In July, the year's not young but it isn't old either
It's the perfect time to schedule melancholy
When you can feel the weight of yesterday, today and tomorrow intensely.

“It’s amazing how sometimes the only thing you need is a smile from certain people to make your world right again”, this was my exact thought as I was on my way from Rigasa train station anticipating meeting my sister, cousin and nephews in Kaduna. My July wasn’t a roller coaster, it was precise and direct albeit with conflicting emotions but I’ve never been so sure of my feelings like I was this month. I started this thing on threads where I update one line about my day for the whole of July. I probably won't do it for any other month but it was nice trying to sift through my day and pick what was the most significant part of it.

I took the first two weeks of July off from work and opted to spend it with my favorite humans; everyone that’s familiar with me probably knows cookie and muffin (if you don’t, check my instagram). Most times people take leaves because of burn out but I took one partly because I had never taken one before and partly because I needed an excuse to visit or so I thought. My first night in kaduna was so pleasant, I realized what I actually needed was an emotional reset. I needed to do nothing without irresponsibility hovering around me like a vulture waiting for my bad decisions to catch up with me.

I was in Kaduna for two weeks but I only stepped out thrice (I still packed a full luggage though 😅, because who knows), twice to visit family and once on an errand. The remaining days were filled with naps, naps and more naps. The last time I truly napped like this was during covid. I rested fully and completely; no guilt, no strings, just rest and fun times indoors. A friend visited me during that time and added to my fun memories of staying indoors. I helped with assignments and my favorite part was chatting with the kids. I let myself be immersed in how they see the world. I particularly enjoyed asking them the question “why?” and the reasons were both funny and reflective. I read a book and half but let’s not get into annoying things right now. That’ll come later.

Just like that two weeks sprinted by and I was on the 8:00 am train to Abuja, I remember my friend making a joke about how I was in three cities/states in one day, Kaduna, Abuja, Niger. As I lay in bed that day, I contemplated how sometimes it feels like emotions are pets, you can leave them at home and go on a whole vacation/holiday/trip but they’re right there at the door waiting for you when you return. The funny part is that sometimes while on that trip, you miss them, you remember them, long for them like you don’t really know what to be without them. Oooop, that took a weird turn 🙃.

Well then, I was back home with my pets and they were eager for a hug. There was one day this July that I bawled for a reason I can’t even completely understand. Anyways I was back and it was raining and my mood was being held by that particularly happy weather. As I’ve mentioned before, I love cloudy and rainy days and the last two weeks of July were wet and marvelous. I got back into tasks and chores and generally the me that I know and sometimes find annoying. If I’m going to be honest the last days of July were not eventful, I was in a floating state just going through the motions and tasks of the day while also being painfully aware of how slow the days were passing for me. Although this is turning out to be quite a depressing review, I would like to put it out there that I wasn’t sad, I just didn’t do a lot, even my everyday journal was left blank except for some one-liners about the day. Truly I think I picked the best activity for July with my one-liner threads.

Now let’s talk about my terrible choice in picking the most annoying book trilogy I’ve come across in a while. I had the choice to pick between the “interview with the vampire” trilogy and the “Shadow and bone” trilogy and I decided to remember all the tiktok hype, the netflix adaptation hype and the twitter hype and picked the “Shadow and Bone” series. That was a big mistake, I have read books where the main character does annoying things or makes wrong choices but I have never come across an annoying character like Alina, everything she does pisses me off. The whole book is from her point of view and I still find her annoying, imagine if it was a third person narration 🤦🏾‍♀️. If I was still in my reading slump era, I could have ignored the book until I had the energy for it and no, don't tell me to drop it, my brain will not let me. Now I’m stuck, forcing myself to read a whole trilogy about a character I would prefer died at the end (fingers crossed) even though I doubt that’s what will happen. A book can’t be completely bad though, I like the fantasy setting and the world politics and rules but the only character in the book that’s sensible is Mal. I feel pity that he has to end up with Alina but what can we do? She was bad in Shadow and Bone, seems like she got worse in Siege and Storm, we can only hope that she dies or Mal breaks up with her in Ruin and Rising. Thank you for reading my rant.

On the whole, July was definitely a month of opposites and understanding with its rain filled slow days. It was my Greyed Out Month of Confusion.