I had my last kiss of the year on Thursday, June 18th, at 11:52 p.m., outside The Mall in Westlands, while my Uber driver, Alex Kinuthia, patiently watched.

It was warm. No tongue. A lot of touching and heavy breathing.

How do I know it was my last kiss of the year?

Because it is August 31st, and a part of my brain has attempted to deceive me into believing it was only a few weeks ago, at the beginning of the month.

I know it was my last kiss by how well I still remember it.

It was my last because I am here, waiting for the clock to hit midnight so I can burn this chapter.

So I can walk into September, born again.

I know it was my last because I cried about it yesterday and the day before that, and then I watched Modern Family.

It was my last because I went on Spotify, found his music, and listened to it on repeat with absolutely no expression on my face.

Because I went on YouTube and found Miles Carter’s poem, “If You Decide to Leave Someone.”

Because I sat in a corner at The Mist, staring at the spot where we once passionately kissed, as if we were still there and it was still happening.

Because I am still laughing at the memory of the bouncer coming for our asses soon after.

I know it was my last because a part of me doesn’t want to ruin the streak.

I am afraid that if I kiss someone else, I will no longer be able to remember your lips as the last ones I tasted.

And maybe that is the strangest part of all.

I am not waiting for you to come back.

I am only trying to make sure that when I finally leave you behind, I remember exactly what I am leaving.

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Every panel had something different to offer, but there was one I still think about often: a session led by Joan the career coach. I found the session, if anything, a little pretentious. I’m not trying to shit on everything she said. I did learn how HR systems work, the kinds of CVs I need to have, how to tailor applications and how to make mine stand out.

But what changed the experience for me was a question she asked.

We had been handed blank cheques and told to write down our dream salaries. Then Joan asked why we thought so many people don't earn as much as they would like.

People offered answers like, “They don’t have well-curated CVs.” “They don’t edit their resumes to fit different job descriptions.” “They aren’t applying to the right places.”…

The answers seemed a little too superficial to me, so I raised my hand and gave what I thought was the most obvious answer everyone was overlooking:

Luck.

As you can imagine, this was followed by giggles, chuckles and straight-up laughter. Joan smiled at me before dismissing my response like it was the dumbest thing she had heard all week.

Maybe to them, networking is where you find your luck and it is. But how many people get to join spaces like this in the first place?

Tickets for that specific event were going for KES 5,000. How many Kenyans are in a position to spend that kind of money to listen to successful people talk about the things that changed their lives? Even I didn’t pay for my ticket. I was lucky enough to have a friend who was the MC, and she got me onto the guest list.

By the way, big ups to my girl, Joy Ogwedhi.

That is why I stand by my belief that luck plays a huge role in success. You cannot climb a ladder that you can’t access.

The average mwananchi earns less than KES 30,000 a month. Taking KES 5,000 out of that to attend a networking event is not a small investment. It is a sixth of your monthly income. For someone already struggling to pay rent, buy food, get to work and deal with emergencies, “networking” is not necessarily a strategy. It can be a luxury.

I sat through another panel where we were thoroughly informed about how to budget our tucoins. What percentage should go towards rent, food, healthcare, entertainment, emergency funds, MMFs, investments…

And I thought everyone in that room was on drugs.

Someone said they were able to save half their salary every month while earning only KES 20,000, presumably to convince the rest of us that it was doable. And to that I say: may your pants burn quicker from all the lies.

Of course it can happen. But it is a very different proposition when your parents are paying your rent. When food is available at home. When the only things you have to worry about are skincare and matatu fare to work.

But sasa wenye hawana support watafanya nini? Waishi kwa mtaro ndio waeke dooh kwa MMF?

This is where a lot of self-improvement advice loses me. The advice itself isn't necessarily wrong. Curate your CV. Learn how to negotiate. Save when you can. Invest. Network. Put yourself out there. Do all of it.

But we have to stop pretending that everyone is operating from the same starting point.

You can customise your CV until your face turns blue, but if you have no direct connections, no financial cushion and no opportunity to get into the rooms where opportunities are being discussed, your chances are different from those of someone who does.

Our society rewards certain kinds of access. The people who already have money can afford to take risks. The people who already know the right people can hear about opportunities before they are advertised. The people who can afford to attend conferences can network with people who can change the trajectory of their careers. And then we turn around and call the outcome merit.

Someone has to carry the weight on that seesaw for the other side to stay comfortably up. Our systems are not designed to enrich everyone. Poor people are not an accidental by-product of capitalism; their labour is part of the machinery that keeps it running.

There has to be a Joseph who works his ass off and may only reap the benefits of his labour in heaven, and a Zack whose yacht wouldn’t be caught saving a skiff in Alaska.

Last week, a boda guy picked me up from the library and insisted on making small talk. I was going to ignore him until he mentioned that he had graduated from the University of Nairobi with a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering.

I hear stories like this all the time. A students selling mitumba. Graduates riding bodas. People with degrees selling nyanya at the market. Young guys doing acrobatics around Kilimani and Kileleshwa.

These are people who had big dreams. People who grew up telling their parents they were going to be pilots, doctors and lawyers.

Now they lie in their dusty suits in Jeevanjee, trying to figure out what the hell happened. Wondering how they will raise KES 100,000 to buy a boda boda.

And you want to tell them they haven’t curated their CVs properly?

Excuse my French, but that is some bullshit.

Guys are begging for cleaning jobs with degrees. Five years of experience is being demanded for entry-level jobs. Every vacancy seems to be looking for something more exotic and nuanced than the last.

A Bachelor of Science in Medicine and Engineering. Ten years working with orphaned lions in Samburu. The flexibility of twenty yoga instructors in one. Michael Jackson’s dance moves. Six Oscars. A building in your name at Harvard. And a trust fund worth Bill Gates’ net worth. All to get an internship at a bank.

Is our education system responsible?

Yes. One hundred percent.

Because what do you mean I spent sixteen years in school only to learn how to file my taxes from Mumo on YouTube?

Why did I hear about MMFs from Just Ivy when I had capable teachers?

Why is money management an anomaly to me after years of learning about muktadha wa dondoo and mastering the periodic table, only to never apply either to my adult life?

But the economy is responsible too.

I grew up thinking doctors were some of the wealthiest people in our society, only to realise that the sharp boys were playing an entirely different game.

Sometimes it feels like if you are not tapped into something illegal, you’ll eat sukuma wiki until you die. Ni kubaya. Ebikone na amakumia.

As I say this, I do not mean that it’s hopeless to put in effort. I mean go out and make your luck. I promise you haitakupata kwa couch ukibinge watch One Piece. Because luck is not entirely passive. You can, to some extent, make yourself easier for luck to find. You have to leave the house. You have to meet people. You have to tell people what you do. You have to toot your own horn because nobody is coming to do it for you.

Luck is working towards a job that will eventually allow you to build an emergency fund instead of sitting in a horrible one convinced you will never find anything better.

Luck is going to that art exhibition and talking to two strangers before exchanging Instagram handles.

It is fixing a mama mboga’s refrigerator for free and having her remember you six months later when her cousin needs someone with your skills.

It is the watchman promising to share your CV with his boss if you leave the premises immediately.

It is connecting with people you technically have no business talking to.

It might even be available on LinkedIn. But as someone who hates that app and refuses to use it, I reserve my comments.

So yes, edit your CV a million times. Learn how to interview. Save when you can. Build your skills. Do the work.

But then again, go in pursuit of luck.

Because effort matters, but effort does not exist in a vacuum. Effort determines what you can do with an opportunity. Luck often determines whether the opportunity reaches you in the first place.

I believe that is what bothered me most about that panel. Not that Joan was wrong about CVs.

She wasn’t.

It was that the advice seemed to assume that everyone who hasn't succeeded simply hasn't tried hard enough, networked enough, saved enough or presented themselves well enough.

Sometimes people are doing everything right and still getting nowhere.

Sometimes the problem isn't the person.

Sometimes the ladder simply isn't there.

And I hope everyone who was in that room eventually encounters the kind of awakening I did: just because you have figured out how to climb your ladder does not mean everyone else was handed one.

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Of course I do.

I like him in the way I bring him up in conversations and people assume I am interesting. I like him in the way I obsess over his characters weeks after reading him. I like him enough to be mildly offended by the idea that he was religious. But I also struggle to read him.

