The preclusion of a new year cliche

I’m a person (like many others probably) that is easily put off by clichés. They are so unimpressive and sometimes (like many others) I can get super brutal in pointing that lack of originality out. I mean I think that playing Christmas music at Christmas is super cliché. Yeah. So unoriginal. Teehee.

How cliché is the whole new year movement? Very. Yeah, even the end of the year, beginning of another year blog posts that swamp my newsfeed ( including this one). Still the biggest reason for me mostly is because of how unfoundationalised it all is. The direction, the celebrations, the resolutions. Let’s lose weight and let’s make more friends, all the while not slacking on those javas meals, you are even in the Selfie Competition for the 30 day dinner, and all the while retaining social media as probable platforms for friendship formulation. Nope. It’s just so typical of humanity is all. So flawed. So predictably fallible.

The French poet Gerad de Nerval once said, “The first man who compared woman to a rose was a poet, the second, an imbecile.” Wikipedia describes a cliché is an expression, idea, or element of an artistic work which has become overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, even to the point of being trite or irritating, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful or novel. Used sparingly, it may succeed, but the use of a cliché in writing, speech, or argument is generally considered a mark of inexperience or lack of originality.

The substantive construct of “a cliché” goes very far and deep in telling us about humans; and no, they aren’t extra terrestrials that are undecipherable. They are you and me, and the things they come up with produce the understanding sought. We can understand ourselves as humans. I can understand myself.

We are eager to be impressed. We all know that. But by Jove that impression must be pristinely unheard of and especially unimaginable. I mean Intellectual property and all its foundations are about requirements of non-disclosure and an absence of anticipation by prior art. Apart from that and your invention, mister is not patentable. I guess that puts a stop to my dreams of inventing a magic broom stick( for personal Quidditch matches with my favorite humans), coz J. K Rowling already told the world about it.(The irony) All I can do is hope my lawyers can capitalize on that, “person skilled in the ordinary art” loophole. But in any case, how impressive and unheard of would that be? I trust us, (even myself) to find the obviousness, however subtle in a criticism that makes it all dreadfully and suddenly unappealing. I can make it tediously dreary in a second.

We are captivated by the new. It’s fun to start with the discovery of the new; that is until it gets old. Then we find something newer that will eventually become old as well. It’s part of living and the analysis of life I guess. We do that with everything; ideas, art, fashion philosophies, religions. One day a long time ago, wearing a bonnet was new, now its old.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad thing sometimes. We can apply these standards and requirements to all sorts of things justifiably. I mean aren’t we tired of Pitbull and his Mr. Worldwide chants in every random song he must feature. In a sense, the appreciation for these articulations of basic human aesthetic save us eventually. Yes, even from Pitbull there is redemption.

But what about when we cross the line and the innocents are in the cross fire or in deliberate interface with these demands from deep within us? Aren’t there those ideas that will never get old however much they are said again and again?

As I usually mention to those that allow me to, I believe living is an art. I realize that human existence is a form of artistry. Living can be defined as the craft of being the best human you can be. Life and living to me is the expression of humanity, it is a very intense form of artistry. It is piercingly candor in its ugliness and beauty, and ambivalently so because life is life, and art is anything that can help us see that; even life itself.

But there should be some things that everlastingly endure and should, even if normatively, be preserved from the brutal dismissal of “obviousness.” Culture, people and societal infrastructure change. But see, the humans don’t. Yes, we used to appreciate that the sight of a lady’s ankles was indecency, until now on some beaches in Europe she can be butt naked. I’m saying that there is a fundamentally entrenched character and nature of humanity that can’t be yanked out by the pull of progressiveness, or slowly eroded by all the waters of dynamism and  trends of vogue, that drench our minds with all the millennials shall use to conquer the world, and themselves in it. The girders that keep that nature in check must be kept safe.

Even with the “out with the old in with new” vibes from everyone and everything at this time, I realize that there are some things that never get old.

