When I was a kid, I used to pretend that I was crippled. I would do funny walks or act like my arms weren’t working properly, and my mom would always say, “Stop it, or you will be like that for good.” As a smart child that I was, blink twice if you believe me, I knew she wasn’t actually right. She just didn’t want me to keep doing it. And, of course, sometimes I would do it specifically to piss her off.

She couldn’t beat me because I was gently parented. At least, that’s what I thought. Until one day, she slapped me, and I swear I saw thunder. I stopped doing it immediately.

The slap came with a long list of things I should never do: pretending to be disabled, laughing at little people, making fun of people because of their stature, and, of course, making jokes about people with albinism. As christian as she is, she would always remind me that, as a “child of God,” those were not things I should do. Instead, I was supposed to live by the fruits of the Spirit, and, assuming you know them all, she especially emphasized love and goodness.

Personally, I took all that seriously, again, because gentle parenting, plus the slap, was all I needed to listen. But that wasn’t the case for everyone at school. And ladies and gentlemen, this is where I introduce you to Joseph, an albino boy I went to primary school with.

Since I don’t want you to only know him by his albinism, here are a few things about Joseph: he had the best handwriting I had ever seen. He was incredibly neat, and his notebooks were always perfectly organized, at least compared to mine. He was much more patient than I was. He was the kind of kid who would actually finish his work before starting to bother everyone else. I was usually the “let me copy yours quickly” department. He was quiet, but when he laughed, you knew it. And, most importantly, he could draw. That’s how we became friends.

While all the other boys were outside playing football, some thinking they were Ronaldo (the original one) or Ronaldinho, ladies, these two are different, we were usually in class drawing the skeleton on the blackboard for our science teacher. She would use our drawing to teach the class and then reward us with some donuts afterward. I have been hustling for snacks from way back.

One day, I came to class and couldn’t see Joseph. In my head, I was like, “Hmm, what possibly happened to Joseph?” I couldn’t focus. My favorite teacher was teaching and, if you haven’t guessed by now, it was the English teacher. Yes, English was just one of the subjects we had; everything else was taught in French.

So I raised my hand and asked where Joseph was, but she couldn’t give me an answer. I sat there for a few minutes, trying to focus, but my curiosity got the best of me. Eventually, I pulled the classic, “Je demande la permission…” and she granted it, and I was out.

Also, friends, was it just my school where, if you wanted to poop, the teacher would give you some toilet paper in class and you’d walk around the whole block showing everyone that you were carrying a brick in your intestine?

Anyways, I walked out with my tissue, but this time I wasn’t going to the toilet. I was looking for Joseph.

I went to his little brother’s class and saw that he was there, and that was enough for me to know Joseph had to be somewhere around the school. So I walked around. I went behind all the blocks, checked the canteen, even went to the teacher’s room to see if maybe he had been grounded and he wasn’t there.

And then I finally decided to check the haunted tree. This was a tree we all believed was haunted by demons because a kid had fallen from it and died a few years earlier. Nobody really went there unless they absolutely had to. That’s where I found Joseph. He was sitting up in the tree, looking down at the ground.

“Joseph, tu fais quoi ici?” I asked. What are you doing here?

He didn’t answer.

“JOSEPH?”

He kept looking down.

“Everyone hates me,” he finally said.

I remember the way he said it. He sounded so tired.

“They all call me Nyamweru,” he continued. “I didn’t choose to be like this.”

I climbed a little closer.

“Who?”

He shook his head.

“Who calls you that?”

“Everyone.”

I asked him to give me their names. I wanted the names of every single one of them. I was eight years old, and I didn’t know what to do with sadness yet. I wasn’t taught how to sit with someone and say, “My friend, You don’t have to talk about it if you’re not ready.” What I knew was fighting. So, in my little eight-year-old head, my solution was simple: give me the names and I’ll deal with them. But Joseph wouldn’t tell me.

“I know what you’ll do,” he said.

“What?”

“You’ll fight them.”

I didn’t even deny it, of course, I would start drama. But in the moment, I sat there with him. And honestly, I didn’t know what to do. I had never seen Joseph like that before. I had never seen someone I cared about look so defeated.

I wanted to fix him. I wanted to tell him that everything would be okay, even though I didn’t know if that was the truth. I wanted to make the people who hurt him disappear. They deserved to see thunder too. But I knew that wouldn’t make whatever was hurting inside him disappear. So I did the only thing I could think of.

“Okay, alors descend,” I told him. Please, come down.

He climbed down slowly and when his feet finally touched the ground, I hugged him. I’ve always been a hugger, but this particular hug felt different. I held on for a little longer than usual.

“No one will ever touch you while I’m around,” I told him.

I don’t think he believed me. I mean, he didn’t blink twice, but I did. I genuinely believed I could protect him from the entire world if I just stayed close enough.

I drew him a truck, hoping it would make him happy. I bought him donuts, okay, not me but the ones my cousin had bought me. I thought maybe sugar could fix sadness but he insisted we share them.

I walked with him and his brother all the way home. I told his mother what had happened, and she was so happy that I had brought him home. She gave me oranges and mangoes and asked their maid to walk me home.

But why am I writing about Joseph? I have a couple reasons.

One, I want to remind you that a small gesture of kindness can completely change someone’s day. I have talked about compliments a lot, but think about how you can literally change someone’s mood by just saying “hi” and smiling at them. And ladies, please don’t think every man who smiles at you is flirting, okay?

Two, this one is for the boys: please, let’s learn how to hug. Don’t listen to that “As a man, why are you hugging another man?” nonsense. Just hug that brother. Sometimes, he is going through tough times and you might be the only person who reminds him that he’s not alone. You don’t know what it feels like to drive a girl home in the opposite direction of your house, in this economy, only to go back home with “Text me when you get home” and a side hug.

Three, let’s be more inclusive. Whether someone has albinism, a disability, is on the spectrum, or is simply different from us in ways we don’t understand, let’s treat them with love and kindness. They are human beings and they deserve dignity. They deserve friendship. They deserve love.

And to Joseph, my friend, I miss you. I don’t know where you are right now. I’m not even sure you remember me, I grew a beard, got taller, and, unfortunately, became a little bit uglier. I also know you might never read this piece, but wherever you are, I hope your surroundings are treating you kindly. I hope you are still wearing your shades without shame. Thank you for letting me wear them and dance for you while you cleaned your face with your favorite pink handkerchief. I still say your name in my prayers.

P.S. My beta reader says I should also write about how men should cry more. I told her I’m probably the wrong person to write about such a thing, but I guess the piece will be one of those “do as I say, not as I do” situations.

Anyway, I love you guys, and thank you to everyone who came to the Substack & Friends. And for those who couldn’t make it, I will try to write about the whole thing when I get some free time.

Tina says her favorite compliment is, “Your dress looks spiritual.” The funny part? The compliment wasn’t even addressed to her. I told her I once heard an Adventist man say it to a girl on Sabbath, and apparently the girl melted. Not as much as Tina did when she heard it, though. I think I give her too much tea sometimes. But she makes me laugh, especially when she refuses to do burpees.

Keza has given up on Rwandan men. She says they’ve lost the art of gutereta. She once told me about a man who slid into her DMs and said, “Your eyes deserve their own religion.” I think that line broke something in her. The problem was, the man was following every beautiful girl in Kigali, so she concluded that he probably used the same line on every girl in the world. I wanted to reassure her that her eyes could have saved the possessed man before Jesus arrived, but she would still think I say that to every girl.