There is something embarrassing about admitting that. Once you have built a certain kind of person around the books you read, struggling through one of them feels like a small betrayal of your own personality.

That night, I wanted to keep reading, but something in me kept bugging. Perhaps the book wasn’t calling for anything. Perhaps I was simply looking for a more intellectual way to procrastinate.

Then my phone lit up.

It was my mum.

“Wamama wa chama walipenda hizo nguo ulinunua. Ni smart sana.”

And just like that, I was thinking about my mother.

She, like the typical African mum, rarely talks about depression. She knows when I’m sad. She might even understand what it is. But the closest she’ll get to addressing it is, “Leo nilikubuyia ile kitu ulikuwa unataka,” before acting like snacks are a perfectly acceptable substitute for emotional support.

The one time I got really bad, she looked at me and said, “Nilisoma pahali ati kudance inasaidia na depression.”

I turned to her, stunned.

It was the first time I’d ever heard her say the word depression.

This woman does not read. She didn’t read it anywhere. She may have seen it on TikTok or Facebook, but reading? Hell nah.

Still, I remembered what she’d said. I also remembered feeling some tension in my waist during yoga earlier that day, so I decided to stretch.

One thing led to another and I was on YouTube looking up twerk tutorials. Dostoyevsky would have to wait.

The first video I came across was a white lady who called a 6:30 a “tootsie roll,” so I immediately knew I was in enemy territory.

I know a 6:30 when I see one. I didn’t spend years listening to Vybz Kartel just to start calling my 6:30 a roll.

Eventually, I found Chriss, a Jamaican woman who seemed to know what she was talking about. She insisted that my quads were about to be put to work and that, for better results, one ought to get completely naked.

Of course I didn’t. I had my thong on.

Then she said, “We’re gonna do a puppy tail,” and Steady Wine by Demarco started playing in my head.

I bent over, moving my waist from side to side, my phone set to the Kenyan emergency call number just incase. Najua hawatashika, but at least I’ll sue after. Ama niaje?😅

So there I was, in the middle of the night, failing at being an avid reader and bending over to some stranger’s instructions.

And for some reason, I felt weird.

Not because I couldn’t dance. I already knew that.

I felt weird because I was improving at something that nobody had asked me to improve at. Something that nobody was going to hire me for. Something nobody was going to compliment me on. I wasn’t even going to post a video online so my friends could validate me.

I started wondering who would ever see these moves. My future nine cats and two goldfish, Chumvi and Pilipili?

Maybe nobody.

And strangely, I liked that.

A few days later, I was sitting by the pool at writer’s club across from Ahmed, one of the members, writing something I was convinced was meaningless.

“I’m writing something meaningless. Something pointless. Do you think it’s possible to write something meaningless?” I asked him.

“There is a reason why you are writing it,” he said. “It’s not meaningless. Maybe you haven’t found the meaning yet.”

I didn’t think much of it at the time. Now, a week later, I suppose I have found my meaning.

If you’ve read my previous articles, you already know that I am a performer. Most people are, in some way. We learn how to behave in rooms. We learn which version of ourselves works in which space. We become funnier around certain people, quieter around others. We dress for the occasion. We learn what parts of ourselves are useful, desirable, impressive or acceptable.

As a writer, I suppose I have become especially comfortable with the idea of being watched.

There is always someone somewhere to imagine.

A reader.

An audience.

A person who might think I’m funny.

A person who might think I’m clever.

A person who might think I’m interesting because I read Dostoyevsky.

But in my room, there is no shift required.

I touch the wall to regulate my body heat at night. I’ve watched The Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother a million times because they are the only shows that help me fall asleep.

I do a headstand before bed just to make sure I still remember how.

I’m practicing the splits.

I read my books out loud like I’m performing on stage, even when nobody is listening.

I play techno and dance when I feel lazy.

And now, I twerk just because.

These things don’t have to become content. They don’t have to become skills. They don’t have to make me interesting. They don’t even have to be good.

Perhaps this is what I was missing that night with Dostoyevsky. Maybe not everything I do needs to become evidence of who I am.

Maybe I can read a book badly.

Maybe I can learn a dance nobody will ever see.

Maybe I can spend an hour getting better at something completely useless.

Maybe I can be a terrible dancer and an even worse vocalist and still enjoy dancing and singing.

There is no performance when I am alone.

And that doesn’t mean that time spent by myself is meaningless because no one is watching.

On the contrary.

Maybe the things I do when nobody is around are the things that make me most myself.

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So I laugh.

And in the silence between that laughter, I search for the words to explain what has been happening inside me. I don’t know how, but seconds later I hear myself saying something that surprises even me.

“I’ve never really craved love to that extent. If I were to end up alone, I won’t have any regrets. I honestly love being single.” I say so convincingly I almost believe it.

I am scared. Scared that no one will ever love me. Scared that I am too much. Scared that I give up too quickly. Scared that I want love more than I should.

I didn’t mean to lie but a part of me needed to. I was putting up face, as I always do. Convincing the people around me that I don’t really need love so they won’t pity me if I end up alone. So I don’t fail publicly.

I don’t know how to describe this feeling without sounding self-deprecating, so bear with me.

For as long as I can remember, I have felt insufficient. Insufficient in the way I speak, the way I feel, the way I socialize, the way I present myself.

I didn’t have many friends growing up. Then depression swallowed most of my teenage years whole. I found comfort in sadness, in sad books, sad films, in the sadness within myself. I didn’t want to escape it. I sat with it until it became familiar, until it became home.

So while girls were getting boyfriends in high school, I was thinking about killing myself. Love was the furthest thing from my mind. And even if it hadn’t been, I didn’t think I deserved it.

My breasts felt too big, so I hid them beneath oversized sweaters. I couldn’t imagine anyone finding me beautiful, so I tried to disappear before anyone had the chance to look. Looking back, I realize I wasn’t hiding my body as much as I was hiding my shame.

I wore those sweaters through the hottest days until my skin broke out in painful heat rashes. The friction, the ill-fitting bras, the layers I refused to take off left scars that are still visible today. At the time, the discomfort felt easier to bear than the possibility of being seen.

I didn’t realize it, but I carried that version of myself well into my late teens. This insecure person who couldn’t look themselves in the mirror. I mean literally look in the mirror.

Then I fell in love.

For the first time in a long time, the voices quieted. I began to see myself differently, as someone worthy of tenderness. Someone worthy of being chosen. Someone worthy of being loved loudly.

They bought me flowers. They remembered the smallest things about me. They reached for my hand in public. They looked at me in ways that made me believe I had imagined every cruel thing I had ever thought about myself.

Maybe I wasn’t too much after all. Then I found the messages. The person who kissed me every night was calling me desperate, mean and ugly. They were laughing about me with other people, making a fool of the affection I showed them.

So the voices came back louder than before. It had to be me.

I was too mean. Too strict. I joked too much. I had too many male friends. I ate too much sugar. I didn’t exercise enough. I let myself go. I got too comfortable.

Maybe it was because I studied the humanities. Because of the gap in my teeth. Because I don’t have an accent. Because my parents are divorced. Because I go clubbing. Because I’m too tall. Too perverted. Too opinionated. Too loud. Too much.

Four years later, I am still carrying my muchness around. When people ask why I’m still single, I tell them I don’t really care for love. That I enjoy my own company. That I’ll be perfectly fine if no one ever comes along. It is easier than admitting I have wanted to be loved all along. Easier than saying I have tried, that I have hoped and that every time nothing happens, I quietly convince myself it is because there is something fundamentally wrong with me. Because I am too much.

The truth is embarrassing. It’s embarrassing to admit that I have wanted something so ordinary for so long and failed to find it. Embarrassing to confess that every passing year chips away at the confidence I pretend to have. Embarrassing to say that beneath all my jokes and certainty, lives someone who still wonders whether she is simply too difficult to love.

Maybe one day someone will love my muchness. Or maybe they won’t.

But I am beginning to wonder if the cruelest story I’ve ever believed is the one I’ve been telling myself all these years: that my muchness is the very thing that makes me unlovable.

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Eh! Eh! Eh! Eh! Send prayers, flowers, chocolates, love… Send it all, I need everything good that can be sent and if anyone knows where I stay, come and give me a kahug because Wueh! Karibu nijitoe soko forever💀

I know my friends are reading this wondering how? When? Why? Na nani? Hold your wh-questions kiasi. I’m in my motivational speaker era.

