a handful of things.
It was Ayi Kwei Armah who wrote each thing that goes away returns, and nothing in the end is lost — and from the very first moment I came across these words, it has continued to stay with me, shape my many doubts into faith, and become my reality in a thousand different ways.
In an attempt to archive and document the stories of the year twenty-two, I find myself returning to Kwei Armah. First, in bits and pieces, in memories I scarcely remember, in successes and failures, in people represented by letters here, and in love that has continued to influence how I view and see the world.
At the beginning of the year, my first card at living was to learn how to pick the bits and pieces of a broken heart and how to love again. But this time, not the kind that I experienced in a failed three and half years relationship, it was something beautiful and different. It is K loving me in letters, books, and exchange of emails. A kind of love that started from a Twitter wishlist into DMs and book dates.
Sometimes, it is the kind of love expressed by PJ — feels like the 90s RnB. I found PJ in the least of all places and she stayed. This was February. It was also on a night in February my life flashed before my eyes in whisker, surviving an accident a few days before my birthday. Death does not come with a warning note or some sort of invitation, it just appears. Was it not TY Bello who said we are fire and we cannot be contained? Coincidentally, that was the song on my playlist when my rider lost control on a highway at 70 kilometers per hour on a busy Lagos road.
There are a lot of things to remember about February. OF’s chapbook, a dedicated birthday gift titled seven poems with love. It is six years of friendship with OF and she has loved me in the best way I could ever have wished for. In poetry, in conversations, in unapologetic rage, in failed dinner dates, in old jokes about Ife and OAU, and in the anniversary of breakups.
I find my many affections and accidents with OF in Dami Ajayi’s latest book of poetry. It was the good poet and doctor, who wrote that if I were God, I would do it differently. But also said, time is both teacher and the lecture theatre. For the now, I am grateful OF is here.
Work was never my favourite thing in twenty twenty-two. Thrice, I would have a failed attempt at resigning. The only time I had the courage to write a resignation letter, it was rejected with a promotion letter. Work was a test of faith and perseverance, and it nearly consumed me. On the many overwhelming days on slack, poetry saved me.
I would read out loud Titilope Sonuga’s Bones over and over again till the words stuck. I believe colleagues are colleagues and friends are friends, but in this contraction of both becoming the same, there were betrayals, friendship, and love. Betrayals by a handful of people I always went the mile for. Friendship with the many people I often disturbed outside slack (IM, PO, JD). Love by CN.
In K. Sello Duiker’s classic, The Hidden Star, he wrote that home is never far away when you believe in it. I found home in my many travels, in places, and with people who light up my paths. Ibadan gave me friends and memories I am eternally grateful for — T, P, and FK. I love these ones with every fabric of my skin. I have continued to gather a multitude of families: brothers, sisters, friends, and beautiful souls I would always love till death. Years and years of them doing this life thing with me.
Twenty-twenty-two was filled with rejections and prayers. Ironically, it was also the year I smashed all my goals and fulfilled many vanities — except not getting myself a C-300. Often in tears, in jumbled words, in lonely retreats and long travels, in tongues, in hymns, psalms and worships, in sad songs and bad dance steps, in a thousand and one things I swore I would never do, God found me.
