You see, failure is something I detest with every fiber of my being, no matter the size or quantity. One of the first lessons life taught me was to sit still with failure, to absorb the reality that things will not always go my way no matter how much I try.

I remember crying my eyes out if I didn’t come first in class as a child. I would be disconsolate for days, especially if I put in my utmost and it did not yield any result. My mum has been my human antidepressant, spurring me to life when the bouts of unhappiness swept over me due to failing.

So, when I failed my written driver’s test the first person I called was my mum. As I explained to her, drops of tears trickled down my cheeks. Instead of her usual consolation, she started with “don’t be offended my daughter,” a line that is always followed by sarcasm. I waited.

She continued: “do you have a car that you have parked in your house?” At this point my cheek had began to expand and a smile escaped. She continued: “No, forgive me please. I’m just curious. Is there a car at home that you bought and are unable to drive because you failed this test?”

Coming to terms with the reality that I actually did not have a car yet, and there was actually not much at stake, and that I had as usual magnified failure into fatality, I erupted into raucous laughter. My mum’s sarcasm is elevated by a stoic face and endless courteous apologies but it came in so handy that day.

Well, I passed the test on my second attempt but the lesson from my mother’s remark has remained with me. Sometimes, we exalt failure beyond our reality. As long as there is a chance to try again, failure is not fatal.

This video would have been perfect if it did not look like my late aunt stole out of the grave to do a short video for my amusement. The resemblance was very uncanny. The same smile, same waist, same motherly playfulness.

When I felt what I had suspected, it was too late. One tear drop slid down my cheekbone and another followed the way that kids take turns for a merry go round. It didn’t help that the dancing woman in this video was also dead. I felt my bra suffocate me. I have not cried in a very long time regarding my aunt’s demise and I had started to triumphantly believe that I was past crying, time heals like they say. It’s been eight years.

Afterwards, I felt the silence of a mourning house the day after the wake keep of a loved one. The kind that is borne out of exhausted lungs. If I weren’t weak I would be mad at myself, at the fact that I looked for all the memories that danced around me today months and years ago but I couldn’t find them. Why do I remember her voice and laughter so clearly today out of nowhere? Where did these memories erupt from?

In the stillness of my thoughts, I closed the video of the dancing woman and munched on my chocolate bar.

I couldn’t afford the outfits that the week’s activities required. For context, Final Year Week had a different theme for each day — from native wear to corporate wear, to jeans, and even themed costumes. On the very first day, this course mate noticed my absence in the pictures and asked why I wasn’t part of the celebrations. I explained that buying new outfits was a luxury I simply couldn’t afford.

My first shock came when she gave me some money. It wasn’t an amount I would have expected a classmate to give so freely, especially since we were not particularly close. The second shock is what prompted me to write this reflection. Under my recent comment on her post, she thanked me for sharing the memory but admitted she had completely forgotten: “I don’t remember,” she said.

While I quizzed myself about how someone could share such grand sum and not remember, I got to understand that some people genuinely do good and totally forget. Perhaps, good doing is a habit that makes it utterly impossible for them to keep up. The biggest lesson here is that while you as a giver might forget what you consider a negligible assistance, the person who you helped might never forget such magnanimity.

I told him I liked his shirt and that it was not often I saw an Uber driver look very corporate. With a beaming smile, he explained that he understands how women feel more comfortable when an Uber driver is on a corporate shirt and he does this often to put the mind of his female riders at ease. He offered me candies and we proceeded to talking about other things.

We talked about the city and the unpredictability of its weather. He mentioned that he wasn’t from here originally, but his wife is a native and they have been married for twenty five years. I asked him what advice he had for a young, unmarried person who aspired to longevity in marriage. I have never seen anyone that elated to answer a question. He said “never forget the simple things because they matter. You can never do enough of the simple things.”

He continued: “There are days when I walk past a garden and pick a flower for my wife. At other times, I am buying her a horse-themed gift in a shop because everything about horses tickles her. But it was not always like this. I was married to someone previously and I was a wreck, I screwed up my first marriage. Coming from the side of the country where I was never in lack of activities to this place where, you know, is pretty quiet, I searched for things to do and found the wrong things. I drowned myself in liquor; I drank myself beyond recognition. I did drugs. And after some years my first wife couldn’t stand it anymore. She left.

“But you don’t know how bad you are while you’re there until you look back and see it. I was divorced from my first wife for over a year before I met my new wife. Well, I have now been sober for twenty five years and I have been the best husband and father ever since.”

My mind wandered from the wonder of how he turned his life around, to how it took the end of his first marriage for this to happen, to how happy his home must feel, to how proud he is of his ability to right his wrongs. Ultimately, my mind settled on his final words to me and has remained there for weeks: “The small things go forever. You can never do enough of them. I am the luckiest man alive.”

What happens when they ask you the source of your smiles?
“How do you manage to stay happy all the time?” they ask.

And you smile, swallow, and scratch your head, searching for an answer that isn’t laced with even a hint of a lie.

How do you tell them that you are the main recipient of the words of encouragement you so freely give?

What happens when you are the strong one? Do you stay strong, or do you break — watching their world crumble because they know that whatever has hit you this hard could crush them?

If there is one thing this year taught me, it was the power of equanimity. I walked in ease that I cannot fathom at this point even though I had no reason to. At every given point I rested in the assurance that something good was on its way. I couldn’t see or touch it but there was a deep conviction in my heart — an evidence that I couldn’t put into words.

I remember telling someone that we had to meet last December because I knew it would be the last time we would see each other for a long while if we didn’t. For someone who had received rejection letters like a daily alarm, it was a bold statement. But I said it anyway — and it happened.

