The one about the weirdness that is 2021

I started 2021 in the most beautiful way. My friends and I were being pampered at the The Ritz Carlton, Dubai. We decided that for the first time in our adult lives, we won’t ring in the new year in church. We were on Dubai streets, dancing, looking for Nigerian parties to crash and eventually watching the fireworks that heralded the beginning of 2021. If you know Dubai, you know they don’t do anything half-assed, so the fireworks were very magical, and we had the best time. I thought 2021 was off to an amazing start.

How wrong was I though, as early as 9^th January, my brother tested positive to COVID-19. I got to see firsthand how aggressive that darned virus is, it goes after your life pretty much. Almost every day of January was spent in tears and praying to God for grace over his life. Sickness takes its toll on not just the sick but also the caregivers. We could not do much for him physically due to the isolation. It hurts more when your loved one is ill and all you can do is watch from afar. Special thanks to my now sister-in-law who nursed him back to health for a whole month while trying to remain strong herself and not lose it. He got worse at some point and I told my friends that God must be punishing me for starting the new year on the streets instead of praying in church.

I remember crying the most I have ever cried in my life on my birthday. My brother’s birthday was 3 days after mine, he called me on mine, and he prayed so much for me like the end was near and it really looked like we had lost him for a moment there. I am thankful for doctors, medications and ultimately God for the recovery and healing. I am using this medium to extend condolences to everyone that lost a loved one either to COVID or other things, I pray that God will continue give you the fortitude to bear the loss and may you have a reason to smile soon. I know the pain never goes away, but I pray for grace for you to bear the grief.

The first quarter of the year went by so quickly, I can’t remember much of the grind in details. All I remember is that it was a daily monotony of being an adult while the world became more chaotic than ever. COVID refused to leave us alone, it continued to mutate in several forms and life as we knew it never truly came back till date.

2021 was a weird year for reasons I cannot lay my finger on. It wasn’t the year COVID started yet it was needlessly stressful and draining. My initial plan for this post was to highlight all the ways this year was off and stressed me out. I started making a list and it got way too long so I stopped plus I already covered some of it in my last blog post here. While on social media, I came across a post that implied being kind to yourself because we’re trying to survive a plague. The plague term might be a tad dramatic, but it is what it is. Anyway, the direction of this post has thus changed to highlight the couple of times I was able to laugh without a care in the world this year where one didn’t have a lot to be happy about.

In April, I visited Olumo Rock for the first time, a shame considering my mum is from Abeokuta, Ogun State. I had a weekend trip with my friends and my brother. We were stressed because traffic on Lagos – Ibadan expressway was hellish, but we eventually had the most amazing time. We visited the Olusegun Obasanjo Wildlife Park on our first day, had life-changing amala at a restaurant called Halaga and finally climbed the famous Olumo rock the next day. Eating quality ofada rice is a must when you visit Abeokuta and we did that before heading to Ibadan for the weekend. I am happy to announce that most of the nonsense they make in Lagos is just spicy stew and not quality ofada sauce. We went to two different night clubs and danced for hours, that’s probably my first time doing that as an adult. All in all, that was one weekend where I laughed, danced, and forgot all my troubles for a while.

Then in July, I had my annual vacation and visited Egypt for about 10 days. I have used the word magical and beautiful about 5 times in this post but right here is where they truly belong. Egypt is BEAUTIFUL and Hurghada, which is one of the cities in it is absolutely magical. You may not believe me, but I hope my header picture convinces you, it looks like a postcard picture but that’s me in Egypt. We visited Cairo, Luxor and Hurghada. I was able to knock some activities off my travel to-do list. I attempted and failed at snorkeling, successfully parasailed, and went up a hot air balloon at dawn in Luxor. This trip was my first experience traveling as part of a group. My friends and were initially worried about how everything would work out because we were used to traveling by ourselves. However, we took the risk and we ended up meeting the most amazing people (I hope they get to read this). While on this trip, I laughed, danced, and forgot about the mess that 2021 was for those few days.

My brother got married in August and it was lovely. We invited just a small number of guests because of COVID regulations but it was still the most beautiful ceremony I attended this year. My friends were with me and the road trip to Ile – Ife was a good time to catch up and laugh. I laughed, danced, and forgot about the mess that was 2021 for that weekend. Above all, everyone traveled and returned in one piece, glory to God.

After this was just months of intense burnout, more tears and 2021 being 2021. I feel like I didn’t make much progress in my career or even my personal life this year, but I am happy for all the times I got to laugh from my belly and had tears of joy stream down my eyes. This is/was also the year that I danced the most, I danced every opportunity I got good music. People troll about my terrible dancing skills but I will continue to dance because it makes me happy, I hope my haters know I won’t stop??? .

Amid this though, my friends and family kept sharing good news of their own with me and that also made me smile. They bought houses, got promoted, changed jobs, relocated to new countries, had babies, found love and so many other things. I am happy to live vicariously through them because I love them, and their win is lowkey mine.

I know you may not have had the best time this year, but I am grateful that you are alive to read this. I hope you don’t beat yourself up over the things that you couldn’t achieve. I hope you make peace with what 2021 was, remember all the times during the year when you genuinely smiled and felt God’s love. Remember the wise words of Zlatan, ‘overthinking no fit solve prohlem, better days are coming ma wobe‘. I pray 2022 is soft and easy for us all because we deserve nice things.

Kindly share in the comment section all the moments when you truly smiled and forgot about all your worries this year, I want to end this year smiling and laughing at your happy moments.

PS: I am starting 2022 in church because I refuse to pull the devil’s bra this year. ?