30 and 3 quarters
I turn 31 soon and the thing I want to tell myself after a massive bust of my 30th year is if you want to make God laugh. Make plans.
I had an exciting, wonderful life planned for myself this year. The year I’d heal from my traumatic 2021. My dad passed away, my divorce came through and my ex decided to act like an ass. My parents did some life changingly bad things to me, I worked like a demon. All in the space of 6 months. It was a horrendous year and I truly have no idea how I didn’t physically die from the stress or at any point try to harm myself.
But yet 31 calls me and I am no less single, no more travelled, no more happy than I was at the turn of the year. I’ve regressed massively mentally. All because of a bully at work. I however need to talk about some things. First. If you are being bullied/pressured into doing something you are uncomfortable with, say something straight away. Intuition is 100% accurate and believe it or not you are the only one with merciful instincts. Everyone else doesn’t have them. So don’t use them.
Next, the pressure to have “the greatest year ever” has been taken from me by circumstance. My father’s estate is so expensive I am saving up for a party I don’t care for and a grave that I do. What really irritates me about the anniversary is the pressure to conform. I want people to come to an anniversary service. Of course I want them to have refreshments, drinks, and some food. However white people food would cost £300 max and Sierra Leonean food is £2,000-£4,000 if I have white people budget, why are we splashing on Sierra Leonean food? I can’t stand conformity. Cuss me all you want, at the end of the day you still did what I wanted, which was to attend the service for my dad. If you only attended for the promise of getting a weeks worth of food afterwards #costoflivingcrisis rather than to celebrate a man who was repeatedly kind to you and always went above and beyond then shame on you. Not me. You will sit there with the drinks and sandwiches and I will laugh. I don’t have time for to be meeting people’s expectations at my own expense.
Next we have travel. I don’t have a passport right now. That is with the US government, who have had it for weeks and promised it would take 7 weeks, however its been 9 and I have no passport in sight. I gave my passport up immediately for the hope of a speedy resolution (this is costing me a fortune) and the US government is still playing “Covid backlog” with me. As a result, the summer, my favourite part of the year, I can’t leave the country because I have no passport and I can’t do anything fun because I have no money because I’m paying for the fact that I have no passport. It hurts so much because travel is so important to me. I get it. Life sucks. Then you die. But this was meant to be my year, the start of a decade where suffering was over. But no. What is worse is I can’t plan. I have no idea when I will get my passport back and so I can’t even plan for anything. I can’t plan domestically, because I prefer foreign travel to domestic, I can’t plan foreign travel. I was meant to go away to Europe, but after the 2022 I have had, Europe feels too small for me. I want to go to Africa, but I don’t want to get raped. Yes that is a legit concern for a woman travelling alone. I don’t like the US the food is bloody awful, and this is from a woman who enjoys putting sugar on everything. The rape thing applies to south America and asia too. So I’m kinda stuck. Also, the idea of travelling alone has gone from empowering to lonely. I do everything alone, it would be nice to do something with a person. But not a tour group. I’m neither 18 years old where I don’t mind living cheaply, nor am I 60 years old where I like sedentary paced holidays. I want to see as much of a country as possible, and that means pooling knowledge with someone. I currently don’t have a man, let alone someone serious enough to travel with. Also, men my age have no money. I earn pretty well, actually very well. And I need someone to match my spending, I actively considered taking that guy I saw’s offer to go to South Africa, but he showed me his finances. He can’t afford a place to rent, let alone a trip to South Africa. I think it would be cruel for both of us because I don’t want to be in a relationship with him, he’d be blocking my blessings because no man would go near me if I was going to South Africa with a guy who isn’t my man and then he’d not be able to afford to do South Africa in the way I’d like to. So I’m not helping myself. But it was nice to have an offer. All I want to do is travel without the fear of sexual violence. Also, as I said, 2 is better than 1.
Next is relationships. Less said the better. I, since splitting with my ex have gone on 1 date per annum and I used to blame the pandemic, but right now I have seen men who don’t even reasonably come close to my standards and if I were to marry would only be a do-over of the disaster that was my marriage. I keep telling myself that it will improve soon, my knight in shining armour is going to be around the corner, but yet still nothing. Not too long ago I gave up on my mega dream. I have since taken it back up again, because it’s all I have. I just need to get my ass up.
Next we have exams. I have exams in November and I haven’t studied since may and I need to. I’m completely broken at the moment so there is no point faking that I can do things when it is the achievement of the day when I wake up.
I’d love to say 31 is going to be my year. It won’t be. What I do have for 31 is one plan and one plan only and the Gods better let me have this one at least. I want abs. That is all I want. I can focus on getting abs, something small everyday. I would be happy with that. A body. That would be a start.
Grace and Courage
Annetta Mother Smith