The new year is upon us y’all! I’ve been stewing on what to write and it’s especially hard this year. Why? This year has been less reflection and all motion…which is the status quo when kids come into your life, I think. I started the year off with a lot of anxiety. Kaito had just come home from the hospital and I just felt like my entire existence as a human, and our lives as a married couple, revolved around this new role of parenting. Limited sleep, eating almost for the sole purpose of having enough breast milk, resting only when the baby sleeps. It almost feels like your life is on autopilot and it throws off a lot of things.

Added to that, by the time I was released from hospital- due to continued high blood pressure from preeclampsia-, my maternity leave had already ended. #Whelp. I returned to work almost as soon as Kaito got out of the incubator. Just imagine, we had never held this child for the first 65 days of his life. He comes out of the hospital and I have about a month to learn and bond with my baby- almost 3 months after he’s born, then go right back into the work force. Crazy. Worse, I was moved to a new team when I was away in hospital, so spent my first few weeks back just trying to understand what the hell was happening. Lol. It was wild. Weirdly, I can’t remember now the details of that period, besides large blocks of joy mixed with stress and anxiety.

Just as I began to settle into everything. I got moved to another department at work where I only stayed for a month before another MAJOR move to where I currently am. All without a nanny for Kaito. I quickly transitioned from helicopter mummying to a more ‘If it doesn’t kill you, it will certainly make you stronger’ sort of approach to parenting…and we are all happier for it! Lol, I cannot come and go and die, abeg.

It’s funny that despite the numerous little victories, when I was reflecting on the year, all that came to mind in defining 2018 was a very difficult and dark period I’d experiemced in October. I won’t lie to you, that singular experience almost blitzed out the rest of my year. In fact, my default response to the question, “How was your 2018?”, was solely based on that one experience.

I had to step back and tell myself, “Hang on!” I mean, this is one thing not the entirety of your existence. So much happened in 2018! It’s easy for the bad times to overwhelm us and eclipse all the good things that constantly happen in our lives. A singular bad experience in October was enough for me to convince myself that this was a bad year…until the Holy Spirit convicted my spirit. Was it a bad year or did I have one difficult season in this year?

Exactly. Just one season…but I also had so many beautiful seasons in this same year! I mean if nothing else, I got to watch this cheeky, amazing, tiny 1kg baby grow everyday into an amazing child who is so aware, delightful and precious. This year we finally got what we had craved as a couple: normalcy. Lol. We had gotten pregnant so soon after we got married and the huge struggle with having a micro-preemie after that, made us feel like we hadn’t really had just a relaxed, normal marital life yet. 2018 gave it to us. 2018 also gave me some truly great work opportunities and progression. 2018 was great to my siblings as well, new jobs, an engagement and much more. 2018 was a year my husband stepped out in faith on something we had both been so scared to do and it’s been worth the courage.

Annnnnd in 2018, I got the best birthday present I’ve gotten so far in my life! My husband got me a solo vacation to Senegal in September. ONE, mums you know what a solo vacation away from the responsibility of house, husband and kid (s) means!!!! TWO,  I love Francophone Africa and I think Senegal is the only Francophone country in West Africa I hadn’t been to yet. Something always came up when I tried to schedule a trip. And my husband knew this. Soooo…one morning my alarm went off and I just wouldn’t move. Obim rolled over and poked me awake asking if I wasn’t going to work. I honestly said the first thing that came to my heart, without even opening my eyes I muttered,  “I am tired…from inside” Bruh I was so weary, man! Like, I’d just been going and going and going, operating on auto pilot for months and I was spent! So,  I get to work, see an email and it’s a ticket for a long weekend away on my birthday to Dakar, Senegal with a lovely room at the Radisson Blu right on the coast.

Tears, y’all. T.E.A.R.S.

It’s easy for hard times to define our lives. Let’s fight that. Let’s choose to  go into the new year hopeful and trusting God. That’s the single most important lesson this year taught me: TRUST GOD. Trust God, my friends…and let’s together hold this scripture close to heart every day in 2019:

“The ways of right-living people glow with light;
the longer they live, the brighter they shine.”

-Proverbs 4:18

Meaning, every year IS better than the last. Wow.

Happy new year everyone, welcome to our best year yet.xx