I have a very big fear.
Like a REALLY big fear.

I’m afraid of losing my loved ones.

“Yeah, well, Chipo, we all do.” No, not like that.

This fear makes me hyperventilate. I’ve had full-on panic attacks where I can’t breathe. It can happen in the middle of the night. I’ll wake up and completely fall apart at the thought of losing anyone. Anyone.

And this is going to sound morbid, but sometimes my prayer has genuinely been: Lord, you can take me first so I don’t have to deal with losing other people. Thankfully, God tends to ignore my overly anxious utterances, and for that I am grateful.

But in the midst of one of those prayers I then realize… other people would have to deal with losing me.

And then my brain spirals, and it becomes a whole thing.

Where This Fear Comes From

COVID. COVID made it far, far worse.

The pandemic made loss very real. Realer than it was before. Death was less abstract and more “THIS COULD HAPPEN AT ANY GIVEN SECOND”. The pandemic made my own mortality very real. And even though the pandemic “ended” that fear didn’t.

To this day, if I get a random phone call from family at an unexpected hour, my heart starts to race immediately. If a friend messages me saying, “Hey, are you available to talk?” or “Is this a good time?” my mind goes straight to the worst possible scenario.

And it’s hard to live like this.

How do you navigate life with a debilitating fear of loss?
How do you navigate love (in all its forms: friends, family, relationships) while constantly aware that one day, somehow, it will end?

I’m thankful I’m in therapy. I’m thankful I’m medicated. It helps with the worst of my anxiety. But it hasn’t stopped the thoughts from showing up. Especially when I see people around me losing loved ones. Or when I see it happen online. The fear comes flooding back in.

What I Do When the Fear Hits

I realised today (Friday December 12 2025), though I’ve been doing this for years, that my response to this fear is very specific.

The moment it shows up, I reach out.

I send a message.
I make a call.
I tell someone I love them.

Sometimes it’s my parents. Sometimes it’s my friends. Sometimes it’s family. There have been moments where I’ve messaged teachers from high school just to say thank you. Just because I thought, let me send it now while I still can.

I’ve lost people before while holding onto words I meant to send “later.”
And wondering why I didn’t just send them when I had the chance.

So now, I love my people loudly.

If you ask most of my friends, I’m that person who randomly gets emotional. They’ll look at me like, girl… what is going on? And that’s fine. I’ll take the eye rolls. I’ll take the awkward laughter. As long as my people know (every single day) that they matter to me.

This Is Me Loving on You, Too

And I want to do that here, too.

Because whenever I feel pulled back to writing, I always think about the people who actually read what I write. The people in my corner. So let this be me saying: I appreciate you. Truly.

I don’t think we do that enough. We don’t love on our people enough while we still can.

Christmas is a good time for it. The holidays make it easier — we’re together, we’re warm, we’re saying Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and everything feels softer. But then January comes. Life resumes. And that tenderness fades.

But I want to challenge myself (and you) to make loving people out loud a constant habit.
Not just when it’s expected.
Not just when it’s “appropriate.”

Doing the Most (Within Reason)

Last week I wrote about nonchalance — about how everyone seems to be competing to care the least. I want to push against that again and say: do the most. Within reason. Terms and conditions apply, pls pls.

Please don’t show up at your ex’s house on Christmas Eve talking about “I just had to tell you how I feel” unless you have a fully fledged plan. If you do… that’s between you and God. Just don’t credit me. Ayt?

But for your people?
Do the most.

Do the most for the people you love.
Do the most for the people you admire.

Once I learned that writers and creators actually appreciate being told their work mattered, it changed how I moved through the world. I’ve sent messages to authors just to say thank you. I don’t check if they’ve seen it. Maybe they did, maybe they didn’t.

Ironically, one of my favourite writers passed away a few days ago. And it made me sad…

Grateful for her work, but sad that I never sent her a message. That might sound a little pretentious, but it stayed with me.

Love on your heroes.
Love on the people who shaped you.
There is no such thing as too much appreciation.

Sometimes we hold back because we assume someone else is already doing it. But why let other people’s actions dictate how you show up?

Love Is Needed More Than Ever

We live in a world of shitposting, rage bait, AI slop, and endless noise. And because of that, authenticity feels rare. It shouldn’t be….

But it is.

When people say tomorrow isn’t promised, they mean it. Truly.
Not to be morbid again, but love as if there’s no tomorrow.

I’d rather get eye rolls from people who care about me than never get the chance to tell them how I feel.

There’s no such thing as too much love.
There’s no such thing as too much gratitude.

No Neat Ending Today

That’s all I have today.

Not every post here will be wrapped up nicely. Some of them will be like this… me thinking out loud, circling a thought, letting it land where it lands. That’s the point of this space.

But if there’s one thing I hope you take away, one small action:

Reach out to someone.
Message them.
Tell them how you feel.

You never know what it might do for their day.
Or their life.