Gino’s favorite year was last year. At the end of that year, he asked his lover what her favorite thing about the year had been. She looked at him and said, “You.” Man blushed so hard he probably turned purple. Then he made her shy, the crowd started counting down nine, eight, seven,… and when the new year started, they kissed under the fireworks. Honestly, some people really do know how to end a year. And besides, what is PDA when you are wrapped in the arms of someone you love?

Patrick posted his girl on her birthday with the caption, “If I was God, I’d bless you so much that Satan would start complaining, just like he did when God blessed Job.” Then he added that forever wouldn’t be enough and sealed the whole thing with a red heart and a padlock. They’re honestly one of my favorite couples. Their son is my godson, and Linda adores him. I think Patrick might have set the bar a little too high for the rest of us.

Grace uses black hearts to express love. To me, a black heart means dark humor. So I’m always a little confused when she sends one because I use the classic red heart to mean love, while to her, the red heart means romantic love and that makes it far too serious to use casually. We still haven’t found common ground but we both understand each other anyway.

Louis is always standing by his girl. He loves her more than he loves the boys, and somehow, the boys love her too simply because Louis loves her that much. He has even asked the whole clique to make sure we tell his mother that he loved this girl more than anything else, and that his final wish is for all his paintings to belong to her. I think he might be a little mad. But being madly in love is something I completely understand.

Alexa never told her man she was afraid of the dark. Whenever they watched a movie with the lights off, she would wrap her legs around his, pretending it was simply because she wanted to be close. And whenever he got up to get more snacks, she would follow him into the kitchen. “I still want to smell your scent,” she would lie. He never questioned it. But whenever the movie ended and they started making out, especially after one of those impossibly romantic movies, Alexa would reach for the light. “I just want to look at you,” she would say, her eyes finding his. “I want to admire your eyes.” He still doesn’t know her biggest fear.

Joe asked me to drop his girl off at the nail salon. As soon as she got into the car, she rolled down the window, and called out to her man, “I want to know which color you want my nails to be.” He smiled and played it cool. I knew he was dancing inside because, honestly, that might be one of the sweetest things you can hear from your girl. He thought about it for a moment and said, “Pick the one you know I’ll keep staring at.” At that moment, I knew he didn’t know his girl’s favorite color, but the bro code tells me I need to keep that to myself. So She rolled her eyes but smiled anyway, then told him she loved him infinity much.

Anyway, I’m writing a piece to release next week on my birthday, but I don’t want it to be the typical “Dear Older/Younger Me” or “Life Lessons I’ve Learned So Far.” So, any ideas beyond those would be very welcome :)

That is the first thing I want you to know, because it is the thing people forget to ask about when they find out how she died. They want to know how it happened, whether we saw the signs. They ask about the ending. They never ask about the laugh.

She used to say, “Mika, in this family, we don’t fall apart.”

She had a way of bringing it up in the most unexpected moments; like when she was frying ubunyobwa on Sunday afternoons so we’d have snacks to eat throughout the week, or while braiding me ibituta a little too tightly because she wanted them to stay fresh for longer.

And every time she started praying, she would say, “Nta mugisha ukurikirwa n’umuvumo.” No blessing is ever followed by a curse. Thank you, God, for blessing me with children. She said it so often that I used to think it was simply her way of comforting herself. But now I understand that it was a wall.

I was fifteen when she died. For a long time afterward, I kept doing the math backward, trying to find the signs, the one moment where I should have seen it coming and didn’t. I went through weeks in my head, the Tuesday she forgot to pick me up from school. The month she stopped watching her telenovelas and the way she’d started going to bed at eight, saying she was “just tired, ndarushye, don’t worry about me.”

We Africans are not a people who ask our mothers if they’re really okay. We ask, “Ma, bite?” How are you? already expecting the automatic, “Ni byiza.” I’m fine. Even when they’re anything but fine.

My mother had a whole life inside her that none of us were invited into. I think about that a lot now, how she carried my father leaving, and her mother’s illness, and grief for a son she lost before I was born, a brother I never got to have. She carried it the way she carried everything: standing up straight, cooking dinner, asking about my school fees, making sure my uniform was ironed. Being the strong one. Because someone had to be, and in our house, in our whole world of aunties and neighbors and church mothers, that role always seemed to fall on the woman who smiled the widest.

Nobody sat my mother down and asked her what was underneath the smile. I didn’t either. I was fifteen. I thought mothers were the ground you stood on, not people who could be standing on nothing themselves.

After she died, an aunt said to me, almost in a whisper, “She had the devil of sadness, you know. For years.” She never called it depression, because that wasn’t a word in her vocabulary. I remember feeling something crack open in my chest, not just grief, but fury. Because if that was true, then someone in this family knew. Someone watched her drowning and called it the devil of sadness, or she’s just stressed, or it’s just menopause, or she’ll pray through it.

I am writing this because I am tired of the silence that killed my mother twice, once in her body, and once in how we still don’t talk about why.

Your parents are not just your parents. Before they were anyone’s mother or father, they were children who were scared of things, people who got their hearts broken, humans who sometimes lie awake late at night with a heaviness they don’t have language for.

If my mother was here, I would not ask her if she was fine. I would ask her what she was afraid of. I would ask her what she needed and never got to ask for. I would tell her that needing help was never going to make her less of a mother to me, that I would have loved her more, not less, for letting me see the parts of her that hurt.

I cannot get that conversation back. But I can have it with other people while there’s still time. So now, when I see my aunties, my friends’ mothers, women who run whole households and never miss a Sunday service and always, always ask about everyone but themselves, I ask them directly. “How are you, really?” I wait for the answer instead of walking past it. Sometimes they cry. Sometimes they get angry, because no one has asked in so long they’ve forgotten how to answer honestly. Sometimes they just say, “I don’t know,” and that is enough of a beginning.

My mother taught me to be strong. I am trying to teach the people I love that strength can also look like saying, “I’m not okay, and I need somebody to sit with me in it.”

That is the version of strength I wish someone had given her first.

I love you Ma and I miss you.

Also, GOOD NEWS! I’m releasing Part IV this evening. Make sure you catch up on the previous parts on my page before then!

“How honest should I be?” I asked her.

“Brutally honest,” she said.

Well, brutally isn’t a word normal people use in a conversation, but I think that stressed just how much she actually meant it. In her face, I realized she didn’t actually want to know. It wasn’t about her. She just wanted me to know, which, honestly, felt very generous of her.

And because I believe good intuition comes from the nipples, I respected the possibility that she knew something I didn’t. I mean, she has nipples. I don’t. I’m already at a biological disadvantage here.

Like any other man, I find it incredibly difficult to describe a feeling that falls outside the two official male emotions: “good” and “not good, but I’ll figure this out.”

Personally, I solve problems for a living, so even when I’m not doing particularly well, there’s a part of my brain already that is already looking for solutions. I don’t always know what I’m feeling, but give me a few minutes and I’ll probably get a plan of how to fix my $#!t. If you don’t know what I do by now, then honestly, I have nothing left to tell you.

So instead of describing what I’ve been feeling, I’ll describe what I haven’t been feeling.

One: random waves of melancholy.

My gym pals know this version of me well. Some days, I would uncontrollably become very strong and very silent, which was usually a pretty reliable indicator that something was wrong. The funny thing is, I could never give them a valid explanation for the sadness. It was always, “I don’t know, bro. Let’s just work out.” Which, to be fair, is probably the most emotionally sophisticated solution two men (and a woman) at the gym can come up with. But it’s been a while since I’ve felt that way.

Two: loneliness.

I haven’t felt lonely in days. I feel surrounded by genuine people who are intentional about me and genuinely concerned about how I’m doing. Some invite me to their birthday parties, and not you. Some challenge me to write pieces like this. Some buy me lunch every Sunday after church and ask, “Amakuru yawe se, cherie wanje?”

