Milestones

The year I turned thirty, I was a student battling to put finishing touches to my master’s degree dissertation and pondering what the future had in store for me. That the success or failure of that year, and the year before that, came down to that singular task was the result of an unanticipated turn of events which turned what was a leave of absence to return to full-time study into having to leave my Nigerian job. Grad school, my response to the year before that, had made sense in my head largely because it seemed a low risk, given there was a reasonably high likelihood of returning. I, as it would turn out was ultimately mistaken. ...

For the Day 5 prompt from AOM’s 31 Day Journaling Challenge. --- It wasn’t love at first sight but a slow melding of hearts and mind into a coherent whole, a journey of a thousand miles started by a single step which very quickly became a leap of faith into the great unknown of the future. Now with the benefit of a year behind us, it is clear that there was something here all along, gems hidden beneath the hard outer crust of life and all the bumps and scrapes it sent our ways. There is hope though, that bumps and all we will get there, somehow.

I had the joy of receiving my permanent residence card today, a key milestone on a journey that began at the back end of 2008 with my decision to head back to grad school in Newcastle. At the time, staying back in the United Kingdom, and becoming British were not necessarily on the agenda, it was meant to be a gap year away from what had been a difficult year at work. ...

\https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=videoseries?list=PLYbuHzHoxFuCf8ksItOz6ZdGAL_L8PR1W&w=800&h=315\ The continuum: loss, numbness, turmoil, (self induced) heartbreak, surrender and (finally) finding a peace of sorts.. Here’s to Beginning, Again… The Playlist Mad World - Gary Joules Wish - Lighthouse Family This Too Shall Pass - Yolanda Adams Shadowfeet - Brooke Fraser Father Me - Rick & Cathy Riso Read All About It - Emeli Sande Airplanes - B.O.B Love Alone Is Worth The Fight - Switchfoot Volcano - Rapture Ruckus & Jonathan Thulin Redemption Days - Josh Ojo Something New - Axwell Ingrosso Shake - MercyMe

To the Year of Living Intentionally, or dangerously… Between standing on the cusp of the 34th birthday, and getting a diagnosis of borderline LVH, I have come very close to freaking out more than a few times over the last few weeks. More so perhaps because in stumbling on an early copy of the 5 year plan - written back in the day when I was an excitable 26 year old with the dream job and the dream girl, and all the important people in my life the small matter of a six hour road trip away - just how far off target in quite a few categories I still am was made very clear. ...

It was my birthday a few weeks ago, and what should have been a routine, barely noticeable bump on the flat line that has become the ultra predictable, safety first, thirty-something year old life that is my lot somehow morphed into a swirling mess of mildly depressive emotions. The trigger was an epiphany of sorts, one that I had no business having. If having that epiphany was odd, where it hit was even odder - midway through my morning ablutions, just before the commode gave way to a four minute duel with sensodyne and a power toothbrush. Leading up to it, I was stoking along nicely, keeping up with my annual birthday ritual - deactivating my facebook account, turning off all but my private phone and lobbing a text message in the direction of the one friend I know whose birthday is in the same week as mine. ...

I have died- Seven times but one; Crushed beneath the weight- Of pain’s unrelenting Hammer blows. Straight right. Left hook. Right uppercut. Left jab. Right hook. Left uppercut. Cheek bones splintered- Lip leaking blood, Teeth- Bludgeoned until loose. Head spinning. Time, space Distance blending- Into a confused blur. Then over-hand right - And sight mercifully fades- Into blissful blackness. I have died– Seven times but one; But like a rubber ball Squashed flat against a hard place, I rebound seven times, Reborn.