I grew up on romcoms where the women were insanely beautiful, effortlessly witty, and somehow always journalists. You know the ones? Perfect montages. Perfect outfits. Perfect heartbreaks.

The ones with openings that are so exhilarating, you literally bite your nails off. An assistant rushing down the street coffee in hand, sexy underwear falling to the floor, a vintage scarf seducing its way off a mannequin with Peter Björn playing in the background.

These women found men, lost men, wrote about losing those men and then made careers out of the aftermath. New York apartments they could barely afford, sharp tongued editors, last-minute galas and sex that looked like choreography, good enough to be on a “how to” column.

Angelina Jolie, Anne Hathaway, Katherine Heigl, Brittany Murphy, Kate Hudson, Drew Barrymore, these women made my childhood. Of course, that’s what inspired me to be a journalist. The young me looked at them and thought, “Hot! Amazing! Cool!”. And naturally, I wanted that life.

I wanted to be a journalist. I wanted the apartment, the career, the complicated love story, the dramatic ending that somehow turned into a beginning. So I got my journalism degree. I found a man, I lost him and then reality arrived.

I couldn’t write about the heartbreak. I couldn’t produce a show about it. I couldn’t turn my pain into a bestseller. I couldn’t even land a newspaper column. Bro! I was devastated and there wasn’t even a glamorous montage. No soundtrack. No perfect lighting. Just me, wondering: “Am I missing something?”

Because nobody tells you that life does not always come with a beautiful aftermath. Sometimes you don’t get the New York apartment and a wise editor who tells you that everything happens for a reason. Most times you just get yourself. And honestly? That’s enough sometimes.

Clearly I am a hopeless romantic but some people see me and think, “angry black woman,” “misandrist,” “man-hating feminist.”

But no.

Feminist? Absolutely.

Misandrist? Unfortunately, not.

People mistake my critique of patriarchy for hatred of men, but I’m actually someone who loves men deeply. As deeply as I do women. I love like the world is ending and my heart is on fire. I love in the way aunties whisper about their brothers, claiming wamewekewa kamotee. My kind of loving requires an exorcism, a witch doctor, a blue hen from Kitui and 600 hailmarys before I get over love interests.

Over the past couple of months, I have given my heart to heterosexual males and Wueh! Wacha nikunywe sumu kidogo! Now I understand why they like football because my heart came back kicked, bruised, and completely empty.

So here is my attempt at a “how-to” column.

Not how to get over someone but how to survive loving them. My credibility? Four heartbreaks, a 200-page manuscript about a lover and a recent ghosting experience. I think you can trust me.

Heartbreak has a way of convincing you that your world has ended.

It hasn’t. Actually, it might just be beginning.

I know it feels easier to lay in bed all day sulking and listening to Coldplay on repeat but don’t. Get out of bed, take a hot shower, get an uber or a bodaboda or a matatu(bro it doesn’t matter). Just get out of the house.

Find something happening in the world. A dance class. An art event. A book club. A random gathering you found on Instagram. The cheaper, the better. Because you don’t know if the heartache will find you in the middle of the activity and you might want to leave. So let’s not spend money we will regret using.

Healing is not always a grand transformation. Sometimes healing is just showing up somewhere while your heart is still broken. When you get there, smile. Not because you are pretending but because you need to remind yourself that you are still here.

Talk to someone. Find someone who looks like they also need a little kindness. Compliment something you like about them.

Say, “Wueh! What a week.” Because everyone is carrying something. And sometimes the fastest way back to yourself is remembering that you are not the only person trying to survive. Don’t make the whole conversation about the source of your heartache. Mention it briefly if you’d like or not at all. My version was, “I’m currently being ghosted, but this DJ is pretty good. Let’s dance.”

And then dance.

Paint.

Draw.

Write.

Sing.

Swim.

Hike.

Do something, even if you are bad at it, especially if you are bad at it. I love dancing and I am terrible at it. But that is exactly the point. You are not performing. You are not trying to impress anyone. For a few minutes, the world belongs to you. So enjoy it, bask in the glory of having loved and being lucky enough to feel the weight of loss. It means you are alive baby!

And when you get home and the emptiness returns, remember. Remember the song you danced to. Remember the stranger you talked to. Remember that even with a broken heart, you still managed to experience something. It matters a lot, that with that pain lingering in your throat, you still attempted to enjoy something you like.

If you can afford it, order your favorite food. If you can’t, make something. If you can’t make something, buy yourself something sweet.

Then watch a comedy. Not a romcom. Absolutely not!

You do not need to watch someone else fall in love while you are trying to rebuild yourself.

Laugh.

You deserve to laugh. And please, stay off your phone because ukitakacho utakipata. Learn to sit with yourself. Because when you survive your own company, loneliness loses its power. It stops being loneliness and becomes freedom. Your emotions are no longer tied to anyone else’s. No one will be mad at you for not texting, for not calling, for being too much, for not being enough.

And if you need to cry in the midst of all this, cry.

Cry because you are human. But don’t build a home inside your sadness. Don’t go listening to Mitski. Since now you are all alone and belong entirely to yourself, the world revolves around your ass! No one else matters. So pick your favourite playlist or put on some house music. Nothing touches the soul quite like house. Dance badly. Laugh at yourself. But dance, my darlings.

Dance!

That is what music was made for. To carry what words cannot. To remind you that you are still alive. You never truly lose yourself because someone leaves. Sometimes you finally meet yourself again. So welcome to the version of you that exists beyond them.

Now I’m going back to writing my feminist manifestos.

Bye.

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Guys! I was invested.

For those who haven’t watched it, Too Hot To Handle is a reality show where they put the horniest men and women in a villa and force them to abstain from sex, kissing, masturbation, heavy petting… you get the idea. I say force because every time they break a rule, they lose money. The prize fund usually ranges between 100,000 and 200,000 USD or Euros, depending on the country. And when I tell you these people squander that money like it is water, you won’t believe it.

God knows why he did not put my abstaining ass on those islands because can cheat can die, I would have made sure not a single cent of that money was spent on something as trifling as kissing.

One episode had a workshop called “Yoni Puja.” For some reason, this workshop intrigued me the most. Yoni Puja is the worship of your womanhood A.K.A your vulva. The women were given mirrors and asked to look at their bodies while saying affirmations to themselves. I was in the middle of boiling my Indomie when I saw this and immediately made a mental note: I must do Yoni Puja.

The last person I slept with said to me a couple of months ago, “I could pick out your pussy in a crowd like they do in ruracios.”

I blushed so hard I actually turned red. (I’m black.)

I did not blush because we were in a crowded Chicken Inn and the guys seated at the next table had turned to stare. I blushed because I did not think it was something worth paying attention to. I expected my waxing lady to say something like that. But even she sees vulvas every day. Mine shouldn’t surprise her.

So here I was, seated across from my part-time lover or as our generation says, “my situationship”, embarrassed that he knew my body better than I did.

Then questions started forming in my mind:

“Does he mean mine is different?”

“I knew I should have switched off the lights.”

“Sasa what should I say? Thank you for saying that?!”

“Even this man surely. Why is he saying these things in public?”

“Does he even know me beyond what I look like naked?”

“Ama maybe I should end things?”

We had been there for over an hour and he had been telling me all the things he’d do to me when we were alone but I didn’t mind it until he said he sees me. It was the fact that I was seen that made me conscious, that made me defensive. I needed to know what he was seeing. At the same time, I was scared it would change the way I see myself in relation to sex. So I did not do the yoni puja and I did not ask him to elaborate. After all, ignorance is bliss.

I forgot about it for months until recently, when I was in the middle of a make-out session then things got a little too heated. So I pulled away.

First, I hadn’t gotten waxed.

Second, I still hadn’t done the Yoni Puja.

So no. I was not going to let them see me before I got the chance to see myself and correct whatever mistakes I would have found. Before I got to wax and bleach my asshole.

Later, I came across an idea that amazed me: that some of the things we women do to our bodies in the name of beauty are not always simple choices. Sometimes they are responses to being watched. That we are taught to make ourselves more acceptable. More desirable. More digestable. More feminine. That we are expected to wax ourselves raw, shave our legs and make sure our yonis smell like, in Paris Mwendwa’s words, “Japanese cherry blossoms.”