And the most predictable one: I haven’t missed my dad in a while.

Don’t get me wrong, I still wish he was here. I wish he could see how I’m doing, and, more importantly, give me some premium advice about life. But I haven’t felt that kind of grief that pulls me away from my work or makes it harder to be creative because I miss him. I still miss him. I just miss him differently now.

Now, before I get too emotional and turn this into a sad piece, I’ll stop here and go back to my bedroom. I ran the Tusker Lite Mt Rwenzori Marathon on Saturday, and while it was the loveliest run I’ve had this year, it was also one that broke me. Literally. My knee hurts so bad today.

I hope I’ll have healed by the time I get to see you all at Substack and Friends Kigali. Bring a book to swap with friends, come say hi to me, and remind me to give you a little gift.

Also, if you tell me, “I love your stories,” be prepared for me to immediately ask, “Which one was your favorite, and why?” No, I’m kidding. Blink twice if you believe me.

Oh, before you go, please read this short poem Bee wrote. She called it When I Stare at You. I’m still figuring out how to steal it from her and claim it as my own.

Oh, you’re still here? Okay, I guess I have no choice but to proceed with today’s thought.

I think one of the ways I measure the quality of a friendship is by how comfortable we are being disgusting around each other.

Earlier today, I was in a meeting at work. And yes, for those of you who don’t know, I work a nine-to-five. To six, even. How I hate capitalism. Anyways, in the middle of the meeting, my phone rang and I muted it, because I had to focus. But then my friend called again, followed by an iMessage:

“PICK UP YOU PRICK.”

Okay, this is an emergency, I told myself. I stood up and walked outside the meeting room.

“Yo! Wassup?” I said.

“You will not believe it,” she said, already excited. “You will not believe me at all.”

“What happened? What happened? Did Michael Jackson resurrect?”

For those who aren’t aware, that was sarcasm.

“Ha-ha! Funny!” she said, also sarcastically. “But no.”

“Mbwira!” I pleaded.

“Well…” She said. “I JUST POOPED.”

I genuinely don’t have a word for the level of excitement in her voice.

“It was a long, thick, brown one,” she continued, “and it was a little bit shiny.”

I know, I know. You’re making a disgusted face. But as gross as this sounds, we had been waiting for this bomb for a while, and I couldn’t believe it had finally happened. Okay, not we. She. She had been struggling with constipation, so this was breaking news that deserved to be celebrated.

There was no why are you telling me this? Or an attempt to maintain whatever social decorum we’re all pretending to have. We were just two friends genuinely happy that the other had finally managed to shit.

And honestly, I think that’s beautiful.

To me, friendship is not always the deep conversations or knowing someone’s childhood trauma or being there when everything falls apart. Sometimes, it’s someone texting you, “I finally pooped,” or “I finally farted after holding it in for 30 seconds in the elevator,” and you respond with enthusiasm like.

“YESSS! FINALLYYYY!”

It’s the same feeling I get when a girl isn’t shy about saying she’s having cramps. I mean, I don’t need to know the details, but there is something comforting about someone not feeling like they have to make their body seem perfectly convenient around you when they are truly suffering. And who knows, maybe I’ll even buy you a Coca and some ice cream. Blink twice if you believe me.

Or when someone says, “People, bear with me. I had food poisoning, that’s why I keep going out so much.” And everyone laughs because, well, what else are we supposed to do?

I like people who can be human around me without the need to be something polished and presentable. People who can tell you they’re tired, bloated, cramping, constipated, sweaty, hungry, or one bad meal away from regretting every decision they’ve ever made.

Anyway, I hope to see you all on the 29th of August at Substack and Friends Kigali. Bring some books so we can swap. And if you don’t have one and I’m feeling generous enough, I might even lend you one of mine. Blink twice if you believe me.

Oh wait… before I go, am I the only one who grew up believing that girls pooped flowers? Until… ehhh, let me not.

For those of you who know me in real life, you know very well that I rarely go to crowded places. This year, I’ve already been to two weddings, with one more left before I officially retire from social events for the year. But just when I was bracing myself for a quiet, event-free rest of the year, Chanty texted me.

“Hey, I’m having a small birthday celebration this Sunday, and I’d love for you to come.”

And in my mind, I was like, “Okay… this is so sweet of her.” But as I was thinking that, she added, “I’ll send you a flyer in a few with the location and time.”

And I was like, “Girl, a small birthday celebration with a FLYER?”

But I guess there’s no such thing as “small” when it comes to Chanty. She wants something big. She wants something that says “I'm here.” BEYONCÉ!

So Sunday comes. I SHOWER, get dressed, pass by Simba to pick up a few drinks, eh, by drinks I mean Fanta, bro. Turi abana b’Imana, and some snacks, then drive to the place.

At first, it’s the usual energy. People are sitting around, the music isn’t too loud, there are no kids running around, thank God! Just a quiet, normal party. I sit inside, and, of course, someone says, “I know you from Substack.” followed by, “Wait, is Rebecca real or fictional?”

And if you want to know the answer, don’t miss the first edition of Substack Hangouts. The name might change, but stay alert for the event details. Okay, that’s it for the commercial. Let’s get back to the party you weren’t part of.

So things happened in between. I won’t tell you the details because you weren’t invited, and I was. But there were cakes, with emphasis on the plural. You had to be there to enjoy it. But, again, you weren’t invited.

Fast forward, we had a moment for prayer. Cool, right? I know, prayer at a party. Anyways, we start praying, and in my head I’m like, “It’s just a birthday party. I shouldn’t go all in with this prayer.” But then I start praying, and I keep praying, and then something hits me. Something so strong that words can’t really describe. I won’t even lie, I wasn’t expecting to feel anything that deep. I had come for cake and mild social suffering, not revelation.

Surrounded by people I barely knew, I was reminded that I belong to the family of God. I’ve always seen myself as this bad person whose sins could never be forgiven, but as I closed my eyes, I realized that I am loved and highly favored. And in that prayer, it felt like I was being asked to walk in my freedom with less self-condemnation. Because who the Son sets free is free indeed.

I didn’t cry or anything dramatic like that, calm down. But when I opened my eyes, I saw things differently from how I had seen them before I closed them.

So, thank you, Chanty, for the invite. I wish you nothing but good things this year. I can’t guarantee that I won’t continue stressing you, but I can promise I’ll do my best not to make you run mad.

And to you, dear reader, who wasn’t there: help me wish Chanty a happy birthday. Maybe, just maybe, she’ll invite you next year.

"Just start," she said. "You're overthinking the onion."

"I haven't touched the onion." I said, despite being raised in a Congolese household.

"That's the overthinking."

We were online besties. And when I say besties, I mean besties. She was Muslim, properly Muslim, and the most skin I’d ever seen was her beautifully oiled face, always framed by the brightest smile.

Our entire friendship existed inside a small rectangle on a screen. And this is where I have to give Mango 4G its flowers for unlimited internet, because every Sunday night turned into a cooking lesson. She’d walk me through a recipe while I stumbled around my “kitchen.” And before you picture the one in your house, lower your expectations. Mine was basically a table next to my bed. This is the part where you start singing, “Dear Mashuka…”

That particular night it was a simple tomato (or tometo) pasta. She talked me through the garlic: how to smash it with the flat of the knife so the peel slides off, how to know it's ready by smell instead of the clock. She caught my flame running too high before I noticed the smoke. She heard the sizzle change pitch through the phone and said, "Turn it down, you're about to lose the garlic."

