Ink, Love and Life #4 - Love, Loss and Rambles.

In which I ramble about everything. Is today the last Sunday of the month? I'm not sure. I hope you're doing okay. At least.

Regularly Scheduled Programming.

Hello, resident of earth,

I cannot believe that it's another Sunday, where did the time go? I'm writing this by 10 am but you should probably get this by 5 pm when I will be at a show - my first 'we outside' in two weeks. Spoiler alert; I don't particularly appreciate going outside. I haven't seen the sun in roughly two weeks - I spend most of my time inside my room working or reading or watching something.

I woke up this morning intending to get to work but then like I always do when it's time for work, I go to YouTube to select a playlist to accompany while I slave for capitalism. The first thing on my YouTube homepage was the trailer for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

I have a lot of thoughts about Black Panther; the first all-black lead cast for a superhero movie, the acting is phenomenal, the soundtrack is filled with bops, and the actors aren't plagued by controversy except Miss Letitia. After Chadwick died, there was a lot of conversation about what would happen to the Black Panther franchise now. Some people were all for recasting T'Challa but others said no one would be able to replace Chadwick. That was the side of the argument I supported by the way.

From the trailer, I can guess that Wakanda Forever was going to explore T'Challa's off-screen death and go along those lines, they're also introducing Namor!

This trailer got me thinking about loss, more specifically, how loss shapes us and moulds us into a person different from who we were pre-loss. I read a chapter of Legendborn before the book vexed me and I dropped it (if you're a Legendborn fan, don't come for me, please. I'll continue at some point) and the protagonist deals with the death of her mother by referring to the person she was before the death and the person she is after as two different people.

Apart from the fact that 'grief is love persevering', dealing with loss is often so hard for us because we think we have to be the person we were before the loss. We can't. There are people that say that trauma changes your brain, I think that loss changes you. Fighting that change and trying to be who you were before is simply an exercise in futility.

Acceptance is the first step to being better. And this is not restricted to losing people, although that is a significant part of it. It can also apply to losing things - important relationships, jobs, the life you thought you had.

For what is love, if not grief persevering? has to be my favourite quote on grief and loss. When you think about it like that, it's a lot easier to untangle the feelings that your grief brings when you understand that it's love without nowhere to go. Love for what was, love for what could have been.

On Life.

Remember I said this was the first time I went out in two weeks? I came out to support my friend Rara. She's a wine connoisseur and runs The Vineyard Enthusiast. She also makes the best cocktails I've ever tasted. Rara is also the reason I went out the last time I went out, so in essence, Rara is the reason I have human interactions in this Abuja. Shameless plug time; check out TVE on Twitter.

What's new in my life? Well, still job hunting, still broke. But at this point, these are constants that I'm trying not to overthink.

Tems sang the opening song on the trailer for Wakanda Forever and I can't help but be happy for her. I have watched a lot of Tems' interviews and she seems like such a chill person. She deserves all the good things coming to her.

When she's asked about the song that catapulted her into the limelight 'Try Me', Tems always says that that song was born out of a frustration that had eaten too deep into her. You can hear it in her voice, Aunty Temilade was tired of it! She was tired of being taken for granted, tired of not getting the recognition she rightly deserved, she took that tiredness and righteous anger into the studio and created the song we all know and love.

Thinking about that now, I wonder what my breaking point would be? Because I don bend tire and at this point, I feel like ground porcelain powder from being shattered so many times.

Onto less depressing things, abolish periods. I'm genuinely serious. The female reproductive system is so stressful.

My latest episode of Litverse is UP! I talk to my friend Tomiwa, he's a medical student who won Quramo. Speaking of Quramo, I really want to get back into writing again, but I'm scared I've lost what it takes to be a proper novelist.

“The first time @thatboyhendrixx wrote a complete book, he won 1 million naira. But being a medical student and a writer is like being pulled in two different directions, so writing another book is on hold, for now.

✍🏾: @zia_tiffah

https://t.co/coCZVn7Dei”

On Books.

David Mogo Godhunter by Suyi Davies Okungbowa is definitely one of my favourite books that I have read this year. I'm not a huge fan of speculative fiction or Fantasy books but Suyi Davies blows all my reservations out of the water. It's a really good mix of what it means to be Nigerian and exist in two different worlds. You should definitely give it a read.

Currently trying to get into Lauren Asher's Fine Print, the first book in her Billionaire brothers' series. Might get into another book and be reading two at once.

On Music.

I've fallen into a rabbit hole of cosplays on TikTok and my favourite sound used for transitions is this one. Very rock like and aggressive.

Official music video for 'Punk Tactics'Video Performed by: Joey Valence, BraeVideo Written and Directed by: Joey Valence, BraeVideographers: Joey Valence, Br...

There are two songs for this week's 'On Music'. The second one is how I feel. I hope you love AJR as much as I do.

Grab the song here: iTUNES: http://smarturl.it/AJRTheClickitSPOTIFY: http://smarturl.it/AJRWETspotify ON TOUR: http://www.AJRBrothers.com/tourCheck us out ev...

Lemonade.

My lemonade for this week is the fact that I went outside. Sometimes, I would deny this if asked, but going outside is good for my mental health. Touching grass and all of that. No matter much I don't really like humans, human interaction is good for me.

Here's a piece of advice, if you're in a funk, you should try going outside.