Season 8, Episode 7: The one where Keyu turns 27.
Cue in the starting soundtrack: Strawberry Swing by Coldplay.
In 2021, during a postgraduate class called Foundations of Leadership, we were given an assignment essay to write a final vision. The premise was that you can’t live a life you are unable to envision.
Sometime earlier this year, I was looking for something in my old drive and stumbled on this assignment. I was with a friend when I saw it and was curious about what I had written because I had completely forgotten what was in there. They were also curious about it and asked me to read it out loud. It's safe to say I cringed all through while reading it. But then again, there’s a reason no one is ever embarrassed by the future.
Mahn, I wanted the earth to open up and swallow me whole as I continued to read. When I say it was a thousand shades of cringe, I am not exaggerating. I could not believe some younger version of me in her early 20s wrote that.
Not because there was bad grammar but because the vision I had for my life then and the one I have now are so far apart that it would sound like two different people talking.
I have kept a journal daily for almost two years; I do mine the old-school way. With a pen, a book, and the prefix — Dear Diary. Every year since 2021, I also write a letter to my future self during my birthday season. After years of dealing with birthday blues, I decided it was a great way to fight it. By taking a glimpse into where I was in the previous year and comparing it to where I am now, I can be grateful that I am moving forward. I tend to dwell on my shortcomings and negatives, so doing this helps ground me and lets me know that I am doing fine and growing, no matter how slowly.
I have a weird relationship with change. It's mostly that I don’t like it. For example, I don’t like it when people move things in my house without my permission. Even if it seems chaotic, I refer to such things as an organized mess.
Every morning when I go to the gym, I almost always take the same bus with the same driver as long as I leave the house at a particular time. I like that the driver is reliable and predictable and that he will be there as long as I do my part. I like routines because they serve as a constant and give me a sense of structure.
But reading the letter from my 2023 self and my 2021 school essay, I realize that even without trying, I have changed. The change between my 2023 self isn’t as widely different as that of 2021, but it is there. Some of my ideals have changed. I have dropped certain opinions and ideologies, abandoned some battles, picked up new ones, and broken certain bad habits, i.e., Twitter, without even realizing it. The things I want for my life have also changed, and I have made peace with specific desires that may or may not manifest. I was genuinely perplexed because some of these meant the world to me a year ago, and others weren’t even things I regarded.
“We’re all capable of the most incredible change. We can evolve while still staying true to who we are. We can honor who we’ve been and choose who we want to be next.” ― The Thirteenth Doctor: Jodie Whittaker.
Thinking about this in the light of romantic relationships, I guess I can see why people break up. It’s a remarkable feat to live with every version of a person and choose to love them regardless. I used to say it wasn’t that hard to love someone forever as long as the core of who they are doesn’t change, and I still think this is somewhat true. But I have come to see that even a person's core (the value systems and raison d’etre) can evolve in ways that can make them more or less loveable.
The staying power of healthy long-term relationships is highly dependent on both parties' abilities to accept and change with their partners' times and seasons. The inability to do this ultimately means that someone will be left behind. I mean, it is okay to leave things that no longer serve you or mean the same to you. It will hurt, but it is better than living in a resentment prison of your own making.
In The Big Bang Theory Season 12, Episode 23: The Change Constant, Sheldon goes on and on, upset about how he doesn’t want things to change, and he throws a kind of tantrum about it. Eventually, he is at the bar having a conversation with Penny, where she points out he- Sheldon has changed too since they met.
By the way, their friendship dynamic is one of my favorite parts of the show. I also love Joey and Phoebe’s in F.R.I.E.N.D.S. I am digressing! But you can tell I love Sitcoms, right?
(Back to my original conversation!)
Penny tries to make Sheldon see the reason (like she always does), and the conversation goes somewhat like this:
Penny: So, I guess the only thing that actually stays the same is that things are always changing.
Sheldon: Interesting. So you’re saying the inevitability of change might be a universal constant.
Party No dey Stop
Cue in-scene music Party no dey stop by Adekunle Gold and Zinoleesky.
When I had my first adult birthday party in 2022, I didn’t think it would become a yearly event. I was simply excited about turning 25 (you know, with a fully matured pre-frontal cortex and all that shebang) and wanted to celebrate that with my friends. In 2023, I was finally feeling like myself again after enduring much pain, so I thought I should celebrate that.
This year, while catching up with my friends, they kept asking me for my birthday plans because it is now becoming a yearly tradition, an interpunct for the year. One said, “You should be excited. Your birthday is a yearly highlight and not just for you.”