A few weeks in, I could make rice so well you could count every grain. She taught me the formula: rinse the rice until the water runs clear, getting rid of the starch, a word I’d only ever heard in school, then pour in enough water until it reaches your first knuckle when your fingertip is resting on top of the rice. I used that exact method the first time I cooked for Keza yaje kunsura. The rest is history.

Eventually, I reached a point where I could cook just about any everyday meal. Then Ru introduced me to the world of flour-based foods. I don’t want to call it baking because we started with pancakes and crêpes. I still mix the two up, but I can make both of them now. And before anyone argues with me, I believe they should have so much sugar in the batter that you don’t even need Nutella or honey afterward. I made them for Keza and a few days later, she asked, “So... what are we?”

I answered her, I promise. I’m just not going to tell you what I said. But that night, I realized something: Ru was turning me into a very attractive human being. I’d always heard people say, “The shortest way to someone’s heart is through their stomach,” and for the first time, I was watching that theory work in real life.

That was all the motivation I needed.

My Pinterest feed became nothing but recipes. I started buying spices I’d never even heard of. I bought a couple of nice knives. I took cooking far more seriously than anyone had asked me to. What happened after that is between me, my guests, and maybe the bed sitting right in front of my “kitchen.”

I still cook things exactly the way Ru taught me: turning the heat down a little before I think I should, tasting twice, and salting until my ancestors tell me to stop. Every time I’m in the kitchen, I think about her.

Recently, I started baking cakes too. My last one was a chocolate cake, and I was honestly proud of it. I ate half of it that same night, but that’s beside the point.

I think being able to make food for another person is one of the most thoughtful and intimate things you can offer. There’s something beautiful about taking simple ingredients, putting your time and care into them, and saying, “I made this for you.”

So if I ever tell you “wansuye,” trust me, I’m not talking about boiling eggs for you. I’m making you a four-course dinner, serving it with apple juice (I saw someone on TikTok with the username applejuiceispee, by the way, and it still makes me laugh), and we’re watching Rye Lane together.

I’m kidding, I will not invite you into my home. Mbana n’intare.

P.S. Do you also know that girl who never eats, the one who tells you she only had an apple all day? Where can we find some juju to boost her appetite?

Actually, let’s talk about it. I think insecurities are wild because they don’t even have to make sense. You could have a perfectly nice face with dimples, a decent personality, a perfect accent without mixing up your Ls and Rs, and still lie awake at night convinced that your hair refusing to make a fluffy bun is the reason nobody will ever truly love you.

Let me use myself as an example, just to avoid stepping on anyone’s toes. I have palmar hyperhidrosis. I’ve been at war with my palms since the invention of handshakes. Apart from making my keyboard wet when I’m typing, or worse, my notebooks, my hands have never hurt anyone. And still, every time someone reaches for my hand, there’s a split second where my brain goes, “Are we doing this?”

This is probably also why I’ve perfected the pre-handshake pant-wipe. The little drag-and-swipe before any greeting. When I can, I just hug you and call it a day. Except people around here still extend their hands after you’ve just hugged them. I wrote about that, by the way.

What I’ve come to believe: there will always be someone who loves it anyway. Someone who reaches for your hand, wet or not, and just... holds it. Doesn’t flinch, doesn’t comment, doesn’t reach for a napkin mid-handhold. That’s the whole thing about love. It finds the parts of you that you don’t love and loves them for you. Those love handles you’re trying so hard to get rid of? Someone, somewhere, is going to look at them and wonder how they got so lucky.

And then there are your friends, those crazy people, who take a completely different approach and just treat your hands like their personal moisturizer. They’re like, “Oh, you’re sweaty? Perfect. Wipe your hand on mine. I’m ashy.” And somehow, that becomes its own little language of love.

I’ve heard people say they’re insecure about their laugh, which sounds like a goose being startled, their teeth, their forehead, the way they walk like they’re being chased by an inconvenience, their boobs that are not the same height, their left-side profile, or their hairline. And every time I hear one of these, my honest reaction is: does it really matter?

We are all, every single one of us, insecure about something. Some of those things are completely invisible to everyone but ourselves; others are right there in plain sight, only we notice them far more than anyone else does. Which makes the whole exercise of laughing at someone else’s insecurities a little absurd. You’ve got your own list. I’ve got mine. It’s currently ten items long and lives in my hands.

So I’m learning to love myself, sweaty palms and all, because I got tired of being at war with a part of my own body for no good reason. And I’m learning to love other people the same way by seeing them beyond things they’re insecure about.

So, what’s that little thing about yourself you’ve been at war with?

It’s 11:47 p.m. I’m walking home alone because my Move driver cancelled after calling to ask if I could “just walk to the main road.” Sir, if I wanted to walk to the main road, I wouldn’t have ordered a ride. There is a man who has been “coincidentally” walking the same route as me for the last four hundred metres.

My phone is on 9%. So I start texting.

First, my mother. She doesn’t respond. She’s probably asleep, or deep in prayer, the ringing phone is just the devil trying to interrupt her. Besides, she gave me life; she doesn’t owe me a follow-up.

Next, the group chat. A bunch of gym rats who, in my mind, should still be awake because they’re probably meal-prepping at midnight. Read receipts and not a single reply.

And then, finally, out of options and desperate… her. The DND friend.

Nothing, not even a buzz. Her phone is probably lying face-down on a table somewhere, peacefully sitting on Do Not Disturb, while she’s sleeping like a baby, completely unaware that she’s about to become an accomplice in my very dramatic death.

You know her. Maybe you are her. If so, hi… and I already don’t like you.

She turned on Do Not Disturb five years ago during a “digital detox” and, much like a cult, never really left. She talks about her Do Not Disturb settings with so much pride. Deep down, I want to throw her out the window, but I stay calm because that’s her very expensive iPhone she bought with her own money. And before you people start, no, just because a woman has an iPhone doesn’t make her an ashawo. Some of these ladies are working six jobs and still asking us to buy them ice cream just to keep us confused.

Anyways, she’ll then casually say, completely unbothered, “I don’t really check my phone after 9 p.m. It’s a boundary thing.” A BOUNDARY. As if my message saying, “I think I’m being followed. Please track my location,” is interrupting her healing journey instead of potentially being my last text.

And just like boiling a frog, for those who have eaten it, it starts small. So small that you might even miss the signs. You need a second opinion on a text before you send it. She doesn’t respond for six hours. You send it anyway. It goes badly.

Annoying, but survivable.

Then it escalates. You’re locked out of your house late at night after a date that ended with nothing more than a hug, and you need her spare key. Her phone might as well be sitting inside a box at the bottom of the ocean.

Now, I know what you’re going to say because she has already said it to me several times: repeated calls within three minutes can break through Do Not Disturb. Great feature. Do you know who does not have the presence of mind to remember that, then call exactly twice within exactly three minutes while being followed by a man in a windbreaker? Me. I am busy! I am Googling “Is walking fast the same as running, cardio-wise?” while also trying not to die. And also, and I cannot stress this enough, she has never actually turned this setting on. Mxioum!

As I calm down and stop my dramatic venting, I want to be clear: I am not saying we should abolish Do Not Disturb. I understand the need for a peaceful dinner, a full eight hours of sleep, a movie watched without someone interrupting every five minutes, or whatever else you are doing at your boyfriend’s house with your bra off. Boundaries are healthy. Fine. I accept that.

