LOVIN’ LOCKDOWN: Turning Lemons To Lemonade

I’m Back! After a 4-year writing hiatus, it seems I have finally got my groove back. This could not have happened at a crazier time, it has been almost two years of an ongoing global pandemic and my country’s borders have been shut tight the past year. As a creative, I was naturally worried about many things, my profession being one of them.

How was I, a wardrobe stylist and creative director of my own company suppose to survive with only essential services allowed to operate? While I’d love to write you a manual on how I survived it all with a growing bank account at that, I am still accumulating the data and psycho-studying myself to share with you all. But I did and I thrived like an animal adapting to new territories, readjusting its hunt. I diversified swiftly, starting my own protective essentials brand Fend Off, selling masks and face shields (till I was fed up with both making and selling so much for so long). I initiated more of my already existing service offerings like Social Media Management and Marketing and landed new big clients; all the while still styling some of my celebrity clients and creatively directing photoshoots virtually for clients locally and abroad. I even found time (because we’ve had so much of it) to pick up a few online courses to sharpen my dormant skill sets (I’ll share them soon).

The most beautiful and somewhat relieving part of this beast mode, I had gone into was that I finally awakened my passion for writing again.
Writer’s block can be traumatic for the avid author. What has driven most of the world’s greatest writers is the human experience. Living it and breathing it every day is often what fires them up. Truth is, as a writer though life, heartbreak, and trauma fuel our passion to write, it can easily, quietly, and almost undetectably bulldozer us. Then we awake one morning and feel empty and void of the words because our emotions have been completely dispelled in agony, stress, and confusion over something or someone. Four years ago life gave me a whirlwind of feels and not the good type. While I was able to utilize those emotions through my physical dedication to aspects of my life and career, with my writing I could not.

Writing is an intimate process for me, and a guilty pleasure. It takes me to the future but allows me to relive so much of my past. I still have the diaries I penned in Primary School that leave me laughing and cackling at my crazy ingenuity at that age.

At ten and twelve years old I was writing about how complex I found boys to be, how my best friend Ashley had dumped me for a new one, and how I wasn’t sure it was okay that I had a crush on my teacher Mr. Bhudri. In reading these journals during the pandemic bursting into giggles and grinning from ear to ear, I couldn’t help but wonder “Where did this brilliant and brave little girl go? She’s hilarious!” I wanted to know her and be her again. I wanted her fire and her ability to story tell. I envied her and desperately wanted her light.

I’m weirdly amused by my own strength. In those years, I’ve allowed myself to feel it all, pain, anger, stress, catharsis, strength, beauty, success, and happiness. All of which happened in seasons. Some like pain and anger lasting much longer than others but I fully accepted it. Now I’m ready to fill the life of my ardent followers and readers with colour and a lot of my witty sarcasm and humour again. Telling childhood stories and sharing my hip trendy style pile of outfits brought me just as much comfort and joy as it did everyone who read about it. Feels good to release my Pheonix again.

Photography: Curtis Henry

Creative Direction and Styling by Kez Styles

Engraved Chain: Spirit Of Naiad

Top: Forever 21

Pants: Necessary Clothing

Slipper: Guess

Makeup Foundation : Fenty Beauty