Life

I wanted to give this post a more creative title. Or at least something more specific. A basic “Life Update” would do, or “Life, Currently.” Yet weirdly, that one word, “Life”, said it all.

Life hasn’t been OK. Sometimes I’m willing to go into details but not today.

Last week’s stress-fueled and tear-fueled mini book haul

I mean, the photo caption above says it all. But while circumstances and recent events have been dire, I know with a bizarre certainty that while I’m not OK now, I will be OK. And you know what? That’s the nature of my life.

It’s certainly not the life I expected or wanted, but I’ve come to accept it.

Let me clarify – that sounds ungrateful.

What I mean is, my life has been a total roller coaster when I had always expected stability and monotony. Funnily enough, I remember praying a prayer of gratitude, in which I was thankful for my flat and solid life mere months before the dramatic ups and downs began.

I know I’ll be OK because I’ve been through other hardships and I’ve learned that things will eventually be OK. I was telling all this to my best friend earlier this week and she sent a message saying, “You would never be happy with a monotonous life. You are so full of life!”

So there we go. Life, in all its challenges and beauty and victories and discontents.

An anonymous blessing

This is one of my very favorite purchases from my New York trip in May. I am astonished that the words on a tourist-shop card, of all things, have managed to encapsulate the story of my life. I am annoyed that I didn’t come up with such perfection.

My life has had everything: happiness, trials, successes, times when I had to be extra strong and determined, moments where I had to take a leap of faith. I just have to take this life as a compliment and a challenge because I can handle it.

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Reading, sadly, has had a diminished role in my life this year (and last year, ugh!). Yet I keep buying books at an alarming rate. It’s almost as if my wallet is doing all the work in maintaining the central role of good books and good writing in my life.

I am trying harder than ever to jump-start my reading. I am currently in the middle of 5 books, but Stay with Me by Ayobami Adebayo has kept me turning the pages most. Of the reading pile, it’s the last book I’ve started, but it will likely be the first book I finish.

Finally, I also want to jump-start non work-related writing. No promises, but I aim to upload two more posts this month. And just try to write an introductory segment to a fiction project. Wish me luck!