Tag: dailyprompt

Share a story about the furthest you’ve ever traveled from home.

In 2019, at exactly 4pm Nigerian time on my birthday, 23rd August, our flight took off from Abuja for Dubai. We paused in Lagos briefly and then in Istanbul for a two hour layover, and by 1pm on the 24th, we had checked into a family suite at Novotel Dubai Al Barsha.

I was with my sisters Dough, Angela and Msugh. The trip was an all expense paid trip by our eldest sister Dough. She wanted us to have some bonding time away from home.

Even though I had been 18 weeks pregnant and I stayed indoors resting most of the time because I felt a bit tired, It was a fun trip for me.

We talked and laughed, saw some sights, had dinner on a boat ride, and did some shopping.

We got to find out that our cousin, Henry, was in Dubai at the time. So we called, and he came over. Henry is a “clown” and a pastor; so we laughed a lot, and then we prayed together. It was so beautiful.

By the time we walked into the Arrivals Hall at 4:30pm on September 1, all our children and two out of the four husbands stood waiting eagerly. We were missed.

That’s the furthest I’ve ever gone from home.

Why do you blog?

I saw this prompt and jumped on it. It was the perfect question to some thoughts I’ve been having.

A couple of weeks ago,I tried to add some hashtags to a post about happiness. I started to type the word ‘happiness’, and then a flood of similar hashtags I had previously used popped up. I selected the ones I needed, and then I published my post… but then, I went back to read all the previous posts with the happiness related hashtags.

It was a revelation.

Reading my words from previous years told me so much.

First off, it opened my eyes to why I was so much happier when I did the ‘100 days of happiness’ challenge that I had stolen off of Brian’s blog http://www.writingfromtheheartwithbrian.com

Then, of course, it explained why I am a lot more stressed and why I keep feeling like I’m  not doing enough for myself.

I blog because it serves as a sort of diary and I can come back here and read about myself…and remember the whens and the whys.

I blog because I get to meet and relate with people everyday on my blog and theirs. I have met some lovely people here.

I blog because writing makes me relaxed.

I blog because it makes me happy.

You’re writing your autobiography. What’s your opening sentence?

I’ve never had a hard time coming up with anything like I did with the response to this prompt.

After two years, I found this in my drafts…and I decided, it’s not that difficult.

I decided to give my autobiography a go.

It started like this;

Strength didn’t come to me in a moment of triumph. It came quietly, in the days when I felt empty, moving through life on autopilot. I wasn’t broken, but I wasn’t whole either. I was just tired of pretending everything was fine. Somewhere in that stillness, I discovered that strength isn’t about standing tall; it’s about standing up, even when your soul feels heavy.

I hope I get to write it.

What is the last thing you learned?

I learned from a wonderful woman here that the actual meaning of the word ‘oxymoron’ actually makes the word itself an oxymoron.

You can read that on her post I never said most of the things I said

What strategies do you use to cope with negative feelings?

Just the other day, I explained to my husband how I was getting frustrated with my colleague/boss and his negative remarks about anything and everything.

I remember laughing about it some time last year, but when I sat down a few days ago to do the math, I realized I was around him for too many hours and this negativity would somehow affect me. I was already seeing signs. It wasn’t anything to laugh about.

My office is in another town, about an hours drive from where I live. Most of my colleagues live in the same town as me, so a few of us decided to car pool rather than use the public transportation. This has been going on for about a year. I do the driving and Mr. Negative sits on the passenger seat. It was like his riding shot-gun went without saying as he is the oldest by age and highest in rank amongst us at work.

Let’s do the math; 1 hour to work and 1 hour back. That’s 2 hours a day for 5 days in a week. 10 hours of constant negative remarks in a week. That’s 40 hours in a month and guess what…480 hours in a year. 

Last Thursday morning, on our way to work, I responded to something in a way that scared me. I felt really negative too, it took me a while to feel a bit better. Somehow, I found myself turning up the music and I tuned my mind out of their discussion in the vehicle and into the music. It kind of worked.

So my strategy is this:

• I admit I feel bad/down/negative
• I try to find out why I feel that way
• I use my calming aids which include movies, books, but most of all Music 

Who is the most confident person you know?

I was going to give a response to this prompt when suddenly I decided to view a few responses first.

The third response just stared at me and I stared back in shock. In the post Now You See me written by Marya, almost every word spoke directly to me and seemed similar to what I had been thinking of writing.

What is confidence?

To be confident means to have a strong sense of self-assurance and belief in your abilities, qualities, and decisions. Confidence means trusting yourself, it means knowing your worth, even when things are uncertain or challenging. Confidence doesn’t mean you have all the answers or never feel fear; it means you move forward anyway, grounded in your inner strength.

Confidence shows up in how your speak, the way you carry yourself, take initiative, handle criticism, and respond to setbacks.

Confidence was never something I could brag about. I had the qualities but I didn’t know how to execute them. I’m proud of myself for taking time over the years to learn and grow in confidence.

Confidence is learned.

Having said that, the most confident person I know is of blessed memory, my late uncle’s wife; Mrs. Esta Mbazuan Charles-Ayede.

What have you been working on?

For many years

Maybe too many…

I’ve wanted to share about it

To tell the world what I think it is…

Sometimes I jot down

Some days I enter them in my phone’s notepad

Every now and again my cousin Su’eddie nags and/or encourages me to work on it

I have begun several times

So many beginnings with no ending

Yes, lots of middles too.

I wonder when I will finish.

I have tales I want to tell, lessons to share…

from my left seat.