Hear me out , when i joined university back in 2023 i had one goal , Get a first class to prove that i am the smartest girl in the block.so im not joking when i tell you Musa saved my life when he asked me to read “The Excellent sheep , miseducation of the American elite”

At its core, the book argues that elite education has become exceptionally good at producing high-achieving, ambitious, and employable graduates, but poor at cultivating independent thinkers. That students are rewarded for following prescribed paths earning top grades, collecting accolades, and securing prestigious careers without ever being encouraged to question what success means, whose values they are pursuing, or how existing systems of power shape their choices. Rather than liberating the mind, education then becomes another mechanism for reproducing conformity and where achievement is for wisdom and external validation replaces genuine self-discovery. For Deresiewicz, the true purpose of education is not simply to prepare people for successful careers, but to cultivate the freedom to think critically, question inherited assumptions, and live a life defined by one's own convictions rather than society's expectations.

My greatest failing perhaps was that in trying to answer what competency can ascertain whether one is educated I decided formal employment would . The circus of sending in a CV and doing interviews then getting the "Congratulations" with an offer letter . So while my classmates were chasing first-class honours, I was chasing job titles. I worked throughout all three years of university, convinced that I was getting a head start on life. My five-year plan has always been embarrassingly precise: Senior Manager by twenty-three, CEO by twenty-five. I have worn that ambition like a badge of honour. I told myself I had rejected the race for grades, but in reality, I had only switched tracks. Instead of measuring my worth by a GPA, I measured it by how indispensable I could make myself at the work place.The golden cage had simply changed.

I quit a job I thought I liked two weeks ago .No plans, no answer to the question on what next . The first week afterwards has felt strangely criminal. I wake up at midday and instinctively reach for my phone expecting calls from my boss asking why I'm one minute late to a meeting but none.I haven't opened my laptop all week ,Haven't looked at my emails ,There are no deadlines chasing me. No panicked searches for documents and even chat GPT hasn’t seen me all week . there’s Just...silence and Silence is unsettling when you've spent years mistaking productivity for identity.I don’t know who I am beyond my ambitions and that unsettles me .

I have spent hours lying in bed wondering whether I am wasting my life or meeting it for the first time. I can't tell the difference.

The more I sit with this realisation, the more I notice how deeply our definitions of success are political. Colonialism taught us to associate success with proximity to the West, fluency in its institutions, and validation from its centres of power. Capitalism tells us that our worth is measured by productivity, income, and perpetual growth, reducing human beings to outputs and salaries . Patriarchy celebrates domination over care, competition V community, and endless ambition V rest, rewarding those who embody power while dismissing those who choose presence.I see how the famous “ strong independent woman “ is infact a power charade and one most of us fall for .

The chase for titles assuming a CEO title would be the biggest call to salvation or salaries in the assumption that more money will make us more happy or even degrees, and prestige believing they are expressions of our own desires, when often they are echoes of systems that have spent generations teaching us what and who is worthy of recognition. Perhaps the most radical act is not rejecting success rather reclaiming the authority to define it for ourselves.

No one asks who designed these ideas of success.We simply inherit them.Then we spend decades exhausting ourselves trying to deserve them.Perhaps that is why so many accomplished people quietly feel empty. They are succeeding brilliantly at lives they never consciously chose ohhh chim , it’s so easy to be in line as a fool like a flock of sheep and not even be able to know because of how smartly built these systems are , I even marvel at their Existence.

These days my victories are almost embarrassingly small.Making tea and actually tasting it before it gets cold.Reading a novel because it delights me, not because I want to quote it somewhere ,Calling my mother every five minutes to tell her I love her ,Watching the rain and sun set , Sleeping.Laughing.Hugging my sister in law , Changing my five months old niece pampers , washing her , bullying my 14 year old niece ,Writing words that may never become anything more than words.

I got a copy of the Second Mountain and i have spent the week reading David Brooks Brooks argues that many of us spend our lives climbing what he calls the "first mountain"the mountain of success, where identity is built on achievement, recognition, and status. It is only after reaching its summit, or discovering its emptiness, that we begin the harder ascent toward the "second mountain": a life defined not by what we accumulate, but by what we commit ourselves to. The timing of the book feels almost unsettling. I have just graduated, surrounded by applause and accolades, yet wrestling with the uncomfortable feeling that I had mistaken climbing for living. In many ways, my golden cage was my first mountain. I had become fluent in the language of achievement but had forgotten to ask whether it was leading me toward the life I actually wanted.So then have I lost faith in all ambition ?

Surely ,I still care about changing the world. I still believe in excellence. I still believe in hard work. But I no longer believe that suffering is the entrance fee to a meaningful life. I no longer believe my value increases every time my calendar becomes fuller. I no longer believe I must constantly prove that I deserve the space I occupy.Perhaps success isn't arriving somewhere after all.Perhaps success is reclaiming the parts of yourself that were sacrificed at the altar of achievement.Perhaps it is learning to recognize which dreams are genuinely yours and which ones were quietly inherited from histories that measured human worth by productivity, proximity to power and endless performance.

I don't know exactly what success looks like anymore.And, strangely, that uncertainty feels more honest than all the certainty I carried before.For the first time in my life, I am not trying to be anything, I’m simply existing, I am simply trying to meet me , understand who she was before all these voices shaped what she aspired to become , why and how .Im going back to who I was as a child and I will sit with her and find out who she wanted to be . Until then I’ll be nothing .

“Yes , I’m not , I am worse than all of them combined “ ‼️

Sixteen-year-old me was low-key a pastor and staunch Christian union member. I would make it known that I was not like those other pastors' kids; I was the good breed. Every Saturday, I led prayer and dressed modestly. Nothing above the knee, no showing of the chest area (shoulders included). I hadn't shortened my high school skirt like the other sinners, and I didn't sleep during prayers like them. I was exceptionally smart, not like other women who didn't care about school. I had never tasted a single substance or drug, and hence, I ranked above all other women. So yes, I was, in fact, not like other women; I was a superior breed, the one percent. The phrase "not like other women” was used on me quite a bit even as I joined campus, and it felt like winning something. A kind of quiet social currency, approval wrapped in a sentence. It made me feel exceptional, like I had somehow escaped a category that everyone else was stuck in. I never felt the need to interrogate it; I was so proud of myself I would tell any man who showed interest that no, I wouldn't be with him because I'm not like other women.

I would never say it loud that I couldn't cook; I knew I did not want children even then, but I dared not say it loud. I mean, that was not woman-like, and I was not like those women. I didn't play with boys, and I never went out at night, II avoided all those who did. I was holier than them all. I was playing into the hands of the patriarchy, outsmarted without even knowing because then I lived, palatable enough to not annoy my social ranking. I avoided other women as long as they exhibited any of the traits of the evil ones. No one sat me down and said, "Distance yourself from other women to be valued.” It was softer than that, more insidious. It lived in jokes about “basic girls,” in eye rolls at teenage fandoms, and in the casual dismissal of things coded as bad for women . It was evident in how certain traits were trivialized when women embodied them but praised in other contexts. Over time, I internalized the idea that to be associated with femininity, especially collective femininity, to differentiate was to risk being diminished.

I had learned to differentiate myself. I emphasized the parts of me that felt more acceptable, more respectable. I embraced traits that others perceived as rational, low-maintenance, and undemanding. I curated a version of myself that felt safer in a world that quietly penalizes women for taking up too much space. And when people noticed when they told me I wasn’t like other women, it felt like confirmation that I had done it right. And when I fell in love, I said I was not like other women who dated for money; I could make my own money, I said. I was low maintenance; I don't like flowers, those ones wither and I don't like to go out on dates because we should save that money. I would never nag like those other women, so I said he didn't have to talk to me every day, and I would never go through his phones like those snoopy women. I was also very respectful of my partner's wishes, so it was okay that he wanted to keep our relationship a secret.

I am older now; I haven't been to church in two years. I have been to therapy and a bit of deconstructing . And I'm learning that there’s something fragile about an identity built on contrast. It depends on a comparison that is never neutral. If "not like other women" is a compliment, "other women" are seen as inferior. Accepting the compliment means accepting that premise, regardless of whether you vocalize it or not. To have separated the individual self from the me society had created has created some sort of violence in me. The quiet judgments. The subtle distancing. The instinct to separate rather than relate. I wasn’t just defining myself; I was participating in a system that thrives on comparison and division. To have uprooted myself has required me to become all these people I once detested, and I say that's a humbling place to be.

That realization has crept in through small moments, conversations, and reflections: the growing awareness that the traits I had once tried to avoid in others were often the same ones I had learned to suppress in myself. We envy the freedom in others, perhaps because we fear that we cannot become them. It became harder to ignore the contradiction: in trying so hard not to be like “other women,” I had absorbed the very narrative that diminishes them. And that’s the part that feels most unsettling. The understanding that what I once perceived as empowerment was, in many ways, alignment with a standard I didn’t choose. A standard that rewards women for being exceptions rather than equals, for distancing themselves rather than connecting. It’s a system that doesn’t just operate through restriction but through suggestion, through the quiet encouragement to see yourself as separate, as different, as better.

Unlearning that has required a kind of honesty I didn’t expect. It has meant questioning not just how I see others but how I came to see myself. It has meant recognizing that individuality doesn’t have to come at the expense of solidarity, and that difference doesn’t have to imply hierarchy. Because the truth is, “other women” were never a single, definable thing. They were never the flat, simplified category I had been taught to reject. They are as varied and complex as any group of people can be: contradictory, evolving, expansive. And so am I. In my piece, "God forbid a revolutionary can twerk," I explore the intersectionality of what this journey has been like for me.

