My darling Somi,
I Still Cry. Sometimes, it’s a crash of colliding waves that makes it hard to breathe or move and other times, the tears trickle ever so lightly and unintrusively, but I Still Cry. I am crying now.
I cry for you, who had to leave so early and has missed out on so much living. For your life. For your death. For the person you were and the person you never got to be. I cry for me, who lost my sister and has learned the very hard way that no, time does not heal all wounds. There are forever unfillable gaps. We have expanded. 2 weddings and 6 lives have been added to the gaping space between your here and your not here. I cry for the people you never got to love.
Language is leaving me for ways to explain that you are missing from me, as a friend and a sister. After so many years of holding my breath so my insides don’t spill over from the weight of a universe that doesn’t carry you inside of it, I have learnt to breathe in half-measured, spaced-out breaths. To live in a somewhat constant state of dissociation, allowing myself to remember without sinking, because really, what does it truly mean to sit permanently inside the unmeasurable final stain of sadness that death leaves behind? So I live, and I love, and I try to thrive, but through it all, I Carry You.
I carry you with me in all the months that make up a year. I start January sad because it is the last month I saw and hugged you; I start February devastated because it is the month that took you, and I start March afraid because it marked the beginning of life post-Somi. April-May finds me confused because here we go again. In June, I am inconsolable because it is your she-would-be-this-age month. July-August-September-October carry sad because the clock keeps ticking, and the seasons keep changing without you. November hurts because it is my I-am-a-new-age, and you are not here to bear witness to my life. I end December even sadder because we are all together, and you are nowhere to be found. Then, a new year starts, and here we go again.
It has been 12 years since I have heard your voice, held your hands and watched you belly laugh. A lot of life has not made sense in the time. I might not know much about much, but I do know with certainty that 12 years is a long time to be without you. It has been 12 years of “she’s-in-a-better-place-and-she-would-want-you-to-be-strong”, but I wanted you to be here, with me and not in a better place.
I am married now. Can you believe that? I am writing this sitting next to my husband, who never met you but says he loves you because I love you. He holds my hand when I’m Somi-Sad and sits inside the you-shaped sadness with me. You would approve of him.
A lot of the world as you knew it has changed; and sometimes, I imagine the ways you might have changed with it. You are happy, loved, and close to me in all variations of my imagination. We talked about who we would become when we grew up. I am now grown, and it hurts that you’re not here.
Nwanne m Nwanyị, Kedu? Ebee ka ị nọ? Enwere ọṅụ n’ebe ahụ? Is there an Eden that finds you light and bare, swaying to hymns and eating fruits? Do you like it? If there is, I imagine you find it corny. I write to you, and I talk to you. I carry you with me, ink to skin; it makes me feel close to you.
I have one-sided questions
M ka na-ebe akwa maka na ị ka na-efu m
January
In the first minute of the year 2023, I was tapping my champagne glass to the champagne glasses of some of the people I love the most in the world. I went to sleep with a smile on my face and glee in my heart.
February
I spent the first week in Malaga, Spain with my person, cut out from the internet and everyone that lives in it. We cycled up a hill, read books aloud to each other, took photos of one another and laughed a lot.
I started a new job as an analyst, in addition to the other works of my hands. It was and continues to be an experience in the discipline of showing up to something consistently, regardless of the many waves of living.
March.
I truly believed I was going to die from what was the worst sickness of my entire life. It hurt all over, breathing, being, living. I shudder at the thought.
My now husband, moved and moved and then moved his proposal plans because I thought I was going to die and if there was ever a perfect moment for a proposal, maybe that was not it.
He did find the perfect moment on the perfect day, and asked me to do life with and by him. I said yes because, he is and has always been my anchor. I’m now moored.
April.
We got traditionally married, surrounded by our favorite people and I learnt even more, what showing up for the people we choose looks like. My husband also turned a new age and we celebrated together and then with others.
May.
A loved friend threw us the most delightful wedding party and our hearts were full.
