So picture this guy.

Tall. Fit, like actually goes to the gym and it shows. Funny, in the way that catches you off guard, you're mid laugh before you even know the joke landed (funny guys will legit be the end of me😭) And in Kigali terms he's what I'd call a hidden gem not hidden hidden because everyone who knows him knows him but hidden in the sense that he's not the "oh of course you know him" type of guy, he's more the kind you actually have to get close to before you see what everyone's been talking about.

Add to that: understanding like unreasonably understanding, patient in a way that almost feels unfair to the rest of us mortals who get annoyed when someone's five minutes late.

We were friends. Genuine, real, actual friends not the situationship adjacent "friends" everyone side eyes💀 (ifykyk). We just spent time together, laughed a lot, did our thing basically and somewhere in there I noticed something shifting. The way he'd plan around me, the way he showed up, the way he remembered stuff I said once and forgot I even said. Small things that stacked on top of each other started spelling out something.

And I know friends also remember stuff but man, I could just feel it was beyond that. Idk. You get it (i hope you do😭)

And I saw it happening in real time and my honest first reaction was: no. Not "no" like disgust just no that's not where I am, that's not what this is for me.

He never even said it outright at first and he didn't have to. The actions were doing all the talking and then eventually he did say it put it into actual words sat me down, told me how he felt.

And I remember just thinking quietly, to myself: I don't think I feel that.

That's where the guilt starts, rero😭. In all those weeks I spent watching the signs stack up and already knowing, deep down that my answer was going to be no, while he was out here being the most solid, dependable, ridiculously good friend a person could ask for.

So obviously I fell madly, hopelessly, cinematically in love (and yk what that does to a girl😪)

Violins. Slow motion running toward each other. Roll credits.

The end.

Actually NO!

I didn't. THAT'S THE WHOLE PROBLEM.

I tried. Genuinely, embarrassingly tried. I'd be mid conversation with him doing something objectively wonderful, showing up, remembering, planning being the most reliable person in my life and I'd wait for something in me to shift. Anything. A pull, a spark whatever you want to call it. Nothing ever came. Not even once man aaahhhh😭

And can we talk about the motos for a second because this is relevant, I promise.

We all know in Kigali motos are just the reliable way to get around cheap and fast yk. Except I've genuinely tried to love them because they make life so much easier and we just don't get along (I swear we don’t) as cringe as that sounds💀 so I've decided as a personality trait, that I am simply not a moto girl💅💀 (even though I take them more than anyone I know, make it make sense). But in my head I am one Land Cruiser TXL 2026 (yes I want that one specifically) away from becoming the woman I was always meant to be and every day I'm on the back of a moto holding on for dear life feels like a personal insult to that vision.

I never even told him this. I don't know how he clocked it but he did and somehow he just appointed himself my personal pickup guy. Any time, any place. At some point I actually asked him, "don't you have more important things to do than always be here for my pickups?" And he'd just brush it off like it wasn't even a question worth answering. And okay, thinking about it now that's actually kind of cute, annoyingly cute but again the kind of cute that does not help my case at all.

And he was always on time. Always, which if you know Kigali traffic is basically a magic trick. I don't know what route he was using, he just showed up on time, every single time. And on the rare occasion he genuinely couldn't make it, he'd send triple the fare man he actually is a nice person pe😭

Anyway. Back to the guilt.

Eventually I told him straight up, no sugarcoating: “ I don't feel that way about you. I don't think I will." Apparently that’s not normal behavior, someone really needs to teach me how the rest of y’all do this whole leading people on thing, because clearly in Kigali honesty is not the move!

And instead of getting upset, instead of giving me something to push back against, he just said "it's okay, I'll wait."

Rude, honestly. Deeply rude of him to be that graceful about it.

Because here's the trap, if he'd been petty or said something bitter, I could've filed the whole thing under "dodged a bullet" and moved on with my life, guilt free. Instead he was understanding, which meant I walked away not feeling relieved but feeling even more more guilty.

And that's the guilt nobody talks about. Not guilt over doing something wrong. Guilt over doing nothing wrong at all and it still somehow feeling like a crime.

Because the thing is you can't schedule a crush. You can't will your stomach into flipping just because someone is on paper the correct answer. Being a genuinely good person and being someone's person are just two different things and no amount of TXL worthy treatment changes that, unfortunately.

So no, guys, I'm not sorry I said no. I just feel a little bit of unease mixed with guilt which honestly I'd rather sit with than go do something I don't actually agree with. Still hopping on the back of these motos though still waiting on a car that isn't coming, from him or apparently from anyone else either.

And if he ever reads this. Man. I tried and tried and tried and I just couldn't. You're such a good person, genuinely and I hope whoever you end up with knows exactly how lucky they are. I hope you meet your person. I really do.

Okay so this is not one of those posts. You know the ones with an aesthetic quote, pastel background "God's got you bestie" with a little butterfly emoji. No. That is not what this is but I need you to actually read this. Put the phone down, pick it back up and actually be here for this one.

I was in my room going through my journal. I write everything in there the happy, the hard, the thoughts that come at 3am when I can't sleep. I don't even know what made me flip back to last year's pages. My hand just went there.

And when I started reading girl. Girl!

Last year was something I genuinely do not have language for. It wasn't just hard it was the kind where you're completely functional on the outside showing up, responding, going through the motions but on the inside you're asking yourself questions you've never had to sit with before. Is this real? Am I going to be okay? And I genuinely didn't know. And that's the truest thing I've said in a long time.