Sometimes the language we use to describe these rituals hides the pressure underneath. We call it “self-care” but how much of that care is actually for ourselves and how much of it is preparation for being perceived? Because there is an entire industry built around convincing women that their bodies are problems waiting to be solved. Waxing, shaving, bleaching, tightening, smoothing… the list keeps growing and the money keeps moving.

I started wondering why so many beauty rituals around women’s bodies seem designed to erase evidence that we are adults with bodies that naturally change. I was made conscious of the idea that shaving/ waxing with the intent of being perceived as more feminine is reinforcing the narrative that women’s anatomy should be homogeneous. That we ought to look the same and have an insane pre-sex “vaj” routine.

No one taught me about sex, nor did anyone teach me about my body and how to handle it. The first time I got pubic hair was a confusing time for me. Of course I knew to expect it. Class 6 science had prepared me for puberty. My guidance and counselling teacher had taught me how to wear a pad.

But that was it.

The rest I learnt from the internet and trying out random crap. For hair removal, I saw a Gillette in my aunt’s bathroom. The next time I went shopping with my dad, I added it to the trolley.

He did not ask so I did not explain.

That evening, it was me, the Gillette and the original antibacterial Dettol against my pubes. I got razor bumps! Painful razor bumps! Did I tell anyone? No! Did I learn how to take care of my pubes? Yes! How old was I when I made the discovery? 18! I shaved for 5 good years without knowing how to handle ingrown hair because it was better to have ingrowns than to have hair. I wonder who I could have asked for help? My single dad who worked two jobs and was never home? Or my dorm Matron, Sister Jackline who was the most demonic catholic nun to ever walk this earth?

I learnt shame early and I did not need anyone to proclaim that what I was experiencing was shameful. I understood it from the silence, the fact that no one ever brought it up, from watching girls around me change themselves to become more acceptable.

Yesterday, I ripped the bandage off. I took a mirror and looked at my yoni for almost thirty minutes. There was nothing shocking about it. And I promise you, I have seen enough vulvas to make this conclusion.

I was only shocked by how much I cried.

I didn’t expect to cry over just looking at my body. It felt like I had avoided a part of myself for so long out of some ridiculous notion that it is not beautiful or normal. But there it was, my source of pleasure, the stranger living within myself. And I like her.

By recently, I mean it’s been a week. Now I find myself going to liquor stores more often than usual, not to buy anything, just to reminisce. Which makes me think: maybe I am an alcoholic. Ama I am just overthinking?

Last Monday, I was at Java, the one at Sarit for a meeting. Immediately after, I wandered into the liquor store at Carrefour and stared at the bottles like I was in a museum. Then I left with sparkling water.

On Sunday, I went for an evening walk and somehow found myself inside a liquor store in Lavington. I have never thought about alcohol as much as I am thinking about it now. I catch myself saying things like, “If I go one month without drinking, I’ll reward myself with a bottle of Don.”

Bro? How is my reward for not drinking alcohol... alcohol?

I also find myself feeling slightly offended when my friends invite me to activities that require me to be sober. Juu why do you want me to suffer like that, surely?

No weekend this year has gone by without me promoting one liquor store or another. So I’m on a mission to find activities that don’t require me to drink a lot. I’m adding the “a lot” just in case you run into me somewhere in the middle of taking a shot and feel the need to remind me that I’m supposed to be sober. Manze, my flesh is weak, but I am trying.

One thing though: I don’t drink on weekdays. I am a responsible drunk. Na sijitetei. Just facts.

If you work in corporate and you are yet to become an alcoholic, please write a book. I want to buy it. Life is hard and lately, it has had me bent over every other day. Also if you go drinking on a Friday night in Nairobi and don’t run into a lawyer, DM me your M-Pesa number nikurushie kakitu.

A couple of years ago, I was interning for a company somewhere along Mombasa Road. Yes! It is always Mombasa Road. I lived around Black Curves(those who know, know). And every morning I would wake up at 5 a.m., get ready, have breakfast, cross the footbridge to the other side of Ngara, take a matatu to town, take another one to Bellevue, then walk nearly two kilometres to the office.

By the time I arrived, I would still be late.

Every single time, my supervisor, with his privileged audacity would insist, “Aii! Traffic is not an excuse to be late! Kwani you didn’t plan your time well?”

He didn’t care that the Metro Trans queue stretched longer than mikono mirefu ya gava. He did not care that your matatu driver was arrested and you had to alight in the middle of nowhere and the only matatus that could take you to work were full to the brim and not carrying excess juu ni asubuhi na watahandwa. No! Wewe, why are you late?

I worked in publishing, which meant reading manuscripts from time to time. My supervisor refused to let me leave the office with them. Apparently, I could get robbed and the thieves would sell the manuscript to another publisher. Bro! I doubt the thieves care about some accountant’s Biography.

Still, I won’t sell him short. He inspired me to write. He believed in me more than almost anyone ever has. I no longer work for him, but he still calls me for gigs from time to time.

Somewhere in the middle of this horror-filled routine, I started running into the same guy every morning. I don’t remember his name. All I remember is that he was a lawyer and always wore a smile on his face. I hated mornings, but after two weeks of running into him every day, I started looking forward to them.

I was comforted by the fact that I had someone to suffer with. Soon he would wait for me at the stage and we would spend our commute talking about books, football, movies, our supervisors and whatever else crossed our minds.

My mornings became a little lighter. We didn’t exchange numbers until two months later, when I told him it was my last day at work. After that, we mostly saw each other on Fridays and Saturdays at the club or around Black Curves.

One day he told me he had become one of those lawyers who sleep at Jevanjee. He was struggling to find a decent job and at the time, I too was consumed by my own problems. I was stuck in that hollow space between applying for a master’s degree and finding a corporate job.

I attended interview after interview only to discover that nobody gives a furry bunny’s behind that you are an exceptional writer. Nobody cares that you can turn a terrible manuscript into a New York Times bestseller. Unless it’s your father’s company, anzanga tu kulamba glucose. Nunua handkerchief pia juu utatoa bubbles kwa mapua.

Eventually, I got a job.

It was terrible.

I quit.

I got another one.

They didn’t pay me for two months.

I lambad my glucose and stopped searching.

At that point, it felt like writing simply wasn’t in the cards for me. So I spent months at home watching movies, drinking Captain Morgan, smoking and meditating in the evenings.

Then I signed up for language classes and for a while, I was completely sober. I went on morning walks, discovered new music and did a Daniel Fast for the first time in my life.

For the first time in a long time, it felt like I was getting back to myself. The only problem was that I had completely stopped writing. Then, as these things tend to happen, I stopped looking for opportunities and one found me.

I got a job.

Suddenly I was balancing work and school. The pressure was crushing me.

It started with a couple of shots over the weekend. Soon I was drinking every day.

I barely slept.

I hardly ate.

I was constantly overstimulated.

When I talk to my friends in corporate, serious alcoholics, by the way, they always seem to have the same excuse.

Work is hell.

Deadlines need to be met.

My girlfriend is pregnant.

I need to buy a car next year.

My parents have retired.

There is always something.

Sometimes it feels like we grew up and the world immediately decided to lean on us. One day you’re worried about passing exams. The next you’re worried about rent, deadlines, parents getting older, relationships falling apart and whether you’ll ever become the person you thought you’d be.

The world leans on you.

Some people pray.

Some people run.

Some people disappear into work.

Some of us reach for a bottle.

Maybe that’s why I keep finding myself wandering into liquor stores. Maybe that’s why every Friday night in Nairobi feels like group therapy with alcohol. Not because we love it that much but because life has a way of exhausting you and for a few hours, a drink can feel like relief.

Now don’t beat yourself up for always reaching for the bottle. Sisyphus, the stone keeps rolling either way.

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That was me in second year of Uni. Madly in love.

I had just found out that my girlfriend had been cheating on me for ten months. Ten months! Ten bomboclat Months! Not ten days. Not a drunk one-night stand. A whole academic year of disrespect. But somehow, in my very intelligent mind, the problem wasn’t her. No! There was no way it could be her! It had to be the other girl.

Or alcohol.

Or peer pressure.

Or maybe even her relatives from Kitale had a voodoo doll of her under a mattress somewhere. Because there was no way the love of my life would wake up every morning and actively choose to disrespect me like that. That didn’t align with my beliefs, so I rejected it. As one normally does.