I am simply saying: if you are going to disappear into a self-imposed communication blackout every single night like some kind of off-duty superhero, at least give me a warning. A simple, “Hey, I’m on DND because of this reason,” would be enough. Will I believe you? Probably not. Will I still judge you? Absolutely. But at least, if I am ever found in a ditch somewhere, everyone will know whose fault it was. Not the man in the windbreaker, not my own poor life choices regarding walking alone at midnight, but you.

And the rest will be on you, your DND, and the guilt of knowing you got Kigali's favorite Substacker killed.

Welcome to day five of my little challenge: five days of writing, five random thoughts straight from my mind to yours. We made it. The other four pieces are over on my personal page, but this one had to be here because my boss generously let me share one of the five stories with you all. I figured I’d save the best for last. So, grab your tea. Let’s finish this together.

And all I really was, was dark-skinned… not particularly curvy, but kind. Then he added something else to the list once: “someone who gives me peace.” And I did. I truly did. I swallowed my pride, put the drama aside, softened myself in every way I could just to make sure that man felt peace whenever he was with me.

But then you came along. And like a maths fraction, he canceled out the common denominator. Because you were kind too, except you were also dark-skinned and beautifully curved. So naturally, you ranked higher. And just like that, you took my man.

When I was younger, I used to think Dolly Parton sounded desperate in Jolene. I heard a woman begging another woman not to take her man, and I could never understand it until now. With all the qualities you have, you could get any man in the world. Truly. So why him?

I’ve known him forever. We grew up together. I helped him pull out a loose tooth when we were seven. He learned how to braid cornrows with my hair when we were ten. He was there when I got my first period at fourteen. We lost our virginity to each other at eighteen.

Please, darling. Please. If we put our egos aside for a second, I’m sure you could find someone better. Not him.

He snores in his sleep. You will not get used to it. He eats cereal without milk and mixes avocado with rice before adding beans like that is somehow normal behavior. He refuses to give me head with the lights on because he thinks I’ll stare at his bald spot. He drinks his coffee black with no sugar, and the coffee stains his teeth a little. None of that is worthy of someone as beautiful as you.

And yes, maybe I’m lying now. Maybe I’m trying to make him sound smaller so you can leave him alone. But the truth is, I know every strange thing about him because I stayed long enough to learn them. Long enough to love them.

So if you ever do take him from me, at least understand that you are not taking a man from someone who barely knew him. You are taking home from the person who built her whole life around it.

That’s it for day five, and for this little series. If you enjoyed this piece, I’d love for you to check out the other stories on this publication. And if you’d like to keep reading my work, please, please, please subscribe to my page.

Alright, lovelies. Bye.

It’s 01:27 a.m., which is rare for me, I’m almost never awake this late. I just got out of the shower, and I keep replaying our conversation from earlier. I have to say, you’re a really brave young man. Like I told you, it’s not every day someone comes up to me and tells me they like my writing. And yeah, saying it in the restroom was a little awkward, but I guess it was a now-or-never kind of situation. Funny enough, I was actually on a call with my crush when you caught me. I ended up hanging up on her just so I could hear what you had to say.

Again, thank you for the compliment on my writing. If you’d told me a year ago that I’d be the person writing things others could see themselves in, I would’ve laughed it off. This app started as a digital journal for me, a place where I could write whatever was on my mind. But once people began finding and reading my posts, I started becoming more intentional about what I write and the way I express it.

But that’s not really why I’m writing this. I’m writing because of something you said, you told me you wished you were me. The truth is, you don’t. I get messed up sometimes. My mind goes to some pretty dark places, and I think that’s why I bury myself in sports and anything else that keeps me busy. It’s easier to keep moving than to sit alone with my thoughts.

Sometimes it all piles up, and my instinct is to run away from everyone. But tonight, instead of running away, I ran to church. To my surprise, I saw a young man on stage. That young man was you. I loved how you just kept going back and forth, singing the same song for what felt like almost ten minutes. I stood there thinking, “God, I wish I’d been like that at his age.” Then, by God’s grace, we actually met, in the restroom, of all places. And somehow, I think that short conversation was enough to make us friends.

When I was your age, I wanted to be like you.

Not you specifically, you were probably just a little kid playing amabiye. If you don’t know what that is, it’s kind of like pool, except it’s played on the floor with just one hole. Instead of a cue stick, you use your hand to flick tiny marble balls. And yes, back then, I still had good knees. What I mean is that I wanted to be the kid at the front. The one who wasn’t embarrassed to close his eyes during worship. The one who could talk about Jesus without worrying about being called the boring kid. The one who didn't mind staying behind to clean the church chairs, even though people often acted like that was something only church girls like Grace would do.

But no, I let peer pressure get the better of me. I went for the whole “cool boy” aesthetic. I sagged my pants. I changed the way I talked and started throwing around words like cyaze and ndashona. I even wrote an “Our Father in Hell” prayer in the back of a hymn book. I know, I know, I’m not proud of that one either. I also came dangerously close to getting the infamous “frog” tattoo. That’s a story for another day, but the short version is that we had this tattoo artist who seemed to know only one design: a frog. Every self-proclaimed cool person around me had one, so naturally I thought I needed one too.

And do you know what all those “cool” activities got me? Absolutely nothing. It didn’t work. Nobody was impressed. I didn’t become more interesting. The whole “cool boy” thing is a scam, Dan. It’s a pyramid scheme where you’re the only investor, and the only return you get is mild regret at 3 a.m. for the next decade.

You, meanwhile, are up there leading a room full of people in worship on a Friday night when you could be doing literally anything else, and you’re not even faking it. I didn’t have the vocabulary for that at fifteen, so I called it “cringe” instead, because that’s easier than admitting I was scared of being sincere in public.

Anyway, like I told you, I’m probably not the best person to be giving advice to young people. If you’re looking for wisdom, the Fifth Commandment is a much better place to start: Honor your father and your mother.

But here are my fifty cents. Feel free to ignore it if you want. Actually... don’t.

One. Don’t spend your life trying to be “cool.” Being cool only matters to the people around you at that moment, and they usually forget about it as soon as everyone moves on. The kids who thought I was cool in O’Level probably wouldn’t even recognize me today. But the people who still remember me are the ones I was kind to and treated well.

Two. At some point, you’ll be tempted to trade something real for something that only looks better. It could be a relationship, your integrity, your faith, or simply the peace you already have. Something will come along dressed up as a better, more exciting version of what you already possess. Most of the time, it isn’t.

Three. Keep leading worship. Keep being the kid who means every word he sings. And if you still want to be like me, then be like the parts of me that are still trying to unlearn all the pretending. Skip the detour I took. You’re already further ahead than I was at your age.

Four. Never stand too close to a naked man. I’m not going to explain this one. Just don’t. You’ll understand it later.

I’m proud of you, man. I hope I see you again at church soon. Now go wash the dishes your mom told you to wash before she left the house.

Peace out,

P.S. For those who don’t know, “Don’t Stand Too Close to a Naked Man” is a book by Tim Allen. Once you’ve read it, you’ll understand why I borrowed the title. I first read it when I was thirteen, and, funnily enough, I got paid to read it. It’s also one of the books I mention in the story below.

But not just any ladybug, one I had been thinking about for a whole week. One I was almost certain would cancel on me, because the wind these days can carry beautiful things wherever it wants.

I had questions prepared. Do you really bring good luck? Do you choose where your beauty spots go? Do you ever hide them under something? I rehearsed my smile, at least as a cover for my nervousness. And I made a promise to myself: don’t let her know how excited you are.

I arrived at the tree first. My brain wandered the way brains do when they have too much time and too much hope. What if she changes her mind? What if it’s not a ladybug at all, but a butterfly? Is that why I have butterflies in my stomach? Then my phone rang, ding ding, and the message said, sorry, I’ll be a little late. Of course. I knew those questions were not random. But I stayed, because even if all I got was one minute, I wanted to at least know how she smelled. Just enough luck to carry me through the week.