The shift has not been about rejecting individuality but the idea that it must be defined in opposition to others. It’s about understanding that there is no inherent value in being the exception if the standard itself is flawed. And that perhaps the more meaningful kind of self-understanding comes not from distancing but from recognizing connection. Now, when I think about that phrase "not like other women," it feels different. Not offensive, exactly, but incomplete. It carries a weight I didn’t notice before, an assumption I can no longer ignore. And instead of accepting it, I find myself questioning it. What does it mean to be like other women? Who decided what that looks like? And why was I ever taught that it was something to avoid?

I don’t have perfect answers. But I know this much: I am no longer interested in being the exception to a rule that was never fair to begin with. If anything, I am more interested in dismantling the rule altogether. I am like other women; I am their master, their teacher. I am, in fact, worse than all of them combined. I say there is freedom in being bad; hence, I am, in fact, bad like those other women.

 My short answer to why I’ve struggled with religion is that it demands I sit in silence, albeit with the questions. That it demands I let go of my politics. As an oppressed person, I don’t see how I can think of others' oppression as any less because religion dictates that I do so. On one end, I do think I am privileged. God may love me, but does he love everyone, and if not, then why? This I ask myself after reading  Nawaal’s A Woman at Point Zero. 

On the other hand is the question of Morality, as a former self-proclaimed judge turned sinner, I see how the moral high horse is a facade. This comes at a point where, in essence, I try to separate religion from morality. John Stuart Mill writes: “The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.” If morality demands control over bodies, censorship of desire, or punishment of difference, then it ceases to be moral; it becomes management, No?

Did religion invent morality? Immanuel Kant explains  the “moral law within” - that inner voice whispering “you can do better” even when no one is watching. That we just need the humility to recognize that the world is better when we act as if others matter. So then what happens when we strip morality of religion and culture? When we take away fear of punishment, cultural judgment, and divine incentive? What’s left?

I argue that some of us are only moral because of privilege.

I acknowledge the privilege it is to say I will marry when I want, who I want, nd how I want. I realize the privilege it is to say I will get a pHD to a woman in Afghanistan who cannot go to school beyond 13, to say I will drive a G-wagon to a woman whose only wagon is her body she will use to carry 7 children by before she’s 26   and to say I will be childfree to someone who’d rather get married at 16 because then she will have someone to support her with basic needs. Society has so disempowered her that Marriage is the only way out. I realize how privileged it is to think of sexual pleasure and talk about it with someone who was forcefully circumcised at 12 I realize how privileged it must be to think of contraceptives to someone who would rather afford food than buy condoms, the precursor being Pleasure of Malnutrition? My privileged self used to say, “If you don’t want to get pregnant, don’t have sex, because when have I ever said that to a man? Never, oh ,why should the brunt be on women only ? Is it funny that contraceptives are in the market despite the infertility risk, and the male one wasn’t rolled out because it causes headaches ? Privilege much? 

Now walk with me, but first you must undress yourself of any privilege. You must read me as the girl who was raped at three, circumcised at thirteen, and married to a man old enough to be her grandfather. You must read me as the mother of two by eighteen, whose childhood was swallowed by motherhood. Read me as one who grew up in the slums, baffled by suffering and riddled by poverty, and humour me that God provides. Read me as one born with a lifelong ailment and humour me with a God who heals. You must read me as the woman in Sudan who chooses death over rape, because survival itself has become a form of violence. Then humour me, God protects. Read me as the woman in Afghanistan whose eyes are too powerful to be seen, whose thoughts are too dangerous to be spoken, whose body must disappear under cloth so that men can feel holy. Then humour me, God of equity. Read me as the thirteen-year-old raped by her father, denied abortion because others decided her womb was public property. Then humour me, a God of justice. In this, I beg you to forget who you are and think first of all of these other people.

 My politics is this: The privileged look in disgust at other forms of oppression, and this makes them forget that unless all are free, none is. They fight for their freedom so they can oppress others.  Like Freedomofo religion, only to use it to oppress those who don’t subscribe to their religious practices. This is why my politics is built first and last on freedom from ALL oppression for ALL.

Two is on the question of identity, I fail to understand why religion demands that I strip myself of my identity first, so I can be more plausible to it. I am a Luo girl. I speak the language, I pray to Nyasae and the hills of Ramogi. I love my neighbors and share with those who don't, as a woman of Nyadhi. I struggle with why religion had to be introduced to us through slavery, and I struggle to understand how being religious won’t mean I lose my identity. That my engaging with veneration is called juogi ( witchcraft ) by prying eyes that don’t understand. Explain to me how to balance both. If one can, I  have it all? 

Now consider me an anti-capitalist. In this, I grapple with the economic aspects of Religion. What 10% must I give if im starving and can't even afford a meal? Why mustn't it be that those who have must give to those who don't 10%.My own I am a staunch feminist. I find that Religious feminism asks women to decorate the walls of patriarchy rather than tear them down. It tells us we can “reinterpret” texts, “reclaim” our place in the story, but never question the text. I have tried to be that woman: the one who finds peace in reinterpretation, who tells herself that the problem lies in translation, not doctrine. But this to me feels like spiritual gaslighting, like being asked to find freedom in the very texts that bind me. I have grown to hear that the problem is in the societies and cultures of the time and their modus operandi, and so I ask why we can’t come up with our own that accommodate the cultures of our society in this time. Explain that to me as though I’m two years old, please. 

Because the last person I asked was a pro-Israel supporter who was educating me on why Israel is justified in burning everything to the ground, because, as per the Old Testament, God used to demand that everything be burnt to the ground, even the animals and children. Now I know the world is unfair and all its systems, but I don’t understand why God would also be as unfair in the same light or measure. It was the culture and society of that time, but why haven’t we evolved, or am I being petty to think it shouldn’t even have happened in the first place ? But it did, and God so instructed it so that is evidence submission 2 in saying that if God is all good, then he is not all perfect, and if he is perfectly perfect, then he is not all good.

The interesting thing is that I still feel deeply spiritual, I just robbed religion of everything colonial and or oppressive, and what I was left with I like. For example, I like the concept of Jesus, what a man. I stand a man who whips people in a temple I do not reject God. I reject the systems that turned God into an ideology and then built a whole system for everyone around him. 

He stirs  his drink absentmindedly and says , almost casually, that his father had never really been around. He said it like a declaration of sorts before continuing. I nodded, leaned in, and felt something inside me soften toward him. I never care much for men , I think the world already has given them enough privilege and my sympathy is not about to join this list .

This time it’s different , one because I like a  challenge and what I heard was “ I'm broken but I think your love can fix me “ and two because I like to win , in this case , to love him enough to fix him . He is my project and I intend to deliver . 

Now normally I like my men smart and intellectual, He is neither ,with him I find the desire to fix him. It's like an achievement to my belt if I get to love this man to heal. He speaks in fragments. About how he doesn't know how to love properly.

This he tells me who has a present dad so im determined to love him like his dad never did .I mean if my dad gave I can also give . But this is where I went wrong , I should have known better than to play daddy .

He talks about how he always ruined good things.Again this he tells me who can never fail , I’m determined even in this to prove that our good thing cannot be ruined . Turns out this was the consolation , that at the end of it all he could at least say he warned me .

He talks about how women always expect too much from him.but not me , I assert , I am loved at home so there’s enough love to go around for the both of us .  I don’t like to have expectations so it’s fine . If I’m not asking I can’t get hurt for not being given .

I listen to him  the way women are taught to listen: patiently, as though understanding might fix something. When he looks  at me and says  “You make me feel safe,” I feel chosen. I mean he may be broken but at least he wants to be with me despite all that .

By the time I find out  that the only thing I should do for a broken man is to avoid him , I am deep in the trenches of grief and heartbreak . Nursing wounds I shouldn’t be , but hear me out this isn’t the worst part , it’s the part where he told me he never asked me to help him with anything and that he was right . I had offered my services for free and that too unsolicited .

His excuse is that I’m too good to be true and he’s scared . Ehhh siblings ? I thought that was a good thing, sir why would you leave me for having good intentions? I’m older now and all I can say is that the only thing I will ever  do for a broken man is  give him the contact of a therapist . 

This  is a particular kind of man women keep falling in love with, he is the kind that never arrives whole. He arrives all vulnerable , his heart on his sleeve , his last girlfriend and all those before her cheated on him . Everyone else is the villain , he makes you question why anyone would want to hurt such a sweet boy and if not that then you begin to think of all the ways in which the worls has failed him but you are one of the good ones so you need to prove to him that there’s good ones still left . The boy is emotionally intelligent enough but it’s also mostly at night when he can cry into your laps and you can scoop his face and kiss his pain away , the sex making after such a session is often very steamy. Like some form of glue that solidifies the trauma he has .He is broken in a way that feels poetic, and somehow women keep mistaking that poetry for a project worth bleeding over. 

I dare say , There is also something dangerously seductive about a broken man who can articulate his pain. A man that can cry In your arms ? A man that can go to the trenches of vulnerability and still look at you as though you are his only hope ? , it’s like he sees healing and the prospect of being whole  in your eyes.  It feels like intimacy. It feels like trust.You’ve heard often that men don’t cry so if he does then it means he’s just one of the good ones .It means he loves you enough and he is comfortable enough to allow himself cry in your presence , okay , you fool . Keep lying to yourself .

