My Self-ish Story
By: Glory Mafor
Tags: Creativity, Prompt, Newsletter, Self Ish, Storytelling

My Self-ish Story

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Hello Dearest Self-ish People,

Whew, this has been some year, hasn’t it!

Yesterday, as I (Glory Mafor) followed a YouTube live session where one of my favourite YouTubers was unboxing (or in this case, ‘un-enveloping’) his latest collection of books, we talked about how the year has been for him and those of us watching. The only words I could come up with were:

Emotional Whiplash.

What this means courtesy of Urban Dictionary is:

An extreme, rapid series of emotions that leave everyone involved including the person who is experiencing the emotions, disoriented and/or confused.

There has been too much to be happy and hurt about at the same time!

And while this was my personal definition of 2020, I think it pretty much sums up the Self-ish year as well.

New Writers!

The gang got bigger this year, with amazing writers Lilian Kimuya, Fọlábòmí Àmọ̀ó, and Ọla adding flavour to our personal, authentic and black stories. See for yourself.

For the girls waiting on their men, the girlfriends trying to keep their men, the married women tolerating their men, the divorcees who got fed up with their men; and the hopelessly enamoured who can’t get enough of their men. For our men, the ones exhausted from trying too hard to please their women, the clueless ones riding the tide trying to figure it out and the ones who found their perfectly imperfect match…this is to you!

But on this day,

Staring into these waters; Maybe,

Just maybe,

I can find some peace.

To Be by Ọla

I did not choose this skin of mine

that I have come to inhabit.

I did not choose the loudness of my lips.

Nor did I choose the space taken up by my hair.

Self-ish is Two and has New Friends Too!

The month of November was quite an eventful one for us, as we celebrated our 2nd anniversary on the 10th, woohoo! We went crazy on the socials!

Even better, we got to collaborate with other amazing storytelling communities in Cameroon to celebrate. #TeamSelf-ish told stories on Facebook with ARM Talks, and performed at an ARM Talks event in the city of Buea on November 22nd.

Some of Team Self-ish at ARM Talks

We also partnered with Griot Hub and IYA Buea for a thrilling night of storytelling on the 27th in the same city,

Self-ish at IYA Buea

and then went all the way to the city of Bamenda to join La Liberte Arts Group for their Black Swagger poetry slam night on the 29th.

Dripping Black Swagger

We would bring you the whole gallery, but if we did you might still be here in two hours, ha!

Goodbyes… why?

If you read last month’s newsletter, then you know there are also a few things we are sad about. If you missed it, never mind. Here you go.

The short version of it is, Ameaka and most of the admin team are taking a much-needed break from Self-ish and it has not been easy to say goodbye.

We will miss them dearly.

Whiplash, no?

But as the last newsletter said,

New writers, new style, same Self-ish!

That’s the plan. We will continue to fill your inbox with awesomeness from our amazing writers, starting with this:

December Prompt

This year has taught every one of us lessons, made us different in a number of ways and we might never go back to our pre-2020 selves. Which is a good thing, I suppose.

So, tell us how you have become more authentic, more resilient, more enlightened, more disciplined, or more of whatever lessons you have learned this year. Tell us:

Your Self-ish Story

You can tell it however long you want, in whatever shape or form you desire. There is one little rule though:

You can use whichever title you choose but your subtitle should say ‘My Self-ish Story of 2020’

And we expect the last submissions to come in on Thursday, December 24th, at 12:00 PM CAT so that the editors are not rushing over your beautiful stories at the last minute.

Keep being awesome,

And Happy Holidays!