“I’m here,” she said. I looked around and saw nothing. Do ladybugs even fly at night? And then, finally, there she was, right in front of me, with a face so open and alive that every nerve in my body just settled. I smiled, with my real smile, not the rehearsed one.

Right there, I knew this would be an evening I would never forget.

We sat and ate ice cream. Butterscotch has never tasted like that before, or maybe my taste buds were simply under the influence of all that beauty sitting across from me. Which made me think: what does a ladybug eat? Does she feed on conversation, or on the hunger in the eyes of the man sitting in front of her? I don’t know why I was so talkative. I don’t know why I didn’t want to go quiet. Did she notice that I wished she was sitting closer?

“Can I smell you?” she asked. She leaned in, and she did.

I still don’t know how I smelled. Like a man and vaseline, probably. Or like peace. Like softness. Maybe like a safe space. I had to smell her back, I am obsessed with fairness, fill my cup and I’ll fill yours, so I leaned in too. She smelled like the part of heaven where God removes his shoes before entering. I closed my eyes without meaning to. A very normal thing to do when a scent is that good.

At some point, the ladybug landed on my face. With her eyes. I could feel them move from my lips to my left cheek and all the way up to my eyes, and I wondered what was going through her mind. Did my lips look like they had something to say? Would they have tasted like the butterscotch ice cream I’d just eaten, or like lips that have never told a lie?

The night moved from topic to topic. I tried to fly with her and it felt effortless. Even when the words dried up, it didn’t feel awkward, it felt more like we could just be, and I wondered if my thoughts in those quiet moments were too loud for her to hear.

“Will I ever see you again?” I asked, hoping for more luck another day.

“Only if you ask,” she answered.

Which felt like a challenge and a gift at the same time, because it wasn’t no. Even though I half-expected her to say she’d think about it, I left that sentence feeling hopeful.

Then it came to us that we had to leave. I honestly didn’t want the night to end.

“Can I have a hug?” I asked.

“Absolutely,” she said.

The thing about hugging a ladybug your own height is that you are actually hugging each other. Not the sideways Sister Rebecca hug. A real hug. A hug hug. Which, if I’m honest, broke my heart a little, because the moment I stepped out of it, I already wanted back in. So I asked for another, and one more after that, and still it wasn’t enough to fill the space that hadn’t been held in a while.

I walked back home, wondering if she was watching and already moving in a different direction. Wishing I could ask for one more hug. Left with nothing but my memory and a film playing in my head of everything that could have happened if we had found each other a little sooner.

Then my alarm went off. My phone was buzzing on the bedside table. The ceiling was still the same familiar white, and there was no ladybug in sight. I lay there for a moment, trying to hold on to the dream before it dissolved into thin air.

Yesterday I met a ladybug. And somehow, that remains my favourite day of the my life.

Here’s what happened: I was out on a run today, minding my own business, when I ran into a girl I once had a talking stage with. It was never that serious. We went on one date, and then... it just faded. The last message between us was her reacting to one of my texts with a simple 👍🏿. At that point, I took the hint. She wasn’t interested, and it was time to let it go. But seeing her again today took me right back to that version of myself, the one who was absolutely convinced we were going to end up together.

Turns out I wasn’t boring or unlikeable or whatever spiral I usually default to. I was just trying too hard to be interesting. Every text was a highlight reel. “Anyway here’s a fun fact about me.” “Anyway here’s another fun fact about me.” I basically ran my own TED Talk and she never bought a ticket.

Which brings me to today’s sermon: it’s better to be interested than interesting, especially in a talking stage, while everyone else is busy trying to sound like the most interesting person in the room. Meanwhile the real MVP is just sitting there going “wait why did your coworker do that” and accidentally becoming the most magnetic person in the chat without even trying.

Here’s the thing nobody tells you: curiosity is basically the cheat code. You don’t need a personality trailer, a résumé of cool stories, or a carefully curated “fun facts” folder. You need “okay but then what happened.” That’s the whole strategy. That’s the entire playbook. I just apparently didn’t get the memo until a random Sunday run made me relive it in real time.

Anyway. Lesson learned, several years and one awkward sidewalk wave too late. So yeah, sorry again for posting a lot. But also, not sorry, because someone had to say it: be interested, not interesting.

For anyone who has somehow made it this far in life without knowing “Nerea,” first of all, shame on you. But since I’m nice, blink twice if you believe me, let me set the scene.

The premise is simple: a man is begging a woman named Nerea not to have an abortion. That’s the entire song. But instead of just saying “please don’t,” he starts listing off everyone this unborn baby could possibly become. Obama, Lupita Nyong’o, Victor Wanyama, Jomo Kenyatta himself, Wangari Maathai, Miriam Makeba, Mandela. At one very confident point he even suggests the kid could grow up to be littleattachedbuttons. Again, blink twice if you believe me.

And standing there under the water, I realized the song never tells you what happens after. There is no verse two epilogue, or a “ten years later” bridge, nothing. Sauti Sol dropped the biggest cliffhanger in Kenyan music history and then just... left. We’ve all been singing this at karaoke for over a decade with zero closure and apparently none of us noticed.

So naturally, dripping and mildly obsessed at this point, I started doing the math. If this baby is real, they’d be about eleven years old now. At that age, I had already won six street fights and knew how to ride a bicycle unlike you. But imagine being at a family gathering when an uncle suddenly plays “Nerea” and when you ask why everyone is laughing, and someone says, “Oh... this song is about you.” Imagine growing up knowing your father had already told the entire continent you were going to be Kagame before you were even born.

I also spent some time wondering what Nerea actually looked like. Because we know almost nothing about her. We don’t know if she rolled her eyes through the entire song or if she found it romantic. All we have is the boys, dressed in white, making increasingly wild promises on a child’s behalf.

Still in the shower, here’s where I landed. Maybe she kept the baby, and that kid is now a completely normal, slightly overwhelmed eleven-year-old who plays okay football and gets B’s in school. Or maybe she kept the baby and everything is going great. The kid is winning spelling bees, learning that corruption is bad, and growing up to be a perfectly responsible citizen. But what if she didn’t? What if the greatest footballer, president, Nobel Prize winner, or “next Mandela” never existed because life simply took a different path? What happens to all those promises the boys were making on behalf of someone who never got the chance to hear them?

Either way, I stand by my conclusion: Sauti Sol owes us a sequel. “Nerea’s Response.” Let the woman speak. It’s been long enough.

But ask Ntwari to break up with Keza? The man would rather relocate to the moon. Or chew a pair of jeans, wamugani w'Uwase.

Ntwari had been unhappy in the relationship since roughly the third month, around the time he realized Keza’s relationship with alcohol was not just casual. She was a professional drinker who had moved far beyond the beginner level of getting tipsy from a single glass of Martini. At this point, drinking was practically her personality.

That should have been the moment he ended things. Instead, Ntwari closed his eyes, handed over his credit card, and began planning his own funeral, because apparently death seemed like the easier exit plan.

For two years, TWO YEARS, Ntwari ran a campaign to get Keza to break up with him first. He tried everything:

He “forgot” her birthday. She forgave him and organized her own party, with plenty of alcohol, of course. At the after-party, Ntwari tried to stop her from peeing in Kigali Heights’ parking lot but he failed.

He started supporting Arsenal out of nowhere with zero prior interest, hoping the sheer aggression of his new fandom would drive her away. She bought him a jersey with HER name on it.