What makes this the most interesting is that in the assignment essay I talked about earlier, the scene was set on a vacation Island, and it was my 40th birthday. I wrote about expecting my friends to arrive soon for my YEARLY birthday celebrations. This was 2021; I had never thought of throwing a party and wasn’t planning one either. I had always maintained that I was not a party person. I guess that has somewhat changed now. If nothing, it looks like I will have at least one party every year (my birthday party), but who knows? We are talking about change, right?
So this year, I had a party as I have done for the last two years. But this time, I also made it a solo art exhibition at home with just my friends.
I started painting in 2021 after going on a sip-and-paint date and realizing how soothing I found the process. The result of that date wasn’t great, but I got a wonderful hobby out of it, so I guess a win is a win, if I do say so myself (smiles mischievously). The party was one of my life's most wonderful moments filed under my core memory.
I debuted as an artist at my birthday party this year with my first solo exhibition. Will I do another exhibit and make that public? Who knows? (shrugs and walks away)
My greatest treasures in fleshy vessels
Cue in-scene music: Loved by Leslie Odo
If there is one thing I do not doubt, it is that I am loved. I don’t think I have done anything to earn it, but I try to love the people in life the best way I know how. I can’t remember where I saw this, but it read like this:
Your life will be wonderful because you make it wonderful, and it will be full of love because you are full of love.
At some point in my life, I wouldn’t say I liked living, but since I have decided to live, I might as well make it as wonderful as possible. I try to give out as much love as possible because I have decided that my love is infinite. I always have room for one more. We can’t choose our biological family but friends are the family we choose. It is a deliberate love with no responsibility or obligation but to be there when you are needed.
A friend said that if they were to describe me, they would say, “Looks like a marshmallow. It probably could kill you if you warranted it, but it is a marshmallow at the same time.” I think it was a very accurate yet humorous way to describe me.
My parents are always shocked at the number of friends and people I have in my corner, considering how reclusive and introverted I can be. I have unwittingly built a community around my friendship groups. I like to say all my friends know each other at this point. Some of them have worked together and formed relationships and bonds outside of me, and I couldn’t be happier.
It means that one of my fantasies might become a reality. You ask what it is. Well, I will tell you. It’s to buy a massive land somewhere beach-like (probably an island) and build houses side by side. So we can have coffee and bar hangouts like the characters in F.R.I.E.N.D.S. and How I Met Your Mother (hey, hey, you know you lowkey think it's cool, so don’t judge me).
What am I looking forward to?
Cue in-scene music: Inertia by AJR
To be honest with you, recently, my life seems to have been going great. Things are looking up and getting better, but now I am worried and anxious that it might soon go downhill again.
My health has been excellent for the last year. I haven’t gone to the hospital except for malaria and maybe a few checkups here and there, unlike the previous three years when the hospital was practically my second home. Ever since I made drastic changes to my diet and maintained it strictly, my health improved significantly. We really are what we eat. Is it stifling and tiring? Yes, a bit. But I will take that over bad health.
I think that when suffering, pain, depression, and anxiety are all you have known for a very long time, it’s hard for you to enjoy yourself when things are good. You constantly look over your shoulder, thinking, “Okay, what’s about to go up in flames next?” But I’m learning to enjoy things without letting the anxiety of the future ruin my present.
I’m starting a master’s program in September, so I am excited about that and everything I will be learning (no, I am not a nerd; I wouldn’t say I like school that much. Ok, I am a nerd, but… ). The external validation from passing my exams and doing well in this program might be part of the boost I need to trust my career decisions.
Career-wise, the most important thing to me right now is building confidence. I often look calm on the outside, but inside, there is always a full-on panic and anxiety tantrum going on in my head. I want to be confident in my abilities and skills. In the last year, this has been my mantra:
Confidence without evidence is delusion. You don’t become confident by shouting affirmations in the mirror but by having a stack of undeniable proof that you are who you say you are. Give yourself so much goddamn proof that you are the version of yourself you want to be, and you’ll become them. Outwork your self-doubt! ― Alex Hormozi.
Outside work, I’ll probably double down on improving my existing hobbies. They say you don’t have to be excellent at your hobbies, but I can’t help not wanting to be great at anything I do. Also, I might pick up even more new hobbies even though I already have a very long list I cannot keep up with (allow, allow).
I want to explore every version of me, embracing her wholeheartedly. Today, I am Keyu, the software engineer and the artiste; tomorrow, I am unsure who I might be. In summary, I am embracing The Change Constant.
“All that you touch, You Change.
All that you Change, Changes you.
The only lasting truth is Change.
God is Change.” ― Octavia E. Butler
Cue in the closing soundtrack: Could Have Been Me by The Struts
Until we meet again!
🖤
