself to any one other than myself.

I can say now that I believe in myself enough to do absolutely anything I put my mind to. This challenge is teaching me that, and it took a lot courage.

If comparison is the thief of joy then self belief and courage are restorers of joy.

Failing Better

As 20-somethings, many of us are on a journey of expertise and becoming the best versions of ourselves. Becoming, as defined by Google’s dictionary, is the process of coming to be something. That means it’s a series of actions, and the culmination of these actions is how we achieve mastery. I believe that we all have what it takes to become our highest selves, but are we willing?

A few months ago after I experienced some personal loss, my friend bought me Scoubidou strings. If you’re a 90s kids, you might remember these plastic strings that we used to make keychains and the like. Anyway, my friend bought these for me as a means of distracting myself and healing my inner child. I was really excited because this is something that I had really loved to do growing up, but over a decade later the strings felt so foreign in my hands. I was a beginner again.

I decided to make a simple keychain design to begin. It took me hours. I was so frustrated the whole time because this was supposed to be easy, but it wasn’t. This was supposed to be healing and restorative, but these plastic strings were a pain.

I think this is how we start every new thing. Sometimes the skill comes easy or requires less effort from us, and other times it might be an uphill climb like me and my Scoubidou strings. Either way, how you start isn’t always how you finish. Or at least, it doesn’t have to be.

When I first started working out, I could not do one push up. I couldn’t even do one assisted push up. My arms would wobble underneath me and I wouldn’t be able to push my body back up to start without panting. I could have stopped there. I could have decided, maybe this push up thing is not for me. Maybe I’m not cut out for this. Maybe you’ve felt this way too? What I’ve learned since then is that we often overestimate the challenge and underestimate ourselves.

We have to be willing to fail, a lot, to succeed. We have to be willing to not be praised and sometimes be misunderstood. When I read stories like Fisayo’s, I’m reminded that success lies in our ability to be courageous enough to continue on.

Are you willing to fail enough times, no matter how long it takes?

Sometimes I ask myself this about my journey as a writer. Since starting this challenge I haven’t been looking at statistics of how many views I’m getting or who is reading this (unless you send me a direct message which I really appreciate) because I don’t want this to be a performance. This is my rehearsal.

Your new skill doesn’t have to have an end goal. You can decide to pick up a skill just because. Remember when we had hobbies just for fun? Allow yourself to explore and commit yourself to practice, thank me later.

You’re A Seed

This evening I was having a conversation with some friends. These friends make up my Wednesday night (now virtual) dinner party. We were talking about purpose and growth, and as women in our 20s it is easy to feel lost and directionless. Our career paths may seem unclear or slow. We often may not see the progress that we want in our lives, but what I realized is that we are all waiting to see the growth.

However, most change isn’t visible. We are like seeds and each day the habits we form and decisions we make work to tend to these seeds and nurture them. A lot happens underneath the surface before a seed emerges above ground, and that growth is absolutely crucial. We shouldn’t focus so much about seeing our flowers bloom that we neglect the development that needs to take place in order for it to happen.

All we can do is take care of our seeds. We have to make sure to water them, pick out weeds if they grow and ensure we get enough sunlight.

Your flower will bloom, I promise it will.

A Long Long Journey

When I first started writing, I had no idea what I was doing. I remember distinctly being in year 8, 12 years old, and dealing with a lot of grief. I had started the year losing an uncle and a close family friend. I remember when my mom told me that my uncle had passed away the very next thing she said was, ‘don’t cry.’ Her words were like a spell that sealed my tear ducts, but my whole body was itching for relief. My head was spinning and I was trying really hard to remember when last I saw him or what the last thing I said to him was, but I couldn’t. My memory was failing me, and so I began punishing myself for it.

I would go extended periods of time without eating and avoid sleeping just so that I could feel miserable because I deserved it. How could I not remember the final moments I spent with someone I claimed to love so much? And at home, after the funeral, it was as though nothing happened. We never spoke about him or really processed the loss communally. He was simply gone.

So I began writing because I couldn’t make sense of everything that I was feeling. I couldn’t understand how I was meant to continue living my life as normal. I felt like I was on my own in my emotions, and the only place I could turn to was my journal. Around the same time, my parents bought me my first laptop and so my handwritten journal entries became Word documents that became blog posts.

