Dear 2018,

At around this time last year, I welcomed 2017 with enthusiasm and hope. I made big plans and resolutions. It was going to be my year. Yes, I know, it was quite foolish and naïve of me to have high expectations considering the fact that everything has been going downhill since the day I fully transitioned into adulthood.

2017 didn’t care about my plans. Every moment of victory and happiness has been fleeting. I have learnt my lesson. I have learnt not to expect too much so I am not asking for too much.

Just please be kind to me.

Patch the holes in my pocket. I need money. Not a lot. Just enough to buy a phone with a good camera. If I can’t be rich, then at least I should be able to lie to the world that everything is going just fine. A good camera is the pathway to this important lie. I will set the background to Paris and then caption it with gratitude for the Lord’s goodness.

Meanwhile, I will be hiding in my house, yawning and staring at the ceiling. Why is it important for me to lie? Because I work really hard so I have earned the right to make people jealous.

Also this year, please let karma do its job on my neighbor. He hides behind my house and whispers lies on his phone to his side-chic while his very pregnant wife sits in the house a few metres away.

My moral standing is not the reason why this man’s behavior bothers me. No. What really bothers me is that he has a mediocre job, mediocre brainpower if his phone conversations are anything to go by, and boy is he hard on the eyes! And yet he cheats on his wife when in my opinion, people like him should be humble and well behaved.

So punish him, if not for anything else, for his failure to recognize that he should be grateful beyond words that someone accepted him as her husband.

Speaking of husbands, dear 2018, please be the year when my future husband breaks up with the woman who is eating our future children’s fees. Or at least be courteous enough to tell me if he is not coming at all.

I started 2017 with determination to be thinner but my taste buds wouldn’t let me be. I tried to do exercises but as it turns out, I really hate the active pursuit of perspiration. Within minutes, I was bored and hungry and so I went home, put on a movie and ate myself fat. Let’s not have a repeat of that this year.

Lastly, dear 2018, don’t feel the need to rush. 2017 rushed to the end, to my birthday and I felt the sting of getting older. And now I am at that age when I have to lie or get overly sensitive when people ask me how old I am. This whole age thing is messing with my emotional stability.