All the “ I can’t do this “ lines that we mask in as “ he’s going through something and he needs time “ is communication enough to understand that you are just not the woman for him . You need to find another man while he heals or rather galavant across the world but just don’t sit there like a fool and soak in his pains .

I however , don’t think broken men are cruel. They are simply unfinished and unfinished men have a habit of treating women like emotional scaffolding , structures meant to hold them up while they figure themselves out, only to be discarded once the building is complete or abandoned when the work becomes too hard. You become the place where he unlearns his father, rehearses his feelings, and practices being loved, while you slowly forget what it feels like to be cared for without effort.

Men with unresolved daddy issues often struggle with identity and intimacy. They crave validation and flinch at emotional responsibility. They want to be seen, affirmed, and chosen repeatedly because somewhere in their childhood, they were not. And women, especially women who love deeply, step into that void, trying to love the little boy and the grown man at the same time. It never works. Children need parenting. Men need accountability. Confusing the two leaves everyone exhausted.you become his missing father and his girlfriend in one and you loose yourself in the in between .Good luck Jessica trying to love a man that believes he is unloved .

My therapist says that love cannot survive where caretaking dominates. Desire does not thrive where one person is constantly regulating the emotions of another. You cannot want someone you are also parenting . You cannot build intimacy with someone who needs you to survive emotionally so they can thrive , And yet women stay, telling themselves that if they love better, softer, more intentionally, he will heal. Bazalwane are you better than his mom ? If his mom couldn’t love him through it what makes you think you will ?

Here is the unpopular truth: the most loving thing you can do for a broken man is not to love him harder. It is to refuse to become his emotional go to . Sometimes the only gift you can offer is distance and a therapist’s contact . Healing is not something you can provide through sacrifice. It is work people must choose for themselves.

I, in my experience that Broken people have no business being in a relationship, if you haven’t learnt how to love the broken pieces of yourself how will you pour into others ? If you acknowledge you are broken take time to do the healing don’t go around carrying it like a badge of honour 

So the next time someone’s son tells you about his ex girlfriend who cheated on him in a manner assuming he wants to solicit sympathy just curtail the conversation and give him a therapists contact . I have found that the most radical act of love, for both women and men, is learning when to walk away and let healing happen offstage. 

Okay , Why is everyone holding hands in the streets of Nairobi and walking slowly as though some of us don't have places to be ?And Cousins holding hands is okay , But what is it with kissing and eye contact ? Don't you have jobs ? This too I ask in a subtle tone of jealousy compounded with anger issues . To find love was on my bucket list , but I'm guessing I'll have to carry the bucket over to next year , or maybe , Magic happens in the next six days . In this , I ask Pray for me . ( muniombee )

But even if it happens in six days it would be 7 years late , You see ,I used to believe my life would follow my mother’s timeline.She found love at fifteen .30 years later they still hold hands and chuckle like teenagers ( i scold them a couple times but deep down i love to see them so in love .

I imagine her ,young, unafraid, in a way that only people untouched by disappointment can be.Contrary to love in this generation where a 15 year old already equates men to dogs and others would rather have  cars over hoes .  In my imagination, love was supposed to arrive early, grow with me, and become familiar before life complicated things. I did have a crush when I was 15 , the only problem is that my crush had a crush on someone else . I hoped that by the time I understood the world, I would already be held by someone in it.I am twenty-two now. And love, at least in the way I once imagined it, has not been forthcoming.

As I write this I just sat through a family meeting. All my four brothers are in love , even the 14 year old has a sabrina somewhere and then there is me. My foolish brother keeps asking if I have a preference for women . My mother is convinced I am the problem because I am too headstrong  and straightforward and this doesn't bode well with men. My father is happy , he gets to keep me home as he pushes me to get a PHD , My aunts , not so much , they want to know how it is i havent met a south African or a whitey from when i went to california .

But see  What makes this harder is not the absence itself but the abundance of it  . It is like when prayers are being answered and everyone is getting manaa except you . Relationships are everywhere. On Instagram stories. In softly lit reels. In our own home . It feels like a pandemic of togetherness, everyone coupled, everyone chosen, everyone moving forward in tandem while I remain stationary, watching.Hoping,Praying and pretending to not be interested.That everyone is moving somewhere and I stand here ironing.

But that is the most mundane of them all. This year I wanted to move out , own a car , buy land , diversify my investments , I had goals and plans . And as I stand to take inventory I acknowledge just how much I fall short. This I acknowledge too is because I have compared myself to people in my circle and what they have become . This is often how the year ends for many of us, with  Goals unmet. Promises we made to ourselves in January now echoing with irony in December.

We said this would be the year.Where we would ask Mwalimu wa math hapa ni wapi ?  The year we would arrive and all our enemies would be suffering . The year things would finally make sense and yes a middle finger to all those who had doubted us . Instead, we are left negotiating with disappointment.Mwalimu wa math may have been right when he said hatuendi mbali . Ahhhhh our enemies are still gloating over the stagnation that our lives represent . And yet I dare ask ,  should we count ourselves failures ? Should we brand ourselves incapable ? 

I find myself in a place of mental difficulty. I stay up late, wondering whether I am doing enough to become whoever I want. I wonder if I am even doing anything at all.

It is a habit of mine to convince myself I am having a depressive episode anytime things are not going too well, and I have indeed become an expert at that. It is said that it is human nature to want to run rather than face whatever it is. Life is buckling and throwing at them, yet here I am, unable to accept that I am just a lazy human with too much greed for life.

Mark you, I am not greedy.If anything,I think greed is a way for people to move forward, even if they want things a little too much.But why should it be illegal for me to want more? Why should I be labeled greedy for wanting it extra desperately?When we talk of 'to each his own,' 'doesn't that give me leeway to want what I want extra just because I can?I know we all have felt that we are lagging at some point, but it's different when that is the feeling you are ever Baskin in.

It is different when you are in an ever-competitive environment that doesn't allow you to compete with yourself. How could you compete with yourself when you are an abject failure and everyone else is doing better than you?

I again understand what it looks like when we stem from a place of acknowledgment and, in human weakness, tell people that the only person they should compare themselves with is the self.That's a fathomable lie and one we tell ourselves to make life more palatable.My first spurge to deal with myself in such moments is cutting off social interactions. Being alone with the self is exhausting, but it is even more exhausting to be in the company of others. So, I lock myself in my room, stay up all night, overeat, sleep, and repeat.This may be why I have become fat lately .

This looks like the schedule of those they label lazy, but it would be a rather bold assumption to dare assume that it doesn't take effort to stay up all night doing nothing.

 How dare you assume that it doesn't take effort to battle insomnia and fail every 14 days in two weeks?

I am one of those rare ones who deprive immense pleasure from motivation. This week had me walk through what we would dare call self-inflicted suffering induced through comparison, and it had my head deep inside The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born by Ayi Kwei Armah.

Interestingly, this book takes the style of the biblical pats on the back. Ayi reminds me that even in the deepest of nights, days have always come, and even when I feel that everything is lost, that's just a feeling and feeling. It helps us get over feelings. She reminded me that when things don't seem to be moving, perhaps I'm the one who is not moving; as such, I can't see the motion in other places. This is true. How can I realize the world moves when I spend 24 hours in bed?

I am reminded to keep breathing, which is something I don't like. Breathing means the intentional pause and voluntary intake of air that seems to remind me that perhaps death wouldn't be the worst thing to happen to me. I think it is painful to live, especially if one doesn't understand the purpose or direction of life .

The message I get in my ear when I feel lost at sea reminds me that the wind and waves haven't been before, so there is no need to start now. It reminds me to be myself and to let that be enough.I am reminded to walk my path. To run my race and at my pace. Sometimes, I just need to remember that it is okay to be a runner. I run at the slightest show of weakness. I run at the slightest feeling of emotion. I run at the slightest feeling of weakness. I have been running since I was young. 

Life has always been a competition; I feel better when I have someone or something to beat.When people are running, I have every right to run right with themWhen they walk, I keep running. Walking could be faster for me.I don't understand precisely why anyone who loves life or to live would dare crawl so that I won't be in their lane.I've always been afraid of flying. Flying is risky, and as it stands, I deliberately avoid it.What if my wings fail?That would be unfortunate, yet an inescapable eventuality all the same.

Yet here I stand, feeling sad and unable to stand from the bed, let alone run.From the comfort of my bed, I watched it move twice as fast, sometimes even at six, but I could not move an inch.I find myself judging myself for what I would consider an epic failing one where I get to acknowledge that I do suffer from chronic laziness.Yet again, I was reminded that life is a gamble. I dare not label myself so harshly just because I couldn't get out of bed one day.

I'm reminded of the lyrics of The Gambler. That I have to know when exactly to hold on. To know when to fall,To know when to walk away /And to know when to run.

I recently found that walking is a form of running, just like jogging. Hence, there is a desire to always be on the move. If I walk, I will arrive slowly, yet what stands out is that regardless of the speed, the goal is to keep moving.Even when I don't feel like I am moving, I still am.

The juxtaposition between my visionary ambition and the awareness of my limitations is a sort of humiliation and pride. I am proud to be able to have dreams so big and incompressible. I am pleased to have walked where others would have once given up. The most intricate details morph me, and the vision is so visible. A vision so exquisite, and most times one I look at as being beyond me, but on the other hand, I am brought low (the original meaning of humiliate) by my own. I am nowhere near where I thought I would be; therefore, at once, I am nothing and something, a SchrSchrödinger's of potential.

