Diary of a Single Girl: November
You get a good amount of rain on you today. In a skirt. You shiver alright, but you have to go to church. Today is an interesting one. You have been separated into groups. You are in the 20+ group. The crazies. The facilitator decides you are going to break into smaller groups and discuss relationships. In the end, it is very clear you are one of very many singles. Too many. It’s a bit sad. It seems the issue is not really the men, like you’re all trying to believe. It’s you. The men also have their own issues, but from where you are seated, laughing at the shouting match, you nod at their points, while your fellow girls shout them down. It makes you wonder why you are in the group claiming independence and lack of compatibility. Why won’t you find someone who is compatible? One guy stands up and says girls are confused and do not know what they want. Reason, one girl said we want simple acts of love, another said guys are broke. You sure are confused. Or maybe you all just want different things.
Sigh. Here we go again. You don’t even feel like writing about it anymore. It’s become monotonous. You are like the poster girl for singleness. Not that you mind, by the way. No, that’s not it. It’s just that it has become this thing that is you. You and singleness are one. People wait for your stories even though you really should not be owning singleness. On the other hand, it’s all good. You are still at ease. Even when wedding notifications hit your chat every other day. Someone asked if you are really a feminist if you still express the desire to be married. You were confused because you could not see the connection between being a feminist and a desire for marriage. Feminists don’t get married? Or is it that feminists are not supposed to express their fears and need for men? Because if that’s the case, that’s just messed up. These feminism vibes are misconstrued by both men and women. But that’s a story for another day.
Your offices move closer to CBD. You thought you’d love it. How wrong you were! Everything it upside down, literally. Cost of food, parking, rules. Everything. You were too comfortable in your comfort zone, even though slightly over a year ago, you were complaining about moving to Karen. Humans. We are interesting. The first evening, you get really irritable. It’s like someone flipped the on switch for your bad mood. You feel a headache coming on. You walk home feeling exhausted, with all sorts of bad thoughts in your head. You walk more than should have because you find a gate locked. You drop your phone (whose cover you have removed previously) hard onto tarmac. It registers a nice dent at the corner. You feel like crying at some point, on that journey in the dark. But then you ask yourself, why are you being such a baby? Are you sick? Have you lost your job? What? Nothing. So why are you here pitying yourself over nothing. There are people who are going through serious things man. Woman up! Eventually you know you will fall in love with this place. You are bumping into everyone and their mother now. You can walk to Westlands or CBD in a few minutes. Maybe those dates will finally come through, ey? Now that you are not away from civilization. Welcome to the fast lane.
Your running schedule has been affected by the move. You are clearly still sulking. You will eventually get over it and go back to fitness. Tomorrow. Run until you feel the toxins are oozing out of your pores. It’s a good feeling that. You have found a way to cheat through your sugarless tea regimen. Hot chocolate! You still display signs of caring more and more about how you look. Although not really. You only notice a burst zit when a sales lady drags you into a shop selling Dead Sea products and tells you to look at a mirror. The things you see once someone else holds up a mirror in front of you, both literally and figuratively. You tell her you will not buy anything so she should stop wasting her breath. She goes full throttle into how these products work and stupid you, with all your Kikuyuness, actually buys something, of course, after Googling a bit, because you trust Google more than you trust her. This stuff had better work, lady! Otherwise I coming for your neck.
The bra concept still bothers you. You wonder when you will ever find the perfect bra. A bra that does not constrict your airways. A bra that does not show bumps in your blouse. I bra that does not scream for your attention. One day. Meanwhile, enjoy my colleague’s favourite YouTuber ranting about bras. :’D
You are finally mending fences. Where complications ended up messing up tight friendships, you are looking past them and forging ahead. You have learnt a lot this year. Not to pretend that you don’t know that a man cannot be just your friend without another agenda. Unless, of course, you have already gone through the something-more-is-to-be-borne-out-of-the-tightness phase, fought about its impracticability and moved past it, with serious boundaries. The thing about men is that they may all be the same, in terms what they want from a woman, but their approaches are very different. One may take years to actually tell you what they want. Another may tell you within one day of a fresh Telegram chat. Another may drop hints everywhere like a sower using broadcast method to plant. But eventually, they will tell you. How it goes down is entirely up to the two of you. You have to choose between your ego and ensuring that you don’t break someone. It’s never worth throwing the baby out with the bath water. Men are awesome, they just need to be taken as they come.
You encounter people who open up to you in astounding ways. They tell you secrets that, at that moment of listening, you wish they had not told you. You think you will change your attitude toward them. But after reconciling your thoughts and feelings, you realize they are human just like you. They need to be loved, rather than avoided. Some love to argue. Like you. You exchange words. You talk about questioning beliefs, absolutes. Others are just straight up rude and annoying. You know that you can walk away from conversations that do not build you in any way. But most will allow you to reason together. To agree to disagree. It’s not like you don’t question everything nowadays yourself. It’s hard not to. Even Solomon got to that point in Ecclesiastes.
Faith comes in to reassure you that not all you see is as it seems. The faith and hope to trust that tomorrow will be a better day. That one day your eyes will be opened and you will realize he was there all along. You have this very nagging feeling that you will end marrying someone you have already refused. What does that even make you? Such a confused daughter of man. We’ll have to wait and see.
You’re getting vague now, Shiku, go to bed.
Caro: You have this very nagging feeling that you will end marrying someone you have already refused.
What does that even make you?
Me: NORMAL.. that’s what 🙂 I have a story of a couple who experienced this and are now happily married.
Nice Read… i am sure at this rate wedding bells will be soon…
Great read,Lol,dont worry you will get married soon enough….everything in its own time 🙂