Guest post by Anonymous
There are many mistakes that you could make as a woman regarding love and relationships. We may choose to blame it on ‘broken hearts, YOLO, or on the a-a-a-alcohol’, but a mistake is a mistake. The good thing with making them, if you are smart, you will learn and avoid them like the plague. However, if you refuse to learn, it will become an unpleasant cycle that will taunt you and you will turn into a miserable old lady no one really likes.
Here is my story:
You know how people tell you they don’t want something but they do? Like how men think that a no from a lady means yes? Well, I was not going to do this. Mostly because he explicitly said I should not write about him. But I know deep inside, he expects I will write about it sooner or later.
You must be wondering why I would write this. I didn’t. Dickson Otieno did, just for my birthday. He made me chuckle and my eyes well up with tears. Like seriously, thank you Dickson. And thank you all for making my 25th birthday as big a deal as I thought it would be. I will stop now, before I cry. 25-year-olds don’t cry all the time, do they? Here goes.
Now You See Me – I began the year with this one specifically because everyone around me talked about it in 2013. Well, it wasn’t such a mind-blowing movie but it was something. That’s the thing about movies that everyone talks about. They are never that good.
Yesterday was my last day. My last day at the Office Park. My laptop had already closed for the holidays by early morning, freezing every one minute. And I am not exaggerating. I wrote the first part of this piece on my notebook.
There are exactly 14 days to the end of this year. This will be the first time I will be truly reflecting on the happenings of the year. The last 351 days have taken me through paths and thickets I have never trodden before. I thought it would be good to share some of them with you. Even though some of the may seem too trivial for life, they have undoubtedly reshaped my life, thoughts and the direction that my life has taken.
“Ciku, nda yakwa ni iratuura,” she groans in the dark. Ciku, my stomach is aching.
It’s been a while since she woke me up in the middle of the night. I turn and grope around for my phone. 03:56. Jesus Christ. I was hoping to sleep for longer since it is a Saturday morning.
I don’t make New Year’s resolutions, I make random resolutions any day, any time. Around December last year, I decided to read better, read more. And that is exactly what I did. And change I did. Change I have done. It began with John Grisham, the only guy I could read even before then. Even then, I still had a pile of his books I was yet to finish. I had gathered them from my trips to Eldoret. I still have some I have never finished. I would buy these novels on my walk down Tom Mboya Street, headed to the North Rift Stage. Most of the time, I would just read the first few pages during the trip and forget about the book once I hit the Moi University compound. I was going to change that.
It’s December! It’s December! *Runs around screaming like crazy.*
Okay. Shiku is calm now. Why is she excited? December baby. She turns 25 on December 29th. 25!
What happens when you turn 25? Sounds like an age with lots of responsibilities and expectations. We’ll see how she handles that.
As December approaches, we all love to travel and sightsee. If you have a tight budget, and you don’t plan to travel, I would highly encourage you to just take a city walk. I have done this numerous times, and it amazes me how much you can learn by just walking about the city. I should probably come back with a list of the sites to see and why, but for now, I will only speak about Uhuru park, and for a different reason.
Sema kuchoka. Yesterday was a big day for mum and dad. 25 years down the line, they were at my cucu’s (mum’s mum) for ngurario or gutinia kiande. Relax, I will proceed to tell you what the ceremony involves and why I could not write about it yesterday. It is basically the last ceremony in the dowry paying process.
Someone said I should preach more on this blog. Maybe I should. I almost did not do my Saturday share but you know what, a promise is a debt, like we said when we were kids. So here goes. I have made it a habit to read Our Daily Bread (ODB) daily on my phone. I had sort of stopped doing it mostly because of misplaced priorities. I would read it daily in high school, after someone signed me up for it. I don’t know who but it must have someone in Christian Union right around my year in form one. I would read the day’s piece and fall right asleep while praying during morning prep. Lol. Yeah, I was that girl.
I wake up fully at 10:00. It is a Saturday and it is not my wedding day, so I do not see why I should have woken up earlier. Mum dropped by the room and left instructions before this. Someone had tried to wake me up with a text at 08:43 and I told him to try harder. Someone else tried waking me up with a call at 08:47. She laughed hard when she realized I was in bed. Do not call me before 10:00 on any Saturday from now on. Thanks. The only reason I get out of bed is because mum calls at 10:02 and asks if we are up (and that I am to water the cabbages in the garden since she has noticed they were dying lol). Also, Claire finally stirs in the other bed. I cannot let the eight-year-old roam the house alone.
When you were young and your heart was an open book
You used to say “live and let live”
You know you did, you know you did, you know you did
But when this ever changing world breaks your heart and makes you cry
Say, Live and let die, Live and let die, Live and let die