Also before the rumors start forming in your head, yes. It was a woman. I got played by a woman… with another woman.

Eeeiii! Nairobi will show you things.

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Anyway, that Friday evening, I was in my friend Coco’s room, mid-breakdown. Not the loud kind, the quiet one where you’re talking too much but feeling worse because these are big feelings and you’ve never handled anything like them. Then my phone rang.

“Babe, please let’s talk. I’m downstairs.”

Now… I should have said no. In fact, everything in me said no but she had come all the way from Rongai to Ruaraka. And unfortunately, I was still in love, so logic took a backseat for a moment and I agreed to a conversation.

“Don’t believe anything she says. Don’t forgive her. Just listen and come back,” Coco said, already suspicious of my decision-making skills.

I went downstairs where she was standing by the gate with the guards, holding yellow chrysanthemums in one hand and a gift bag in the other. She opened her arms for a hug but I moved past her.

“Visiting hours zimeisha. Let’s go to the cafeteria.” I said.

We walked in silence. When we sat down, the silence somehow got louder. Like even the chairs knew this conversation was about to ruin me.

“I got you flowers,” she said, gently pushing them towards me.

“I can see that,” I replied. Then paused.

“Now explain how you’ve been sleeping around hizi miezi zote.”

And she did.

She spoke slowly, like she didn’t want me to misunderstand anything. Comfortably, even. As if it was not my feelings she was hurting.

“Remember when I went for that church retreat in Kiserian? I lied! I was with her!”

“On Valentine’s Day when I said my mum was visiting. I lied! Once again I was with her.”

“The toothbrush I gave you for your edges? It was hers!”

“The necklace I always have on? She got it for me.”

“Those random days when I went quiet? She was around.”

She went on and on giving detail after detail, like she was reading me a report. And I just sat there, staring out at Thika Road, watching traffic freeze and unfreeze.

I didn’t cry.

I didn’t interrupt.

I didn’t even blink properly.

I just let her speak.

Then suddenly she said, very calmly at that, “I’m not a bad person. I just do bad things.”

That sentence!! Oh my God! You don’t understand how that sentence messed me up. That line did something to me. Immediately my soul shifted. Because what do you even say to that? “Congratulations for the self-awareness?” So what’s the definition of a bad person?! Someone who does good things?!

Next thing I knew, I had grabbed the flowers and was hitting her with them. I did not care who saw, I wasn’t even present in my body. I was reacting without even thinking. Then a guard started walking towards us.

“You are dead to me,” I said, my voice shaking despite my best efforts. “Don’t ever talk to me again.”

Then I walked away before I could embarrass myself further.

“Mbona umefanyia mwenzako hivo?” one of the guards asked.

I looked at him.

Really?

Of all the questions in the world, that’s the one you chose?

I said nothing and went back upstairs. Coco didn’t even ask questions. She just poured me a shot of Tanqueray like she had been expecting this exact outcome.

“You’ll find someone else,” she said. “Also, you’re bisexual so you have options.”

I laughed. Because technically, she was right but emotionally it was irrelevant.

We drank. Talked. Laughed a little. And somewhere in between, I started missing her.

Not the version sitting in the cafeteria confessing. The version I had created in my head. The one who would never hurt me.

By the time I stood up, I had already decided.

“I’m tired. I’m going to sleep,” I said.

I was lying.

I had called an Uber. By 4AM, I was in Rongai.

I greeted the watchman like a regular, which honestly, I was despite not knowing his name. Then I climbed up to the fifth floor, each step feeling like a bad decision I could still undo.

I reached her door and just stood there.

This was the moment. The one where a sensible person turns around, goes home, drinks water and respects themselves. But I was not sensible at all.

I knocked.

No response.

I knocked again.

Still nothing.

Now I was confused.

I knocked harder. Longer. Hoping that I was just being ignored.

Thirty minutes later, the caretaker came out, staring at me like I was lost.

“Haiya madam… hujui alihama last week?”

I didn’t even respond. It was like my brain refused to process the sentence. Like I was experiencing someone else’s life. Then suddenly, I was completely sober. All the Tanqueray vanished from my system and now all that was left was clarity and pain.

I sat down on the floor and cried. Proper crying. A catharsis of everything that had happened, the kind that makes your chest hurt, like your body is trying to release something it can no longer hold.

Because now it wasn’t just cheating.

It wasn’t just lies.

She had left and didn’t even bother to tell me.

I don’t know how long I sat there. Eventually, I stood up, wiped my face, and walked downstairs like nothing had happened.

By 5AM, I was in an Uber again.

“Mbona msichana mrembo kama wewe analia hii asubuhi yote?” the driver asked.

“Niko na homa,” I said.

He glanced at me in the mirror. That man knew I was lying.

“Maisha ni ngumu mrembo,” he said softly. “Talk to someone.”

And that’s when the panic set in. What was I going to tell Coco, who thought I was in my room the entire time?

Also last I checked, I was strong. I was done. I had moved on. I was not the type of person to travel to Rongai at 4AM like a lovesick teenager. Now the embarrassment hit harder than the heartbreak.

When I got back to Ruaraka, the flower petals were still on the ground, scattered exactly where I had left them. I stepped over them and went to my room.

Later, I found out she had been in bed with the same girl while I was outside her door crying.

Love will embarrass you by the way!

Now, when I think about it, it feels distant. Unreal. Like something that happened to a different person and the role I played was that of a witness.

Now I can laugh about it but Wueh! Si nililia! My friends will never let go of this story. Every chance they get, they insist, “Ebu tuambie ile story ya Rongai at 4AM.” I admit it is quite a spectacle because rada? Kwani nilikua nimechizi?

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The air was heavy like suffering had established its homestead in this waiting bay, growing stronger with every death.

I was becoming more impatient by the minute when a stranger suddenly pulled me towards the seat next to her and insisted, “Hii ni kawaida! Usijali! Hata mimi nilikua hapo jana.”

She had broken the silence and now the other women felt the need to console me. I did not need consolation, if anything I just wanted silence. The woman, probably in her 40s or maybe poverty had simply aged her, went ahead to complain, “Wameniambia ningoje nurse anitolee hii kitu na hajaonekana for 1 hour” pointing at the IV catheter on her hand.

I did not care to engage in conversation, but it felt wrong not to ask what had happened.

I expected a brief answer.

Instead, I realized that outside Room 5, women share their sorrows.

She had staggered into the hospital the previous day almost unconscious when doctors confirmed she was miscarrying. The pain had been so overwhelming she begged for pain medication, only for the nurse to tell her that she first needed to pay KSh 1,100 for the injection. She had no money, so she called a friend who sent enough to cover that and the additional KSh 3,200 needed for lab work.

It soon became clear she would not be leaving the hospital anytime soon, so she called her neighbor to watch her children. Later, she was informed she needed another scan worth KSh 4,000, money she raised by borrowing from multiple people.

At some point, I forgot how much I supposedly didn’t care. Suddenly, I was worried for her.“Kwani hauna insurance?!” I inquired.

“SHA walisema hawalipii hizi vitu ndogo ndogo.” She answered.

By then, the other women had moved closer. It felt like a strange sisterhood. An astonishing storytelling session born from shared suffering.

“Unajua hizo uchafu zote zilikawia kutoka, na nakwambia ni uchungu. We wacha tu,” she continued, referring to the fetus.

“Sasa ulilala tu kwa ward in pain by yourself?” I asked.

“Kwa ward wapi? Nilala hapo kwa ile bench.” She pointed toward the bench opposite the lab.

I was stunned.

Questions flooded my mind, inappropriate, intrusive questions.

Who got her pregnant? Where was he? Why wasn’t she on family planning? What conditions did she live in? Where was her family? What did she do for work? Why couldn’t she afford admission?

I wanted to ask but I knew it was not my place.

The woman who had been spitting interrupted, “Na hiyo kitu ni uchungu sana. Mimi imenifanyikia mara tatu. Heri kuzaa kuliko miscarriage.”

The other women as if remembering their own pain nodded in agreement and one after the other they went on to share their experiences. One woman explained how she had been there with her fifteen-year-old daughter, who had gone through the same thing and insisted it’s worse when it is your first time being pregnant. I tried to hide my shock seeing as the other women did not react but within me more questions brewed.

