A PACKAGE FROM LIFE

A Wrapped Gift

Have you ever held on to something that you crisply knew would slide off, no matter how tight a grip you had? Ever held on to a relationship that every instinct in your mundane human body and every annoying relationship expert on radio and newspaper has told you is already doomed to fail? (Yes...). You see you find reasons to stay in that relationship, when you are just about to lose grip you adjust yourself and hold tighter. And one day the imminent happens- the suns completely sets.

You organize a lunch date (more of break up lunch). You agree to meet in a not so fancy place. On the material day, both of you are miserably late for the lunch, but anyway you proceed as earlier arranged. You both know what is about to go down, so you order sad cold drinks- no food, the stomach cannot take anything solid at that moment. You sip your drinks as you exchange sad and sorry glances. Even though you knew this day would come your wounded hearts creep to the brinks of wishful thinking, wishing that things turned out differently. This thing the heart!

At some point both of you are so quiet that you can almost hear the drinks flowing down the esophagus. Then one of you masters enough courage to begin a conversation that is laced with - how did we, we could have, wish we were not... As you finish you drinks the final nail is on the table and you finally hammer it in. You walk out and walk to different directions. Everything is gone and it's just blinding darkness left. Now everything around you reminds you of him/ her, every song is a sad song and everybody around you seems happier.  

The crazy thing is one still feels terrible even though they are not surprised by the outcome. You have promised each other that if things work out some miles down break-upville you will rekindle the flame. Then you get home and begin to really question your decision and immediately a heavy cloud of sadness starts to hover around your head. It's so heavy, you feel like you are running short of breath... and...and...warm tears fall down your cheeks. And they fall continuously and uncontrollably. You try lying on the couch, but it does not give you much comfort, you walk to the bedroom and since you cannot see clearly you hit a wall on your way (saitan!). Darn! the physical pain is crazy but it is inadvertently subdued by the pain you feel in your heart.

You lay on the bed, legs dripping down, face tucked in the pillow and cry the shit out of you. Minutes later you have a blocked nose, scary red swollen eyes and face. You mumble things and sit up. You are two decades and five years old. You are 25, you are alone in the house so you slowly lift yourself up and look around. The house is quiet and every single shit you are supposed to do is just lying there waiting for you to finish your 'madness' and attend to it.

Dear reader, i found myself in a similar predicament a couple of weeks ago. When i snapped out of the seemingly perpetual sobbing, i still had a whole lot of life ahead of me to live. I had to wash up the dishes, i had to prepare a meal for my family, i had to mail back couple of people and i had readers expecting a story on my blog.

So i blew my nose to the kitchen (with my eyes wide open- i didn't want a wall and face situation. With swollen eyes my face was ugly enough, didn't want a swollen forehead).

But isn't that just the thing about being 25? Unless you want to wake up when you are 30, and jaded, when your talent has caught dust and rust, your dreams have long sunk and they seem to pull you with them. Unless you want to be thirty and you are sick worried that you are getting old faster than your dreams are getting accomplished, you gotta show up for every event in life. The good and the bad, the ugly and the beautiful, when you are broke and when you have plenty- you  just have to show up!

Save for a few peculiar cases, 25 is precarious, its fast and crazy, it may even be lonely and full of disappointments in every sphere of life and it's annoyingly broke.

Honestly, i thought, prayed and hoped that at 25, i would be more (looking back i didn't how i defined more, except more money). I thought my Bachelor's Degree would have scored me a fancy job in a NGO (Non-Governmental Organization). I thought i would be running around in a good car (well not necessarily mine!), creating solutions for pertinent issues causing stunted development of third world countries. After all that's what i worked so hard for in University. That's what my interesting and sometimes arduous classes in campus were mostly about. (I told you about that HERE).

But no! at 25 am sitting in a room in the house, its next to dusty road in Tassia. I just finished reading Frederick Forsyth's 'THE ODESSA FILE'. I will resume creating stories for my wonderful readers. I started the blog six months ago and my worst moment was when a story had only eighteen views. Do not mistake this for a complaining rant (am getting to my point, fast!).

Couple of months ago my dad was unwell (i told you about that too, remember? HERE- whaaaat! si i tell you so many things). I wondered how mother dear did it? How did she manage to keep a straight face every morning? Day in day out, she knocked on our bedroom door at dawn to pray with us. 'She must be a superwoman', i thought. Because at that time, i never wanted to face the morning, i wished the sun would not come out, that it would just stay hidden in its secret place to make sure morning never came. Of course my wishes could not stop time. Looking back i think i operated on mother dear's strength.

Slowly though, am beginning to understand: That as an adult showing up in life is a the golden rule. You show up at the table even if what is on the menu freaks the hell out you, you draw a sit and face it dead on.

So at 25,i have a blog. And my worst time is when i have eighteen views in total, honestly the journey has been somewhat rewarding thus far. I was exhilarated that eighteen people read my work. Well! that was until that dangerous bug called comparison bit me. And my mind explained to me how other bloggers were hitting five thousand views a day. And this gave way to the stinking scarcity mentality. 'Five thousand people are already reading nani's blog, i don't think there will be enough for you, i thought.

This bug is dangerous and it is highly attracted to 25's especially those create good breeding conditions.

Hoping from Facebook, to Twitter to Instagram then to reality television (Keeping up with the Kardashians- where half the time they tell you how amazing their lives are and the other half make you feel bad about your sorry life). Everything you see in these destinations, tells you one thing- Everyone is doing better than you, everybody is already making more money than you are. Cut yourself some slack, everybody on social media always looks merrier and so does every character on reality television. (You don't believe?- take a photo run it through one of the image editing applications, make it lighter, make it flawless, put it on Instagram and Facebook and caption... #spathings #YOLO #whereiammeanttobe; and watch people fall in love with your 'perfection'). My point, don't be so raffled by everything that is sold on social media. Instead visit the magunga book store purchase a book and read as you take breaks from grinding your life. Because it is your race.

At 25, my Bachelor's degree is carefully tucked in a drawer (of course there are copies being shredded by an angry secretary somewhere and others being deleted from a company's inbox), i have no fancy office, no monthly check to cash in. Instead i have a blog and i now more than ever fully comprehend that i need to show up. I gotta be here to create a new post every week, i need to be here to see the number of my readers soar. It's never obvious what will happen after a new post, but a post after another am beginning to love my relationship with you. I love it that you come back to read, so i will keep on keeping on.

Because i love it and also at 25, that's what one does. You are in and only in, there is no room to half-ass. Even when you hit a bump, you buckle up and ride on. The days of, 'Kwani jana kuliendaje?'  like dew on a sunny morning are gone.

(Yeah), It's called adulthood. No one sends an application to ask for it. But a time comes, application or no application one is shortlisted and receives a package signed by yours sincerely, life. This is the one package that can never be returned to the sender, it stays with you and waits for you to open it.

Don't chicken out, because if you do life accompanied by the devil will stare at you couple of years down the line. Life will mock you but the devil will cold heartedly laugh at you, with that deep dark laughter that stings worse than a desert scorpion (Trust me! I have seen that dude- i know what he can do!). You will wish you steered on your 'stupid' hobby or talent. You will wonder what would have happened if  you did not shy away from doing the scary uncertain thing, but you won't know because you... you(you know what!)

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