1.      Thankfulness; for everything we have as unto us from God who owns all. That gratitude aligns our hearts to remember in humility that he is the giver and all we have are gifts, yet as the giver he remains greater than the gifts. The stewardship of all those gifts are then eventually properly put in perspective. We know who we are and where we are going when we are thankful.

2.      Love; that brilliant complexity that is in fact complex because of its intricacy and beauty must be sought and defended. Even though from it should come pain and anguish. C. S Lewis said,

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable”

3.      Faith; that great conviction in the knowledge from experience and from the word that God is good and that he is God. He is not a tyrant king. He does not delight in suffering.

4.      Hope; this whole mixture in the end produces a hope that reels and surges like rushing waters within us. It can’t let us just be; it gives us direction and as it calls out to us it provides purpose and meaning.

Even while some things get old, these things cannot and do not. I’m trying to remind you and me that these things don’t exist independently otherwise there would be no point in this entry and all the distinctions I have tried to make.

They exist within life and because of that, life is an art that in these aspects never becomes unoriginal or unimpressive.

A hopeful spirit is not folly as many of us would believe depending on what the last year went like. It is an always beautiful resolution. Loving  mustn’t cease because of the difficulty, but must be continued and perfected. Joy must be realized in the things that truly contain it.

 Chasing the success and the achievements for the inkling that they are joy filled, without the true understanding  that joy comes from fulfillment and fulfillment from living for the reason that you were created, is the thing that is instead cliché and unimpressive and unoriginal. Therefore faith and conviction that the chaos everly present in your art has a purpose in refining and building your character must be sustained, and the hope for something to temporarily give shouldn’t overshadow the eventual end sought.

2016 was a crazy year for me. It was great and it sucked. Victory and failure, joy and sorrow, lost love and found love- life.That is the intricacy of living. 2016 was just the expression of life. The art in it expressed simply teaches me this lesson. 

This entry is an imploration to you and myself to strive yet again as this year begins for the things that will never get old, unoriginal or impressive. Yeah, it seems a cliché thing to say! Haha. But that’s on the surface and just prima facie. Dig a little deeper and you  will see that it isn’t.

While we take out the old and bring in the new, we must remember some stuff never gets old.

Happy new 2017 to you.

He wrote me a letter

He wrote me a letter.

He wrote me a letter and told me of the first day he saw me.

It was just another Sunday for me, but not for him.  He was playing the same old songs and when he lifted his eyes, their meanings changed.That’s what the letter said.

He told me I wore a yellow dress and  that I had my hair held back. He noticed the crowd made me nervous, but I hid it very well with my  straightened-up back and straight-ahead glances, with the even breaths and the occasionally quisical brow. The left one to be exact.

He wrote a letter and called me beautiful. Not on the outside though; my ears are too pointy, my legs too small my hair is unevenly longer and the front and shorter at the back which makes my head box shaped most of the time.

 No- he said I was beautiful on the inside. What showed was the way my eyes sparkled in a glistening dialogue with both wonder and curiosity. He said I had the whitest eyes because they shone the brightest. He wrote and told me that he knew I was special because of my eyes. My eyes told him I was. They said it in those very words.

He wrote me a letter and said he usually didn’t do that sort of thing. He was the one that was usually written to, but on that day he was inspired to write to me. To little old me. He mentioned I shouldn’t be flattered because of the fact undeniable- praise is due where beauty dwells. He said that principle wasn’t an assertion. It was confirmed in my existence. Flattery was dishonest, but all he said was the truth.

He wrote me a letter and said that I was just a fifteen year old that was going to change his life. He said I was the one to make him hope again in life and living it. He mentioned he was unsure as to whether hoping and believing in the existence and possibility of love was redeemed in that very that moment; but I had caused him to give hope the benefit of the doubt and that was all that mattered. He was giving hope a second chance because of me. That’s what the letter said.

He wrote me a letter and all the other girls saw him give it to me. He didn’t care that they stared. I was petrified.

