Looking back into rippled waters: a letter to my 2019 self

Dear me of 2019,You will not understand how I have arrived here. You will know though, the craziness that has carried me here. You will not believe what has happened in 2020. Even I do not believe some of it.

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When we parted ways on the 31st of December, 2019, I was dying. I mean, I looked at you, in the mirror, and told you, fuck it, I'm done. If I had the guts, I would have killed myself and you understood what it means to be so tired, nothing hurts anymore.

You had the highs of meeting new people in the world of writing, I had the low of knowing that I would never be enough. I wanted so much to be a part, to use the right words, call the right names, pontificate on the right topics but you know me very well, I remained the shadow lost behind the light.

When I left you, in that dark moment, I cut myself from everything. You should have seen me. I folded myself into the tomb of silence and shut the lid. People tried to reach me again and again. I rebuffed every attempt, praying for God to come and take me. He did not come. So as usual, I went back to writing poetry. I did not stop there, I began to follow and read stuff on writing on social media again and soon, I began submitting.

When our sister got married in March, I was very sick but nobody knew. I managed to hide my depression through the plastered smile and in desperation, sure that if I spent another month in my own self created cell, I would lose that singular light in my life, which is writing, I got a job.

You should have seen me. I worked hard, grew lean, watched life live, watched people come and go, humans be human and wrote poems. The acceptances started coming, unbelievably. Then the covid 19 threat became real and I had to wear a mask as well as listen to ignorant takes on the what, the why, the where, the how of the pandemic. I began to see how easy it is to deceive us.

2020 had soured on my tongue. I read the news then stopped reading the news. The morbid nature of reports about the death tolls was not what my mind needed. I was already used to the isolation, after all I had self isolated myself before the virus came. But I survived on and on, becoming more and more of a sentient person than you.

I faced my own triumphs squarely, found love and friendship in that weird way that you and I know so well. Do you know that I then quit my job and moved to another state? At 35,i am starting afresh again. That was a gutsy move and you probably would not have been able to do it. I did. I left everything and changed cities on the basis of a promise and a whiff of possibility.

Since then, I have learnt a thing or two more about life. I have grown a bit and I am also very much the same. I also have no home, no property, no money and no job. Am I a vagrant, a migrant, an exiled body? Nowhere is home.

Did I tell you that I got a best of the Net nomination? That was surreal. You did not dream of this. I have over ten journals carrying my poems. It is a jaw dropping feat and you did not hope for this. In the new city, I write and read, dream and laugh. I cry sometimes, scream into my fists in the bathroom and then, I cook, I clean, I jog, I hope. It is nothing, to hope. You should see all I have learnt.

When we parted ways at the mirror, tears in our eyes, death in our hearts, I did not know I would find all these things here in 2020. In spite of pain, I have made something of life, some small space of existence. Some people have lived only once. I have had the opportunity to live several lives in this body.

I am almost at the end of my journey. I know what I achieved, you know what you sacrificed. I wonder what words 2021 will say to us. I hope they are awesome and positive. Mostly, I hope they are kind. Amin

Big love and thank you to @trucklife-family for nominating me for this challenge. So now, I would like to tag a few people to get involved, @katrina-ariel, @chinyerevivian, @zizymena, @hetty-rowan and @tezmel to write a letter to yourself in 2019. If you choose to get involved, remember to tag some others and to use the #mein2019 tag

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📸:pixabay