I Have Learnt.

It has been a full year for me. Full of ups and downs, ins and outs. I say full because every quarter of the year witnessed a change of some sort in my life. Some unsettling, some exciting. In the midst of it all I have questioned my goals, my dreams and more often than ever before my capabilities. I have asked Can I do this? Can I be that person that I desire to be? Can I make my dreams reality? Many times I stood trapped in front of those questions, immobile. Too afraid of what the answers might be.
I have been crazily busy of late, starting my day at 4 am and not ending it till 10 pm sometimes. I have come to know what it means to be too exhausted to think. At some fearful moments, I have been afraid that my brain might just explode with exhaustion.
It has been an emotional year, with ghosts over a decade old rising from the dead and giving me a call. Amazing how we think we have settled our scores with some people until they call us. Then we realise that perhaps some chapters may never end even as we move on to new ones.
I won an award for my writing this year. It was both long expected and long awaited. I have been writing, submitting and getting rejected for about eight years now. The award was a sorely needed encouragement. It wasn't BIGGG but it was just what I needed or so I thought, until I found myself agonising over a new story I was writing and wondering if I had any talent at all barely a week after the awards were announced.
Yet in this full year, with its ups and downs, its doubts and cares, I have learnt so much. I have learnt that being Nigerian, I can handle more stress than I thought. I have learnt to take quick naps with my eyes half open (really). I have learnt to be thankful for the past I wish I could change because even though some had it better, others had it worse. I have learnt to forgive myself and others. I have learnt that I must be my greatest fan I have learnt how to write in restrooms, sitting on a toilet bowl with someone knocking on the door.
It has been a full year and I am grateful for the highs, the lows and the inbetweens. I am grateful because in it all I have learnt.