i love you but i've chosen darkness

There is one thing that is common to most of us; we all have that one relationship in our lives that takes out of us more than we ever get from it. Sometimes even more than one. And the thing that sucks most about that is that it’s the one relationship we can never seem to let go of. I too have had my fair share of those, and well, though I’m not proud to admit it, have been like that to a few of my friends, especially lately. Be that as it may, I can say that I have tried to be a good person in every one of my relations, whatever my part in them. For purposes of this discussion though I shall exclude family, and stick with friends, the ones I get to choose, and decide to stand by (or not).

I have three brothers, all of them older than me. We talk, but we’re not overly tight, and especially growing up, boarding school and etc. So I made friends, lots of them, girls I could talk to about boys and about family and just stuff. But I carried most of them in my hands, I would always be the one who went to their house, or wrote the first letter, or shared first. I’m older now, but the more things change, the more they remain the same. I still make the first call, I still go out of my way to find them, and I’d still move heaven and earth for a few of them. Even though for the most part few would ever do the same for me. I live in Mumias, that’s quite a distance from where most of them are based, so once a year I take a trip to the city to reconnect.  Very much like the one I am on now.

Last year we had a high school reunion and I came all the way from Eldy to attend it. This year I was here all along and yet that Saturday morning I woke up and decided not to go. I don’t know why, or I do, but for some reason I didn’t feel like i wanted to go and play friend with a group of ladies I haven’t talked to for way too long. Once upon a time I cared about most of them, but now, now it’s just plain ol’ indifference I feel. I haven’t called the usual people I call when I’m in town even for a day and even though I’ll be here for two more weeks, I probably will not. And I don’t feel guilty about it.

It’s not a good thing to find out that letting go is something I can now do so easily, but it isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s just there, it’s just a thing. It’s a new year soon enough, and perhaps the one thing I want most to do this year is declutter. I'm pretty sure I've held on long past the expiry date. it's a saddening thing, but ces’t la vie. That’s just how it is. I hate to do it, because I love you, but I’ve chosen darkness.

Homestretch

"England iz a bitch'.

That was how Homestretch, the novel I did for my lit course in high school starts. It was quite interesting, about life for Africans in the diaspora and etc. I'd never heard the word before that time, and after that I only heard it with athletics commentators. But anyway, that's not the 'homestretch' I'm talking about, though I still get this funny grin on my face when I hear the word :)

My last paper's tomorrow afternoon, then after that I'm free to flee to the high seas. Apart from the lethargic feeeling in my bones, as one is apt to get so close to the finish, there is somewhere in my recesses some peace whose origin I can only attribute to the Prince of Peace. But mostly, now that the 'finish line' is so close, I can finally turn my eyes back with a smile, and not the 'does it ever end!' kind of a look. Rather, it's the 'God has been so gracious to me' look. Because He has. It's the ooooonly reason I'm alive.

The one thought on my mind today: "Girl, it's really not that serious, it's just not." I've been to hard on myself this sem, and sometimes not hard enough. I pushed too hard, and came frightfully close to disintegration. But now, I'm thinking, ah, it's all easy. It is not that serious. I may not be where I wanted to be at the end of this year, but I'm not where I was. I may not like a couple of strange decisions I made, but they're not life and death really. And I won't always be this way. The mountains in my path right now, the things I'm seeing as frightful giants before me now, they won't always be there. the glory of the latter temple shall be greater than the former. It can only head up from here!! ;)))))))))))))))

Thank You for the 'NO!'

My semester comes to an end in a week. Imagine that! Not you,of course there's nothing strange about that :)  I had today my nemesis paper, Nutritional Biochemistry. The thing which I feared the most. But it was alright, it was not all I feared it would be, for which i thank Him. We weren't taught much, for the better part of the semester the lec was unwell, she didn't even administer the exam today. So reading for this paper was like trying to shoot a flying duck in the dark. And my spatial skills are really terrible. ;) Now that it's over I feel relieved.

The first time she walked into my class this semester I got a fright. I remember leaving that class one Tuesday and thinking to myself, that's going to be me someday. Up until then I hadn't really considered what good would come of this bchem thing. Not that I have a better idea of it now. it's one of those questions I dread being asked, cause I don't have an answer to it. I don't see myself spending my days toying around with DNA, I'm too artistically inclined. But in a strange kind of way I'm really looking forward to the end of this, if ten years from now I'll still be writing here then we'll see what I'll be saying.
I was reading a portion from the first of the Puritan Prayers earlier on this evening.

I thank Thee that many of my prayers have been refused. I have asked amiss and do not have, I have prayed from lusts and been rejected, I have longed for Egypt and been given a wilderness. Go on with Thy patient work, answering 'no' to my wrongful prayers, and fitting me to accept it. Purge me from every false desire, every base aspiration, everything contrary to Thy rule

I have not lived too long, I'm not too wise. I remember when I was younger I wanted more that anything else to be a doctor. He said no. I was distraught, but now I'm thinking, what was I thinking??!!! there's that poem I love so much, I asked Him for what I wanted, He gave me what He knows I need. And yeah, I may not really mean all of it yet, but along with all the yesses I've gotten,  thank You more for the nos.

