100th post.

Hello beautiful people,

I spent the 1st of November 2015, reflecting. The biggest most important lesson I've learnt this year is, all things go. Good, bad, dynasties, governments, people, friends, family, jobs, problems etc go. All things go. 

Cherish every moment and every person because they will go. And you will never get them back once they are gone. I leave you with the words of Nicki Minaj from her hit song.

Photo: typewriterquotemeup.com

With all my love,
Dara Rhodes

Kings and Queens

Hello beautiful people, 

                                                 Photo credit: hbansari.wordpress.com

A queen/king can fall, fail and lose but that doesn't mean she/he is not a queen/king. 

You can lock up a queen/king, beat her/him and maltreat her/him but that doesn't mean her/his throne still isn't there. 

A queen/king can get her/his hands dirty but it doesn't mean her/his hands no longer belong to the queen/ king.

You can even take away her/his crown and keep her/him in the darkest part of your house for months and years, she/he is still a queen/king. 

No matter what you do to a queen/king and no matter how far away from her/his throne you take her/him, she/he will survive because she/he knows that her/his throne is waiting. It will always be waiting. 

You may not have a kingdom or be born into royalty but are the queen/king of your life never, ever forget that. 

With all my love,

Dara Rhodes

Much of life is complicated.

"All you really need to know for the moment is that the universe is a lot more complicated than you might think, even if you start from a position of thinking it's pretty damn complicated in the first place."- Douglas Adams.

Hello beautiful people,

Can you believe we are in October already?! I most certainly can't. I hope you all have had a good year so far, and if you haven't, I hope the rest of the year turns out amazing! 

Since the last time I wrote on here, two major things have happened.

 1) My best guy friend (see last post) and I have kinda made up. 

2) My beloved country, Nigeria celebrated her 55th year of independence. 

I'll start with Nigeria. On the 1st of October, I wrote a post but didn't post it because it read too much like the Independence Day post I wrote last year. (Not much had changed to me). However, today, I went to church and at the end of the service, we sang the national anthem and I cried. I hadn't sung or really listened to our anthem in such a long time, I'd forgotten how beautiful it is. Yes, everything I wrote in the post on Thursday is true- I'm still angry with Nigeria and I don't think we are really independent yet- but (and a very big but) I really, really love Nigeria. It's a very complicated thing in my head.

Unto number two. My best guy friend. I expressed my total dislike for him in my last post and even though only very little has changed, something has changed and for the simple fact that he is truly my best friend, that little change had me willing to forgive him. Again. This situation is also very complicated in my head. I love him but hate him so much too. I told my close cousin the situation yesterday and his reply was one of the best things I've heard all year. "Dara, best friendships are complicated. Infact, much of life is complicated."

In response, I nodded my head in agreement but I couldn't help thinking about his words today. He is very right. My love for Nigeria and my best friend are two very very different things but somehow the same; complicated. And guess what? It is okay. I am/was such a perfectionist, everything in my life had to be either white or black. All the grey areas were not allowed to be grey, they had to pick a side. That is good sometimes, but sometimes, one (me and maybe you) has to realise that life isn't just black and white. It does have grey, blue, yellow and every other colour that has ever been discovered. You can love somebody or a country and get mad or angry at the person or country. We can fight and make up and fight again and make up again. We can hate our countries and run to other countries and run back to ours again and run to other countries when we begin to hate our country again. Please by all means be a stable human but when life becomes complicated as it often tends to, don't despair. Why? Well, because much of life is extremely complicated.

     Photo: keshavasari.wordpress.com

With all my love,

Dara Rhodes

Breathe. Just breathe.

"I wake up everyday and I think, 'I'm breathing! It's a good day.'"- Eve Ensler

                                                 Photo: americanpregnancy.org                                                     

I woke up one day and realised something very scary. I had stopped breathing. I was alive (of course) but I wasn't breathing. My breath was constantly held waiting for the next minute or trip or (not so important) very important thing I had to do. When I got into the car, I didn't notice the streets or the people around me anymore, my breath was held and my eyes fixed on the road before me like I was the one driving. When I entered buildings, I didn't notice anything or anyone around me and just went straight up to the reason why I was there. When I lay in my bed at night, my breath was held as my mind planned all the trips I had to take and things I had to do. When I ate my dinner, I held my breath as my head churned and churned over my plans for my 21st birthday this year. (1st of August)

 In all honesty, my 20th year was difficult. I lost people that were very real to me (for the first time in my life), I had to deal with constant changes like I had never had to before and whenever I thought I couldn't deal with another change, another change happened. (on the bright side, I dealt with them all! :D). Today as I think back on this past year, there's only one word that seems apt and that is, breathe. Breathe.