Why did they not react when her age was mentioned? Why was this so casual?

A woman stepped out of the OBS room, she had gone to plead with the doctor to attend to her seeing as she lives far and it was almost midnight.

“Daktari ananiambia kwenye ninaishi si shida yake, yeye kazi yake ni kutibu wagonjwa.” She announced as if anticipating sympathies.

The other women sneered, then continued their conversation as though everything was normal. The first woman spoke again, this time more agitated.

“Wanataka another KSh 4,000 for a scan. Mimi sina hiyo pesa. Na sina mtu mwingine wa kuomba. Nataka tu huyo nurse anitolee hii kitu niende nyumbani.”

I suggested she get the scan anyway.

“I think ni vizuri ufanyiwe scan just to avoid complications.”

She paused for a moment before answering quietly, “Hii si mara yangu ya kwanza. Nitakua sawa.”

I saw the helplessness in her eyes. And for the first time in a long while, I felt the helplessness of not knowing how to help. I tried searching within myself for solutions, realizing I had never truly seen this side of the world before.

Better healthcare?
Better leaders?
Better jobs?

But we live in a capitalistic society. The system will always make sure women like the ones outside Room 5 at KNH remain there. They will probably never afford private suites at The Nairobi Hospital.

I was about to ask whether she would at least consider family planning when the person I had been waiting for finally walked out.

My attention shifted.

Hours later, when I walked past Room 5 again, she was nowhere to be seen. The other women, however, were still deep in conversation.

I went on with my activities, but I still think about her.

I still wonder whether she got the scan.

Probably not.

But I hope life eases its hold on her, even just a little.

This thought came to me after I discovered something that might come as a surprise to my aunt, the one who gave me the sex talk at 14. I have never bought condoms. Never! Not once in my life have I paid for a condom!

The last time I owned a pack was years ago, after I moved into a new apartment. While cleaning, I found a box of Trust condoms stashed inside the circuit breaker panel. I just know the man who lived there before me is somewhere in this city, randomly remembering his 3 pack and cursing his fate.

If it is you, thank you. I did use your condoms 😂

Now, you might be wondering what condoms have to do with smoking. Nothing. Absolutely nothing! Except for the fact that supermarkets have now moved condoms into the liquor store, right next to the cigarettes. And let me tell you, it is significantly easier to say, “a pack of cigarettes and a lighter please,” than to stand there and announce, “Durex! Extra safe! 3 pack!”

I’ve been single for a while now, and recently I decided to re-enter the Nairobi dating scene. Yes, I know soko ni chafu. And it is because of this that I am approaching this chapter of my life like a responsible adult. So I did my research.

When I say research, I mean I spent a full week reading about condoms like I was preparing for an exam. Not even my final year project got this level of commitment. I compared brands. I read reviews. I consulted friends like, “Have you experienced any irritation?” “What is the texture like?” I was in deep.

I am especially grateful for my friends’ patience, because I was calling them in the middle of the workday with “urgent” questions. One even stepped out of a meeting thinking it was an emergency. The emergency, by the way, was my inability to tell when people are off their 9–5s.

After a long research period, I finally settled on Durex Extra Safe. Because if there’s anything I am trying to be in this life, it is extra safe.

What I did not anticipate, however, was that condoms are no longer displayed like normal items. Gone are the days when they sat casually next to chocolate bars by the cashier, allowing you to sneak them into your basket when no one was looking. Now they are behind the counter at the liquor section, guarded and protected like classified CIA documents.

I spent a solid 20 minutes walking around Naivas lifestyle pretending to shop while actually scanning every shelf, trying to secure the goods before I ran into someone I know. There was nothing, not even a suggestion that they’ve ever stocked up on the goods.

Defeated, I walked into the liquor store to get my Captain Morgan, because if I cannot be sexually responsible, I can at least be drunk.

I was deep in thought, calculating whether a mzinga was more economical than a quarter, when I saw them. The condoms. Neatly placed right next to the cigarettes.

And just like that, my entire life shifted.

The question was no longer, “How much am I saving?” but “How do I access these condoms without ruining my reputation in this establishment?” Because now it’s not just a purchase. It’s a performance.

“Okay, be clear. Be direct. No stuttering.”
“Can I get the Durex Extra Safe 12 pack?”
“TWELVE?! Who are you? A community project?”
“Okay fine, 3 pack.”
“But then you’ll have to come back and humiliate yourself again.”
“Ama niitishe sigara?”

And just like that, I understood smokers. You people are not addicted to nicotine, you are avoiding vulnerability.

There were four people in the liquor store, too many witnesses if you asked me. So I let the crowd thin. I wanted a more intimate humiliation. Finally, the line cleared and it was just me now.

I approached the counter carefully, rehearsing my line, “A pack of cigarettes, a lighter na Durex extra safe!”

This was my moment. My defining character arc.

Then, out of nowhere, a tall, beautiful, six-foot man walked in, picked up his Hennessy in a rush and stood directly behind me.

My ancestors were full on cockblocking me at this point but I tried to remain calm. “You will never see him again,” I told myself. “This is a big city.” Lies! Nairobi is a village, we are all connected in one way or the other.

I started placing my items on the counter one by one. Tampons, bread, smokies, captain Morgan… A balanced, multifaceted woman.

The cashier looked at me.

I looked at the cashier.

The tall man breathed behind me.

This was it.

“Can I get a lighter and… um… just the pink lighter.”

I already own a pink lighter. In fact, it was in my bag. I don’t even know why I panicked like that. Why I couldn’t just follow through.

At this point, I am considering traveling to Thika to buy condoms because it is becoming more apparent to me that I cannot let the man who sees me every two weeks, greets me and knows the exact brand of bread I buy also know the specifics of my sexual responsibility.

Now I have questions for you lot. Help a sister out, I’m just tryna get some.

Where do you buy condoms from? Do you people just wake up and say, “Yes, today I will be bold”? Do you maintain eye contact while making the purchase? Do you smile? Do you whisper? Is there a code? Cash or Mpesa?

Because at this rate, my options are limited.

Either I conquer this fear or I develop a nicotine addiction.

The first time, I was with friends, a bit tipsy, a bit loud, the kind of mood where everything feels profound because you’ve had just enough alcohol to believe you’re intellectually equipped for contemporary art. We walked around reacting dramatically, nodding at things we didn’t fully understand and taking photos like we were building personal brands.

I remember thinking, “this is so good”, but also knowing I couldn’t fully trust myself.

So a few days later, I found myself in Westie on a random Saturday morning, waiting for my friends to come pick me up. I had time to kill, and for some reason, my brain went, you know what would be a great use of this time? Going back to that exhibition to confirm whether you were just high and emotional.

So I went back.

This time there was going to be no audience, no commentary. Just me, my thoughts, the art and soft music playing in the background. Njogu was there working. And not in a “cool mysterious artist” way. He was just, well… Present. Immediately I walked in he looked up and went, “Hey, I remember you. You were here on Sunday with your friends.” Which is never what you want to hear when you don’t fully remember how you behaved the last time. Anyway, he started walking me through the pieces again. Slowly this time. And then we got to the explicit section. Now let me not undersell this.

These were not “tasteful suggestions of the human form.” These were bodies just doing what bodies do. No curtains. No metaphors. Just sex, sitting there, minding its business.

And this man, this very calm man was explaining the pieces while looking me directly in the eyes. Not once did he laugh. Not once did he try to soften it. Not once did he go, “haha you know how art is.” He was just talking, like he was describing a chair or the weather or something completely normal.

Meanwhile, I’m standing there like, do I maintain eye contact? Is this a test? Am I the problem? Because I’m used to sex coming with a bit of drama. Either it’s overly performative, like everyone is trying to win an award or it’s slightly awkward, like we all agreed not to make eye contact with the reality of it. But this? This was neutral, confident and unbothered. It really unsettled me. Not because of what I was seeing but because of how comfortable he was with it.

We moved on to another piece and he started talking about Kalûnga, something about thresholds and worlds and transitions, and I was like, “yeah okay”, but mentally spiraling because I had just realized something deeply unnecessary about myself.

I am always performing.