This month reminded me that everything in the world is connected one way or another, that a war happening can influence the works of our hands in tangible ways, as it should.
It also reminded me that building a brand is a 24/7 effort that takes so much and does not always give back, but we show up anyway, because what if?
June.
There was a lot of sun, which made me happy. I shot my first commercial shoot of the year which caused nostalgia for photography.
The lover & I got the city of London involved in our love by committing to each other in the court of Law. It was an intimate day of softness and family.
July.
We spent a lot of time with chosen family. Sleeping on the balcony, dancing, laughing, cooking, eating, twirling, observing, talking, group excercising, storytelling.
In London and Marrakech.
August.
Was the month of barbie and everything was pink.
I continued to try my best at NALÈ. Building our own community has become urgent for me because I want to create a brand that is a fond part of people’s lives and celebrations. This is a desire I carry with me.
September.
Came with loss, life, chosen family, given family, support, for me and others - giving and received, slowness, long talks, tears, laughter, growth, self searching, more loss, celebration of others, hosting, planning, building, breaking, support, and then it was quiet.
October.
Another devastating war in another part of the world forced on long suffering people. This made me very sad.
Family, funeral, shoots and more shoots, work, busy days spilled in into the other, into the other, music, long hugs, fear, showing up, the first wedding I’d been to in over 5 years, lots and lots of dancing, white wedding planning, wedding dress try ons, long talks of the future.
November.
I turned a new age. The lover & I went away for 10 days - first to Croatia and then to Montenegro. We were in awe of the the beauty of the world. Life slowed down for us, we ate delicious food; lots of it, we laughed, walked, talked, had late mornings and long nights. It was my perfect month of the year.
December.
We went to Portugal to see the church, the reception and taste the food for our white wedding day. It took our breath away in unison.
A free person I had never met passed away in a town I lived in long ago and this made me cry. I found it heartbreaking to die in the middle of fighting so fiercely for freedom.
Lots and lots and lots of family time that was never enough because I do love them so.
In Summary,
This is a year that gave and then gave some more to me. It was also a year that took.
I won, lost, cried and laughed; some months in equal measure. I doubted things and the motivation behind them. I loved and I received love. I am older and wiser than I was a year ago.
Truly thankful for existence and the way the rawness of sitting inside of it feels. I am alive and it is a glorious thing.
Thank you to the year that gave me a lot and taught me more.
For as long as memory has allowed, I’ve had big ideas and daily life has been taking steps towards the transfer of these ideas from brain to world. A birthing.
Sometimes there is an apparent reason for what is being birthed and other times there is a pull in the direction of the thing, that goes beyond vocabulary.
I met up with a cared for friend today and we talked about the varied sometimes parralel worlds we show up to daily in the act of creation. He asked me a simple question about a world I was describing. Why?
It led me down the path of realisation that sometimes we look too closely at the worlds we are building, accepting their sure existence, without necessarily questioning or understanding the why.
So, this is an open letter to self, pondering publicly on the why this world is important to me to create.
Building is audacious, lonely and more often than not, frightening. Einstein defines insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. By this definition, I have been insane for as long as memory allows. So have so many other dreamers that keep showing up to the building of things that take time and peace of mind in equal measures; pressed down, shaken together and running over; with the unwavering belief that the next day, week, month, year or even decade is the one that gives back.
In a fast modern world where ideas on their own have no footing, and must be paired with execution, distribution and promotion to make a whisper that could one day turn to a roar, it is the belief in self, the uplifting of peers and holding up of one another that makes the dream of tomorrow remotely possible.
This is my undiluted why.
Swaptime is a building a world of people that are building other worlds. An aggregator of dreamers who show up relentlessly to the itch that is their dream and the minuscule possibility that it could one day be brought forth to life. A world where pain points are shared and understood in unison, where there is an extension of self in the giving of skills acquired through the act of building, but also the receiving of extensions of others. An uplifting.
www.swaptime.co