He mentioned that he contemplated giving it to my brother, but he decided that it would be more honorable delivering it in person after the church service. He admittedly told me he had heard a lot about me. I hasteningly opened my large mouth to ask what, and he chuckled at my foiled attempts to act unaffected. I was self refutingly eager to be obliged. At the realization he sighed and smiled.

Then he picked my stiffened and fisted hand from my sides and in it placed an envelope.

He then told me he had written me a letter. The very one placed and now clenched in my hands. He wished me a good afternoon and left.

I stood there and reminded myself, “he wrote me a letter.” I was desperate not to forget. I stifled my excitement in awkward looking smiles, sighed and strutted all the way to my brother’s car.

He wrote me a letter. He wrote me a letter and said all these things.

He wrote me a letter and told me all these things I already knew. He didn't even tell me he loved me.
After all, its always easier to say.
Its harder to show.

“Chaos got me so afflicted; it’s my heart, it can’t start

Love has got my mind so twisted; it’s my heart, torn apart

I can’t find the words to say this, but I know it’s my heart

It’s my heart.”

To act out or not is the question.

When I think back to my childhood, I was stubborn, curious, hard headed and many other annoying things. I wanted what I wanted, when I wanted it. because in my little mind I was supposed to have it; any and every impediment to getting that thing could be overcome.

It could be defeated.

The grownups could do anything if they just decided. Why couldn’t they just decide that I would have the thing I wanted?! It plagued me. It frustrated me.

 I was incensed each time I’d ask my parents to stop by Steers or that fast food place round the corner and they would seriously say, “They had no money.” I would ask myself, how can it be that my parents don’t have money when they work? Then as the car ride from school went on towards home bound Kisaasi, I’d throw in a few questions and probable conclusions concerning one of the cognitive conundrums that haunted my childhood. I would shrug in consideration of one, give the benefit of the doubt in the other. That would be until we stopped at the market and bought stuff like tomatoes and potatoes. You real see you mum pull out a twenty thousand shilling note and you are in a bewilderment.

You know it.

She knows it.

Hec! the world and its wife knows that plain fries only cost three thousand, yet she did not spare it?! After a while, I’d comment on the fact that she said she didn’t have money, but bought tomatoes and the like. Then I’d try to be smart about it but positing that what I wanted was only three thousand. Eventually, before any other smarty pants argument could dibble out of my little mouth, she would magically help me see the logic my immature brain, my little childish and selfish mind had not contemplated.  I would sulk for a few more hours. I would feel so angry I would even cry tears so hot, you’d think I was a mini kettle; but in the end I’d be fine and capitulate.

The funny thing is that what affected me the most and made me angriest was the fact that she was right. I would know it with everything in me that she was right. That would get me all messed up inside first before it got better, if it did. Sometimes I had to be subdued by the very effective African form of subdual.

So yeah, as I child I was pretty childish, but that was it. I never really threw tantrums or gave people the silent treatment or  did any of the things  that children really do when they act out. All I would struggle with is coming to terms and accepting that truth, that fact, that reality that was in a head in collision with what I wanted.

Even as a teenager, I struggled and sometimes felt the need to implode and explode at the same time, but it never was that bad. I made do with deciding to be into metallica, being boyish, starting a band, wearing blue eye shadow; nothing drastic.

It was because somehow, just as it was during childhood, what I knew and understood to be right would always succeed in convincing me against giving in to whatever I wanted or felt like giving into. Yes, there would be conflict, but truth was always proved to be true and right. It was just logical to do the right thing; and safer too. I couldn’t imagine how  to start telling Mr. Twongyeirwe that I was expelled or suspended for this or that. Nope. Natta. Wasn’t going to happen.

In fact, sometimes I’d see my peers going through stuff and wonder why it was so hard for them. Why was it so difficult for them to snap out of that phase? What was so desirable about being a rebel? But now, in light of recent events, I think I understand. Most of the time, life reaches a point where to act out or not is the question.

