2025 Thanksgiving Notes 🦃

On October 13th, 2025, the Thanksgiving holiday in Canada comes with plenty of conversations around gratitude and a lot to eat and drink. As I look back from the last 2024 Thanksgiving up until 2025 Thanksgiving, I have a very long list of things I am deeply thankful for. In 2024, I was coming out of what I would define as the worst depression season of my life.

Coming from 2024, too many things in my life were tight and discombobulated. I had so many questions and very few answers, finding my feet as an immigrant originally from Nigeria.

I also found myself in spaces with people who were far removed from my reality. The pain, the confusion, the disgust, and the disappointment you feel over and over. Not like you don't already know not to be entitled with people or with things. You just needed help, which was not forthcoming. One important thing for me in 2024 was that in the midst of the chaos and stepping out of depression, I was also focused on taking calculated steps.

What you have to understand about living abroad is that you don't get that many chances to take your shot at life-changing opportunities. So when you see one, you better aim and take that shot. Whether you win or lose, you know it was better than not trying at all. I did tons of personal research, sent out so many cold emails about the challenges I was having, and took every genuine help I was offered.

I also finally gave up going to career clinics and all those CV revamp fairs and seminars and meetings. There is so much you can attend when you have to deal with systemic discrimination, where you just need someone to get your foot through the door, someone to take a chance on you. The moment I found that perfect context resume template on referral, it just clicked, and I have shared the same with people who had positive feedback. After what felt like forever, I found my yeses, back to back. Things finally started to fall in place, and I am on a journey of daily gratitude because I don't even take these things for granted.  

The one time someone basically watered down my international professional experience across 3 different countries and my skills with backup portfolios and rained subtle insults on me in the name of professional CV advice? Then I met two of that person's allies at different events, and they were so stunned because a part of me could read in their eyes that they never believed someone like me could be in that room.

As part of my gratitude review, I have also dropped acquaintances in Canada, like I did in Sweden and Nigeria. At some point, I may have confused them with being friends, but I found out quickly that too many of your own people rate you based on your immigration status abroad. The reason I have learned to connect with people who are not out snooping about my immigration status before they relate. When they discover that you are not "one those temporary residents", they suddenly want to stick around.

Plus, knowing their original plans to exploit you for content or some statistics is no longer valid—the kind that makes them feel like they are somehow better than you—the connection all frizzles out. Like, what were you expecting from me? What was your assumption? That I came from a bush in Nigeria or Canada was my first stop from Nigeria?

I am also grateful for the courage to take chances and dream big dreams despite the challenges I was facing. I have learned to be determined to show up for myself. The worst that can happen is a refusal, but the experience from showing up is valuable because the more we do things, the better we become. From late December 2024 to early January 2025, one of the key things on my social media algorithm was "taking chances, even if it meant being delusional".

The fear of failure and the weight of waiting for things to be perfect do more damage than good when we could just jump, knowing we have nothing to lose. Even when we have a thing or two to lose, your delulu better kick in when you have tried and tried and restrategized over and over, but it is taking you nowhere.

Folks sit in one corner complaining about "mediocre creatures" taking up spaces and can barely stand their audacity, but that is the thing about life. You have to show up regardless of your inadequacies and take up space because if you don't, they give it to people who are consistent and are hungry. Whether they are mid or not, that one is your own headache—the important thing is that they showed up consistently. Showing up also means blowing your trumpet, celebrating every win no matter how small, and putting yourself in legit spaces where you can be seen and heard.

In everything I am grateful because my life and my testimonies have been nothing short of a miracle. I am thankful for the people God has placed in my life as helpers, mockers, naysayers, and teachers. I am also thankful for my family. My husband and my children. We have been on a journey that has taken so much from us. A journey where we have given everything and prayed that things we plan eventually work out.

I am thankful for my readers and followers who have stayed with me on my journey to share content with the world and bought and read my first book in e-copies and hard copies, Candid Conversation, which has also been added to the library of Memorial University of Newfoundland. I am super proud of the "Skinfully Booked" brand. It has been many things and everything, as I have always wanted to write and write.

As for you, dear reader, what are you thankful for? Happy Thanksgiving!