I didn’t know what I was doing, but I knew I had to write. I had to find a way to make sense of everything, and if I couldn’t make sense of it I had to create a world for myself that made sense. At a time in my life where I felt like I couldn’t do anything well, I knew I could write and it felt like a superpower.

Lately, I’ve been restless. If this is really a superpower, why don’t I feel super powerful? Why does it seem like I have been pursuing this for over a decade and have not bore much fruit? I don’t want to give up, but I almost don’t know where I am going.

I didn’t even know what I was going to write today so I started going through my emails to see if I could find an old poem or prose I could post today instead. (This would have been dishonest to do because the challenge is to write everyday, but I’m being honest with you all). And in looking for something old, I came across an email between my friend Elo and I in 2013. I had written to her the day before riddled with anxiety about leaving Nigeria to go to boarding school in England. I didn’t know how my parents would cope with an empty nest, especially my home and I feeling very weary.

She replied back, “My darling, there is nothing you will go through that God will not give you the strength to get through.
Something great is about to happen to you. I know this because he has provided thus far. There's no issue of not being able to send you to school because of fees, there's been no accident/mishap that renders you unable to be educated. Nothing.
You're a beautiful, bright, ambitious young girl with a world in front/inside of her. I know that you're so heavy with all the expectations and everything, but BE STILL.”

The restlessness I feel now reminds me of back then. My heart is so expectant it’s almost bursting at the seams. But I need to be still. She went on to say that, “Stillness can only be birthed by total trust in God's word, and consequently, His person.” I need to trust that this gift is a superpower that can heal and shine light onto others. I need to be faithful enough to know that it may be a decade later, but at the right time I will reap much fruit, and most importantly that I may not know where I am going but believe in a path and plan greater than myself.

I hope that in 10 years time, I will look back on my own words and be glad that I held the vision. I hope to laugh at my impatience. I hope I would have stayed committed to my progress even on the worst days because it was those days that brought me my pen and lead me here now.

This journey is long and it is always beautiful to look back. So when the day seems tough and I can’t seem to find a way through, I will look at my rearview mirror, at my own words and be glad that I didn’t give up then.

How Do You Want to Finish?

Now that I have most of this challenge behind me, I’ve started to think about what is next. What is the next goal, target, challenge? I had gotten so caught up in these thoughts that I forgot that I still have 5 more days of this challenge to go.

I fully intend on finishing this challenge well. Finishing well looks like intentionally writing each day and focusing on what is right in front of me because I didn’t start this challenge with a particular end goal in mind beyond stretching myself beyond what I thought I was capable of. When I first started, the challenge was showing up. Looking at the white screen in front of me was at times intimidating and I couldn’t always find the words. 15 days later, and I have found the words and they come much easier.

Sometimes finishing well means reflecting on why you started, and for me this [challenge] was always a necessary first step to following my dreams. It’s kind of crazy to think that every single word I write and share is pushing me closer to making my dreams a reality. It may seem like I have over-simplified the process to becoming a writer, but this is me sowing seeds. This is me becoming. Becoming isn’t glorious, and there isn’t much for others to celebrate me for now. I don’t have an inbox full people responding to pitches, or a finished manuscript, but this is the beginning and I’m thoroughly enjoying all of it.

A Quiet Place

One of my favorite places in New York is North 5th Street Pier in Williamsburg. During the height of the pandemic last year, I felt like I needed to get out and explore. Without the option of travel and deciding to stop using public transit I had limited options. So I would walk around my neighborhood trying to find new places, and one day I came across this pier. It was nestled in a residential part of Williamsburg, and at the time the few people there were walking their dogs or looking for a place of solitude like me.

I usually sit in a similar spot whenever I go, and it overlooks the Williamsburg bridge and Manhattan. Much of last year I questioned why on Earth I was in New York and if I really thought I could make it here. But there was something about coming to this place and looking across the water that was part humbling and part uplifting.

Although I had the solitude of my apartment to myself, I was seeking a different kind of solitude where the volume of my thoughts could be turned down. At the pier, I was able to concentrate on the glorious harmony of waves crashing against the shore. I was able to see that there was so much more than what I was able to see or think or imagine. Here I am, in the city of dreams living the life I had fervently prayed for just years before.

In my quiet place, I am able to hear the still small voice of God. Today His voice told me to trust Him and give thanks for the shift that is coming in my life. I consider it a privilege to be able to find a place where I can slow down enough to listen and amplify grace and compassion against the worry that simmers in me.

