From the pandemic to the death of Kobe and Gigi Bryant, then Chadwick Boseman’s ( Wakanda Forever ) heartbreaking passing, down to the protests against gross misconduct of the Special Anti Robbery Squad(#Endsars). WHAT A YEAR!!!! Ohh, click on that link .
Hello, I’m Maryann Chiamaka Onuoha. I am 20 years old, nerdy - that’s what people say. A Wattpad lover and ohh most importantly, a BTS and Wizkid Stan 👊. 2020 wasn’t perfect for me or anybody, but it did have its good days too.
Early last year I lost my Dad to prostate cancer. For four years we had spent everything we had on treatment, we had been to every hospital, took every test there was, followed every prescription given, couldn’t go through with surgery because the cancer had progressed to its fourth stage. He was immobile and helpless for a while, before suddenly improving. Just as things were looking better, complications arose, and on the 14th of February that year, he passed. It left me broken. I could barely live. I was confused. I skipped classes, meals, and was intentionally failing at school. It was hard, it really was. It took me months to get my head straight. Luckily, I was not alone. A really good friend spoke sense into me, “Maryann what is your gain?” he asked. “This would do you no good, it’s just putting your health and future at risk”. The conversation that followed from there began my healing process. Although I still miss my dad, I am beginning to learn how to live again.
I still cry sometimes, and still sigh each time I walk past his pictures around the house. I even still write letters and send him WhatsApp messages, weird right? But honestly, it’s my safe space. That’s how I’m most comfortable and I actually feel as though he reads them and I get this warm satisfaction after I write my heart out (P.S I’m not crazy ).
Before 2019 ended I co founded an initiative Arète, alongside Abisola Jegede, Ifihan Olusheye , and Mbaoma. Arète is an initiative that is focused on teaching young children how to operate Microsoft tools and also introduce them to computer programming.
For some reasons known to me, I haven’t been actively involved but honestly, I have the perfect team members. I’m proud to announce Arète impacted over a thousand kids this year🎉
So 2020 started, and just like the image above, my slate was blank. I honestly had no plan, nothing scheduled, I was just sad and broken. A lot of things weren’t working right, peer pressure here and there. I was miserable, depression kicked in. The funny thing is, no one knew. I might talk a lot, but I can also be very tight-lipped.
So yeah, I let it kill me. But that wasn’t for long. In my abyss, I spoke to Chiziaruhoma and he said something that cheered me up, and is part of what I currently run with - “Don’t beat yourself up too much, it’s okay if you don’t have it all figured out now”. He said lots of other stuff, well, it didn’t kill my depression immediately but it helped reduce the burden I was carrying within my heart.
Things eventually smoothened out, not perfect, but it wasn’t that bad either. During the month of March, I stumbled upon a tweet made by Cynthia peters regarding GNOME and GNOME Africa. So I reached out to her and she added me to the group. I researched GNOME for a while, texted a few people already working there - Sramkrishna and Regina helped me through the process and into GNOME. At first, things were messy. But I really appreciate the mentors who helped put me through. Months went by then I started building GNOME Africa, alongside Regina. I was thrilled because I was going to be making a difference. Not just in Nigeria, but throughout the continent - Africa. Of course, I was a little scared too. What if I couldn’t do it? I eventually decided to stop worrying and start acting. I started with the Twitter handles, made sure we had the right content to put out to draw people into a new community, spread the love of GNOME, and Get more Africans to contribute to Open Source. Few weeks into it, we got massive interactions and feedback from people and we created a community both on Telegram and Whatsapp . Words could not describe the elation I felt. I also contributed to open source and got people to contribute to GNOME.
