END OF THE YEAR: WORST CHRISTMAS EVER!

 

I am typing this on December 24, 2025, and I will share it on the 26th. I have been staring at this screen for a while, trying to figure out how to say everything without sounding dramatic. I want this to feel like a long note you read with a cup of tea, or on your bus ride home. Trotro, if you’re in Ghana. Tonight I feel off. I cannot name it cleanly. It feels like despair and loneliness blended together; the confusion that comes when life changes and no one explains the new rules. I do not know if what lies ahead brings relief or disappointment. I also do not know if the choices I made before now were right. What I know is simple: I feel alone. I often say I like my space and that I do not need constant conversation. I think I lied to myself there. There is a big difference between choosing solitude and feeling stuck inside it. These days, only two things help me breathe through it. I sign up for events, and I read books. That is it.

 Felt like giving a picture break 😅

Last year, I wrote a short end of year post addressing my hopes and dreams. I think I had too much faith in myself. First, I did not get a full time job this year. I met rejection after rejection, silence after interviews, and inboxes full of unanswered emails that all began with, “please find attached”. Advertising agencies told me I did not have agency experience and then disappeared. I keep asking the same questions: How do I get agency experience when my internship letters during my postgraduate studies were ignored? How do you enter a room when the door never opens?

If you are a recruiter and you come across this post after seeing my resume, please give me a chance. I can do the job. I would not apply if I could not. I will prove myself. I am tired of watching the year slip by in boredom and disappointment. 

I am worn out from what people call freelancing, which often means begging for work, trying to build a portfolio, and sometimes not even seeing the finished work. I catch myself scrolling through Instagram and Twitter, checking agency staff/ companies applied to pages, checking who started first, who settled in, who took the spot I imagined for myself. Too much idle time pushes my thoughts into places I should not visit. On other days, I search about suicide and death, things that should not be anywhere near my browser history. Someone once said the devil lurks when a person stays idle, and I believe it now. My thoughts keep jostling, and there are days I feel my soul wants to vamoose from my body.

Good things still happened, and I cherish those aspects of my year. I directed my first project. I traveled outside the country. I joined writing workshops, and yes, yay to the writing workshops!!!! I was selected by the CANEX Writing Workshop team to represent Ghana, and I turned that trip into a small vacation because I had not traveled in years. I met seventeen wonderful people and extended the trip across South Africa. I know, again?!!!! I also joined the Mo Issa Writing Workshop, where the idea for my second novel draft came to me. I joined another workshop that is still ongoing, and I hope my story gets picked and becomes a fully developed piece. I got an agent for my first novel manuscript, but it did not work out because I sent my contract late. She later found it in her spam folder, but her list was full by then. Getting an agent is not the end of the road, so my manuscript sits on my laptop, and I am fine with that.

 This photo went viral on Tiktok and my snapchat, whew!😤

November tested me in ways I did not expect. My mother burned her legs and could not walk for some time. She is healing, though not fully. I kept this to myself, even as it drained me. Some interviews happened in the hospital. One day, a dog from nearby followed me as I disappeared from the hospital noise for silence to do zoom meeting, and I remember thinking how strange that day felt. This Christmas will not feel like the others. My mother has a hospital appointment on Christmas Day while I go to church. I have shared an image below, but it is sensitive. If you see it, please take heart.

 Say a prayer for her 

Lately, I keep asking what the point of all this is. Why do we keep moving in circles, jousting with expectations that never seem satisfied? Literary magazines reject my work again and again, especially Isele and Nenta Journal.The funny thing is that one of the editors of the Nenta Journal works at one of the companies that interviewed me. If I’d been hired, she would probably have been my head of unit. But I never heard back. I start thinking I am a stupid writer, that my work lacks something I cannot name. The funny part is that Do They See You piece, which had many of you in my messages sharing how it touched you, was accepted elsewhere after those rejections. The same thing happened with I Lost My Head When My Father Smiled. Then there are the job rejections which I do not need to further highlight here. Please do not give me speeches about strength and destiny if you have already found your way out. It hurts to rewrite plans every year and watch none of them work out. I feel too young to feel this tired and too old to start from nothing. I think about that episode in Friends Season 9 where Chandler starts over in advertising and later landed the copywriter job. I would take that chance without hesitation. I am desperate, and I will not deny it! DESPERATE IS AN UNDERSTATEMENT!!! I’ve made a pact for the coming year. I wrote a list and made a vow to commit to it. Pray for me, or check in on me and see if I stay true. One of the promises I made is to write every day, even when it feels useless. The goal isn’t to produce something perfect. I just need the discipline, the practice of showing up. You know that old saying… anyway. The rest of the list stays behind closed doors for now. I might decide to tell you all someday.

Solo picnic date with food and my books

December started with me baking pies, sausage rolls, banana bread, cookies, and shortbread from a new recipe that tastes good. I made soya bean kebab and took myself on a solo date. I ain’t paying 50gh for Laboma beach. This spot is mine alone and I am not willing to share. Pay me to reveal it😂 I buy shortbread sometimes just to taste it before baking my own and that explains the first image. I went to three weddings and one production. I loved Kensten’s wedding, even though guests arrived late. I attended Shadrack and Michelle’s wedding, and Shadrack, if you see this please forgive me. I went to a wedding of doctors for the food, and I stand by that choice. Another wedding comes on December 27, and you will see that later. Another solo date is planned, though it may not show up here. 

I braided my hair twice this month. At the salon, I met a girl and her mother who liked that I write. Her mother wanted to read my work but admitted she avoids books. I should have taken their contacts. The second braiding happened the day before my birthday. Also, the fellowship in my church had an end of year hangout and I baked some pastries for them. I have also loved being an usher and as part of the drama department in my church. Love the ushering more!!! I must say that I have done quite a few and still look out to do more.

 I have taken off the braids though.

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As the year draws to a close, I sit with gratitude, though it is dressed in biliousness. There is pride here, and doubt too, hope rubbing off shoulders with recriminations, all of them arriving at once, uninvited, refusing to wait their turn. They say this is life: that you stumble, learn from your mistakes, try again, do better, or at least find something else worth doing. I want to believe that. I also hope that my life will become easier. People often ask me, “Why aren’t you selling?” The honest answer is simple: I don’t have the funding and I am genuinely scared. What if my food stops tasting good and I lose customers? Does it even taste good at all? Is it a lie people say to my face? 

 In addition, I love feedback and comments, and I really enjoy using them. But sometimes I worry about taking customer opinions too far and ending up creating work that stresses me out. For instance, I might bake four different batches because one client loves a lot of sugar, another hates it, another prefers brown sugar, and then I’m left trying to split costs when electricity is already expensive. That’s part of why I’m conflicted. As much as I enjoy baking, what I truly want is to be in advertising, even if it’s just as a copywriter to start with. That’s the dream job I’m working toward. If someone were to fund me or become my partner, I would change my mind right away, and I’d even go from company to company. Or better yet, if any company is seeing this, please hire me in your kitchen. From my previous blog posts, you already know I can bake pizza, make Alfredo, and cook whatever I set my mind to. Forget my non kitchen related qualifications. 

I want to say a big thank you to every new person I met this year, and to those who inspired me in ways they may never fully understand. Thank you to my mum, the best mum ever, to my uncle, and to my mum’s church members for doing their small, out-of-the-ordinary kindnesses that meant so much.

There are many things I want to say to 2025, but honestly — 

Fuck 2025. Please, 2026, do not make me cry again.

Look at the photos and leave a comment.