So I'm sitting there reading every prayer I wrote from that season. Every fear I put before God. And I looked up at my life right now and something just came over me not laughter exactly more like that exhale when you've been holding your breath so long you didn't even realize it. Because I was sitting there thinking He actually did it. He went around my whole situation.

While I was spiraling he was already moving. That's the thing that got me. He doesn't call ahead he doesn't send a heads up, he doesn't say “hey I'm about to shift some things just wanted to let you know”. He just moves. Quietly and completely. And one day you look up and the thing you were most afraid of has already been handled.

And I need to say something to whoever is on the edge of giving up on Him. Whoever has seen too much been through too much and the trust just isn't there anymore. I hear you. I really do. But can I tell you something? He is not waiting for you to have it together first. The doubt, the distance, the version of you that feels too far gone that's exactly who He came for. Not the cleaned-up version or the one with the right words. You. Right now. As you are.

Take it from me and I say this as someone who does not have this faith thing figured out he didn't come for the perfect. He came because perfect doesn't exist and he knew that before any of us did. So return to him the messy version the tired version the I don't-even-know-how-to-pray version. Just return!

Six months left in this year. Please don't write the ending before He's finished writing it. Don't decide for God what's still possible. Show up. Do your part. Trust Him with the rest.

Because if He did what He did in my life with all of that through all of that then honestly? I don't have a ceiling anymore and neither do you.

And when I had no words left Chryso said it for me

“Unezeza imitima, uhanagura amariraaa aaah”

Go find this and it’ll tell you the rest!

There is a version of me that lives in a spreadsheet.

She has checkboxes. Deadlines. A GPA with a floor, a number she cannot go below because going below it means something, something she can’t fully name but can absolutely feel. That version of me rises before the world wakes up, not because she loves mornings, but because rest feels like falling behind.

I am in my twenties and I am carrying a weight I never agreed to pick up.

The kind that comes from spending years treating your own life like a performance review. Like at any moment, someone is going to pull up a spreadsheet and ask: what have you done and is it enough and why did it take you this long?

I wasn’t wired this way. I was shaped this way. Slowly, by everything around me.

I am a firstborn. In a lot of lives, that’s just a birth order fact. In mine, it is a blueprint. Do things right. Do things first. Set the bar so the people coming after you have something to reach for. And I love that role dearly but somewhere along the way, “setting the bar” became a cage I built around myself and then forgot I had the key to.

The grades had to be a certain grade. The opportunities had to come by a certain age. The milestones, career, independence, competence and knowing who you are, all of them had invisible due dates that nobody actually assigned but that I felt like physical pressure in my chest when I thought I was running late.

And when I fell short? God. The voice in my head wasn’t kind. It was the kind you would never use on someone you love. But on myself, somehow it just felt like being honest.

I was so focused on arriving that I forgot I was already somewhere.

I’m writing this because something shifted recently. I was just going about a normal day nothing special, nothing grand when I caught myself and thought, when did I last do something just because I wanted to? Not because it was productive. Not because it moved me forward. Just because.

I didn’t have an answer.

I still feel the pull of the checklist, the ghost of the deadline, the anxiety of wondering if I’m doing enough and doing it fast enough. But I’m trying more than I used to, to ask a different question. Not “am I on track?” but “do I actually want to be going where this track leads?”

Because here is what I know now: the pressure to have it all figured out at a certain age, to never slow down, to always be in a rush that was never a law. It was a habit passed down by the environment I lived in, the firstborn pressure and a world that rewards urgency and they all dressed us up so neatly, it looked like ambition.

It wasn’t ambition. It was fear wearing ambition’s clothes.

And slowly, imperfectly, I’m learning to take it off

I started asking myself the hardest questions this year!

Like, when did scrolling become the first thing I do without thinking? When did I last sit still without needing background noise?

There’s this subtle pressure to always be present online, in group chats, in trends and in everyone else’s lives. And if you love creating content, just like I do, if you enjoy documenting life and if you enjoy watching other people build theirs, it’s almost impossible to stay off socials for a while.

But at some point, you have to ask yourself hard questions!

Am I still enjoying this or has it become a dependency?

Am I getting inspired at some point or am I just consuming everyone else’s life?

Am I building my own or just watching people build theirs?

Watching others doesn’t mean you’re not building yours. But I have a strong aversion to being a slave to anything: not an app, not attention, not noise. Discipline can also look like stepping back before something harmless becomes controlling.

Jesus talked about this too. In the Gospel of Mark 6:31, He says

“Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”

Not because the disciples didn’t care about the crowd but because you cannot pour endlessly without returning to the source.

There’s something powerful about practicing free will in small ways: choosing silence when you could scroll, choosing reflection when you could distract yourself and choosing to sit with your own thoughts instead of escaping them.

And yes, it can feel selfish at times. You might feel like you’re not reaching out as much to the people you love, like you’re less available or like you’re pulling away.

But if there’s one thing I’ve learned, clarity and growth usually cost comfort!

Because maybe, just maybe, the growth you’re waiting for is on the other side of finally sitting with yourself, identifying your flaws and setting discipline for your own life before life sets it for you.

you stop saying “I’d never” or “that can never be me” because life keeps showing you how unpredictable it is. The things that once felt distant or out of character sometimes become the things you actually do. Not because you’ve changed who you are but because life’s shown you more and now you just see things differently

Some of your hard no’s stay firm but others start to loosen because now you finally get why some people made the choices you used to judge.