Acting out is described as a psychological term from the parlance of defense mechanisms and self control, meaning to perform an action in contrast to bearing and managing the impulse to perform it.  People who act out tend to express their conflicts in preference to remembering them such that they don’t remember anything of what they have decided to forget an repress, but instead acts out to replace present activity by past memory. It’s like coping with the pressure to do what we believe is wrong by giving into the desire itself.

I had never struggled to a point where acting out felt like a viable option; that was until University and its woes. The stress, the course, the social drama, the curiosity, the relationship issues and above all the pressure to fit in. Ironically, I was so afraid I would end up being this person I had understood I don’t need to be, because of the pressure that required me to be this person.

I had so many friends and family that prayed and fasted and prayed again and fasted some more as I entered University, and understandably so. Uni can be a place you get lost in if you are not careful. But the concern was that I was raised as a girl who simply knew the walls of her home and the doors of the church. Even the high school I went to was a Christian one. I hadn’t seen the world and I didn’t know it, so my introduction to it was most probably going to be mega overwhelming.

The talks and lunches and advice all concerned remaining as I was; goody two shoes innocent little one. Keep with the good grades. Keep with the politeness. Keep with the music, but only in church. Don’t date until the four years are done. Don’t have sex; it is for marriage. Don’t do drugs. Go for fellowship all the time. I was like, let’s do this uni thing and be done with it. *insert gangsta with shades emoji*

Here it begun: On the one hand, I didn’t have many friends from High school in my course. So that was one. I am therefore eventually known as the fourth year chic, with a backpack and earphones that always walks alone. I dealt with that, until it was hard to. With law, I was yet to realize after failing my whole first year that it’s about reading smart  and not necessarily reading "all". That knowledge would have saved me time and stress. The grades went up and by God’s grace stay up but the motivation for keeping them there is questionable sometimes. I also learnt that the more polite you are to the boys especially, the more you get hit on and stalked and disturbed. So yeah, when you say excuse me in the library and you look like a shady guy, i just might walk past you. The music however was always been awesome. But then you are writing about love and generic life experience and not grace and faith and you expressly used to. You have also been reviewed by the Kampala Sun and somehow, all the red flags go up. Yeah drugs and weed and etc are as common as Rolexes on the road side. I can’t even explain how traumatized I was the day I walked through a hostel and realized I was passively inhaling fumes of weed. I wanted to remove my lungs and sterilize them oba? But now, where is that shock when you pass by your classmates and friends offering you a joint? Somehow the argument that it is smoke from a plant rolled in a piece of paper, makes sense. Haha. They all think I do weed now.

Also, when a boy that you know and would consider your friend, is supposed to be passing you gum from his pocket and a couple of condoms fall out, eventually your mind has to come up with something else other than the thought that, “Aya! That boy has sex!” Humans have sex, married or not; big deal. That exposure can want to mess with what you have always known about what God has created to be expressed and enjoyed in marriage, as well with the legitimate reason and design for it being that way.

What I’m saying is there is what you know and what you have been told your whole life as aforementioned. Then there is coming face to face with it for the first time and eventually how you perceive that fact post the whole ordeal.

Like everyone, you learn for yourself. It’s like having the sky described to you your whole life and then seeing it for yourself. You will agree that it is blue and vast and that it has clouds and that it is always above us and so on. But there is a particular shade of blue at twilight that is the prettiest; you will for some strange reason love the color of grey in the clouds more than white and on random evenings by yourself wish you could touch the sky itself.

If you have understood me correctly, I am not talking about Uni. I’m talking about life and the struggle of , “How we really know what we know.” It always at this stage or around this stage that most people are figuring out life and who they should be. Most people at Uni have finished acting out, or by fourth year they have found out all they were under so much pressure to find out about. So who they are is a deliberate and conscious decision. That's their choice and its kaawa.

And then there is you and me.

Who are you? What are you doing? How is what you have always known as truth, going to remain as truth?

There’s also the tiny problems that you think are enormous and undefeatable even in the presence of the knowledge of the truth. Yeah, all the older people keep on consoling you by telling you the older you grow the worse it gets, and from experience, boy aren’t they right? I just want to be the 6 year old, whose day was a bit unfavorable coz I didn’t have fries. Funny enough, I can walk out of my room right now and buy all the fries I want, eat them and work all those calories off in a week just by opening All England Law reports.