He told her, unprompted, that he thought long engagements were “actually very romantic.” She got MORE excited.

At this point Ntwari consulted his cousin Karenzi, a man whose only qualification was surviving three breakups by simply moving to Musanze without notice.

“Just tell her,” Karenzi said.

“I would rather,” Ntwari replied, “be arrested by RIB for a crime I did not commit.”

“Warasaze.” Honestly, that’s insane.

“It is LESS insane than saying ‘I think we should end this.’ Karenzi, do you understand what she will do? She will cry. She will say I ruined her life. Then she will probably disappear into a bottle of alcohol for a week, and I will sit there feeling like the worst person alive.”

Ntwari tried one final plan: he “accidentally” posted an old photo of his ex on his Instagram story. It was a risky move, but Ntwari was desperate. He was hoping Keza would see it, get angry, and finally do the one thing he couldn’t bring himself to do: leave.

When Keza saw the photo, she did not break up with him. Instead, she posted a picture of the two of them together. 45K likes later, Ntwari realized there was no escaping anymore. The whole internet was now emotionally invested in a relationship he was trying to leave.

Ntwari wept.

So Ntwari, and every Ntwari reading this, here is the truth nobody tells you:

It is always, ALWAYS better to be the one who ends it. And I’ll tell you why: because deep down, you already know how the story ends. You should write the last chapter yourself instead of doing performance art for two years hoping someone else picks up the pen. Every scheme costs you more time, more dignity, and honestly more money on jerseys you didn’t need.

If you don’t know what to say, ask me. I’ll even send you a template, I have done it before. I might even pay for the breakup date. Blink twice if you believe me.

Also, Ntwari, buy Karenzi a beer. He was right the whole time.

Let’s start with the small stuff, the things you believe don’t mean anything. You know his coffee order down to the details: a latte with two spoons of sugar. Meanwhile, you had to be reminded twice of your own coworker’s name. That’s not just memory, madam. That’s attention. Your brain has promoted him to the VIP section. You decided he was worth noticing, and now your mind refuses to act like he isn’t.

You also remember what he wore three Tuesdays ago. Your brain runs a little surveillance operation exclusively for him, and it is, frankly, very thorough. Meanwhile you couldn’t tell me what you yourself wore last Tuesday. The system has priorities, and they are not about you.

Then there are the text messages. A normal friend gets a “lol” and moves on with their life. You, however, have reread “haha” enough times and you think the number of “ha”s carries emotional significance. You’ve sent the screenshot to a friend, circled a full stop that wasn’t there yesterday, and asked, “Do you think he’s being distant?” He probably isn’t. But the fact that you think he might be tells me a lot more about your feelings than it does about his punctuation.

Now, the jealousy, because you’ve done a genuinely impressive job of rebranding it. You called it “protective big-sister energy” the last time some girl was flirting with him at that wedding you carried him as a plus one, but let’s be honest, you don’t hover over your actual friends like that. You don’t get a stomach flip when someone compliments your girlie. That specific, low-grade nausea you felt watching someone else laugh at his jokes? That wasn’t protectiveness. That was jealousy.

And yes, I know that boy can tell a joke. Blink twice if you believe me. But don’t you think the way you laugh at them is just a little... exaggerated? Sometimes the joke is genuinely terrible, why-did-the-chicken-cross-the-road terrible, and yet you’re laughing so hard you practically need a defibrillator. Nobody’s comedic timing is that good. You’re not laughing at the joke. You’re laughing because it’s him telling it. And your face, bless it, refuses to keep that a secret.

Here’s the part that really gives you away: your eyes. When someone asks, “So... are you two a thing?” A person with absolutely no romantic feelings laughs and says, “No, we’re just friends,” without even thinking. You, however, take a moment before you answer. Your eyes drift away before your mouth does. Most people don’t notice it. I do. Because sometimes the answer isn’t in what people say. It’s in the tiny hesitation before they say it.

Let's not skip over the nicknames. You call him "bro." You call him "RUTWE" You've got an entire rotation of jokingly insulting little names you toss at him. Here's the thing about mockery like that, it's never actually mockery when it's this constant, this specific, this affectionate in tone. Nobody nicknames a stranger. Nobody keeps a running bit going for months with someone they're neutral about. That's someone trying very hard to sound casual about something that is, very clearly, not casual at all.

You’ve also, and I say this with love, thought about the wedding. If you don’t believe me, open your Pinterest. There’s a board there you absolutely did not mean to make, and he is in it. You refuse to admit out loud but you’ve chosen the ring, the shape of the diamond, even the details you swear are “just inspiration.” I won’t make you say it. We both already know.

So as I close this and find a place to hide before you find me: you can keep calling him your best friend if you want. You can keep saying, “We’re just close.” But deep down, the truth has already slipped out and has been sitting there in plain sight, waiting for you to just admit it. And I know what you’ll say next: “Nta munyarwandakazi utera intambwe ya mbere.” A Rwandan girl doesn’t make the first move. That, I suppose, is your cross to carry.

At the end of the day, the worst thing he can say is “no.” Blink twice if you believe me. Oh, I almost forgot. Please return his hoodies. That poor man is probably somewhere shivering over a woman who isn’t even his girlfriend. But hey... what do I know?

There is a certain kind of pain that doesn’t come from loss itself, but from believing we were ever entitled what we had in the first place. Love, connection, warmth; none of these are things we are automatically owed, as if they can be earned, stored, or secured like a salary. As if affection could be invoiced from the universe on demand.

When I set my ego aside, I realize I am neither “deserving” nor “undeserving” of love or friendship. Those are transactional terms. And people are not transactions.

We treat connection like property. We say my people, my love, my person and there is sweetness in that, yes, but there is also a trap. Because the moment we believe we own something, we stop marveling at it. We stop being grateful for its presence and start being afraid of its absence. Ownership turns wonder into anxiety. It turns a gift into an expectation.

But think about the things that have moved you most in this life. A conversation that went somewhere neither of you planned. The particular quality of light on an ordinary afternoon that made everything look like it meant something. Did you earn those? Did you deserve them? Or did they simply arrive, and you were lucky enough to be present?

I think about the sunrise. Every morning it comes and when it fades, no one accuses the sky of theft. No one says I lost the sunrise today. We understand, instinctively, that it was never ours to lose. We were just there for it. We just got to watch.

Why don’t we extend that same understanding to love?

When good things come into my life now, I am trying to receive them the way you receive warmth from a window. I will not diminish the beauty of what I have been given by rushing to stake a claim on it. I will not let fear of losing it poison the time I have with it. I will not look at someone who chose to stay and think finally, something I deserve, as if they were a reward, rather than a person. As if their presence were a verdict on my worth rather than a grace.

We simply hold these things while we can.

And when they go, when the friendship runs its course, when the love story finds its ending, when the sun goes down the way it always does, I hope I will be honest enough to say: it was here, and it was beautiful, and I was lucky to be standing in it. Not that it was stolen from me.

But here I am, standing in a queue at a government office. One hour deep. My battery is about to die, how I hate iPhones for this, and I am questioning my life choices, my relationship with bureaucracy, and whether this document is truly worth the trouble.

The plastic chairs are full. Someone nearby is having a phone conversation about things that have absolutely no business being discussed in public, Eh? I’m making noise? EHHHHH!! The queue is moving like the sloth in Zootopia. And like everyone else in the room, I am just trying to survive the experience with my sanity intact.

In front of me, completely unbothered, stands a man with the longest pinky nail I have ever seen in my life.

I am staring. I know I’m staring. I cannot stop. The staring virus has got me.