Everyone's dream has been to journey to the top. To leave a legacy so profound that every generation will remember them. Yet here I am. I know that legacy will not mean as much in the world, but I plan to live as much as possible. I plan to stay up at night dancing. I eat every dish I come along for as long as it has no pepper. I plan to read every book I set my eyes on and love someone enough to write a whole book about them. That is what an astounding journey would look like for me. I will journey softly; I will be patient enough to take time and breathe To accomplish the great. I plan to start with the smallest minor of my life.The beauty of life is 'to reach his own. 'Sometimes, it's enough to remember that you are still moving, that the journey may be slow, but the feats you accomplish along the way may be mind-boggling. I am traveling slowly, but one day, I, too, will arrive.

Because every man's a winner and every man's a loser, as they say, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder as much as what it looks like to gauge wins and losses.And the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep.

I read, "And the soaring swiftness of the eagle

And have flown before,

Let them go.

I will travel slowly,

And I, too, will arrive.

And have climbed in haste.

Let them go,

I will journey softly,

And I, too, will arrive."

And It comforts me to know that I, too, shall arrive. Then I go back to bed. After all, these series won't watch themselves.In my defense , I learnt how to swim , code , drive , cook , I even learnt how to not be a toxic feminist , I’m even considering falling in love maybe not kids yet but baby steps . Haven’t I won ?

So 2025 may have been shit and we may have not won all that , but we live to fight again next year .

Of importance is that both are ships . A ship is a ship .

This is the piece you read and realize that maybe therapy is not helping me at all , In my defense , Its just been less than 6 months , in my defense again I have come to conclude that maybe I am incapable of love and just like we can’t all be rich , we can’t all love . I mean I have been in love before , but I was young and I didn’t know I was in that relationship alone ( takes a moment to laugh ) Not even when I wrote a whole 160 letters that were never responded to . For this I have no defense , I embarrassed my father who loves me to death and for that I will pay the dues .Dark days those ones , may I be forgiven for being the fool I was . What is it they said about monetizing tragedy ? The people who get off listening to broken people like me ? Because here i am saying the best thing i could for a man right now is to use him as a toy boy . I am not bad , I don’t use people like those other sinners , I make sure to tell them in the most subtle of ways and if need be , we must sign a Contract . Although I hear men like to be used so it shouldn’t really be a struggle. This is why it is important to avoid men , when you get money you can also get a young blood , money buys love is a thing siblings . Also what is this trash generation of men who can’t appear to know how to properly court a girl ? What happened to hand written letters and showing up at the door with someone’s head from a war ? What happens to old school romance ? Because sir , it cant be me you are trying to get with your bare minimum efforts , me that writes 160 pages of letters you want to text twice every three days ?Oya be going . I won’t even talk about people who wear jerseys to a date whole time you are dressed to a T .Or is that how you want to play with my heart ? or what is it with worn out pick up lines ? Didn’t your English teacher teach you creativity ? I consider it a matter of intelligence and I like mine smart .Again , No , i am not a woman in men dominated fields, and no i don’t subscribe to bad behavior . But sitiuationships ? Those i can defend the foolery behind them , And listen to me wenahhhh , wait listen let me explain . Because unlike most people who end up in sitiautionships mistakenly, The one I advocate for is deliberate , planned , A marked target and weighed outcomes . Yes i am an ex moral police and i used to chant can never be me but God, God will humble you and show you that it can infact be you .

It hasn’t been me yet but after weighing the pros and cons I think you could tell where I stand seeing as I don’t like to sit on the fence .

Now imagine having companionship and on the side the comfort of independence. You get someone to text, someone to vent to, someone to share your Spotify playlists with but without the emotional paperwork that comes with actual relationships. There’s no in-law stress, no anniversary dates to remember, and no “who’s that in your comments?” interrogation. You’re free, yet somewhat loved. You can post thirst traps in peace, go out with friends guilt-free, and still get the dopamine hit of “I miss you” texts. Even though they only come at night of importance is to be missed .

If therapy is too expensive, just get into a situationship. You’ll learn your boundaries, your attachment style, and how long you can survive on mixed signals alone. You’ll meet your inner people-pleaser, your inner overthinker, and your inner detective who can spot micro-cheating in a meme like it’s CSI: Instagram Edition. Every situationship graduates you to a new level of emotional literacy and maybe a new playlist .or maybe the situationship damages you enough for you to seek therapy ? Either way of importance is that you get to know yourself .

In a situationship, the uncertainty is the thrill. Every text is an Olympic Game , and because I’m Kenyan and a natural athlete, games excite me . Every “hey” from them feels like a national holiday. The rush of “will they reply?” keeps things exciting. No routine check-ins, no “how was your day?” small talk fatigue. Just chaos and spontaneity, the perfect cocktail for the short attention span generation. You’re not bored, you’re just perpetually anxious, but in a cute way and I mean it’s good to live in this thrill especially if you are delusional , which most people are ashamed to admit but actually are .

However siblings .

let’s not romanticize confusion. Because the same freedom that feels liberating can also feel lonely. And that “no label” peace? It expires the moment you start catching feelings.

1. The Emotional Delusion Tax.

The first payment you make in any situationship is emotional delusion. You start justifying everything. “They’re not texting me because they’re busy,” you say as if typing “wyd” requires a board meeting. You convince yourself you’re on the same page, even though they said, “I’m not ready for a relationship.” But somehow, they’re ready to meet your friends, borrow your hoodie, and eat half your fries. You start acting like a girlfriend/boyfriend without the title, because “we don’t need labels to know what this is.” Newsflash: you do. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself giving loyalty to someone who treats commitment like a scam.

2. Zero Accountability.

Here’s the kicker you can’t even be mad. You can’t complain. Because technically, you were never dating. You can’t demand consistency from someone who never promised it. So you cry silently to your sad playlist (hello, SZA) while insisting you’re “not really hurt, just disappointed.” You want closure, but there’s no relationship to close. It’s heartbreak with no legal standing emotional damage without receipts. It’s giving second wife character . I Have nothing against being a second wife but going to be loved by someone who loved someone else and knowing they may love someone else after is cringe behavior . Or you don’t like to have your people to yourself like me ?

3. One-Sided Situationships = Humiliationships.

This is where the clownery peaks. You realize you’ve been in a relationship alone. They’re out there soft-launching a new boo while you’re still analyzing their last text for hidden meaning. You start seeing the screenshots your friends warned you about “he’s not that into you.” That’s when your situationship evolves into a humiliationship the kind where your dignity packs up and leaves first. You start asking, “Was I delusional or just hopeful?” And honestly, it’s usually both. Tears tears prayers ! Your eyes will open and you shall see that when proverbs talks about fools it’s calling you by name . Oya Oya , don’t lie to yourself that you are fine and then go cry at night .

4. The Great Ghosting Finale.

No breakup talk. No closure. One day you’re sending TikToks about your shared sense of humor, the next you’re watching them post their new partner on Instagram with the caption, “Finally, peace.” You’ve been ghosted softly replaced, silently dismissed. You stare at your phone like it betrayed you personally. You can’t even unfollow because that would be “too dramatic,” so you just watch their stories and heal in installments . Imagine healing from people who shouldn’t have hurt you in the first place ? Ahhh this is too dramatic , I mean I can waste time dancing in the rain but crying over a man who only loved me at night is nasty business cause I wasn’t even born at night .

I have actively analyzed the whys behind why people would opt to be loved even in half , I would understand craving to even just feel the love even if it is an illusion .I tell Men , that lying to a woman that you love her just so you can sleep with her is peak clownery and satan behavior. Asking is the best way to go , this is what consent is about because if you lie to her and bed her you are an actual rapist . Yes , a whole rapist . The worst she can say is no and again what if she wants to bed you too ? . As for women , this is where the Rose comes in , how about you invest in that bad boy and you can be sure you won’t be nursing HIV or STDs every waking moment ?

I also recommend having good friends , all the emotional warmth you are trying to find in that man who doesn’t love you back you can find in your friends and family . Don’t behave like you are not loved at home . And I see what people say when they talk about sexual liberation and along those lines I bring in sexual hygiene , you can’t be sleeping with everyone and thinking you are woke , you demon . Unless of course you are a prostitute and it pays you ( a job is a job ) or so they say !

I avoid being a fool and this is why situationships are not a thing that are attractive to me , but if you like to be stupid once in a while , Go for it .

I know the language of love a little too fluently for my liking. For a branded man-hater, I sure have been loved by a caliber of men incomparable. In this piece, I admit that in the name of success, I have deliberately forfeited love. It is what Martin says about missing the sun when it starts to snow. My friends keep asking me how it feels to always be single, and I smile through the tears, and then I proceed to lie that the girl is focused and nothing can distract the girl. Life has a way of revealing the value of certain moments long after they have passed. Sometimes, the people who walk with us in earlier seasons show us a version of love we do not yet have the language, maturity, or courage to fully understand. When I think about the price we pay for sacrificing love in pursuit of what we call greater success, one name always rises to the surface of my memory. Let's call him KK.