I spend a lot of my life pretending. I pretend in conversations. I pretend in social settings. I rehearse things I might say when I’m alone like I’m preparing for an audition no one asked for. Even in my sex life, there’s always a bit of performance. Rarely am I fully in it. Most times I’m slightly outside myself, observing, directing and adjusting. Like, okay that was a good line, let’s keep that energy going.

Which is crazy when you think about it. Because why am I narrating my own life in real time? Also if I am being honest, I think about sex a lot. Not in a “I need help” way. Just… consistently! My brain will take the most normal situation and immediately try to turn it into a scene. Someone looks at me for two seconds too long? Scene. I see a nice Benz on Murugi Munyi’s story and I think, “ what a hot car to do it in” I see tomatoes at the market and I’m thinking, “I’d like to watch a hot woman bite into that”. So yes, it is always hot scenes in my head. A whole porn production and I am the writer, director and the pornstar. I enjoy these moments in my head a bit too much and I think that’s where I’m most comfortable, right before things become real.

Which brings me back to Njogu. Because while I was standing there, listening to him talk about sex like it wasn’t a performance, I had a slightly uncomfortable realization: I don’t think I’ve ever approached it like that. It’s always been a big deal to me, one that needs to be well curated, a little heightened and very interesting. Even when I think I’m being spontaneous, there’s a part of me that’s like, okay but how does this look? how does this sound? is this interesting enough to tell my friends? And suddenly I’m not just living it. I’m editing it.

Should I have worn my red thong? That one is hotter. Are they enjoying this? Should I say something? Yeah! Maybe their name? But Otieno is not a moanable name, okay maybe this is the perfect time to ask what their middle name is? No I haven’t moaned in 30 seconds, cue in the moan.

This production is extremely exhausting. Because imagine trying to enjoy something while also being your own director, audience, and critic. No wonder I rarely have sex. I just need to get out of my head and avoid those friends who keep shaming me for wanting to get thoroughly railed.

I liked the version of me who saw Njogu’s art and thought, “fuck yeah! This is amazing” and posted it on her Instagram story without even thinking. I want to be her more often because to be honest, we are all fucking! Some of us more often and in more creative positions than we would like to admit. So why am I always walking on eggshells around the topic?!

I feel so much shame and conviction around sex and maybe that’s the thing I’m trying to figure out here. Not whether sex is good or bad or empowering or whatever everyone is arguing about online this week. But whether I can experience it fully without turning it into a performance.

Because if Njogu can stand there, look me dead in the eyes, and talk about sex like he’s discussing lighting techniques surely I can relax a little.

Right?

We are at Beit é selam for the last performance of Zellan and friends. The air is warm, the music is alive, and a menu rests in front of me, hopeful, but ignored. I already know what I want, a cold beer. I shouldn’t be drinking beer considering I’ve already had six shots of whiskey, but I’m craving a muratatu. I like how it makes me feel; Loose and unwatched. Even though, most of the time, no one is watching anyway.

Instead of ordering, I convince my friends to take pictures. For half an hour, that’s all we do, pose, laugh, adjust angles… until a patient waitress approaches.

“Are you ready to order?”

“A muratatu for me, please. The big one,” I say.

“It’s very strong, are you sure?” She inquiries.

“That’s what I came here for, I came for the niggas” I reply, and we all laugh.

The drinks arrive. The instruments swell. Wazungus throw their hands in the air, surrendering to the drums. My glass is already halfway empty when my friend Newton walks in. And just like that, the menu returns.

“Wait! samosas are 1200?” I almost shout.

I grew up on samosas. Not these ones. The ones sold by the roadside in the evening, five bob, maybe ten if you wanted meat instead of ndengu. My father warned me endlessly about “dirty food,” threatened punishment, but they were too good to resist. Too savory to fear consequences. I’d take an Ass whopping any day for those stuffed mandazis.

So yes, I was shocked. But none of us were really there to eat. It had been a long week. If it wasn’t alcohol or something stronger than alcohol, we didn’t want it.

Somehow, the conversation drifted from samosas to him. A man I rarely talk about outside certain circles. It’s difficult to explain what we had. Calling it a friendship feels incomplete, but calling it anything more feels dishonest. There was a closeness, an intimacy, that didn’t quite ask for labels. Ours was a friendship with a twist. I do not mean the Nairobi, “we sleep together and still call it a friendship” twist. Actually it is hard to explain where the twist ended and our friendship begun.

We spoke every day from the moment I woke up to the moment I fell asleep for six months straight. About everything and nothing, about our fears, thoughts, our parents, stupid inside jokes… Conversations with him were too easy, almost effortless. He was the first person I wanted to tell things to.

And that alone is strange for me.

I know this is light work for most of you 3-people dating humans in Nairobi but for me, it was different. I can barely answer two emails a day. But with him, I wrote paragraphs.

I loved him, but not in the way people expect. Not in the way that demands possession or progression. I loved the conversations. The ease. The version of myself that existed around him. He made me softer, more curious, more open. I loved this man in the way Bukowski says “a man loves a woman he never touches.”

I never felt the need to sleep with him. He was beautiful, easily one of the most attractive men I’ve ever seen but he felt… delicate. Like something I didn’t want to disrupt. What we had felt complete without crossing that line. We met a few times, shared meals, drinks, danced until our feet were sore... We kissed once, briefly, carelessly but even that felt unnecessary. We were just lost in a moment on the dance floor and for a second everyone disappeared. Maybe it was the vibe or a gravitational force I cannot describe but it happened, just long enough for us to act like it was nothing.

I was content with what we had. Which is why it’s hard to explain where the shift happened. Where the friendship ended and the distance began.

Back at Beit é selam, my friend asked how long it had been since we last spoke.

“A year!” I answered. Longer than I expected, which surprised me because there was a time 2 hours was too long and now, here we are. Almost strangers.

I still see glimpses of his life. Snapchat updates, a girlfriend, a master’s program, new music, trips... And the strange pattern of almost running into each other at Koda, Alchemist, at the coast... Always close but never quite there. Like the universe in dangling meat in my face and quickly snatching it away before I take a bite.

That night, the beer whispered something reckless: Text him! Tell him you miss him.

So I did.

My friends lost their minds. They couldn’t believe I would open that door again, knowing everything it carries. The history, the ambiguity and even worse the fact that he has moved on.

Minutes later, after a chaotic debate, they decide for me.

The messages are to be deleted.

Done! Problem solved.

Or so we thought.

The next day, my head is pounding, my mouth dry and the memory comes back in fragments. The confidence has faded and now I am faced by the regret of this impulsiveness. I am about to block him, to protect myself, to hide from my shame… then he texts.

“Hello, been a while.”

Simple. Harmless. Careful.

And suddenly, everything feels heavier than it ever did before. Because now there is something there. Not what we had but something. A version of us that has to be cautious. Measured. Appropriate.

And I don’t know what to do with it. I miss the old version. The one where conversations flowed without thought. Where there was no one else to consider. Where it was just us, existing in that strange, undefined space that somehow felt enough.

Now, every word feels like it has to pass through a filter. And maybe that’s the real loss. Not him but the ease of what we had.

Because I think we could talk again. We could rebuild something polite, something functional. A distant friendship that checks in occasionally, respects boundaries, says the right things but it would never be what it was. And maybe that’s why his message feels heavier than silence ever did because now I have to decide whether to respond or to protect a version of us that only exists in memory.

I am rotting in my bed one afternoon when I decide it is time to rewatch The Pursuit of Happyness.

There is nothing special about this day. It is uncomfortably hot, the air dry enough to make me anticipate a nosebleed. My laptop wheezes in the background. A notification pops up from my supervisor; something is needed of me, something that will take twice the effort I am willing to give.

There is nothing special about this day. And maybe that is the beauty of it.

I am too busy being a nobody, somewhere no one cares to be. It is on days like this, when my life feels painfully ordinary that I can finally think. And on today’s thought train, one idea keeps circling back: I need a new life.

I have been thinking about it for a while now. This new life that I seek. One where I can actually feel like I exist. I think about the side characters in the Bible, the man before the Good Samaritan, the woman who offered Jesus water. People who appear briefly, serve a purpose and are never heard from again. No one wonders what happened to them. No one cares if they made it home, how they died, if they died…They were part of the story, but never the story.

Lately, I have been feeling like that. Like an extra in my own life. And maybe it is okay to be a side character in other people’s stories. An afterthought. A passing presence. It is different when you are nothing in your own reality.

