Quarters in circles…
INTRO: To journal is to fill the paper (or screen) with the breathings of your heart so you splatter your fears, scares and cares across the keypads of your Macbook pro while listening to Reach records’ summer playlist.
January: January is rushed- January is a galloping horse longing for its reins. It’s going for a 48 hours retreat and where you strategize forty-two hours, sleep for four hours and eat for two hours. January is recruitment, its selection, it’s realising that you determine the fate of some people, it’s shouldering the weight, the responsibility that comes with your role. Searching for a talent is like a search for a lover, you can only know your intentions, you can’t guarantee your lover’s.
January is for new beginnings, it is searching for a home , a spiritual home for the first time in for years, is attending “The New”, and deciding to date the church after few months of flirting ,hoping you’d fall in love sometime along the line.
January is sapa, is thanking God for jolly january savings on Cowrywise or how would you have survived the 63 days in January😂. I meant 93.
January is making a diary entry and sending a text to your friend Damilola, that reads:
“I am bland and slightly worried that I am bland. I feel like I am in the middle of the ocean, just flapping my arms. The world thinks I am swimming towards the shore just fine, but I think I am floating, surviving,hoping I won’t drown”
January is seeing Chimamanda again after three years and getting her a gift that made her smile heartily and remember your name.
February: February is interviews, is conversations, is conversing with people from diverse backgrounds. February is the month of love, is love plastering on a plain palette creating colourful portraits, the kind that last. It is opening your heart to love and be loved, intimately, passionately and to be reciprocated with the same intensity. It is realising Westlife was right when they said you could find love in strange places, it is opening your heart to cupid’s shot for the first time in three years.
Life is flower, love is the honey, no one mentions bees that stops by to sting sometime.
March: March is your birthday. March is your favorite month of the year. March is for gifts and kind words and fake love, and shout-outs. March is transitioning from Android to iPhone. It’s emptying your savings to buying an iPhone because Ini thinks it indicates a change of social status. (In NF’s voice, this isn’t true, it’s a lie we’ve all been made to believe in). March is ending your eight years relationship with Tecno to buy an iPhone. I mean, Tecno never did rate me, I should be their ambassador, not Tiwa Savage. Do they even know how much I love them? I will reconsider going back to Tecno if they give me Tecno camon 19, please let them know.
March is dinner at Marriot. It’s soothing hugs, it’s going to cinemas after work because a colleague irked you and your lover is doing her best to console you. C’est bisous, calins et petite mort. It’s wilding, taking risks and lovely adventures while giving your very best at work. It’s realising you only live once, but is this life your own?
March is onboarding, one of the favorite part of your work, it’s making people feel at home while they are at work. It’s remembering that you lead the “People and Culture” for a fast-growing fin-techs and you need a lot of grit, beyond the glitz.
April: is the fourth, is fighting, is being fought with. It’s your emotions conflicting for different reasons, some justifiable, some not. April is wearing camouflage, smiling at everyone, when your inside is a raging turmoil longing to burst. April is hang-out, boat-cruise, attempting to a life outside work. It’s meeting your star-friend and hearing her say “You are my guy for life”. April is defining love, defining work, and everything in between, it’s realizing the difference between wealthy and rich, and knowing you are neither both.
April is birthing an idea , a games idea that would transcend you. It’s working with a team of geniuses to launch an exciting book-game.
April is rewarding friendships that have passed a decade. April is Damilare Kuku introducing you to the world as your friend, it is you realising your social capital and its continuous increase. April is believer’s bond, is watching young and fervent youth gather for the gospel, is meeting Gaise three times in one week, it’s playing “An endless ocean’s Alakori” over and again. It’s knowing God really cares about you, who knows, maybe He was preparing you for May. The calm before the storm.
May: May is the longest month of the year. It’s you doubting your worth, your value over and again. It’s being in a clog, a mental mess, mesmerizing your mind. May is doubting yourself, it’s questioning your work, your worth and your value and competence. May is long voice-notes to Michael, and Dolapo, your career guide about your quagmire, it’s being at t.junctions of decisions, a place you hate to be. A deep dark hole, a dungeon
May is wondering if you should speak up, if you are not over-privileged or entitled, it’s turning down offers, mouthwatery offers because you know have a long-term plan.
May is serving breakfast for the first-time, you’ve always been the one served. It’s realising sometimes love is not enough or maybe you’re just a coward scared for love, or maybe not all types of love should be fought for.
May is seeing your product go live, and getting displayed at bookshops, it’s living a life outside work. It’s poetry renditions at Ouida books, its meeting up with friends, it’s taking stock of your life, and thanking God for where you are and where he is taking you to.
May is sharing the stage with your heroines, is meeting you look up to. It’s realise everyone has a story and yours isn’t so different. It’s realising people are a summation of their daily decision, and inspiring people is your passion.
JUNE- June is reset, is recluse, is acceptance, is making peace. June is been overwhelmed with work, is witnessing your friend Michael kiss death, but rejecting her cozy embrace and fiery fangs. June is realising health defects are real and special conditions are special for a reason, that SS is no joke, Asthma is not just another thing, that ADHD is a thing, and you need to learn how to love your loved ones more, so that they do not ever doubt your love for them.
June is backlog of hearty congratulations you sent, wondering why your congratulations was not hearty. June is going back to your Youtube channel, is revisiting poetry, is being a mentor at Sprinng.
June is “The Gathering”. June is realising that adulting est difficile. That you are responsible for every decisions you take, and did not take and every choice comes with their consequences, including the choice of not making a choice.
June is Juneteenth. Is meeting one of your favorite poets, and realising you have continuouslyly growing community, even offline. June is the perfect way to close the first half.
July is new beginning. It’s embracing reality. It’s asking the question “Where is my money going”, it’s realising you have saviour syndrome and you have to learn how to manage it. July is taking stock of your life, is giving cupid another opportunity to shoot, July is setting the tone for the rest of the year, its separating work time from personal time (you fail woefully at doing this, but you would keep trying). July is asking your talents to go for leave, wondering when you should go for yours because your greatest desire is actually to spend your leave outside Nigeria, even if it an African country, but your bank account won’t agree. July is getting a formal acceptance to be a guest contributor at an international magazine.
July is spending more time at home, with your brother and mother, is realising that your brother has been searching for a full-time remote content writing job, for one.two..three…months, is watching your mum dance because you did the dishes, picked beans and swept the home, July is knowing the importance of your roots, of where you came from and knowing the importance of the proverb “know the child of whom you are”
July is joy, is happiness, is knowing you can’t control what happens to you, but you can always control how you respond. July is love, is life, is living life fully.
