Phew! The unpredictability of life never ceases to amaze me.
It’s the first week of January 2024, you planned to write this week because you’ve promised yourself and your readers that you won’t be slacking off this year, but then you get a call from your aunt asking if you can look over her business for a week or two, while she goes on a trip, you agree because handling her business means getting paid.
It’s the second week of January, and you’ve gotten so busy with work that you’ve forgotten you’re a writer and you need to write and publish a post. Work is stressful, you have no time for yourself. You get to work as early as 9 am and return home by 6 pm. “Where is the time to write, vlog and do all that?” You say to yourself.
It’s the third week of January, there’s no slacking off this week, as you’ve promised yourself. Now you’re back to vlogging but not writing. You know you’re not experiencing any writer’s block. You know if you pick up your Macbook and open the substack app, you would write something good but you keep holding back. Something is holding you back and you know it. It has a name. Laziness.
Now your aunt is back and you’re off work, time to get back to writing and publishing but your eyes keep itching and you know you have to check it out. You go to the optometrist and you’re told your eyesight has gotten bad. You have been diagnosed with Astigmatism and something else that I choose not to mention. You call your friends and family and everyone is panicking but you’re calm because what part of your body haven’t you seen a doctor for? You’re now used to it, used to all the diagnosis and for some reason, you know you would be fine.
You get home that day, all weak and tired. You get a call from your dad’s sister later that evening that your dad is ill and she wants you to speak to him. You’re confused and you call your siblings to verify if they both got the same call, they did. You panic less because you know your dad gets sick all the time and he always comes out fine, so you tell yourself that he is going to be fine this time even though a small voice deep down is telling you something else. You brush it off.
Around 10 pm that night, your mum bashes into your room and screams that he is gone “Who is gone?” you ask. “Your dad is gone.” She says. “To where?” you ask again but you get no reply. You know what she meant. He is dead. You feel cold shivers run through your body, you sit up on your bed. You can feel your body shaking but you start to doubt the authenticity of the news “Maybe they’re lying to us” you say to yourself. You summon the little strength you have to walk over to your mum’s room, you ask her if she is sure about the news, but you get no reply. You ask her who she got the news from, and she says, she got it from the doctor. Now you have to summon the courage to tell your siblings. You can feel your hands shaking. You call your elder brother and tell him. You can feel the silence from the other side of the phone. it’s deafening but loud. The next time he speaks, you can hear his voice shaking, your voice is also shaking. This is new to you both. You have lost people in the past but not someone this close. This is a first. You realize we have to pause mourning. We have a burial to plan.
In the twinkle of an eye, you’re on a plane to Ilorin, to deliver the news to your sister because you didn’t want to tell her on the phone when no one is there with her. She wouldn’t be able to handle it alone. “Why am I on a plane to Ilorin?” You keep asking yourself and then it hits you. It keeps hitting you. You just lost your dad and you’re on your way to tell your sis, meet up with your bother so y’all can travel down for his burial. You feel the cold shivers running through you again. You’ve not found the courage to tell anyone, only two of your closest friends. You get to Ilorin and drive down to your sister's school, she’s happy to see you, she screams for joy and runs into your arms, then she sees Mum and she starts to figure out something is wrong. The news is delivered to her and she breaks down in tears, you can’t cry because no matter how hard you try, the tears won’t come out. You blink again and you are in the village with your siblings, mum, uncles, and aunt, and a few faces you can’t recognize but they come to you and tell you they are your dad’s siblings but you don’t hear a thing because you’re still trying to process what just happened.
You’re back in Abuja but can’t seem to move on so you bury yourself into filming for YouTube. You stop yourself from thinking because thinking would take you back to the village, you’re standing there in front of the coffin and everyone is asking you to take a look at him one last time, you refuse but then you look at him for less than 5sec and his face has refused to leave your head. You try not to think deeply again but you find yourself at the burial ground, you’re told to pour sand on his coffin and say one last goodbye, your hands are shaky but someone supports you. You move away after pouring the sand and then you hear sounds, sounds that won’t leave your head no matter how many times you try to push it out, sounds of the sand being poured on his coffin by the men in the village. They are covering him up. They are too loud. You’re telling them to stop but no one can hear you, you find out you’re talking but just to yourself, you’re not audible enough and then you realize even your cries are silent but you’re in your brother’s arms and everyone around you is begging you to take it easy but you can’t hear them. You can only hear the sounds of the sand and screams from his siblings. You cover your ears with your hands but those sounds, the sound are forever stuck in your head. You snap back to reality and go back to filming. You won’t let yourself think again but you tell yourself deep down that you need to see a therapist.
You’re now feeling a bit better cause your best friend video calls you at least once every three days and forces you to pour out the tears. You spend your days on Twitter because it feels like your escape from reality. Nigeria won South Africa and the memes on Twitter were so funny, you forget about your reality for a while. Nigeria lost the Afcon Cup and you couldn’t stop laughing because the dragging from other countries was so hilarious. Little by little, you’re finding your steps again and you start dropping your YouTube videos, they’re doing better than you expected.
It’s Valentine’s Day but it skips your mind because just like last year and the year before that, you’re spending another Valentine's single, it has become a routine for you. “It’s just like every other day, nothing special,” you say to yourself as you pretend not to care. You go on Twitter and like all the couple's tweets because although you had planned to hate that day, the pictures are cute and you can’t help but smile. You drop your phone and go back to filming, little by little, you’re beginning to accept his death, that he is really gone. You start to smile again, a lot of things have changed around you but you saw it coming.
“It’s time to pick my life up again,” you say to yourself while also quietly reminding yourself that you still need to see a therapist.
Life is so fickle, I’ve always known that but as they say, you don’t really understand how anything feels until it happens to you. I think they call it a “circle of life” or so. (Hate that term because nothing about this life makes sense to me) Death, they say, is going to come for everyone, at their time and I’ve since been trying to make sense of it. I’m not scared of it anymore though.
It also made me realize, that no one knows what the next minute holds. No one! You can be making your plans while God is making his.
My plan for the year turned sour in the blink of an eye and at this moment I’m lost but I know I’ll find my way back.
I’m sorry for coming to see y’all late but this has been my reality since the year started. A rollercoaster of emotions.
Happy Friday loves.
Love, Joy.
Heyy Joy🌸
I came across your Substack a while ago and recently discovered your YouTube as well. At first I didn’t make the connection that you were the same person on YouTube.
When I was watching your latest vlog, I clicked on the description, that’s when I saw the Substack link, only to find out that I’m already subscribed haha
All this just to say that I love your writing and your vlogs, keep it up.
I’m sorry about your Dad’s passing, I hope you’re finding strength and clinging to it, I’m sending you a big hug 🫂 and playing Magic Shop in the background for you.💜
Take care, I can’t wait to read your next newsletter 🌹