Lastly, there comes the question of what are you going to do? Give in? We all have given in, in some way. Is it to act out until the phase ends? What if it doesn’t? What about the scars that come with it? Will that be enough to keep me from plunging into the deep, for God knows that is my every human instinct? How about waiting it out and doing what you’ve always known to be right even if you question the premise of some of it? The probability of in the end remaining a frigid ice princess is pretty probable, so to speak. But is that really true? How about making the decision not to decide and just going with what happens?

I just want to give in the innocence I've been given.  I want to unknow all I know and undo all I've done and just start over. Everyday I am given innocence. When the coin is flipped, to take it or leave then become the other question. 

Hehe. 

Life and love and why.

But mostly life.

When life says grow up, the smart thing is to do so.

“ Who are you gonna be? When you’re on your knees who do you believe? Fear is a lonely man, You’ve been given innocence, You’ve been given innocence again.”

SWITCHFOOT

To act out or not, is the question.

It's always ok.

It’s never that serious. That’s okay. It's always ok.

I have this close friend of mine that was going through a really hard time in life and somehow, there I was, as well going through this really hard time in life. And guess what. That was great. Super great.

Boo hoo.

I’m evil now.

 But see, it was great because if it was happening to them, then I wasn’t the E.T that I was thinking I was; sent from the planet krypton and burdened with all this greatness.Roosevelt didn’t have to waste his precious time after World War 2 recuperation drafting the UDHR. It was spelt out right here. All human beings are equal because at some transfixing time, life sucks for them. Each and every one of them.

Life sucks for the president of that sorority all adorned in the Gucci and Armani, and as well for that new freshman pledge that still wears braces. It sucks for the Lannisters who currently sit on the iron throne, as well as the Starks who are coming for that iron throne. Life sucks for Obama who is criticized for an uninteresting foreign policy, even after the use of chemical weaponry and for Assad who’s just tired of daring America to spice it up by justified intervention. Life sucks for everyone.

Even  Chuck Norris by the way.

After saying something like this you will wait for the very predictable brouhaha from some intellectualized idiots like myself if I wasn’t the one writing this. But yes I know somewhere out there, all of ya’ll are up in arms. At this moment in time I give the hugest shout out to my discussion group members that diligently and occultishly read this blog.

So, like the newest victims of yet another of life’s cruel jokes among other crueler jokes and another superlative form up its sleeve, we were enthused. Not just by the fact that in a few minutes we would be pleased to enjoy Spock and his unequivocally humorous candor, but that as we sat in the car and waited for the bells to chime in gleeful beckon for yet another experience of 21^st century entertainment, sardonic conversation was occupationally the best sort of therapy.

 We were like hey! Life sucks for me and you! We have so much more in common now. Yey.

As we shared  about life’s suckiness, we mutually and without trace of societal and sociological duress contended that living was taking away life. It’s not that we wanted to die, but we just wanted life to galvanize the living process and operation.

All we could see was the harmatia of  life itself in all its greatness; a vampirism energized by the undeniable realism of living, and growing up, and having feelings for people. Yeah, especially that last part.

As we blamed life for our demise (which is really an immature thing to do), we observed how living had morphed ironically into a mortifying context of existence. Yes. Another immature comprehension of the situation. But with each end in a part of our version of “Life Sucks,” (New York best seller and highly grossing film to everlastingly grace the box office), we each had our epilogue for the other, comprising single sentences of personal words that adequately sufficed to conclude and reprise after the hearing of the following part.  We said to ourselves, “It’s never that serious.” “That’s ok.”

Life had us placed at a point where internally, any such equivocation about the truth of what was going on, was coupled with another external prevarification, that were those sentences we kept on telling ourselves.

There we were desperately trying to convince ourselves that whatever was happening wasn’t that serious and in fact it was ok. We were trying at own therapy and super awesomely playing the song “therapy” by Relient K up on that stereo.