I was reminded that freedom isn’t a battle fought on one’s own, and I need to be willing to be vulnerable enough to let people enter into my troubles with me.

I am thankful for this pier that reminds me my hopes and dreams are still valid and attainable, and that New York really is my home.

Emotional Overload

If any of you are empaths like I am, this past year has been emotionally overwhelming. I am usually too busy or make myself emotionally unavailable so that I don’t have to feel everything, but then there are some days where I feel absolutely everything and it’s a lot.

Yesterday I had a day off work unexpectedly. I didn’t realize I would have Good Friday off until the day before, so I thought it would be a great opportunity to catch up on rest but the unexpected time with no plans left me idle for the first time in a long time. The weather was too cold to go to the park and enjoy a leisurely stroll. My roommate was working from home in our living room/office so I couldn’t watch tv and be too distracting. So I lay in bed, and at first it was relaxing then I started to feel everything.

All the unprocessed death from earlier in the year began to weigh on me. I went on Instagram to distract myself, but I was flooded with images of my friends in Lagos all hanging out together and living their lives as though the pandemic is over. Then I started missing my former life and my friends. I couldn’t remember the last time I saw some of them in person, and a lump in my throat began to grow. I began realizing the depth of my loneliness. I started to think about the fact that I really don’t have any plans or anything to look forward to this year. I would likely be unable to attend my brother’s university graduation. When next would I see my family?

The cold weather meant that I had to put the heater in my room on as I quickly became cold. So I went under the covers to warm up, and just like that I felt confined to my room and miserable. The juxtaposition between this and what I was seeing online, and what I was truly desiring sent me down an emotional spiral that I couldn’t shake off. It made me wonder if I would ever be free, if we would all ever really have this traumatic experience in our past?

When my mind drifts like I have to remember that my feelings while valid are not always the truth. I know I will be free from the emotional burden I feel and I know I will soon be free to live a more pleasurable version of my life. I may not know when, but I know that this current simulation could not possibly be forever.

My post last night describes how I was feeling in the thick of it. I was weak yet I knew the feeling would pass. I also knew I had to allow myself to feel because I couldn’t keep running away from myself because eventually it would catch up with me. I don’t know if I intentionally run away from myself, but I do know that I don’t prioritize feeling it. I already feel like I can barely squeeze everything in my day and still have time to exhale fully, but that will have to change.

What I experienced yesterday might very well happen again. It is something that I’ve been dealing with for years, and it has become considerably better in the past 2 years and I have my faith to thank for that. When hope feels fleeting and my fear begins to subsume me, one thing I hold on to the Psalms. I know that the Lord is my refuge and safety (Psalm 91:2). I know that weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning (Psalm 30:5).

Although I did not wake up this morning jumping for joy, I know this joy will come and I await it expectantly. I know in my heart this new season, this second quarter of the year is going to be so glorious and I will delight in the beauty of the spring. But for now, on this Holy Saturday, I wait. I wait not knowing, but believing. I wait in faith.

—————-

If you have been feeling the same way, or if any of this resonates I hope you know that you are not alone either. I know you know that joy will come in the morning. Hold on a while longer, and things will work out in your favor.

Therapy has been tremendously helpful during this time and if you are able to afford it, I encourage you to try. If you can’t afford it, try to identify people you feel safe and comfortable with sharing how you feel honestly. It may feel too big and ugly to share, but I have found that much of healing takes place in conversations. You will be okay. We will be okay.

Bad Friday

This is how today started

I got up and changed

I went to pick up a green juice and some croissants

(Because life is about balance)

I started to feel you evade my space

But I busied myself

I had a parcel to pick up 

I had some writing to do

I had some phone calls to make

(Distractions)

I don’t know how you happen to me

It’s been twelve years

I don’t know why you’re not done with me

I don’t know why you always come back

I started to feel myself sinking

I was exhausted from the past few months (or year)

I lay down to catch my breath

& I felt your weight heavily on me

In that moment I could have chosen to distract myself, like I usually do

I could have pushed you away and ignored you 

But I just let you happen because I didn’t have it in me to fight

Because I know I am stronger than you 

But some days I am weak

If I know anything about you

As slyly as you came, you will leave again

Maybe I’ve been doing this all wrong

Trying to avoid you

Trying to preoccupy myself to the point of numbness 

So I welcome you today, do your worst

And today will be your last

Because you will no longer be welcome here