Today turned out to be such a wonderful day for me. I had zero plans and was just going to go about my daily activities as usual. I'm not an expert at celebrating birthdays. As I write, however, it is with a grateful heart and humble acknowledgement of all that I am blessed with that I share my thoughts.
This post should have come way earlier today, as this is the end of the day for me, but I had no idea how to begin. With the exciting surprises I received today, I opened up more, and I know that what I feel after it all is gratitude. And that's what this post is about.
A few days into the new year, I felt a little unenthusiasitic, and it was because I felt as though I had underachieved in the year 2023. Why? Well, I thought about the many goals I had set but failed to achieve. What I had also done was to ignore the ones that I nailed, came close to achieving, or even surpassed. When I reflected on the positive growth last year, I realised that I was just self-deprecating. Looking back, the year 2023 was awesome!
For my mother, who has been there all through; my fathers, who have stood for us; my brother, whom I have been through thick and thin with; and my dear family members. For my dearest friends—new and gold—my girlfriend and partner, my colleagues everywhere I have worked, fellow Corpers. The Hive community, the amazing people I have met, and the ones that I have become really fond of. For everyone in my life. I feel blessed and privileged to have them all.
I am even more grateful for the wonderful people who reached out to me to show their love for me and those who went even further to put a smile on my face. And many people have seen how much I smile when I am genuinely happy.
I started the day by speaking into my life and the new year and being thankful to my Father for His mercies. And then, much later into the morning, I spent a lot of hours playing football with my housemates. That's something I don't do often—play football, I mean—and so people knew that my birthday had an influence. I had a great start to the day doing that, even though I was out of breath so many times, but it was all worth it.
The rest of the day was pretty simple. I treated myself nicely at a resort nearby, as there aren't fascinating places where I stay to do anything more elaborate. And then I spent some time at church for rehearsals.
Oh, wait. There was a party in my hostel for me. I attended and was celebrated as the celebrant. What a night, and I was excited about it. And from there, I write in preparation to round up for the day and get some good night's rest.
Something spectacular happened today, and I would like to dwell on it here and now. I received very amazing gifts, but one that was totally surprising and that reached deep into my heart was the one presented by my brother, 
We both aren't great with birthdays—or so I thought—so he was perplexed for a while about what he could do for me other than sending money, which was what I did for him on his birthday a few days ago, on the 24th of Jan; believe me, there are so many things in common than just our birthdays nearly coinciding. What he went on to do, however, had me taken aback. He started a game for me to play.
So this is how the game would be played. I contacted a few friends of ours; all of them are on Hive. You met some of them on Hive, and you knew some of them before Hive. I told them to send a voice note to wish you a happy birthday, and you would have to guess the voice of the person wishing you according to how the voice is arranged.
He actually made a whole video for me and for this game. And as I watched it, I was in total awe of the efforts he put into it. Indeed, my brother isn't playing with his career in videography. It was a cinematic experience for me, and, as a regular blogger of film reviews, I totally loved it! He even did a crazily impressive voiceover for it. But more importantly, he brought in some of my dear friends.
For more context, I deeply want to indulge you in going through this amazing gift
Again, this is coming as a post for my birthday about 24 hours late, but what matters more is that I have come to say THANK YOU, EVERYONE, for the immense love that you have showered. WhatsApp, Discord, and Hive were buzzing for me. And double thanks to those the went out of their ways to gift me with something.
In this new age, I only look forward to becoming better in all aspects of my life and being more connected with myself, the people around me, and my environment. Happy Birthday to Olujay!
Image 4 from here, others are mine
