Hi there! Today marks the official end of the first half of the year and we're doing a lot of reflection over in this house. How was the first half of the year for you?

A little hello for my MailChimp subscribers.

If you're an old subscriber, this is for you. If you're not, you can just skip right to the next section.

Hey, it's been a while, hasn't it? I am so sorry for not communicating for give or take six months but I'm back now and hopefully, never leaving. I hope you enjoy this new Zia, she has some more things to say.

Would you collect an apology via Abeg?

Back to regular scheduled programming,

Even though the title sounds very pessimistic, this is actually a pretty optimistic letter, I promise.

Whenever something bad happens to me and I get disappointed, I always tell myself, "It's the hope that kills." It's a kind of na me fuck up saying but also places the burden of the event that occurred on me, not the almost-always-out-of-my-control thing that happened. It's not a good way to live if I'm being honest.

June was, I said I was going to be using good words these days so let's just say June was tasking. I saw shege, that's all I shall be saying about that.

With the way I'm so plugged into the internet and the collective conscious of everybody, sometimes it feels like I'm running a rat race. Every day on Twitter, there's always someone who's starting a new role, buying a new laptop or moving abroad. And I'm stuck thinking, "God, did I come to this life to God when?"

But then, as my friend Rara says, anytime wey you wake na your morning. Which makes an odd sort of sense, because we're all just doing our own things and hoping that night would pass and morning would come quick.

What I've been trying to do this month is shut out the noise from outside, and listen to what my soul says. Shout out to Eloghosa Osunde's Vagabonds! for being the book I go back to whenever I want to listen to myself.

Hope is a dangerous thing, there's a reason it's the last one in the box. Although in all honesty, I think the lack of hope is more dangerous than having hope. Because what else is there to live for if hope is gone?

Hope survives best at the hearth - Perseus Jackson.

That quote has no business being there but I couldn't pass up the opportunity for a Percy Jackson quote.

On Life.

I've been job hunting. And have received more rejections than I thought was possible but oh well. My favourite - and I use favourite with all the sarcasm of a 12-year-old - thing about job hunting is how much recruiters do not know what the hell they want. An entry-level job with 5+ years of experience? Is it crack? Is that what you smoke? Crack?

And here we are, trying to revamp LinkedIn and hopefully get another job before I die of hunger. If you know anybody hiring, hit me up. Or if you know how to navigate the maze that is LinkedIn.

On Books.

My favourite book I read this month was People you meet on vacation by Emily Henry. I didn't read a lot this month unfortunately, I refer you back to the shege section of this letter. Anyways, this book is about a woman who is estranged from her best friend and goes on a vacation to get him back. But then they fall in love. It's friends-to-lovers and if you had told me I would love this book the way I do now? I'd have called you a liar but here we are.

A minor plot that hit me in this book was when the MC realised that she was living the life she had prayed for but she didn't feel happy.

That is something I've been thinking about for a while - I'm in a better place than I was six months ago and although they're using my life to do comedy central, I wouldn't go back for anything.

There's this ennui that hits you when you realise you have all that you wanted and then you have to find a new dream - that hasn't happened to me yet because I dey battle challenges the way Jacob been dey battle angel. No time for ennui. But for people who are at that point, there's always time to find a new dream, make a new show your entire personality, fun things like that. You're not meant to be one thing or have one dream.

On Music.

One of my favourite artists - Dwin, the Stoic dropped a project on Tuesday. And my favourite song on this project is called 'Winning Bread'. The chorus starts with 'You're winning bread but losing breath' and when I say I cried? You should listen to it, it's the energy I'm going with for the second half of this year.

I had the opportunity to talk to Dwin about this project so if you follow me on Twitter, you should look out for that.

Gkw / Winning Bread — fanlink.to

by Dwin, The Stoic

Lemonade.

My women and I play a game called 'Lemonade', kind of adapted from the saying, "If life gives you lemons, make lemonade." Lemonade is the little rays of sunshine in the dark clouds that is being a Nigerian living in Nigeria. This month's lemonade is the pink lip stain I bought from BestBuy, a lifesaver.

I'm going into the second half of the year with a lot of hope. Even though it's the hope that kills, all die na die so let's continue hoping shall we?

If you enjoyed my rambling, you should forward this to a friend