DevChronicles was another chapter that was opened this year. I got motivated by a YouTube video I saw online. I really can’t remember who the YouTuber was again, but the idea hit me after watching this particular video, hence my baby - "Developers Chronicles". You might be wondering what Developers Chronicles is, it’s a blog where we publish a Bi-Monthly series, that aims to unravel the intricacies of the developer’s life by getting to know the developers themselves. Basically what we do is, invite a particular developer, have a chat with him/her, talk about their tech life, fun activities and of course, their love lives. We started from scratch, now we have over 300+ readers. So we decided to spice it up, by we I mean Akinboluwarin Akinwande , Olutola Owolabi , and Tabitha Kavyu. We added a podcast to Developers Chronicles, making us release two Articles and one podcast in a month (At least that’s what we agreed on, we’ve been lazy😪) Check it out here : hashnode.com/@DevChronicles and our podcast: anchor.fm/dev-chronicles-chronicles Please don’t forget to leave feedback and subscribe to our newsletter.
June/July came with its own issues. I was struggling a lot. Financially, mentally and things just weren’t falling into place. It was very hard and I kept asking myself if I was doing anything wrong. Everywhere I looked, it was either getting into a new job or making their first million. It hit me hard. There was this one time I had the house all to myself. Guess what I did. Yup, I cried, a lot. I even blamed God for all the things that weren’t right in my life. I felt really heavy during this period, and I didn’t know how to go about talking about it. So, my feelings just remained bottled in my heart.
Fast forward to September 2nd, 2020, with Regina’s recommendation, I got an email from GNOME saying I had become a foundation member. Yesss I was screaming in my room, I was happy, this small girl was a member of the GNOME foundation. I even got my own customized email: Maryannonuoha@gnome.org, and lots of cool other stuff came with it. Only four members were selected out of Nigeria, and your girl happened to be one of those four 🎉🎉 (I’m crying 😭)
Due to the safety measures enforced to curb the spread of the coronavirus, we couldn’t hold our first GNOME Africa event physically despite the preparation that had already gone into it. But we didn’t let covid take away our shine - we held a virtual meetup instead and kept the physical one pending. I was an organizer worried laugh. I was scared, my mind kept failing me, it wasn’t just an event to me, it was a test of leadership, of worthiness. But I had a great support system, I had my friends and I had Regina who helped me every step of the way.
The event cut across all African countries, we had over 10+ speakers from GNOME, Gitlab, etc and of course, our own people definitely gave talks.
Prior to the African event titled “GNOME Onboard Africa” we had a global GNOME event (Guadec). Alongside Ruth Ikegah, I helped out with the social media account
In September, I was obsessed with twitter(way more than I usually am). Immersing myself in other people's lives led to self-doubt, inferiority complex, and a chronic case of imposter syndrome. I compared myself with other people and even cried. I felt burnt out on the inside, and I felt like my entire body was failing me. Thankfully, I had my girls as usual to help me get through those times. It was hard and for almost a month I was passing through hell but no one knew except people close to me. I had this mentality that there was no need to let people into my life because in the end, they’ll leave. Thankfully, I survived the month.
October!!! Yayy, it was my birthday month🎉. I stepped into this month with mixed feelings for two reasons. One, I still had a bit of the imposter syndrome from the previous month. Two, sharing the same birthday month with my dad (October 13th), and my parent’s wedding anniversary (October 1st) made my heart feel heavy. Regardless, I was happy to be turning 20🎉. You have no idea how hyped I was for “The big 20”. October 1st and 13th came and I could sense the sad atmosphere in the house. We all tried to be careful not to trigger any memory so my mum won’t start crying. That didn’t really help; she cried, we all did. The day of my birthday came, I was hyper, happy, and healthy. I got lots of texts and gifts (God bless you all), then all of a sudden, something happened that nearly ruined my day. It made me pray. It took about 3 hours for me to settle down and feel better, but at the end of it all, I still had a remarkable day. I also had the opportunity of speaking about Open Source, GNOME, and technical writing workshops this year. I was a bit scared but I still gave it my best. I realized that I generally get scared when it comes to talks, but as the talk progresses I get more comfortable.