We were envisioning ourselves driving through the country just to drive, with only music and the clothes that we woke up in. We saw ourselves never thinking we’d need all this time alone and all of it just going to show we had so much yet needing nothing but everything that wont remedy a thing.

It was getting really tiresome for me I guess burrowing all the time. When life sucks you need  desperately for someone to tell you that its ok; whether by hearing that they are going through a suckish time or literally hearing the words blurted out. So when you are in a burrow by yourself, you say the words out loud for yourself as you did in the car. You make believe the Elizabeth Bennet version of you telling yourself in a British accent that, it’s never that serious and that it’s ok. It is always ok.

Then you get out of the car. Lock it so that life doesn’t get suckier by the occurrence of a robbery, walk yourself to the cinema and show that one ticket for Star Trek. 

Spock always does the trick, doesn’t he?

 And then practice the most contemptuous, trenchant and derisory smile for your discussion group mates that will want to sign you up for counseling after reading this entry.

Relax guys. It’s never that serious. That’s ok. 

And sometimes those words with all cynicism aside, are the truest statements that can be made.

 Because in truth;

1.      It’s never ever that serious.

2.      That’s okay.

It’s always ok.

“ Loneliness and Solitude are two things not to get confused. Cause I spend my solitude with you. I gather all the questions of the things I just can’t get straight. And I answer them the way I guess you do. It’s my therapy.”

RELIENT K

Her madness

The bell rang and snapped her out of the mire of her thoughts. She shook her head just to make sure she was completely back and in sync with what was going on around her. She gathered her books and headed for the cafeteria. It was lunch time and she was glad, for she hadn’t eaten anything since a few slices of pizza the day before.

As she walked to the east side of the campus where the cafeteria was, her thoughts crept back into the centre of her brain and pulsated their messages with waves of precision and definition. She had to give in to their beckoning call as a matter of utmost urgency. As the thoughts flooded in and got comfortable her heart stared racing at the realization of all that she was dealing with. It was something grave and her thoughts were making sure she did not think otherwise.

So engrossed was she in them, that the call of her name by a group of friends was drowned in the mumble of her own voice within herself. She let out a sigh of confusion expressing the inward tumult with the inescapable reality that she was nowhere close to figuring it all out. That, and the undeniable conclusion that all this anxiety was slowly having her appetite ebb away.

In that instant she decided she would eat when she got home. She started for the benches outside by the labs. She remembered she needed her coat and scarf that were in her locker as it was the coldest degrees of fall and started back. She didn’t mind all the walking. Her thoughts were still explaining themselves to her.

When she finally got to the benches, it was as if the winds and trees understood the convergence of negative emotion within her. The wind blew and shook the trees to shed its leaves. The leaves fell suddenly and without grace. The trees waved in protest at this sudden company and the wind whistled fiercely in agreement. She sat at pulled her head sock over her ears and started to slowly accept the facts.

Her father was right. He was always right. From the time he met him he told her that even though she claimed he was her best friend, he wasn’t good for her. He wore the afflictions of his family better than that brown coat he loved. She disagreed. All she saw in her best friend was the strongest and most determined soul that continually faced darkness in the face and succeeded. She admired that courage and sympathized with him in all that he went through. That was their bridge to each other. She understood him somehow and he knew she did.

Now she couldn’t understand the betrayal and deception. Why he had been found all alone in the cold of the night with a knife at his hand. Why she had been called and informed that he had been admitted in the psychiatric ward. Yes, his parents were divorced and he struggled with drinking at a time but he had gotten through all of that. Why were they saying he was insane!? He was the most sane and in control person she knew.

When she first found out two weeks ago, she wondered what the problem was. Whatever it would be she knew he would get through this. When she went to see him he was sober minded. He asked her how school was and they talked and even laughed for a while. Then just before she left, the comfort she had given into was robbed from her. She saw what they meant. He suddenly curled into a ball and sat at the edge of bed, violently rocking himself and saying the words repeatedly to himself; “ Change it now.” He said it to himself until he was screaming it at her and all the nurses that were trying to calm him down. He shouted it at the doctor who came in to sedate him and then mumbled it as he went to sleep.