 Many, many, many times, we forget to breathe. I think of Bobbi Kristina (may her precious soul rest in peace) and my heart breaks. Maybe because she was just a year older than me or maybe because I'm a lot more aware of death now but that could have been me. I could have been the one that died yesterday. It didn't have to be the way she died but I could have died. All her hopes, fears and dreams don't matter now. All our hopes, fears and dreams won't matter once we are gone so why do we spend so much of our time here holding our breaths? We really are only here for a short time even if you die at 100 years old, so please breathe. I know breathing may seem like a difficult concept for some us to grasp but believe it or not, your body is doing it every second of the day. You just need to remind your mind to do the same. 

I woke up today and decided to cancel all my very OTT plans for my 21st this year and just have a very simple and nice dinner with my immediate family. I refuse to not breathe this next year of my life and my other plans would have ensured that. That's just the first battle, I'm sure next year is going to be ridden with so many other breathing battles but hey, as long as I breathe, I win. So, here's to the next year of my life and to all you beautiful beautiful people that read my little blog, breathe.

                                                               Photo: mycamera

Have a wonderful day beautiful people.

With all my love,

Dara Rhodes

Death and marriage and life

Death is hard and painful and bitter. Death is a thief, and a teacher and a mystery. It steals the ones we love away from us, teaches us to value and appreciate the ones we have left and leaves us asking, the puzzling question 'why?'

Ironically, death reminds me of marriage. The wedding, preparations and all the crazy emotions do nothing to prepare you for the reality that is marriage.  Nothing prepares you for the arguments you'll have, the traumas you'll face and the difficulties you'll have to bear together. Nothing prepares you for the sleepless nights and the problematic children. Nothing prepares you for the overwhelming love and hate you will feel for each other at various times. Nothing before your first night as husband and wife prepares you for life with that person.

With death, nothing prepares you for life without your loved one. The funeral, people's condolences and the outpouring of well wishes and prayers do nothing to prepare you for the reality that is death. Nothing prepares you for the emptiness you'll feel. Nothing prepares you for the nightmares, the tossing and turning at night. Nothing prepares you for the days and weeks after all the immediate emotions die. Nothing prepares you for the silence you'll get in return when you call out their name without thinking. Nothing prepares you for the dull permanent ache in your heart that you can't describe to anybody. 

I lost my cousin last week. Before that terrible day, death had been far from me. I hadn't lost anybody close to me and so I never quite understood grief. I always cried when I found out that my friends lost someone close to them but nothing prepared me for the way I felt when I heard I had lost my beloved cousin. At first I felt bone chillingly cold. Then, I felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. I sat on my bed and after staring at the wall for what seemed like eternity, a muffled 'why' escaped from my lips. Why did my nineteen year old cousin have to die? Why did one of the few cousins on my maternal side that I truly love have to die? Why did God allow her to be born if he knew he was going to take her away just after nineteen short years? Why did God allow people to love her deeply and then allow death to rip her away from them?

After asking myself all those questions and more that I'm sure no human being alive can answer, I came to a startling conclusion. Death is hard and painful and bitter. Death is a thief, and a teacher and a mystery. But eerily like marriage, once the charade is over, we have to find a way to accept it and move on. Unlike marriage though, death is the end. The end of life as you knew it but the beginning of a new life. Both for you and the person you've lost. Losing someone you deeply love changes something at your core forever. I still haven't been able to cry for Temi yet but I know that very soon, like a couple settling into their marriage, the reality that I've lost someone I truly loved will hit me. And all I can pray for myself, is the strength to accept it then and keep her in my heart but move on. Death is the end but life, no matter how hard, painful or bitter it may be right now, isn't. 

This is for you, Oluwagbotemi Braithwaite. I will always love you and I thank you for the precious but too few moments we shared together that were full of laughter and the warmth you radiated so beautifully. I don't know why you had to go but I thank you for the love you gave so effortlessly while you were with us. Right now, all I pray for is divine strength for your immediate family.

From your cousin and with all my love, 

Dara Rhodes