Wednesday, 12 August 2026
AND SO WILL MY CREATIVE PROCESS SURVIVE?
If you are reading this piece, I am going to, as usual, spiral and just dance around the page, and the fact that I have to give this disclaimer before I write always marvels me, because who says my brain is supposed to operate chronologically? Is it a crime to just share my thoughts as is? Why do I feel like someone will judge my distortion? Is the world even moving in a successive, progressive way? Is there one right way of doing anything?
I have come to accept that normal may be good, but it’s not entirely my reality. My brain is an ebb and flow of memories, to-do lists, mistakes, hurt, joy, and language. It is the blessing and curse of being a creative, of having a gift to steward. There is a burden, a guilt that comes with not creating when and how you desire to create. It feels like something is eating at you, like you are drowning, like you are failing. I know this because I have been there for many weeks, in this slump of not doing or doing but not in the way I think to be enough.
I consider my ability to write a gift, but a strange, demanding type of gift, if I can call it that. A gift stricto sensu is a present given to someone without asking for anything in return, but my craft is asking everything of me, everything. So on some days, it does not feel like this blessed offering that should ideally liberate me; it feels like a hostage situation. I told someone once that if I don’t write, then I die, and they said, God forbid. I want to forbid it too. To say that I can go on into the world without maybe journaling or scribbling or telling stories or stewarding language and rendering it on the page, but the truth is that a life that doesn’t involve any of the above is exactly the kind of life I do not want. And I mean also the process, I want the process, like the whole pain of staring at a wall for hours to mine a sentence, the reading through tons of books to help you frame a complete thought. I promise I am not a fan of torture, but there is something innately powerful and alluring about the writing and creative process that I deeply respect. And it is only for this reason that I sometimes worry about Artificial Intelligence, this new age of writing, and writing fast with AI.
This post is not about that AI or all its nuances, but I was once in a room full of creatives arguing for and against the use of AI in the creative process, and I was wide-eyed. The lines have blurred, and everyone has all sorts of justifications for outsourcing their thinking to a machine, and oh, this is not a self-righteous post. She who is with sin cannot be the first to cast a stone. Please read the sin very loosely. The point is, I create my best work when I go through the process, and I allow it to go through me. That’s how I approach refinement, that’s how I honor the stories and the life I want to render on the page, but the cares of life are fighting for my process. Capitalism is too, and maybe I should start a series on being a creative navigating corporate and how my dreams as an artist have been tested in both good and difficult ways. I think I am writing in an attempt to find people like me going through it and to say, make una help me, or really, you are not alone. You need to protect your process, and as spontaneous as I pride myself to be, I have realized, having been working a serious corporate job for a while, that I need structure and I need a plan. My creative process must survive. You have to be almost militant about it. Like literally, it’s a fight in today’s day and age, and we have to win.
I am also struggling with reading. I buy books when I can. I am the first to register to attend a lunch or reading, even though I may not attend. I know about the authors and maybe to an extent the premise of their work, so if you put me in a room full of book lovers, I will hold my own. But I also feel like a fraud, like I only have surface knowledge of things, and deep calleth unto deep. But I am not finishing the books. I wonder if it’s my attention span or the fact that I am trying to read everything and anything. From poetry to books on development to fiction. I can go from reading a short story about travel to a review of How China Escaped the Poverty Trap, and from reading a poem about birds to listening to Edible Economics by Ha-Joon Chang on Audible. I have recently decided that, to help my thought process, I’ll go back to reading jurisprudence, logic and philosophical thought from my days studying law in university. My heart is asking me to slow down and gather myself, my brain is asking me to keep going, and I’ll find my rhythm. My time is telling me that whatever I need to do, I need to do it fast, I need to decide.
I have not found a solution to my quagmire yet, but I know literature, writing and creativity are important because one of the reasons I am writing this and will most likely publish it, as disjointed as it is, is because I have come to believe truly that the only way out is through. Not under or above, not by running or waiting fir perfection, but through. As per whatever I am going through, I should be going through it because that’s how I get out. So I am going through it by writing and deciding to publish this, by discovering new music, and by reading still, even as my attention span disappears before my eyes.
This is an incomplete piece, matter of fact, three budding essays in one, and I can spend my days leaving this in the drafts, but I say, how about I share my contemplation and struggle? What do you have to say about it?
Ps: All typos and grammatical errors belong to my alter ego Black Rose, that girl be doing all sorts!
Sunday, 12 April 2026
What Doesn't Kill You Makes You See 25
I.
It is December 2025. I begin writing this in a state of brokenness.
My perfume, red-bottled and scenting of roses and Oud, fell to the floor and broke. I imagine this is what heartbreak feels like, an unceremonious dropping to the point of irredeemable breakage. I have become philosophical about the broken pieces of glass on the floor. I am also looking at it from a purely economic standpoint. Who gave a perfume I saved so hard to buy the audacity to break? Who?
I soak up the scent from the floor and walk past the shattered glass. My Bolt is waiting outside. I am going house hunting, which, dear people of God, is the sure recipe for madness. I enter the car and I hear a tear. The jeans I was wearing just ripped. I wish this was fiction. Brethren, I wore it like that and went to meet the house agent waiting for me because I was done with life and its treacherous surprises or maybe it's because I am Gen Z and a small rip on my ass should not hurt anyone. Or maybe I was just done.
II.