This nail, Mana yanje, this single, solitary, inexplicably long pinky nail, is being kept like a souvenir. Like an heirloom. Like he is saving it for someone willing to buy it the way people buy natural hair dreadlocks. Every other nail on that hand is perfectly trimmed, and civilized. But then there is the pinky. It’s living its best life while the rest of us wait in line for our documents.

I want to tap him on the shoulder and ask, as a fellow human being who means no harm: what is the plan here? Is there even a plan? Is someone waiting for that nail? Have you entered into some arrangement with a witch that requires you to keep it alive? Because if not, and I say this with all due respect, I have nail clippers in my car. I am willing to donate them free of charge. That thing is collecting enough dirt to qualify as agricultural land.

While I am talking about this man and his deeply committed pinky nail situation, others are not even cleaning their nails at all.

Cleanliness does not have a gender, mwa bagabo mwe. Soft, well-kept hands do not have a gender. Feeling good about your fingernails does not have a gender. It is simply a gift available to all of us, at any salon, on any afternoon, for a very reasonable price that is significantly lower than the cost of making strangers in government queues spiral.

Anyways, I’m done venting about dirty nails. Treat your nails equally, don’t cut some and leave others behind. The queue will still be here; it is always here. But you can face it with ten uniformly groomed fingers and your head held high.

Also, I’ve been thinking about this and I want to know what you think: would you rather be friend-zoned or ghosted, and why?

And if you’re too shy to comment, feel free to text me your thoughts anywhere. I’m out. Peace.

I have come to end a relationship.

I have a speech. It is, genuinely, a very good speech. I have been working on it for three days. Like we learned in school, it has a beginning, a middle, and an end that is sad but not cruel, and yes, it has the famous line: “It’s not you, it’s me.” I have rehearsed it in my bathroom mirror twice.

I take a deep breath and knock on the gate. It opens before my knuckles finish landing, which means she has been watching from the window, expecting someone and I am not who she was expecting. I can read it in her eyes.

That’s not my girl, that’s Eva, my girlfriend’s little sister. She is seven. I started dating her sister, Sonia, when she was four. She has Sonia’s eyes in a smaller, significantly more judgmental face. She looks up at me and says, “Sonia n’est pas encore là.” She is not back yet. Then she looks past me at the street, and back at me again.

“You can wait inside,” she says. “And teach me how to play guitar.”

She doesn’t wait for my answer. She just turns and walks away.

The guitar is slightly scratched, the kind that looks like it has already survived several childhoods. She brings it in, holding it in a way that makes my heart ache, but I can’t tell her to carry it properly. She is not my daughter.

“Teach me how to play Isabella,” she says.

“I would have said no,” I say, “but I’m going to teach you because it’s a Sauti Sol song. Come closer.”

She sits next to me and I show her how to hold it.

“So you hold the A chord; squeeze your index, middle, and ring fingers onto the second fret,” I say, while trying to guide her hand into place. “Your index holds the third string, your middle the fourth string, and your ring finger the second string. Then you strum.”

Her fingers are too small for the strings at first, so everything sounds wrong. She keeps looking at her hands like they’ve betrayed her.

“It’s not working,” she says.

“It’s working,” I say. “It just doesn’t sound like music yet.”

She does not accept this distinction, but she continues anyway. After a while, I place her fingers on the chord for her.

“Don’t move them,” I say. “Just press.”

She presses.

I strum. It is not good. But it is almost something.

“Again,” she says.

So we do it again.

At some point, her fingers start hurting, and I decide maybe I should just play for her.

“So I’m going to play and you will sing,” I suggest. “Okay?”

“Yes,” she says, with excitement.

“Hey Isabella… are you gonna come out and dance, with me tonight?” We start singing. She is off-key, but there is so much joy in it that it stops me from correcting her.

“The stars look beautiful outside, so-so beautiful…” we continue singing.

Halfway through the song, I feel tears slipping down my cheeks. This is the same song I played for her sister the night I asked her to be my girlfriend, the night everything felt certain and possible. And now I’m singing it again on the night I’m supposed to end it, like the song itself doesn’t know which version of me it belongs to anymore.

“Are you okay?” Eva asks. “You’re crying.”

“I’m fine,” I say. “Can I get a glass of water?”

And then she runs to get me some water.

I check my phone. Sonia was supposed to be back at six. It is six forty-three. And now I don’t even know what I want to happen.

Part of me wants her to walk into the living room right now so I can just do the thing I came here to do. Part of me wants her to stay away for another hour because I haven’t fully decided how to sit when I say it.

I had a plan. But that plan didn’t account for this: playing a song that drags me back to how deeply I was in love the day I first heard it.

Eva comes back with a glass of water. I take a sip, and she is still staring at me.

“Hey,” she calls me. “I wish I could hear you play beautiful songs forever.”

I look at her, and tears start rising in my eyes again.

She has no idea what is about to happen. She will probably remember me as the guy who made her fall in love with music, the one who taught her her first guitar lessons. But her sister will probably remember me as the guy who broke her heart.

It occurs to me that people can carry completely different versions of the same person. To one sister, I am discovery. To the other, I am loss.

And somehow, both things can be true at once.

“I have to go,” I say.

She looks at me with her sister’s eyes.

“D’accord,” she says, in a disappointed voice. I walk out of the house. She stays inside with the guitar, and a few steps away I hear her try the chord again: badly, but with more confidence this time.

Past the gate, I take out my phone.

The draft is still there. Three days old. It still has structure. The ending is still sad but not cruel. The famous line is still there, waiting to do its job. I stare at it for a moment. Then I lock my phone and slide it back into my pocket. Maybe not tonight.

I start walking toward the corner to find a moto. Today we boda boda, tomorrow we motorcar.

—

Hi, and welcome to Thinking, Out Loud. If you’re new here, consider subscribing so you’ll know whenever I publish another story like this one. You can also take a look at some of my previous stories while you’re here.

I was seven.

Papa’s office smelled like this: coffee beans, and something darker underneath it, like the inside of a thermos that had been used too many times to count. There was always a cup on his desk, going cold while he worked, and another beside it, half-finished, because he had forgotten the first. I used to think that smell was him. If I close my eyes here at Rubia, I can put myself back in that corner so completely that I forget, for a second, that I am twenty-something and he is gone.

The corner was mine. There was a low stool beneath the window where the afternoon light came in sideways. He would hand me a book, never explaining why he picked it, never asking if I wanted it, and say, “Tell me the story when you’re done.” That was the only instruction: tell me the story.

In return, he would pay me, five hundred francs a book, handed over folded in his palm like a secret, the way people of his generation gave money, almost embarrassed by the gesture. I would finish a book in two days, sometimes three, racing not for the story but for the transaction at the end of it. I was seven. Of course I was racing for the money.

After reading, I would walk to the edge of his desk and wait for him to look up from whatever he was marking, reading, or writing. Then I would tell him the book, not summarize it, but tell it. He never let me get away with “and then this happened, and then this happened.” He would stop me and ask, “Who wanted what?” Or, “Why did she do that, not just what did she do?”

That went on for years, in one form or another, until it didn't need to be a transaction anymore. Until I would just walk in and tell him things, about books, then about people, then about my own life, and he would put his pen down the same way, every time, like nothing else in the room was more urgent than whatever I'd come to say.

He probably didn’t know it, or maybe he did, but he was slowly raising a man who would go on to love stories as much as I do today…

Okay, I’m getting emotional. I don’t want to cry in public. At least now you know why I love books, and why I enjoy telling stories. Let me finish my coffee before it gets cold.

Happy Father’s Day, Papa. I miss you. Thank you for the gift of turning words into something beautiful.