Like, did we really make it? Did we actually make it through the longest decade masqueraded as the year known as 2020? When this year started, I had so many things planned. The books I wanted to write, the online and in person book events I wanted to host and attend. I had yet to host a giveaway, but I had a few planned too, only for those plans to become just black words on white paper.

But you know what? I’m not all the way mad.

This year, I added to my family, giving birth at home (something I’ve always wanted to do) to a baby girl. I released 6 books, and I didn’t lose my mind – and that last one was a real accomplishment giving all that we were all faced with this year.

This year, I learned to celebrate the losses.

Let me explain…

On December 31^st of every year, the prospect of the upcoming year fills us with optimism. You can literally smell the optimism wafting off us like an expensive fragrance perfuming every room we step in. Then 2020 happened and ripped out the first page in our new chapter, making a paper ball out of our well-thought-out goals, humbling many of us. I mean, honestly, I was already a homebody who preferred to cook and make a lot of things at home and I’m pretty hush, hush with the plans I plan to execute creatively. But even I can say that 2020 was a challenge and really made clear the stuff that mattered the most. In that clarity, I learned to take the lessons with the Ls. To acknowledge the difficult and far from pretty moments and how to make the best out of any situation given to me. In essence, I embraced blooming wherever planted, even if the garden had a funky ass smell like 2020 sometimes did.

Now about those books…

I thank God I went on a writing spree in 2019 because the books written in 2019 (except for Rekindled) got published in 2020. For a period, I couldn’t write anything. My brain was in a fog thanks to the anxiety surrounding COVID. My first trimester in pregnancy was HARD. Add to that all the shit that transpired while we were all supposed to be on lockdown, everything became a lot. Despite that, this year I introduced you to six different couples. Three of those couples laid the groundwork for my new series, Love Is Cure. I continued the stories of two other couples and added them to my Forbidden series. And the last story of the year was a Christmas tale that reignited my love of writing all over again. Editing these books offered the movement I didn’t know I needed to stay in motion. It was the only redundant thing during a time of redundancy that didn’t try my patience.

To say this year was a challenge mentally would be the understatement of the century. But all in all, I have to show gratitude for the milestones I experienced this year because although they were few, they really were phenomenal.

I made it to the finish line, a bit tattered and out of breath, but still I made it. And I’m happy you made it with me.

I’m still going into 2021 filled with optimism and with goals because my new year doesn’t need the baggage from my old one. I refuse to treat 2021 like the guy who has to date me while I’m still jaded from my previous relationship. Believing that all years are just the same is not big energy.

Nah.

So here’s to a fruitful and prosperous 2021, because we deserve.