There was a breaking, tearing and ripping apart that coloured my 2025, and by God I hope it never repeats itself again. I was proof that you can function and not die, even though a million things are trying to kill you. I woke up each day and I brought all of myself with me, not in a good way. I woke every day and the Roseline you encountered, however piecemeal, inadequate, small, happy, kind, or rude, was all of her. I was operating like a person who had no base, no reserve. I sometimes wished to be swept away, and this is so crazy because in 2024, a couple I really respect prayed for me and their exact prayer was, "Roseline, you will never be swept away." They must have preempted that something was going to attempt to ruthlessly sweep me away, and they sought to avert it. The people who have full context will understand.
III.
2025 was the year I understood what the Bible meant by groanings that cannot be uttered. There was so much going on, too much even. I wanted to do a 2025 video dump and ninety percent were videos of me weeping grown woman tears. I see those videos and I look at my Instagram and I laugh. My bio reads: Mantra, Romanticize your life. I am fantastic at highlighting the little things, of mining goodness from the cracks of tragedy, of making goodness, laughter, beauty and aesthetics the centre piece. I am a master at carrying on and dragging joy and curating the beautiful percentages of my life into admirable, happy and aspirational pieces.
I told one of my closest friends that I feel like a mascot sometimes, like a fraud, that I like to share but it's unfair to mostly share palatable things. She said I do not owe people on the internet the interiorities of my life or the gory realities of it. That I can share as much or as little as I bloody want. I agree.
Truth is, I don't pretend to find joy in the mundane. Truly, the little things bring me joy and I can be so squeaky and cheesy and warm, but I can admit that on some days I lose myself trying to not look like what I am going through. On some days I am anxious about the smell of my troubles, I panic that someone can sniff it on me. I am pretending not to be falling apart in my own house and in my workplace. I fake a smile. I finish that document, I schedule that meeting, I say yes to things even when I would rather not be existing. I pretend to be easygoing in moments when I don't want to go anywhere and I want to simply say my mind. I do not know how to ask for help or demand for things, so I simply swallow my discomfort.
IV.
I am spiralling, but what I am trying to say is that I love life. I really love life. I don't know that I love all of my life at this moment but I know I want to be alive. I am not suicidal in any potent way. I just had a year where I was tired of being. I wanted to be human because it was animalistic and damn right banal, the mental and physical load I had to carry and dispel. I just had a year where I had to fight to be grateful. There were big wins, you know. I didn't fail the bar. I am a whole lawyer now. I became a published author. My chapbook, A Body In Spice sold out almost immediately. But the challenges, my God. One day, when there is complete victory, I will write about it.
V.
2025 also taught me not to blame people who offer advice based on what they know and the context they understand. I had someone tell me I was always focusing on my losses and the bad instead of celebrating my current wins. I told them they had a point and I still believe they do, but thinking deeply about it, nobody who knew about my challenges, anxieties, concerns and trauma would frame it as focusing on my losses, Nobody! So until people actually run a mile in your shoes, advice will flow like water. Take what you can, do not internalise the rest.
VI.
In 2026, I want deeply rooted victories, not fleeting accomplishments. I am also trying, in this new quarter, to take responsibility for my own joy and happiness. My 25th birthday taught me that. I don't know whether it is the societal rave surrounding 25 and how it means you are a whole adult now, or that for the first time in a long time I thought it was okay to have some expectation from people you are getting to know, that kind of failed but…
See, I feel like this whole 25 deconstruction is so personal and most of it has already happened in my journal and may happen in another blog post. But I had a lovely time with my friends, and they were people who actually went out of their way to remind me of the love and light that I am, to show with words and gifts what it feels like to be treasured and acknowledged. You see, if they wanted to, they would. That is another mantra I live by. Nobody who cares enough will be flimsy or dismissive about a day that matters to you. Please look for love in the arms of people whose love is sure. Please. And do not ever exaggerate your place in people's lives. I am begging you, because I can tell you firsthand that it is a recipe for heartbreak. I feel wise and seasoned now, as the 25-year-old that I so gloriously am. I feel like I know so much about life at this age, but I am also aware that I know very little, there is still so much to learn, so many mistakes to make.
My biggest advice for anyone turning 25 is this: please know that it is literally just another glorious year, but also it is very special. Make of that day what you want. Don't leave it in anybody's hands. You are responsible for your own joy. Save and spoil yourself. Sleep in and watch a movie if that is what you want. Just do something that makes you happy.
VII.
Finally, 2025 really taught me that even when I come undone, I cannot be fully done. It taught me that I don't know how to give up. Done is a word that will call me a weakling and a liar and win. I carry on, I live, I do things. My heart and brain is full of ingenious ideas. I am a very blessed, very gifted individual. Something about my destiny, about my walk here on earth, is too precious to be cut short.
My relationship with God has been rocky, there are many things I do not understand, many unanswered questions, many valid fights between faith and logic, many unfulfilled promises, divine heartaches and church hurt. I am tired of 'suddenly,' of the kind of eleventh-hour blessings and miracles that came right at the brink of my catastrophe. So I say, God, if you already have the solutions I seek, why are you allowing my agony? I have told God that there are less debilitating ways to teach me how to trust him. You don't have to bring little Miss Independent to her knees to get her to know that she should turn to you. In all of this, I still believe. It is nonsensical that I still believe, but I do. Much of my help has come from God. Psalm 121 is a scripture that has now become an anchor. God has sent me people, created opportunities for me, delivered me from sticky situations, and saved me from death. I believe so much in the spiritual. Nobody can convince me that there is no God. I prefer to keep wrestling with the faith, than to have no faith all.
VIII.
I should stop here now. Shout out to my friends, all of you. God sent you people to me. It is not ordinary to have people who feel my ache, even before my mouth can express it, even before my body can articulate it. You know yourselves and if you are reading this, thank you for being balm. I am forever moved that you love me. That love has carried me into 2026.
Ps: all typos belong to my alter ego. Can never be me!
