The Jar.

Long time no blog friends! If you are buds with me on social media, you may have seen that it’ll be going on a blog break to get re-inspired again. Life has been… tumultuous to say the least and with summer hot on our heels, I think more time outdoors and less time indoors staring at my phone may do me so good, so I’ll clearing out my drafts throughout the month of may, before saying au revoir until I can think of things to write about (which shouldn’t take too long with where life is heading at present..) Here’s something I started at the beginning of the year and I’ve only gotten round to finishing now. 

Back in January as my head was in the clouds, (quite literally as I was on a flight from Nigeria back to the UK), during the flight, I watched a delightful little film called ‘Every Brilliant Thing’. It is essentially a play about depression and the things that make life worth living, I won’t spoil the plot, but I will urge you to watch it. I laughed and then I cried until my eyes were red swollen golf balls. 

A few weeks ago, I picked up a twig, and between both hands, I snapped the twig in two. It made a sound that was satisfyingly horrific. The sharp snap and the crumbling felt all too similar. I snapped the twig to show myself that I had, much like the twig broken in two somewhere along the lines and I desperately needed to smooth these cracked jagged lines encompassing stress, fear and failure. Somehow in all this snapping, breaking and cracking, I remembered ‘every brilliant thing’ and it got me thinking, what if I note down some of the little and big brilliant things that happened day in and day out, that way, by the end of the day I could reflect on these things and hopefully these brilliant things would blur out the not so brilliant things, should they pop up. So I began writing, I started on one of my worst days, a day where I didn’t leave my bed for exhaustion, a day where I just lay there looking at the ceiling wondering what my purpose was, it got to 7 pm and I had sat up watching Brooklyn 99 on my phone, twenty minutes later and I still felt the same, if not even Captain Holt and Gina could shake the storm clouds hovering over my head then it seemed like nothing could. I put my phone down, picked up my journal and wrote ‘good things that happened this week’, and then I chewed my pen for ten minutes trying to rack my brain for some good things that happened but I could find nothing (or at least what I thought was nothing), then I remembered things that happened, that may not have been so significant to me, but may have been brilliant for others; 1.) Helped out a stranger going through a breakup. 2.) Helped out someone who is struggling with depression and have become their accountability partner. 3.) Wrote a letter to a friends sister who is struggling with their health, low confidence, being a teenager and being bullied at school. By the end of point three I felt something piecing back together inside, I didn’t feel so much like I was just floating, I felt purposeful.  Then I remembered brilliant things other people had done for me: 4.) Had four different acquaintances reach out to meet me for a coffee/lunch this week. 5.) A kind smiling woman let me get off a very busy bus before her, I had a stressful morning so this small act of kindness really made my day. 6.) My friends gave me the biggest group hug after they found out about something awful that had happened to me that day and it was the warmest feeling ever. 7.) Emmy sending me silly memes on Instagram that made me howl with laughter on the train home one night.

Then I also remembered some randomly brilliant things that happened this week and I was full on smiling as I wrote all these brilliant things down on thin strips of odd bits of paper. 8.) I was somehow shortlisted for lifestyle influencer of the year for the Blogosphere blog awards. 9.) I received the most beautiful and springy bouquet of peonies from Bloom & Wild. 10.) on my walk home from work I saw the sun setting over crisp azure blue skies and I felt an intense overwhelming sense of peace in those few minutes – they reminded me that this world is so big, so beautiful, so detailed. 

So this old mason jar began to fill with scrunched up balls of paper holding the brilliant things that have happened and the promises of what are to come. On the days where I feel out of sync and the jagged cracks begin to appear, I walk over to my jar, pull out a piece of paper and remember every brilliant thing that has happened, every brilliant thing happening right now, and every brilliant thing that will come to pass if I just keep my head above the thrashing waters that are well…. Life. 

What I Wore…

DRESS* – joanie | BAG – lekki market | SHOES* – next | RING* – adore 

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