This year, I made my first international trip. For the first time, I found myself thousands of miles away from home, flanked on all sides by people of a different culture and ethnicity. Embracing change is not something anyone can adequately prepare for, yet it is transformative. As I look ahead, I pray for even greater “disruption” in 2025 knowing that the growth that comes with change cannot be overemphasized.

There are decades when nothing happens and there are years when decades happen. This year felt like a decade to me. It was like every effort I had ever put in throughout my lifetime was finally rewarded, and all I had to do was sit back and watch every good thing unfold.

Did I learn lessons too? Certainly. It was the first time someone close attempted to poison me. You can never be too careful in matters of trust and love. In all, you cannot stop trusting and loving if that is all your heart was ever taught to do.

Here I am, carrying what I once feared would be the weight of expectations — the burden of erasing and rewriting family history — but it feels as light as floating feathers. I am traveling light on this course. No regrets. No pain. No hurt. Just gratitude beyond what words can express.

The most beautiful thing about ending the year is that I feel the identical ease that I felt at this time last year — the feeling that something positively disruptive is on the horizon, ready to alter my life for the very best.

I am inching closer to the time when I can no longer reflect on my year without mentioning the welcome “aliens” who have invaded my personal space: one that I kiss good morning with the brightest sparkles, others I cuddle and sing nursery rhymes to, some who do things that remind me of myself as a toddler, and one who holds my hand and shows me that I don’t have to shoulder everything alone.

Finally, if there is one line I have adopted as my mantra, it is this: God is faithful — too faithful to a fault.

Shall we, 2025?

I feel like a stranger when I go through some of my works from the past. It’s like I am a guest rummaging through artifacts in a museum. It’s more of a shocker how some stuff I had written way before come back to be handy. More like I envisaged a need and prepared an antidote ahead.

Sometimes I try my best to recall the emotions I felt at the time I put the words to paper. I get successful at times but at other times I am not. There are times when one word brings back the exact headspace I was at the time I wrote, and for other times, I could go over and over several words and not find a link to my emotions at the time.

I strongly believe the universe is in its fashion revisiting our past through the lens of the present. And so, while some experiences are novel, they are not very unrelated to some time in the past. Because emotions are like a pendulum, they swing forwards and backwards such that you can taste the feelings from the past on the tip of your tongue.

And this is why I will not stop writing. Because the universe has had me writing future letters to myself under the guise of writing for others. Because these words I have penned today might come handy in the next decade. Because this is a store room for my emotions and I have found a pattern of repeat.

From wearing unforms, to playing football with my neighbours in our large compound, to burning the midnight candle to take first position in class, all of these were only yesterday as much as I remember. And soon I’ll rewatch these memories from the eye of my kids.

If you’re not intentional, life comes at you so fast that you realise you never found time to love yourself, to rejuvenate, to connect with nature, to take in all the love that the universe brings. Take small breaks to enjoy the present. Someone said the present is a gift and I totally agree. It’s a gift you cannot defer.

When you pull through back-breaking projects make some time to unwind. Reach out to family because they won’t be here forever. The world around you may be spinning but I bet that you have the power to pause it for a second or more. Use this power more frequently.

But the thing is at some point I began to associate the song to that period of my life such that it was not possible to play it without feeling a surge of emotions. Soon, I stopped playing the song altogether and it faded from my memory for years.

So, today when I saw the title of that very song on my timeline, I felt the compulsion to play it. As soon as it came on, I sensed a feeling of nostalgia which grew into melancholy. But I fought the urge to change it. Actually, I couldn’t because I had missed it. The urge to change the song got defeated by the realisation of how much it helped me and how great a song it is. I feel like the singers sat by the feet of God and got a cheat code.

Listening to this song gave me the muse to write today. I recall being asked yesterday by my colleague why I hadn’t written for some time, and I responded that I had hit writer’s block. I promised to get back to writing but even then, I had no certainty of how I would do that and how soon. Who knew this song from my not-so-distant past would bring me the muse I needed to write.

Memories are powerful. Music is a powerhouse. When you combine both you have a strong emotion that may outweigh you. It is my honest prayer that you are able to listen to songs you used to love and rise above the sad memories some of them bear. That you listen with a sense of gratitude for rising above what was meant to break you.

As a bonus, the song is titled “Respond” by Travis Greene. And no, it’s not a love song, at least not in the usual sense.

There were a number of times that I did not remember to withdraw cash from the bank with which I would take the bus after being dropped off. On those days I would ask my colleague in the car to assist me with some cash which I would refund as soon as I was able to make a cash withdrawal.

Well, one day this colleague relocated, and I also couldn’t join the free ride like I used to because of differing commitments. Surprisingly, I never got to the point of requesting cash again. Somehow, I always knew when to restock on cash sufficient enough to get me home.

Then it occurred to me that knowing that my colleague would always sort me out when I was starved of cash had made me grow inadvertently reliant on her. Such that it took her relocating to get me fully dependent on myself to sort out my cash withdrawal issues.

And you must have found yourself in such situations. Perhaps it took the loss of a wealthy parent to get you more self-dependent, or the loss of a relationship to get you focused. It always beats me how the human mind is able to adapt to forever changing circumstances. The moment your brain becomes aware that all you have is you it fires up to an unprecedented degree.

This is a marvel and a consolation at the same time. You are more sufficient than you know. Yes, support is crucial and cannot be overemphasized but if the absence of one person signals the end of your world, then you might need to make some changes. What are those things you fear you might never be able to do on your own? Don’t be surprised that it might take pain and discomfort to get you to a point of self-reliance.

With the right changes, one day you’ll realise you would be able to do it all by yourself.