I would be

When I was in third form, I heard that Simple Plan song 'Welcome to my Life'. Sixteen and hating everyone in my life, blaming dad for everything that ever went wrong, and everything that ever would short of the war in Iraq (probably 'cause it hadn't began). My brother was already a rock nutcase, I'd go home on holiday and the house was blaring with Creed, Coldplay or someone. But Welcome to my Life is the only tune I ever remember from those days. That was the first time i ever paid any attention to rock. And I thought they were brilliant, those young men. Listening to Perfect, and I was sure they were the best thing that ever happened to me. During a  function us music students were organising I heard One Last Breath by Creed, some tune I had heard courtesy of Colin the rock nutcase :), and just like that, I loved rock. I haven't listened to much else since.


Through the few years my taste has improved MUCH, I prob would not listen to Simple Plan now, but somehow today I remember that song after that long. I feel a little like that nice lady in Does Anybody Hear Her. Running. Still running. i cannot seem to stop, coz once you get the hang of it, it's much simpler to keep on course. I'm listening to Frail by Jars of Clay

Convinced of my deception
I've always been a fool
I fear this love reaction
Just like You said I would
A rose could never lie
About the love it brings
And I could never promise
To be any of those things


If I was not so weak
If I was not so cold
If I was not so scared of being broken
Growing old
I would be...
I would be...
I would be... Frail.


Blessed are the shallow
Depth they'll never find
Seemed to be some comfort
In rooms I try to hide
Exposed beyond the shadows
You take the cup from me
Your dirt removes my blindness
Your pain becomes my peace
it's been a long and less than easy semester, I can't say it ever got worse than this. But that's life, it's hard. But hard as opposed to what? It's just life.
It's only life. I will live. Nay, I have lived.

Don't look away, don't run away, Hey baby it's only life. Don't lose you faith, don't run away, Hey baby, it's only life!

                                   Kate Voegele

Call it what you may

It’s a wonder I haven’t abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart

Anne Frank, Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, July 15, 1944 German Jewish diarist (1929 - 1945)

My mom got herself a house help like 5 months ago. A nice, Bible-wielding, Christ-speaking, lovable lady. I was so fond of her, she was like the sister i never had. then she upped and left one day two weeks ago. That's not the strange part, no. Girls do that all the time. The strange part is how she carries away a whole lot of money, leaving at 3 in the afternoon with everyone present in the house. Thirty thousand, not even belonging to us. Who carries away that much money and hopes to get away with it?

Strangely enough though, I still want to believe in her.  I still want to believe she is innocent, and that the whole thing was not a facade. Cause then if it was all a lie, all those moments we shared were a lie as well. But like Anne Frank, deep down I cannot accept that as having been all false. There's something great I read:

No man can, for any considerable period, wear one face to himself and another to the multitudes without getting bewildered as to which may be true.

Was she just sitting there, speaking Christianese and making me laugh while waiting for the right moment to strike? See, that's the thing, I do not believe that. I know, I know, I believe in people too much. But she cannot have been that diabolical. Here's what I think, I think a lady earning as much as she was, seeing that much money, money that would have taken her a year or more to honestly earn fell into the trap and gave into temptation. It's wrong, I do not debate the fact, but what I'm not quick to do is to point fingers at her and call on the Lord's fire to consume her. If I was in her shoes what would I have done? Orphaned and learned but keeping house for some lady so I could raise enough money to get married, watching her child live a life that could have been mine. Right now I can say all I want, I can say I would never do that, but the truth is, I really don't know. There's a reason the heart of a man is called desperately wicked, it is. And no one can ever know how much they are capable of. 

This is more painful than it should be, I guess. I feel sort of, I don't know, betrayed. It's just that, everytime I looked at her I saw myself, and I have no idea why...

'wrongful' death?

Growing up we had this neighbour whose son was, how you say, retarded. i always wondered what happened, and then i was told they gave him the wrong treatment, and since then he became that way. it was not the first of its kind i had heard.

Last week my friend's niece passed away. Some intern doctor injected her spine without consulting his superiors. she developed complication from said incident and passed away the day after that. I wondered what her parents must have felt. it's like someone giving you a really great gift, and then just when you begin to get used to having it around they snatch it from you. You could sue, drag the pain on and on for maybe years, but after that there's just emptiness, because they'll never be back. it can never be the same as it was.


i believe in God, I believe He is good, His work is perfect, and all His ways are just. In the book A Walk to Remember the character Jamie says without suffering there can be no compassion. The male protagonist Landon replies, "Yeah, well tell that to those who suffer". it's easy for me to believe God's justice when it's not my child that was rendered retarded, or worse still, dead. Especially by a circumstance that was so clearly avoidable. why does God let bad things happen to good people i want to ask. But then there comes that whole, "My ways are not your ways" thing He says. But what do you say to people like my friend? there can be no compassion without suffering? When its my kid who died and i meet that intern, shall I be Christan and flash him a smile, the one that, well, killed my child?i doubt it.

the thing about a new place

I'm not a geek, most people i surround myself with are, but i am not. I just know the barest minimum I can get away with, and it is not much. Creating this blog must therefore be the thing i am proudest of this year. I always dreamed of being in a place like this, lost in the sea of people, unseen but still around. Here I exist, but i'm not really there. I am the world, the world is in me. I am excited about this, I know it means nothing to many, but for me it is an ear for my story, it is an avenue for relief. I do not have to hide behind a veil or curtain. I can be me, whoever she is, and that is one liberating thought.
Novelty is exciting, but also unnerving. I am going to be judged by people I know, people I don't know and people I will never know. and that's ok too, there is grave danger in self counsel, and who better than the stranger to be an ojective judge?

So here's to new beginning, here's to solitude, to love and life, and here's to a great new adventure. Cheers!!