My mom met my dad when she was 15 and for so long i lived under the illusion i would be as lucky and at some point i should have been The difference being my mom did get pregnant at 18 and this means she stayed away from school for a while, my mom was and still is a smartie pants even then she was in a National school and on scholarship Getting pregnnat meant she lost the scholarship and dropped out of school. Often that I would hear her mention how she would have become a doctor or a lawyer. This, in my mind, was justification enough that Boys bring babies and hence boys should be avoided. So when I met KK Back in high school, I was convinced the world demanded only one thing from me: excellence. Success felt like the ticket out of the life I knew, the key to rewriting an entire destiny. So I poured everything into books, grades, and future dreams. Love? I was too young to see how it could fit in the same space. I thought love was a distraction. I thought emotion was a derailment. So when KK showed up in my life and professed love , I asked him to wait. 3 years is a long time to wait for someone, yet he did. Well that was until the three years ended and I extended the contract to four years so I could finish university. Loving someone back even then felt like a chore I wasn’t conversant with .Yet I Stan those three years he waited for a yes . Ever so patient, kind through it all. I just didn’t know he was offering something I would later learn is rare.

KK was the kind of boy who loved with presence, not performance. He wasn’t loud about it, not dramatic or overdone. Okay, im lying, he might have made everyobe in my class know he liked me. And my studious self was embarrassed about it because his cousin was a classmate who actually would later become a close friend His love lived in small, deliberate acts: sending me revision materials when he knew I was overwhelmed, staying up to guide me through topics I couldn’t grasp, showing up on visiting days even when it meant long travel and borrowed money, placing a success card in my hands with words that felt simple then but carry weight now. Mark you he was a year before me in high school and that too a boarding school, if you ask me I will tell you that a man who wants to show up for you will . No excuses no questions. I have kept that success card and the chocolate wrapper for five years now and I look at it and sigh often . Back then, it felt normal, almost easy to overlook. I didn’t have the eyes to see what he was doing, not really. I didn’t understand that being held like that, gently and faithfully, was a gift.picky but blind as hell , ( yes this is why my friends call me peaky blinder )

In my defense , I was young and stupid. Now I look back, and I wonder if maybe the first time we experience someone rooting for us without motive, without expectation, something fundamental shifts inside us,, something quiet, but permanent. To be loved like that is grace. It is glory. It is a bar set so high that, for years, nothing else quite compares .Okay maybe my defense is invalid as I continue to walk the same path, and the worst part I find is that I always end up trying to heal from the loss of not trying. The loss of not saying yes, the loss of living what would have been, but just in my dreams . I grieve pieces off myself I would have become with these people. When people talk about terrible men, I don't relate at all. In fact a, part of me always wonders where they find these men . Because me? The men I have encountered are exceptional lovers. I stand to say it is indeed true that, as a misandrist, you attract a better quality of men.

Ann Montgomery in telling us that as women we go to the top at whatever cost she would say she became who she was because of sacrifice, ambition, and endless discipline. And as the bookworm I am , I took it literally and I chased bigger dreams, higher mountains, and versions of success that demanded everything I had. And in that chase, I let go of soft things like closeness, vulnerability, and the kind of love KK offered. It felt necessary then, almost noble. Sacrifice always feels righteous in the moment. But no one tells you that sacrifice comes with a bill. And the bill is paid in hindsight.So then, if you ask me whether it is worth it, I will again lie through my teeth, and if you are not a fool, you will understand what is true.

The truth is, success asks for a price. It asks for sleep, peace, innocence, sometimes even childhood. But sometimes, it also asks for love he kind you cannot get back once the moment passes. KK was a season, a mirror, a softness I wish I had lived and based in. And maybe that is the tragedy of youth: we often don’t recognize the sacred when it stands right in front of us. All my brothers are married ,even my 13-year-old brother has a girlfriend, and then there's me.

Today, I can look back honestly and say I didn’t choose him. Not because I didn’t care, but because I didn’t yet know the worth of what he offered. I thought I had time. I thought love could wait while I chased the version of success I believed was urgent. But the older I get, the more I realize that certain people don’t return. Certain love only happens once, at a time when you’re too young to see its magnitude. I have sacrificed a few other KKs. My curse appears to be that I am loved and held by men, intense, credible, and who actually love me with presence, word , deed , and that I cannot love them back. My curse appears to be that I fear commitment may look like giving up on my ambitions to water the flower that is love, and that I may not have the courage to see it through I fear people think I hate men yet in a way the men intrested in me are solid, men i would be with without blinking twice but the dream to becoming is madness one i always appear to choose .

Yet, even in the ache of hindsight, there is gratitude. I am grateful I got to experience a love that asked for nothing but my presence. I am grateful that the universe used a teenage boy with revision notes and success cards to teach me what it feels like to be rooted for. That kind of love leaves fingerprints. It becomes a standard. It reminds you, even years later, that you deserve gentleness.KK may not be in my life now, but he remains part of my story, part of the quiet reminder that even the strongest, most ambitious versions of us once needed someone to show us that we mattered long before the achievements came. And in remembering him, I remember the kind of love I still hope to return to one day: pure, patient, and unwavering, like grace itself.

To be loved and held ? I recommend this for everyone.

First off , happy birthday to the amazing man that is my father . I mention him at the top of the list of my icons , right before Assata Shakur .

As a child I loved bath time with dad , he would allow me to wallow in the water basin , unlike my mom who believed I should dress immediately.

When I said I wanted to play football like my brothers , he got me tiny sport shoes and a ball , I hear most fathers would get their daughters dolls .

When I got into athletics as a child , he showed up on ever sports day to watch me speed across the field.

I have never seen my father fight, but he has made me aware that if anyone were to trifle with me, I should just give him a call.

Yes, he said he would beat my husband if he ever lay his hands on me and I do well to let anyone know in advance . ( and in his absence , I want it to be known that I can throw a punch or two )

He says that if I get tired of marriage, I should come home, and he will give me a piece of land next to his.I love that I wasn’t molded to believe marriage is a lifelong affair of suffering, bliss I can accept , I love how he loves my mom , they still hold hands and laugh like teenagers .

He has made me aware that if I were to become a housewife, I would be his wildest disappointment. That I was born to be a president, and being a wife and/or a mom shouldn't be something I consider an achievement. You should see how angry he gets whenever my mom talks about grandchildren. I appreciate that he sees me as human first, not woman first, and as such, someone worth aspiring to be more than what society deems.

I see how easy it was for me to walk around and say I don't know how to cook because my father would shield me from the thought that house chores were a woman's thing. In all honesty, my brothers cleaned and cooked more than I did as a child. I preferred cleaning the car with my dad( a service which he so heartily paid for ) and polishing their shoes, making beds ( just so I could catch an extra nap in their bed ).I love my fathers meals more than I do my mothers . Yes my father cooks .

As a child, I looked forward to coming home from school, not because I hated school, but because I loved the thought of running into my dad's arms every time I came home and he would lift me and hoist me in his arms like a flag .

I remember swinging from his legs. He would hang his legs on the side of the sofa, and I would use them as a pendulum.I did that well till I was over 17 and I got too fat and so the game had to stop .

Or how he would mash groundnuts and feed them to me, or how he would always leave food on his plate and tell me that eating a parent's leftovers is a blessing (he lied; he just knew my mom hated people leaving food on their plates).

I remember fighting with my brothers; he never stopped the fights. He would wait to see who won and beat whoever cried. This robbed me of the self-victimization that comes from thinking “ Ohhh, I am a woman , I deserve a little softness . “

God forbid I was second in anything, son of man would invest everything to see me come first, and I guess that is where I got my competitive nature from.

I don’t understand much about nonchalant men , my father is very chalant , Anytime I borrow his wife he reminds me to take care of his person “ make sure she eats , return her safe ……” I know if he’s had a long day he will talk about it and not sit outside in the dark . I don’t think enough about how such emotional safety translates how I think all men should be .

I remember all the times he would tell me not to be a fool ……His love for knowledge and academia has shaped me more than I care to admit. Might get a PHD just so I can become Dr Odero ( Yes, he said im never taking my husband's name)

I ask him how or who taught him how to love in a generation that demonizes emotion and expression, and he says he believes in God, that God is love, and to him, that is his religion.

But we had an argument about homophobia last night, and it got so heated, and I have argued with friends before, and a part of me would think of all how that would be the death of a friendship.

But I had never thought about what a privilege it is to have a dad who is an academic , a radical thinker and one who questions systems . When I went for a suspension in highschool , he was secretly proud of me . He would later show up at the displinary hearing to defend me . It's the safety I feel knowing that I don’t have to question whether he would show up if need be, just because we have conflicting views.

That, yes, my father is a pastor, and yes, he doesn’t support certain inherent controversies that I believe in, but he would still listen to me talk about them for hours on end. That in all, he will say “ I love how you think,” and smile and ask questions …. Love, I find, is in the curiosity of wanting to know people beyond who you expect them to be.

That, for as long as I could remember, all our conversations ended with him telling me he loves me.sometimes I have to remind him , but even then he says it still .

The notion of violent men is a foreign concept because my dad is the most gentle man I’ve met yet.I wander where these other men come from .

That he is the wind beneath my wings; he may not understand half the things I do, but he will 100% support them.The one person I would call if I wanted to climb mount kenya with no experience and he would ask what I need to make it possible.

If they say fathers are an expression of God's love for us, then God certainly loves me. And I may not know much, but I know I am loved at home.

Mark you I am a daughter of the lakes , it is said there’ll be great pride when I’m exchanged for thirty heads of the finest Friesian Jersey cows , I say 30 because I am learned , the brainer the woman the more the cows . Shock on them however , they are thinking I’m looking for a husband whole time I’m looking for a wife .

