Milestones, Valentines Day and The Transcendent Kingdom

Hey People! It has been a minute. I have always thought about writing but I always feel like I need a ‘ghen ghen’ topic to write about every time. However, I was having a conversation with my friend yesterday, who challenged me to be consistent. For me, writing has always been an outlet, so I committed to start a weekly series, just writing about the week that was, topics that excited me in the last week and some thoughts for the coming week.

It was my mum’s 60th birthday a little over a week ago (12th February) and what a delight it was. I have seen my relationship with my mum evolve over the last 30 years across various phases of my life. I find it interesting that my mum is now one of my closest confidants considering that I would never have dared to let her in on my private life years ago – lol. Thanks to Covid, we could not have a big party like we would have loved to, but we managed to give her a memorable 60th and the joy that she felt on that day was all we could have hoped for. Big shout out to everyone that made the day what it was – love you all.

Then came Valentines day. A lot of people have different views about celebrating valentines day, which I totally respect. For me, I have never had a strong opinion about the day – I just take it as one other day to celebrate. I believe in the Yoruba adage that says “eni ti Odun ba balaye, o ye ko sope….” i.e. whoever any celebration meets alive should be grateful; so I take all special celebrations with the same glee and find a way to make it special.

Interestingly, Valentine’s day this year marked the 10th Valentines celebration I and Kay have spent as a ‘couple’. Of course, for a relationship that long, we have had our own share of ups and downs but it is always a nice reminder of how far we have come.

I remember the 1st Valentine in 2011, we had only started dating a few days before and I didn’t have any expectation on the day. I was in school in Ile-Ife; he had graduated the year before. Few hours into the day, I got a call and received a delivery of a cake and wine. That cake was the funniest cake I have ever come across – my friends and I were excited to dive in and when we cut it, it tasted like ****. I always have a good laugh teasing him about it and this year was no different.

I am currently typing from my Valentines day gift for this year – My MacBook Air, 2020 and Omo! the excitement I felt when I got the gift, I cannot express. I acted like a village girl that I am and was hugging the laptop all day. It was just a really thoughtful and timely gift.

With Kay’s recent obsession with table tennis, I got him an indoor table tennis board still waiting to be installed so I don’t have a live picture yet … expect a picture when it is. We couldn’t go out on a date on Valentine’s Day as we were both exhausted from our Ibadan trip but overall, it was a good day. Cheers to many more *clink*

My book club pick for this month was a fiction novel – Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi and this book is by far the weirdest book I have ever read. It is not the type of book I will personally pick up, however, I was glad I got to read it. One of the perks of being in a book club is that it opens you up to a diverse world of reading and perspectives. The book touched on very sensitive topics like addiction, religion, depression and I can’t wait till our group discussion on it next Sunday to hear the various takes.

And yes- congratulations to Naomi Osaka on winning her 4th Grand Slam, such an extraordinary journey she has. I will always be a Serena Williams groupie and I am rooting for Serena to get that 24th Grand Slam win.

I hope you had a great week and here is wishing you an amazing week ahead.

See you next week!

Note: “Your life is always speaking to you, sometimes in whispers, pay attention”