So I press play. I respond to the message, gulp the last bit of Coca-Cola in my glass, and sink back into bed. I should be studying for a test. “Well… that can wait.”

There is Will Smith, playing his role so well I forget it is a movie. I watch this man carry his entire life across San Francisco in pursuit of… well, happiness. He does everything right, gets good grades, commits to one woman, chooses to be present, works relentlessly and still, life strips him of everything. His wife leaves. He loses his home, his car, his dignity. He loses everything except his child.

I cry through most of it. And when it ends, I sit there thinking: Maybe happiness is just a moment. It comes, you feel it, you breathe it in and then it passes. Like everything else. Not something you can hold onto. Not something you can build a life around.

The optimists are probably already typing essays to prove me wrong.

Save it.

This is not a debate. I am telling you.

The movie ends, but my day doesn’t. I study. I finish my work. I scroll through Pinterest. I check my call logs: nothing. My messages: nothing. Well, not exactly nothing. Safaricom has offered me free minutes I have no use for.

I sit in silence. Something I have not done in a while. I try not to think. Maybe that will break the monotony. But instead, a thought slips through anyway: I am the side character.

And then another one follows, heavier: I might not even be important enough to be that. I feel like I am lost in a system that does not know I exist. Working a job I do not like. No romantic life, no prospects. A silence where connection should be. Friends I rarely speak to. Parents who do not really know me.

A life full of movement, yet nowhere I truly belong. I can feel myself slowly fading into nothingness. I haven’t been happy in months. So I ask myself: Do you feel hopeless? Sad? Empty?

I feel all three.

Then I book a bus to Kisii.

That’s it.

No grand realization. No sudden happiness. No cinematic ending. I still feel nothing, I am still no one and maybe there’s peace in there somewhere. I am yet to discover it but oh well!

Months ago my friend Joshua and I sat at a café sipping hot cappuccinos while waiting for our croissants. When the waiter arrived, he gently placed the pastries in front of us, neatly arranged beside a pair of forks and knives.

We stared at each other, confused.

What were they for?

We eat French fries with our hands. Surely there was no way we were going to eat croissants with cutlery. For the next two minutes we sat in silence, scanning the café, trying to identify the next serial killer of our generation.

I eventually threw my wet wipes across the table, wiped my hands, and dug in.

The conversation slowly drifted to the politics of using cutlery and how, naturally, patriarchy has something to do with it.

Confidence, I realized later, shows up in strange places, even in how you eat pastries.

I no longer feel the need to pretend in the presence of men. In the few years I’ve had to endure on this earth, I’ve learned that they are really no better than children. They are easily impressed, highly influenced by their peers, and always whine when things don’t go their way.

But the teenage version of me would absolutely have eaten the Croissant with cutlery in order to appear more sophisticated and in tune with my femininity.

Eating pastries and walking naked are somewhat similar. They both reveal how comfortable you are in your own skin.

Men have a characteristic I hope to emulate someday: they seem to lack shame. Or at least the men I’ve been around do. I have seen the buttocks of all the men I have slept with. Unlike me, who carries the duvet to the bathroom after sex, men simply stand up and walk around the house naked.

Once, a man stood in front of me completely naked for thirty minutes, rumbling about something so random I cannot even remember what it was. Meanwhile I was curled up in the corner of the bed, covered up to my neck.

I have a great ass, don’t get me wrong. I’m just appalled by the idea of standing naked in front of someone while discussing the political state of our country. What do I even do with my hands? Rest them on my hips? Hold a boob? I don’t know, It feels odd.

And that’s when it hit me.

In a way, I’m still eating pastries with cutlery.

I still care about what people think of me. I wonder if they notice my flaws or if they’ll point out that one of my boobs is slightly smaller than the other. I care about what my partner thinks, even though I’m not impressionable enough to actually change myself for them.

Someone once asked me why I am so “vanilla” in bed. The answer is simple: I’m always thinking. I’m staring into their eyes, reading their facial expressions, checking whether my boob has slipped out of place, wondering if I should say something.

I think a lot. It’s my thing.

I enjoy dissecting words and ideas until there is nothing left but chum. As hard as I try, I cannot get out of my head.

I love intimacy more than sex. Talking about random things: the taste of water, Bukowski’s misogyny, while fingers are intertwined. Gentle touches, kissing, tension, poetry…

I love the idea of love-making, though doing it can sometimes feel too personal, too vulnerable, too spiritual and occasionally painfully embarrassing.

A friend recently suggested I try random hookups to explore my kinks. Maybe that would work. But I doubt it’s worth the emotional exhaustion.

So I’ve decided to start walking naked more often.

Just to clarify, I mean only in front of my partner and when I’m home alone.

Maybe I’ll try baking naked too. Perhaps pastries and bodies belong together.

Maybe I’ll even try boudoir photography. I’m an artist after all. I’m willing to experiment.

So if I start radiating confidence, just know I’m walking naked at home.

Not the view😭

If you grow up in a tiny village off the shore of lake Victoria like I did, you are expected to either be a disappointment by breaking free from your family to go make something of your name and never coming back or be a disappointment by marrying Otieno, the man who goes into the lake at night with a paraffin lamp and a massive net to get omena for Min’ Awuor who will fry them for her loyal customers in that stuffy mabati stall in Junction. Either way, people will not be happy.

I chose the former but to be honest my parents made sure I could escape. I went to good schools, watched a lot of movies, read countless books, I even mastered the British accent. I had left before my feet touched that bus that would take me out of Mbita. I had seen the posh upper east side, got robbed in the Subway, fell in love in Italy... Of course I did all this vicariously through the people in my books and on our old JVC TV but I did them nonetheless.

I still remember the first time I had pizza. I was spending my class 3 holiday with my uncle in Nairobi when one evening he announced we shouldn’t prepare dinner that he had passed by Pizza inn. I spent the next hour in the living room starring at the wall clock, my taste buds gyrating like a Nairobi baddie trying to get free shots at the clurrrb. All this to say, I was excited, it was a life changing experience for me, to finally taste something I only ever saw in movies. I refuse to embarrass my Father by failing to mention that he loved me so much that if I wanted the head of John the Baptist on a platter, it would mine but for some reason, I thought it impossible to ever taste such a delicacy. I thought only the wazungus on M-net could afford to eat melted cheese on bread. (My friends will tell you now that I would rather order wet fry Ngege and ugali online than get Pizza.)

I just needed to be exposed to it enough to know it is just food. That it could actually be something I will never settle for even if I was that Mzungu on M-net.

Growing up, my father’s friends would send their kids off to university and that would be the last I would see of them. I did not think much of it then, after all I didn’t feel their absence like their parents did. They went in pursuit of better lives, probably got married, had kids, found the sweetness of freedom. It has been 6 years since I was last in Mbita. I never thought it possible to be away from my home for so long. To go years without seeing that beautiful sunset. I have betrayed myself by avoiding the place that made me! But to be fair, I did what was expected of me. I ended up in Nairobi for university, got a job, made friends but unfortunately got stuck here. There is nothing more for me in Suba, to go back will be an even greater disservice.

When the bus drove past the market where my best friend and I bought our first mtumba, I did not think it would be the last. Neither did I when we drove past the ferry that took me to Luanda K’Otieno countless times, the tiny Shivling Supermarket, which I must add was the only supermarket back then. I did not stare with desperate longing, I couldn’t because I wasn’t aware it would be the last I would see of these places.

Sometimes in the pursuit of better we forget we are also losing people and things. The shift is so gradual that if you don’t take time to look back you might never notice. I think we should all read, we should pursue the stories in books, try out food, read some more, leave again, be transformed. I also think it is important to remember everything you are leaving behind; your parents, your childhood, your innocence and naivety.

As in every situation life throws at you, there are options, stay, let Otieno love you or run to whatever it is you are in pursuit of. There is no way out, you must make a decision. At times I wish I could go back to the person I was back then, to seat topless on the table, picking food from my father’s plate as he tells me stories about his village where he too had to escape from. Where after getting his first salary, he took a bus from Mombasa to Kisii to deliver to his mother the first television in his family. Leaving is an experience only the brave get to be a part of, it is the best way to live and unfortunately a huge sacrifice as my mother would tell you. She still holds back tears every time she talks about missing her mother’s funeral. How the pursuit of a better life took away her old one.