I mean I want a life manager, emotional accountant, and chaos organizer. Because if we’re being honest, most men are only “put together” because there’s a woman somewhere running quality control . Infant all men who get to the top only do so because of women and if you argue with me you better be able to prove you were born of a man .

Exhibit A: Brayo !

Ah, Brayo of Kilimani. Clean fade, white shirt, that subtle cologne that says “I go to the gym , drink water and have goals.” But Brayo has a wife and Four kids , in this he confides in me on how his wife doesn’t have time for him anymore so he prefers a young blood . You see Brayo’s wife is a housewife , she is an Economist by profession but she opted to stop working to stay at home and take care of the kids. Brayo believes maids are promiscuous women who might tempt him and threaten the marriage so they shouldn’t have one .

Now Brian is my boss and This is our end of year party , he’s fully intoxicated with a mixture of Amarulah and a few other things I can’t name . Everyone thinks Brian has his life figured out. Mark you I sat beside him in typical intern fashion to learn from the boss , but wenah the boss is problematic . He is all polished Meanwhile, his socks fold themselves (his wife does), his fridge restocks itself (his mum passes by with leftovers), and his emotional stability comes from a woman sending him, “You’ve got this babe ❤️” every Monday morning.

Brian isn’t self-made. Brian is a group project and his wife, girlfriends or mother is the one doing 80% of the work.But that’s not enough , he needs a young blood to keep him warm , apparently his wife’s duvets have stopped being warm enough .

But because patriarchy is the best PR firm in history, society claps for Brian. “He’s so disciplined.” “Such a focused man.” Sir, you just showed up to the life someone else organized for you.I want your wife I don’t want you , Brayo with your lazy ass and zero self esteem .

Now flip the script enters Sarabelle .

I work four jobs and even then I don’t make enough to afford the lifestyle I’m after. At this rate I won’t afford a Cadillac anytime soon . As though that’s not enough I’m a pariah in dating society , apparently feminists aren’t all that , infact they are toxic aka to be liked enough to date but not loved enough to be married . Hence here I am , I balance it all.” I’m my own chef( lies I mostly order from Glovo ) therapist, mechanic, and accountant , all while trying to survive Nairobi rent prices. You think I want a husband? Please. I want a wife.

A wife who’ll say, “Babe, I’ve already paid KPLC and cooked rice.” A wife who’ll refill my gas cylinder without me having to remember. A wife who’ll say, “Don’t stress, I already replied to that passive-aggressive email.”

A wife who’ll hold me when I cry because I’m tired of holding everyone else and hold the fort at home when I go on a work trip to Bahamas with my young blood secretary .

Because that’s what women do , they hold.They hold their men , pat their heads and give them head every morning and night . They hold families, relationships, communities, and sometimes, men’s entire emotional bandwidth, you see all these men who call themselves nonchalant when they get into relationships they put all emotional baggage on their women , that’s how emotional manipulation works . Imagine a man opening up to me about being hurt because he cheated on his girlfriend and she left him ? And I smile in master fashion because I am about to do worse , we need To establish dominance once in a while to show we are infact not to be trifled with .

Behind every “successful” man in this country is a woman who knows where everything is, including his self-esteem. She’s the one picking up socks, feelings, and forgotten dreams.When I look at men I always appear to want to see the women who have made them . It’s strange .

And yet, society keeps calling this “support” instead of labour. Women are running entire emotional logistics departments while men just “provide.” Provide what, though? The Wi-Fi because even Netflix accounts now belong to the women.

Men go to therapy through women. He doesn’t need a therapist , he has three women in his inbox he trauma dumps on. And if he can’t do that he dumps his spermatozoa on Someones stomach and leave their little demons there in search for healing , God forbid he has a pathetic pull out game and he becomes your baby daddy , smora how will you take care of two children ? And when he finally “heals,” he proposes to someone new and says, “She gives me peace.” Peace, my sister, that another woman helped him build.uwiiiii you look for an established man and all the demons he carries stepping on the shoulders of women to heal follow you , alaaaa !

Meanwhile, women are out here wife-ing everyone.

Your boyfriend? Wife.Your siblings? Wife.Your workplace group chat? Wife.Even your friend who “doesn’t do emotions”? Wife.

We’re all playing unpaid life manager while also being told we’re “too emotional” to lead. Irony so thick, you could spread it on bread. And for some it could save lives , or what was that bien says about thick thighs ?

So yes, I need a wife.

Someone to remember that my KPLC tokens are running out. Someone to say, “You’ve done enough today, rest.” Someone who doesn’t confuse “care” with “weakness.”

Because the truth is — men don’t just have wives; they have systems of care disguised as people. And women? We’re expected to be those systems for free and still slay, chase the bag, and drink our 3 litres of water a day.God forbid you get fat after giving birth or the doctor refuses to use the husband stitch to make you a little tight for Their perusal and comfort .

Maybe the real revolution is not asking women to “lean in” more, but asking men to wife themselves to learn emotional labour, empathy, domestic competence, and mental organization.

Until then, I’ll keep saying it with my chest:

I don’t need a husband. I need a wife.Because behind every “strong, independent woman” is someone who’s tired of being her own wife. I am also as ambitious and I’m trying to get to the top of the matrix .I can’t be a slave to capitalism and be a slave in love life got to choose , we all do .

Smora what shall we do?

I say we get a wife ?

If you know me, you know I am the master of unrequited love. My curse appears to be that I always appear to love people who don't love me back Ahhhh, friend, don't pity me; it is very intentional. I find it convenient to not have to commit to anything. But that is not my problem; mine is that there has been so much shame around unrequited love. We appear to equate it to some form of weakness, but this baffles me because in our defense, even Jesus was not loved by everybody, so who are we? We mere minions? And as an ambassador of the shameless, I don't see how you can shame me into thinking that loving in any capacity is wrong., You don't have to love me back; I love you because I can. Yes, I  said I love you; come beat me. 

So you want to beat me because I love you? Because I want to spend my life with you? Because I dared to be soft in a world that worships hardness? I didn't say I love you, and you have to love me back. I want it, yes, but we can't have everything we want, ye? So I take it as that, or has getting one rejection stopped you from applying to other opportunities? Siblings, even in love, have the same modus operandi.  Keep applying until you find the perfect fit, and if you get fired from a post, wheeze, weep, cry, and apply for another role.  Somewhere along the way, we decided that love, real, unfiltered, unstrategic love, was something to hide.Now we have become the Raymond Reddington of emotions , we strategize love and that I don’t understand, In fact , I blame the patriarchy but I can’t prove how .Society teaches us to dress affection in irony, to drip-feed attention, and to love only in fragments so we can still say, “I don’t care.” But brethren, we don't do that nonchalant thing here. Nonchalance is for fools. May the nonchalant also come and beat me 

Propagandists almost managed to convince me that double texting is for weaklings. Ayiii siblings, so if I want to talk to you and I have 10 things to say, I can't do it. They call it “double texting.” I call it “strategic persistence with emotional flair.” Because me? I don’t stop at two. I’m sending twenty texts on top of the fifteen I already sent, and I’ll do it with confidence and a GIF of a dancing penguin. See, normal people send one message and wait for a reply. They stare at their screen, reread the text seventeen times, and whisper, “Maybe they’re busy.” Not me. I assume they’ve been kidnapped by Wi-Fi ghosts, so I take it upon myself to keep the conversation alive single-handedly.  I will text you updates about my day, my snack choices, and the fact that my nose can now dance (yes, rhythmically). 

Because why should I keep that information to myself? Communication is love, and silence is just data loss. Some say, “Don’t double-text; you’ll look desperate.” But baby, what’s desperation if not passion with purpose? I don’t play games unless it’s Wordle, and even then, I’ll text you my score. You think ignoring me will make me stop? Sir, unless you explicitly write a legal statement in Times New Roman, font size 12, that you do not wish to talk to me, I will continue to text. Respectfully. Repeatedly. Relentlessly. I believe in consistency. You’ll never have to wonder if I care. Motivations will remind you every five minutes. And if you don't like it, come beat me. 

So my friend looks me dead in the eye and says, “You’re gaslighting me.” And I’m like, Sir, I barely even have a gas stove. What exactly, am I lighting here? But because I’m a good person and a scholar of vibes, I ask him, “Define gaslighting.” And just like that, homeboy’s Wi-Fi connection to confidence drops. He starts buffering mid-sentence. “Umm, like… when you… you know…” No, I don’t know, love. That’s why we’re here.

See, welcome to The Language Theory, where people use psychological buzzwords like seasoning—sprinkle a little “narcissist” here, toss in a “toxic” there, and boom, you sound emotionally educated. Forget the fact that you learned it from a 15-second TikTok stitched with sad background music and someone whispering, “if he breathes, he’s manipulative.”We’ve reached a stage where people use therapy vocabulary the way broke people use “Wakili a quick one “ To get free legal advice. Someone says they’re busy? “He’s emotionally unavailable.” Someone forgot to reply? “That’s gaslighting.” Someone says they want something done a specific way. “That’s narcissistic behavior.” Please, sirs, not everything is a red flag; some of you just need snacks and sleep.