What do I want to be in five years? We keep asking ourselves this question, what do we want to be in 5 Years? Honestly, we all don’t know, we’re just trying to figure out who we are now. For me, maybe it’s because it is more about who I want to be than what I want to be(hope this makes sense). But I can tell you this, I always want to be my siblings’ joy, an embodiment of my dad’s love and wisdom, my mum’s warmth. I want to always be kind to my friends, but most of all, I want to be my loved ones laughter.
Over the year, I made choices that broke me and hurt me. I even hurt the people I loved due to a lack of communication, and pushed many people away. I made them cry, and looking back now I would do anything to fix my mess. I still don’t know if I’m sending this out, but if by chance you’re reading this and we aren’t together, I want you to know that I’m sorry for hurting you with my big head.
No matter how strong our resolve is, sometimes we get frustrated and want to give up. It happens at work, in school, and even in relationships. Those are the times when we most need some encouragement. It could be a pep talk or reading some inspirational quote or something. But remember this during those times - whatever course you decide, there would always be someone to tell you that you are wrong. And irrespective of the truthfulness of it, it could cause you to doubt yourself. To map out a course of action and follow it to the end requires courage. So stand tall, keep your head high, you survived Covid, You survived #Endsars, pat yourself on the back, you’ve got this.
Appreciation post
Obviously God and my family comes first ❤️
Okoh Trojan : I’ve told you before, thank you for everything. You’ve made it so easy to talk to you. Even when you’re busy, you still make time to reply. Thank you. Olalekan : Hahaha, I’m really trying not to throw a shade. Thank you for making 2020 suck less. Your constant motivation and love is invaluable, you have no idea what it did. You were a go to person for when I have a shitty days, and thank you for allowing me spend your money too. Mbaoma, Ifihan and Abisola : My girls, my ride, any day, any time, I’m trying not to put up an epistle that would make me cry, but thanks for having my back every step of the way. Honestly, I don’t think I’d have survived 2020 without the three of you. You are truly remarkable Regina : Maami, you were a blessing in disguise, your sweet warm encouragement, had me going . Geektutor : Omo Ologo 30G, Fundszzz, thank you for all you did for me. Your energy, love, and zeal isn’t from this world. Geek always has the right word to say to me each time I’m feeling like a piece of shit. Akinboluwarin : Partnering with you is just amazing, that zeal to always continue Developers Chronicles comes from you. Bolu, your zeal isn’t from this word, I thank God I have a partner like you, someone to always fall back to when there was any issue regarding Developers Chronicles. Olabisi Joseph : Babe, let’s not expose ourselves. But honestly, you entered my life during the time I needed someone to push me and encourage me, the later part of 2020 would have been crazy but I had you and my girls to keep me going.
They say you save the best for the last, that's just what I did 🥺 Chiziaruhoma : My sweet sweet sweet baby. From patience, to never giving up, I have learned a lot from you. I learned how to think before acting, and to fight for what I want irrespective of the outcome. I can’t find the right words to appreciate what you have done for me. Even if I put all the words in the world, they are not enough. Thank you so much 😊 There are so many days that you have always come to my aid, even with small tasks I should do on my own. Thank you big time for your support and encouragement.
I made lots of amazing friends this year honestly, and I’m glad they were part of my 2020.
One more thing before I conclude. As I stand at the border of 2021, honestly I don’t know what the future has in store, or what to even expect. But, I will live each day with the intention of breaking boundaries, living out, and achieving my aspirations. So can you too.
You’re a star, do not settle for less.
Give as much attention to your growth as to your goals. Goals without growth can be pointless. I know there is pressure from everywhere about smashing goals, but please do not get pressured into losing focus. Let me give an example . Let's say, you have a goal to read 50 books in the year 2021. You eventually read those 50 books which by way, would be very lovely. But, it would be terrible to read those books with no value being added to you.
In your reading(or whatever it is you do), learn. Take down action points and apply them to your life.
Either way, I believe in you. I know you will do great things in the new year.
Stand tall Have fun Cheers to having survived 2020 thus far 🎉
