You might have read this somewhere before but\u2026 here goes again.<\/p>\n
I stepped into the year 2012 with anger and frustration in my heart\u00a0and maybe in so many ways, it was selfish of me to forget that being\u00a0alive is the biggest joy of all but Life liked me where I was at that\u00a0moment.
\nI had no hopes when the year rolled in, a lot of expectations but\u00a0almost no hope because I\u2019d given up on the fake smiles and let myself
\ndescend into the sort of sadness that makes you blind to everything\u00a0and everyone else. You see, in September 2011, my boyfriend of 3 years\u00a0had looked me in the eye and on the same couch that he\u2019d asked me out\u00a0on, he\u2019d broken up with me. It couldn\u2019t have been easy because my\u00a0boyfriend had been my best friend for so long and I had been\u00a0completely myself with him.<\/p>\n
So with the New Year, I wasn\u2019t quite sure\u00a0if I was coming or going. The talkative me was gone and even my mother\u00a0was scared. Many times in January, I noticed my mother watched me\u00a0closely, but I was too exhausted to care. I was furious with the\u00a0economic turn that the country was taking, but I wouldn\u2019t get up to go\u00a0and Occupy. I had stopped trying to be friendly or to be a friend to\u00a0everyone else. After all, they would all hurt me and leave, and I\u2019d be\u00a0back to square one. Maybe I wasn\u2019t even worth it! I swore that I was\u00a0never going to risk that again.
\nOh but that was just the beginning.\u00a0My parents officially split up last year and although I remember\u00a0telling my mother to leave my dad some years back, when it finally\u00a0happened, it was messy. Maybe I need not have been but I was scared\u00a0for my mother. She\u2019s very much like me and somehow, in the midst of my\u00a0own darkness, I watched my mother go through so many of the same\u00a0intense emotions that I was struggling with. In more ways than one, we\u00a0were on our own. In a few short weeks, I had lost my hero to the world\u00a0and my dad and I had the biggest, most intense fight where I told him\u00a0in explicit terms how much I hated him. Maybe he thought I said it out\u00a0of anger, which I didn\u2019t so I made it a point to show him how much I\u00a0hated him. I cut him off.
\nMy brothers began to struggle with school. My mother was not working\u00a0and her shop was barely making a profit. I was trying to make ends\u00a0meet with the lousy job I had and we didn\u2019t even have accommodation.
\nIn a way that was the most important, my father was missing. My family\u00a0was in the worst place it could ever be. My brothers were sent back\u00a0home and at the point where I just wanted to end it all, I lay on my\u00a0bed, knife by my side and thought and thought and cried. I realized\u00a0how weak I really was.<\/p>\n
Too weak to even stop the pain from eating me\u00a0alive, too weak to kill myself.\u00a0But God works in mysterious ways. One day, my mother dragged me to\u00a0church and as I stood, I started crying. I was so hurt and angry with\u00a0God, with myself and it wasn\u2019t even February yet. But on my knees that\u00a0day, some sort of peace came over me, for my heart, for my family and\u00a0for the one person that I couldn\u2019t stop praying for. I listened to my\u00a0still small voice. I know that sounds weird, but somehow, listening to\u00a0my inner voice saved me. So when my ex boyfriend called me, I was\u00a0shocked. He had come to realize that maybe, just maybe he missed me a\u00a0little too much. LOL. I left my crappy job and put myself back out\u00a0there. In one day, I\u2019d gotten three amazing offers, none of which I\u00a0even stressed for because they called me without my application. The\u00a0offices wanted me to start immediately and maybe now is a good time to\u00a0say, maybe I should have taken that DealDey job. Lol. But it has been\u00a0good so far and I\u2019m learning a whole lot where I\u2019m at.
\nQuickly, July became September and everything was good for me. My\u00a0mother was getting better (Lord Knows I had missed her twinkling brown\u00a0eyes and dimples). She began to look very hot (believe it, *giggles*)\u00a0and I was in a better relationship with my best friend. The
\nturn-around in my life made me sooooooo dizzy and so sure of where I\u00a0was going. Everything (well, almost) that I had prayed for was
\nhappening. I was happy but the struggle had not ended because my\u00a0brothers have had to manage a whole lot more than they deserved to. My\u00a0brothers are still struggling with school but I know something more is\u00a0coming through for me. This year, I finally opened up myself to the\u00a0idea of this marriage thing and I think The Boo is almost always\u00a0dancing when I nod and agree that we\u2019ll have 3 kids.<\/p>\n
Weirdly and unexpectedly, I made some good friends last year, via\u00a0twitter (which i thought was impossible) and otherwise. I\u2019m learning
\nfrom them and they encourage me, my talents, my skills and help me\u00a0sort out the mess in my own head. Also, for the first time in my life,
\nI actually weighed 43kg (don\u2019t laugh, it isn\u2019t funny). I\u2019ve come to\u00a0finally accept and appreciate how God made me. I could finally look in
\nthe mirror and say, \u201cOyin, you really are a beautiful girl. I mean,\u00a0look at that nose!!\u201d I don\u2019t know if you can understand that my
\nstatement is not borne of pride, but acceptance. Now I\u2019m at that place\u00a0where nobody can make me feel badly about myself and how I look. (it\u2019s\u00a0all breezy up here, *giggles*).<\/p>\n
It was a struggle for me to get here\u00a0because I used to look down on myself a lot, I used to second-guess\u00a0myself too but now I think Oyin is pretty cool. I\u2019m (sometimes) in a\u00a0foolishly happy place.
\nWell, so last year has been a true test for me. A test of my faith in\u00a0God, a test of my faith in myself and I\u2019ve realized that I\u2019m way
\nstronger now than I could ever imagine. I KNOW that this year 2013\u00a0will sort out my brothers\u2019 education, and maybe I\u2019ll learn to forgive\u00a0my dad for not being the man that I thought he was. (maybe I\u2019m too\u00a0much of a romantic). I intend to take every window of opportunity in
\n2013 because I KNOW there are going to be a lot of them!<\/p>\n
Its amazing that January hasn\u2019t ended and I\u2019ve gone through a series\u00a0of emotions, plans have become more real, and I have taken giant
\nsteps. At the beginning of this year, I only had one plan. My plan was\u00a0to DO. That was my plan, my watch word and so far, the last 23 days of\u00a0DOING have been eye-opening. I\u2019ve almost gone from just thinking and\u00a0making lists to actually making sure that all my plans are being\u00a0ticked off that very long list.
\nI have a long enjoyable year ahead of me and i\u2019m not going to take it\u00a0for granted!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You might have read this somewhere before but\u2026 here goes again. I stepped into the year 2012 with anger and frustration in my heart\u00a0and maybe in so many ways, it was selfish of me to forget that being\u00a0alive is the biggest joy of all but Life liked me where I was at that\u00a0moment. I had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3226,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1015],"tags":[576,1020,573,4002,169,1038,1037,298],"class_list":["post-3245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1015","tag-vixenpixie","tag-10days10writers","tag-573","tag-4002","tag-featured","tag-nigerian-twitter","tag-oyin-sanni","tag-twitter-celeb"],"yoast_head":"\n