And don’t get me wrong, language is powerful. But lately, it’s become a status symbol. The more mental health terms you can casually drop into conversation, the more “emotionally intelligent” you sound. We don’t even argue anymore; we diagnose. “You’re guilt-tripping me.” “You’re projecting.” “You’re toxic.” Bro, I just said your playlist was bad, not your childhood trauma. The funniest part? Half the time, people don’t even understand what these words mean; they just know they sound intense.

 Using “gaslighting” instead of “lying” makes you feel like a walking psychology textbook. It’s the new aesthetic: pseudo-academic with a touch of main character energy. Everyone wants to sound like a certified therapistAnd can we talk about how these words lose meaning when overused? “Toxic” used to mean someone emotionally harmful. Now it’s anyone who talks too much or doesn’t like your Instagram story. “Manipulative” used to mean calculated emotional control; now it’s just “you persuaded me and I didn’t like it.”So me? I’ve decided to chill. Tulia na hizo words zako za matakataka. I’m not gaslighting you, I’m just conversing. I’m not guilt-tripping you, I’m explaining why you’re wrong (respectfully). Not every disagreement is a psychological case study. Sometimes, it’s just vibes.

Someone's son decided it was wise to advise me against texting back .His thought process is that it makes me look too available. Alaaaa sirs, so , in this generation, replying fast is now a crime. People out here are acting like being emotionally available through text is an Olympic weakness.

 Because me? I text back fast. Lightning-speed fast. If I see you typing I send a hi to assert presence , Yes, I’m on my phone. Yes, my life is digital. And no, it doesn’t mean I’m desperate, it means I’ve got excellent reflexes and Good Wi-Fi.

Why must we act like delayed responses make us mysterious? It’s not deep. Some people are slow texters, others are Formula one responders , I promise if you think replying later shows importance you need therapy . The “I’ll wait 10 minutes so I don’t look eager” .I am, in fact, very eager. If that makes you think I want you, you probably don't have good friends. If I like talking to you, I’ll talk to you. Simple. The “too available” argument is just modern-day emotional manipulation disguised as coolness. And as an anti-capitalist, I don't even buy into being cool . I will text back immediately if I feel like it. I’m not waiting for the phone to ring like it’s 2002 and I’m in love with a boy from a Safaricom ringtone advert. We’re in the 21st century, ,let’s normalize enthusiasm.

You would be surprised at how self-awareness, when taken to extremes, looks like the God complex. What baffles me, however, is how powerful it feels to be God.

They told me to be humble, to bow my head, to pray to something greater than myself. But what if that greatness was never out there? What if divinity has always lived beneath my skin, waiting for me to stop apologizing for existing? I no longer kneel — I rise. I am God, yee, and the rest are but minions.

In the sarabel world, I am God, and here I am accountable for my creation and actions. The world I inhabit is a mirror of my choices, my love, my rage, my silence. So I love as much as I  would want to be loved, and I give in equal measure. And my friend says , i am the supreme commander I am in charge .

If you asked 21-year-old me, my top 10 reasons for wanting to go to the US at the very top of the list would be so I can join the bandwagon of posting on Instagram with the caption “ Mwalimu wa math alisema siendi mbali, Hapa ni Wapi. "Now, don’t get me wrong, I did get an actual A in math, my problem with the teacher was that I have a constant problem with authority.

I went for two suspensions in my first year of high school, and I got shaved three times. I have no business liking Teachers. If anything, I got an A and gave the valedictorian speech on price-giving day out of spite. I ran my first Marathon because my mom said I was too fat to run, and I will become a CNN correspondent because of Beth, who said Dark skinned people don’t become Journalists.

Two is that I got to read “Ndoto ya America “(The American Dream)when I was seven. To be was sold the idea of a land flowing with milk and honey, one where buildings were so tall they touch the sky. If heaven existed, that was heaven. At 13, I began to read Fanon, black skin, white masks. I read it like a storybook, and I finally understand why Lake Victoria, where my ancestors dwell, is called Victoria and not Akinyi. I find out they are the reason my skin is considered less than, I find out the plunder we used to dream in the language of liberation.

What having four brothers did was give me a glimpse of what injustice looks like, Those boys would fight me all the time and they would win all the damn time by pulling my hair, They had an unfair advantage, And in reading, my tongue is sharpened by Frantz Fanon, by Sankara’s audacity, by Nkrumah’s Pan-African gospel that declared “Africa must unite.” I walked through the dust of Nairobi’s slums believing I was part of a generation called to rebuild, to heal, to free. I brand myself a revolutionary. I am in the business of Africa, and Africa is my business.

Three is that I have always known I am a bad person. This i know because i have stayed up at night wandering how i can pass on the Black supremacy gospel so we can colonize and loot from whites, Yes i was very happy when the Louvre was looted and i silently prayed it was blacks that did that, My thought process is that reclaiming what belongs to us is not stealing and if not then you know how ironic it Would have to be for a thief to steal from another thief?

Four is that I am a master of controlling narratives. I say it is to alter information; I hear we call it lying. I lie. I omit. I reshape the story to fit the version I want told, and I justify it the same way the colonizers did when they rewrote African history, erasing heroes, twisting truths, and calling it progress. If they could steal entire narratives, rename our lands, and call it civilization, why should I feel shame for adjusting the pieces I control? Nothing is beyond me, so yes, I wanted to meet the masters of shaping narratives down in their home. I don’t like rumours; I wanted to confirm and shape my own narrative.

Five is that I got to read “Ndoto ya America “ -The American Dream when I was seven. To be was sold the idea of a land flowing with milk and honey was sold, one where buildings were so tall they touch the sky. If heaven existed, that was heaven. At 13, I began to read Fanon, black skin, white masks. I read it like a storybook, and I finally understand why Lake Victoria, where my ancestors dwell, is called Victoria and not Lake Akinyi. I find out they are the reason my skin is considered less than, I find out the plunder we used to dream in the language of liberation.

What having four brothers did was give me a glimpse of what injustice looks like and, more than all, such hate and detest for it. And in reading, my tongue is sharpened by Frantz Fanon, by Sankara’s audacity, by Nkrumah’s Pan-African gospel that declared “Africa must unite.” I walked through the dust of Nairobi’s slums believing I was part of a generation called to rebuild, to heal, to free. I brand myself a revolutionary. I am in the business of Africa, and Africa is my business.

But an opportunity to go to America came, and man, the way I was desperate to leave, the way I lied during the visa interview, anyway, the end justified the means, and I left for America. The goal was to get out of the block using whatever means necessary.

America doesn’t welcome me with chains; it welcomes me with bacon for breakfast and a hotel with a balcony overlooking the streets of New York. Here, there is wifi at the airport, ayiiiiii, a stark contrast from my struggles in airports around Africa. Then comes the Electricity that never flickers. I joke that they might not know what it means to not have water. Okay, how does the healthcare system look? If you call an Ambulance, it will never arrive. I see an ambulance arrive in less than 10 minutes. I see that their 911 number goes through when you call.

And then I find a white boy attractive, and in that moment, I think our babies would look cute. I am an antinatalist; I have never wanted kids for any reason, or is it that I never had a white reason? Okay, maybe I spoke too soon. I don’t understand this white boy, and Im not about to be saying pardon every six minutes.

For a moment, I feel betrayed by my own idealism. I begin to whisper to myself, Why build when you can escape? Why suffer to fix the broken when you can thrive among the whole? Why try to get a black man to understand feminism 001 when I get a white one who won’t mind that I can’t spin ugali, and he might even be more open to surrogacy? Here, at least, my chances of finding love go up by 60%

That was my first betrayal. My sellout moment.

It is easy to chant “Africa for Africans” until you taste the efficiency of capitalism. Until you realize that “functioning systems” are often built on the bones of global exploitation, and you are both its victim and its admirer. I found myself worshiping the very structures I once vowed to dismantle. In America, I discovered that I am not “African,” I am Black. I have not seen this many white skins in my life, umm, they lie these skins turn pink in the sun, and the sunscreen industry is built specifically for them and for the wannabe blackies who pretend their melanin is not enough.

Here, I also find, the “Black Excellence” phrase is a lie. Even the black Americans don’t like us, the Black that Fanon wrote about in Black Skin, White Masks: “The black man is not a man.” The Black that walks into a room and feels the subtle shifting of power. The Black that smiles to survive. I understand them, I forgive them, but I am also hurt and offended at this betrayal from our brother in colour. Especially the one who says slavery helped bring education and hospitals to Africa, I sigh at this unschooled black American brother.

Fanon warned us that colonialism doesn’t end when the colonizer leaves; it lingers in our minds, in our desires, in our inferiority. I came here to study freedom, and instead, I met my oppression with better grammar. I begin to see the hypocrisy of my dreams, the Pan-Africanist who suddenly loves working systems, who suddenly wants a visa more than a revolution, who can now justify leaving “home” because home is chaos. I once stood tall, calling for the liberation of my continent; now, I lower my eyes and thank this system for letting me exist within it. Yes, I agree, I am Sarabel Iscariot.

And that humbles me painfully so.

But maybe humility is where revolution begins anew. Because to recognize one’s sellout moment is to reclaim the possibility of return. Maybe I am a sellout, but at least I’m an honest one. Maybe I had to come here to understand the weight of being Black, the seduction of capitalism, and the loneliness of those who dare to dream beyond borders.

“Each generation must, out of relative obscurity, discover its mission, fulfill it, or betray it.”

