Are you happy?

Or are you lost in the endless void that is this world?

Hey friend!

The first time I ever had an iced coffee was at Indomie Cafe in 2023 with my newly wedded sister and her husband. If you’ve known me personally for a while now, yes, it was the same day I took off a wig in the car because I was tired.

But back to my story, they had used condensed milk in making my coffee and my big head didn’t realise I had to mix it all together first. So I slurped down the extremely sweet milk, complaining that it was too sweet. Once it was done however, I tasted my extremely bitter coffee. In my dismay, I asked if I could get more milk but they said no. So guess who had to slurp it all down miserably. Me. Regardless of this though, I had so much fun. I was the third wheel and seeing my newly wedded sister and her husband was so chill.

Now this story has no correlation to today’s post but it’s just funny🤣.

You know, I can be very fickle at times. I woke up on April fools excited about my birthday, planning how to do a shoot and everything. Alas, na me be the fool o. Chat, I’m really not excited anymore.

POV: Me in a studio somewhere before the 24th.

Over the past few days, I’ve come upon the realization that I’m just glad I lived.

As a child, I wanted to be an astronaut or scientist or doctor or lawyer but I never really saw myself at 21 or 22 or 23 or 24. I never even imagined what my wedding would look like up until my roomate mentioned that she wanted a song I got her on, The Good Ones by Gabby Barrett, to be one of her wedding songs.

Guys, I’ve realized I’ve never truly lived for myself or in the present. I’m here again, with two decades of rotations around the sun and realizing that everything I’m involved in at the moment is either for future Oyinda or someone else.

My therapist (yes, I’ve decided to start this journey) asked me what makes me happy the other day. I thought hard before I answered and my answer was seeing people around me happy. My next answer was reading a book but even that only makes me feel a fleeting sense of joy when I’m drawn into other worlds before the boredom and self depreciation settles back in.

What makes me happy? I find my happiness in the moments I truly live. I turned the corner the other day and saw the most breathtaking sunset I had seen in a while, it almost made me cry. My niece smiled at me over the phone and while she still doesn’t know who I am or recognize me, my heart melted a little.

Unfortunately, this isn’t still me being happy on my own. These were chance encounters no matter how you place it. I may have waited for my stylist’s daughter for five more minutes and never seen the sunset that day. My precocious niece might have been asleep and never smiled at me and there’s me, left in my gray world.

Would there ever be a time where my world would light up and shine again, like diamonds? Who knows?

Until then, I’d keep asking, finding answers and growing into myself.

But for today, I make another iced coffee and capture the memories from that day in 2023.

And I hope when next I or someone else asks ‘What makes you happy?’

We have an answer that makes us smile from within without even thinking about it.

As always, I love you.

Your friend ,

Iceyyoluwa❤️