Still Here

The time is currently 3:46pm and it is awfully quiet here. A young man, three houses away, has just passed and has been laid to rest by the youths in my community. His death was strange. They said the gout he had been managing killed him. Non-family members said he had been poisoned by his wife. None of this can bring him back now. I still saw him a few days ago as I raked dried grass in front of my house. I never spoke to him, except once, when he came banging on the gate, inebriated and aggressive, demanding my father sort out their power issues.

Now the street is quiet again. Too quiet.
And I am reminded that while the year is ending softly for some of us, it ended abruptly for others.

Loss has been a reality this year. Not always in death, but in things slipping away. Like losing a huge chunk of my savings to fraud for what was supposed to be my big girl purchase. Making postgraduate plans that did not work out. Letting go of versions of myself I had grown attached to. Carrying expectations for too long.

Grief does not always announce itself. Sometimes it simply settles in and changes the way you look at time.

Nonetheless, this year was not only about loss. There were wins. Some so small they almost felt undeserving of celebration. There were moments I survived when I did not know how I would. There was growth I only noticed in hindsight. There was grace, even in places I least expected.

Toward the end of the year, I was diagnosed with hyperopia, so I am now a glasses babe most days, living life behind new lenses. I met new people, people I did not think would become important parts of my life. I stopped writing because I no longer thought of myself as a writer. I lost my love for words and felt less articulate. But now, I am choosing not to overthink it. I’ll write in the simplest ways possible, caring less about perfection. I completed NYSC and started working at a dental clinic. And now, almost randomly, I use dental jargon in everyday conversation.

I am deeply grateful. For breath. For perspective. For the ability to still feel hopeful. For the lessons that stayed. For the ones that hurt but refined me. For the people who came, and the people who stayed.

As the year closes, I am choosing not to rush into resolutions or grand declarations. I am choosing gratitude. I am choosing honesty. And I am choosing hope. Not the naive kind, but the hope that says I am still here, and next year can hold something better.

Still here.
Still grateful.

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