This post is 3 years late, but I will be posting it anyway.
Finally, the theme of 2020 has come to me. Like the future Pastor that I am. Community. My word for 2020 is community. I know I’m supposed to come up with the word at the start of the year and run with it, but my church is different. Don’t ask me questions.
I had planned to write personalised letters to all of you who made my 2020 but the list is long and my biggest talent is laziness, so I’ll just do a recap here and offer my gratitude somewhere along the line.
At the start of 2019, my goal was to stay alive. At least, I met that goal, even though the devil tried it. This year, I had no goals. I entered 2020 fighting with a friend in his car. I had zero goals, zero targets (I kid, I saved exactly 1k€ out of the 10k€ that was my savings target for 2020), and absolutely zero expectations. I’m guessing this is why my 2020 went a little differently than the average persons’.
You know how something has always been in your face for so long and you didn’t know what you could do with it until some emergency happened? That was me with video calls, no thanks to COVID-19. I seem to have friends scattered everywhere and like just exactly 2 friends in my city. I am grateful for COVID, because I got to spend time with more friends, even though remotely. Not to shit on people who had terrible years, but this year, 2020, was my best year since 2017. I felt love the way I like to feel it: from community. In the small ways people came through for me, and listened to my specific wishes for my birthday. I won 2020, because I finally got to shoot my friendship shots to the womens and it entered!!!
I travelled. I discovered the wonderful city of Colmar, France. It is something out of a fairy tale, and you should visit it once in your life. I saw Lithuania and Poland and Switzerland for the first time. Travel has become a huge part of my life, because it gives me something to look forward to.
I felt hope in Nigeria for once, thanks to the #EndSARS campaign. We did not win, but I felt pride the entire two weeks youth in my country took to the streets to protest what became bigger than a rogue unit of the police force. I woke up every day feeling everything from fear, to pride, to inspiration, to hope. Maybe, maybe one day we will win, and Nigeria will work for us.
I learned and I am learning to take myself seriously, choose myself, and actually grow into my body. For the first time, I looked in the mirror and told myself I was okay. That my big stomach will never be flat and that’s enough. That my stretch marks are a part of me and that is also okay. I took more, and more pictures of myself. Because if I don’t love myself, who will?