She could not understand why he had kept so many things from her. Why he had fronted only what he wanted her to see. The talks she had with his mother ended her. Everyone was under the assumption that she knew all along, but she didn’t. She couldn’t. He would never have told her himself. She hadn’t known about the dizziness and fainting spells, the insomnia and drawings in black, the sleep talking when he finally slept. He had been overcome by it all. By the afflictions that surrounded him within and without.

Yes, with all that occurred all she felt was a betrayal and deception. He hadn’t told her and the worst part was that he had succumbed to it all. He had given into the madness. He had made that decision and choice to be mad. She was angry because she was alone and that’s all she cared about. She was ashamed of his weakness. She was ashamed of hers that caused her to dread being alone. She felt like she wanted nothing to do with it. She was angry for letting herself once think she drew from him in all his inward strength. The truth was he drew from her drama filled life that was just a distraction from the real action. But most of all, she was angry at what she was. A selfish little girl. Not one honest thought had gone out to her friend and it was all because this one thing, she could not understand. Yet she knew more than her existence that she cared deeply for him and wished him to be well. in some part of herself, maybe she even loved him? How could these opposing polarities of emotion be simultaneously present within her? Her thoughts spoke loudest in that moment.

How was she to be his friend? She didn’t know how to help him. Everyone at school was already staring at her like she was a mad one as well. She hated that she cared about that. The worst part was that she felt as mad with the despair and pain of it all. She was scared that during classes when she zoned out people saw her madness written on her face.

Who was she to be without him. No wonder her appetite disappeared. She always sat with him at lunch. It was like some vortex was being opened to swallow her as well. She put her hands to her face that were wet with tears and quickly wiped them away. She would be strong. She was strong. She needed to be strong. She hoped she would be strong.

The bell ending lunch rang and concluded the rantings of her thoughts. She stumbled as she got off the bench and into the halls of the school. Her heart fell within the pit of herself like an anvil dropped into a bottomless ocean. The madness crept upon her skin and tickled the back of her head. She rubbed her neck in response. With her face pale and ashen with tears, she staggered to her next class and accepted her fate. She had to fight her own madness now and somehow to do that.

She felt the madness consume her whole and scatter her thoughts into tiny fractals across her inner landscape. All of them lost and to be tediously gathered. She stopped at the door of her class and slowly slid against the wall to sit down at the back of the class. She noticed the expressions and stares the rest of her class gave her. She figured she knew what they were thinking but she couldn’t care and if she did, it was too late.

She was as mad as could be now.

Her own madness had consumed her.

22

Be you again

When you are a child, from what you see and from what you are told; you will eventually grow up. That is what happens in life, you are born, you grow and then “grow up” and die.

For me as a five year old I remember having the very point of living for me as the dream and achievement of “growing up.”

I pictured all the multitudes of friends, family and well-wishers gathered and applauding as I stood and waved back at them. I envisioned myself in the splendor of grown-upness as the eloquent voice of reason, flipping my blonde hair and smiling with sparkly white grown up teeth, welcoming all the guests to the celebration of me growing up. Then I would say something grown up and the crowds would go wild! Yes! I would be the brilliant epitome of adulthood. The elders would long for their youth at the very sight of my grown up self. This I would achieve and nothing would get in my way.

I would pass every end of year exam because excellence meant the next class. In kindergarten one day I would reach top class and all those newly weaned children would look at me and long for that glory.

