I want a refund on my 2020. Like most people i feel like the year 2020 was stolen from me, and lo behold, we have arrived in 2021.
2020 was supposed to be my year of achievements…i suppose surviving covid-19 was an achievement. I was ill for 52 days. #covidlonghaul -Post viral fatigue was extremely hard on the body.
[Click here to Read My Covid journey]
It’s january 2021, the world is still broken, South Africa is experiencing the second wave of the Covid-19 virus with new lockdown restrictions. I’m too afraid to leave my home during this surge of infections because i dont this my body will recover if i fall ill again. Fear. Fear of breathing – the irony of those words sit tersely on my palette. Planes aren’t flying everywhere. The pandemic anxiety looms, as i contemplate spending another 5 years wearing a mask. Life is less than celebratory. Alhumdulillahi ala kulli haal (Praise is to god under every condition)
I found my keyboard, for real this time. I haven’t been writing for 11 years, which leaves me grappling with interface changes. Its really amazing how fear has the ability to break your spirit, along with the foreboding words that people spit at you with malice and venom – when they are afraid that your command of the keyboard will destroy their lives for how they mistreated you. Self-confidence can be fragile, interlaced with self-worth that the world picks at with an axe. No one is born with self confidence. It is something that we grow and is moulded and guided by our caregivers, parents, teachers, society and environment. And throughout life we will have to repair it,and regrow it to suit the world around us. Bottom line, dont give up on yourself… even if it takes 11 years.
2020… is gone, along with the opportunities that didn’t materialize, and dreams that have slipped through our fingers. I reiterate … surviving covid-19 was an achievement. I’m here, i’m going to attempt living inside myself instead of running from unfinished yesterdays that have disappeared into the abyss of the past.
Allahumma lakal hamdu kullu, wa lakash shukru kullu
Hasina Suliman - ZA 
May the gifts of 2021 be immensely greater than the challenges of 2020, and may you emerge from the coming year with the sense of fulfillment that escaped you last time around.