I would be the P.7 student that run the whole school.  The one who talked about all the things we had in our knowledge, like the difference between an obtuse and an acute angle in the presence of the young-uns. To ask a comrade of the same rank the simple question would suffice. Let the young ones remain in awe of these terms that attack their ears. Pull out your Social Studies MK while at it and discuss the failures of Kwame Nkrumah. That’s right you P. 5 pupil, I’m all grown up. *insert slow and legit gangsta nod*

Just to be like all those beautiful girls I saw and observed days on end on the TV and Billboards. To attain the noble skill of flipping my amazing hair that for some strange reason was always blonde when I imagined it; to even grow out my hair to blondness for that matter. Even the Disney princesses and characters were all grown up. That’s why they could be the chosen ones to defeat the bad guys and the ones marrying princes and all that awesome grown up stuff. Hec! Grownups even sang better.  Even the animations were grown up animations. When they made the Lion King, Kierra and Kovu had grown up voices.

The universe was telling me something; growing up was lit.

Because of all the things I could not do because I was “still too young” I longed to grow and see the world. I longed to grow and “live” in doing all these things I could not ordinarily do.

One day I was too young to go to school, and then I wasn’t. I was constantly, consistently and persistently told I was too young to wear makeup, and then I wasn’t. I was too young to have a boyfriend, and then I wasn’t. I was too young to get married, and now I’m not.*refer to the Laws of Uganda*

It’s like that cardiac arresting moment when you hear a real grown up say something absurd like, “I haven’t driven a manual car in twenty two years.”

All you can do in that moment is clutch that arrested heart and go “Bro!” As in, yes. Arguably and by a certain standard and perspective I am still but a sort of grown up child, but in these twenty two years of mine I can write books and books and books about each moment and experience because so much has happened in my tiny life span.

So how is my whole long and detailed and expansive life span something as short as something you haven’t done in my whole lifespan!! *clutches heart once again*

What I see now is I missed the point in a way most of us do. We tie the bench mark of success at each stage of life by certain achievements. Like finally using a pen and not a pencil, getting that degree, getting married, that first car, that awesome job and the ages are just the points in the timeline the achievements should occur.

Of, yesterday I ran into a friend from high school that is like practically my age because she is only two years older than me and she was like “I’m engaged!” The expression on my face unfortunately wasn’t congratulatory. I was in too much shock. The first thought was contacting police coz in my head we are still underage for marriage and what not. I really wasn’t ready!

Moses in Psalms 90 asks the Lord to teach him how to number his days aright, that he might gain a heart of wisdom. With all these thoughts in this my birthday week, a whole new meaning of “growing up” came to mind.

Firstly, I can say now to myself that I am terrified of growing up and I wish I was 5 years old again.

 Secondly, I realize that in the end you actually grow. It is not a myth. In three years I will be 25 and the probably start throwing “Forever 25” birthday parties also till the day I die.

Thirdly and weirdly, in my mind, the exception is parents. They never grow! It’s like my parents never grow. With all the years that have been added to my life (as if I’m 60) they still look the same as when I beheld them on the day I was born. I real remember that day and they look the same.*Banange, if only my mom read my blog so some benefit might come in the process from this props I am giving*

I have learnt that growing up isn’t an event. It is a process. What makes the milestones is what you went through to get there.

So many of us could not wait to get the hell out of high school, but I miss that place so much. I realize it is more because what mattered happened in between and in the midst of the moments I was wishing and couldn’t wait to get out.

Life is not an event. It isn’t just that job, that boyfriend, that thing that comes at the right time like perfect and “successful” clockwork of life’s timeline. It’s everything that builds up to the next event and the next one and the next one. That’s the danger in dreaming about a kind of life; you could forget the one that you are living.

I have learnt that living is more important than the event of “growing up.” Even when one day I will forever and everlastingly be 25, I should cherish and enjoy being 22 right now. Be where you are and love being where you are because somehow that’s where you are right now.

The wisdom is right there in those lessons at that time in that place. It is no wonder we have adults making childish decisions and the like. They really failed to grow up and mostly because they didn’t learn in the process of life and living.

Be “you” while you are still “you”, whatever and whoever “you” is. Don’t live in the future. Don’t live in the past. Be you and live as you are. Be you again and not all these demands from society and that voice in your head.

Life is dynamic. Move with it. Learn with it. Grow with it.

Don’t let it leave you behind.