So yes, Africa, maybe like Egypt, is a hellhole, but this is our land, and when and if we liberate it, the promised land. What we need to do is water our own grass

And I find that, perhaps this, then, is my mission:
To learn what it means to betray and to begin again. We are quick to condemn. It’s one of the easiest things to do, to point at the corrupt politician, the greedy businessman, the self-serving leader, and declare them the reason the world is broken. We demand justice, accountability, and reform. Yet I often wonder: do we truly hate injustice, or do we hate being excluded from its rewards?

This question haunts me. Because every time I look at those we call corrupt, I see a reflection of desire. A desire that lives in all of us, quiet and camouflaged, waiting for its turn at the table. And I think it is comforting to believe that we are morally superior to those who exploit, steal, or manipulate. But morality often thrives in the absence of opportunity. Many of us have not yet been tested. We have not been given the power to betray, the access to hoard, or the influence to manipulate systems in our favor. And so we mistake lack of opportunity for virtue.

I think of the countless times we have said, If I were in their shoes, I would do better. But would we? Would we really resist the temptation to secure our family first before thinking of others? Would we say no to privilege, comfort, or recognition if it were freely offered? Fanon writes, “the colonized man is an envious man.” I think of that often. Perhaps we do not hate oppression itself; we hate being the ones oppressed. We do not hate inequality; we hate being the ones at the bottom of it. Our outrage is often selective, loudest when we suffer, silent when we benefit. Believe me, everyone who sits at the looter’s seat once wanted to change the world. But the system is undefeatable. The system can change you.

Look closely at any society, and you will see this duality. I argue that for balance to exist, there has to be an imbalance. The bad and haters of. The bad (no one is good ). The poor man curses corruption until he gets a chance to skip the line. The activist condemns capitalism until she receives her first paycheck. The revolutionary shouts “power to the people” until he is invited to dinner with those in power. The truth is, we want to win within the system we claim to despise. That is the hypocrisy we never talk about, the one that hides in our own hearts. We like to look at the prostitute and we like to want to drag him at Jesus’ feet, we fail to realize that we are the ones sleeping with the prostitute, and all of us are in this case liable for stoning.

We are not as different from those we condemn as we like to imagine. Their corruption is visible, institutionalized, and amplified. Ours is internal, quiet, and respectable. We call it ambition, survival, or success. But if you strip away the language, it is the same hunger — the same instinct to secure ourselves first.

Perhaps what disturbs us most about injustice is not its existence, but our exclusion from it. We want to be the ones who get away with it, to live comfortably while others struggle, to be praised for what we secretly exploit. That’s why we celebrate people who “beat the system,” even when the system they beat exploits others. We envy power and despise it at the same time.

Maybe that’s what makes human morality so fragile: it depends on position. The oppressed dream of fairness; the powerful dream of permanence. And between those two dreams lies a world that never changes. This is the danger of moral superiority: it blinds us to our own reflection in the people we despise. We see their greed but not our envy, their manipulation but not our silence, their betrayal but not our compromise.

So I’ve stopped asking, How could they?
Now I ask, would I?.I don’t cast the first stone.

Would I truly choose integrity if it meant losing everything? Would I resist comfort if it were handed to me on a silver plate? Would I walk away from power when everyone expected me to take it? My answer is that I don’t know. And that uncertainty humbles me. Because perhaps real justice begins when we admit how close we are to the things we hate. When we stop pretending that evil exists “out there” in politicians, systems, or governments and start recognizing how it grows quietly within us.

I find that it is the beginning of true revolution, not in the streets, but in the mirror. The kind of revolution that forces us to question not only what we oppose, but why. Because we are all bad, some more than others, and especially those who fail to confront the hypocrisy within themselves, those are the ones to whom hell should be reserved.

The statement “So, Sarabel, you can twerk. I thought you had morals.” Triggered by my being here today. Like, okay, sir, I was not familiar with your game. First, define moral. Second, strip it of everything cultural or religious, and show me what you are left with. Now, sir, show me how my abilities to twerk cause a regression in society if not for the regression in men’s sensitivity? God forbid a girl can debate a motion in 7 minutes and be astute in the seventy positions of the Kamasutra?

Second are the words of . “There are people who treat me like an encyclopedia. They talk to me about feminism, Marxism, politics, misandry, Leninism, etc. ONLY. I mean, sure, these are things I care about, but that’s NOT all I am. And they don’t approach these topics conversationally; it’s always academic. Like Im a walking seminar and not a personAnd then, on top of that, they get so surprised when I do normal stuff, like go out. Like, did you seriously think I spend 100 percent of my life debating legal positivism and natural law?”God forbid a visionary enjoy things outside her vision.

I write this piece standing by a counter, listening to Ayra Starr’s “Who’s That Girl?” I occasionally stop to whine and twerk depending on what vibe I get. I am alone in the kitchen, and Myself and I are in awe. So I pat myself on the back. I sure can twerk.I can even do the one where I go upside down and …..umm remind me to show you in person, I am a firm believer in evidence.

My argument is that when praising God, David dances with his whole body. That I probably can’t twerk in church because of how society sexualizes certain body parts in women, and the notion that we should not cause others to fall. Okay, sir, I hear that, but hear me out. When I say I want a man who is a virgin and does not expose his thighs on social media or in public, and must be quiet and reserved. Must never go to clubs. Does not drink or smoke. No one is having children with such a man. I don’t like career men. Those will disturb me. Must know how to cook and clean, and be able to stay home to take care of the children. And yes, I like mine young and submissive.

What was that look on your face, sir? Why the judgment? (Inserts song, Chukua udongo ……Tengeneza wako.)

On Clothing

If you meet me, you will find me wearing suits most of the time. My roommates in campus used to say I wear “mommy pants. “You know those pants that cover the behind and go up to the stomach? You don’t, okay? If you ever saw your mom’s pants, then that’s what I’m talking about here; those were my signature style. ( I see your judgmental face !) Ahh, forgive me, madams; I hadn’t discovered the comrade Thong. As it stands, I don’t have and have never owned a bikini; that belongs to the immoral ones, I assert. And me, the self-proclaimed moral one who secretly stalks them on Instagram and wishes she could wear them.

When I dress, I have to consider whether the chest area is showing anything or whether the thighs are properly covered. Take this from someone who grew up being told that men will approach me based on how I dress. I used to be one of those girls who wore baggy long skirts; God forbid I tighten or shorten a skirt like those immoral ones. This changes when a boy randomly spanks me, that too in my long, baggy skirt. Aii, I’m confused. What did I do wrong? And so I begin to wear two shorts inside the skirt. I, in most cases, walk with my hands behind my back just in case. I hate skirts to date.

The first time I wear shorts, I police myself into wondering what people think when they see my thighs. Mark you, we are out on a football pitch; the boys are wearing shorter shorts, but at no point do I stop to think how that looks in their minds. Do they not care that I can see their thighs? Some even remove their shirts, and I see their tiny nipples. Do they not consider their nipples a private part? Ahh, bazalwane?

Okay, maybe you grew up privileged, and there were no rules restricting what to wear or how, and so I remind you of Afghanistan under Taliban rule, where women are legally required to wear a burqa in public, covering their entire bodies and faces except for a mesh screen over the eyes. This law does not apply at all to men. It is only the women’s thighs that are tempting and should be covered. And I take you to the African setting where boobies were allowed to dangle freely and rape was unheard of, so who taught you the concept of modesty and how?

On Sex and Sexuality

I am a very reserved person sexually. Sex is to me like dancing. I create these steps and moves in my mind, but never allow myself to allow them to manifest physically. In my mind, the Kamasutra should fear me. In reality, I still see pregnant women and think, “Ohh, I know what you did, you sinner.” I can’t even explain how freaked out I was that one time that boy said he wanted to put me in 70 positions in 70 minutes. That was, to me, a threat at the top of the list, with a man telling me he wants to get me pregnant (as a broke 22-year-old). The year I bought “The Sex Lives of African Women,” I hid it for weeks so my mother wouldn’t see it and declare me immoral.

Im absolutely embarrassed I could say that what I know I learned from 50 Shades of Grey and the like. ( PS) i’m just coming out of that closet that associates sex with everything immoral for women. This, I tell you, I have been both a victim and perpetrator of the moral policing of women’s sexuality. I have walked around slut-shaming people who talked of their sexual escapades loosely. For the most part, I am also jealous. Like yes, I also want to be turned left and right like a skewer. If possible, I can even go upside down. I want to be pinned on a wall and wait. I want to associate gasping for breath with something other than running. But no worries, every dog has its day, and one day I shall be that dog.

I find that women’s sexuality is one of the most heavily policed aspects of their lives, often treated as a public concern rather than a private choice. From slut-shaming to victim-blaming, women are constantly judged for expressing desire, choosing partners, or even existing as sexual beings capable of wanting pleasure. The concept of virginity is pushed down our throats. In many cultures, virginity tests are performed, but again, only for women. We are taught early that to desire is dangerous, that pleasure must be hidden, and that curiosity could ruin a reputation. I have at one point subscribed to all this, and all I can say is, go explore your sexuality, my dear. That too in full wisdom.

On choices

I fear I might not be in any serious relationship for a long time.I have no aspirations for marriage and i once joked that i wanted to Marry a different person every four years just to exeperince knowing people more intimately . ( I dont know whether i was joking i havent decided ) I do not desire to have children; I mean, I sure will consider surrogacy or adoption, but childbirth as a concept traumatized me when my small brother was being born, and hence, I shall not explore it.

I have almost always gotten unsolicited opinions reminding me that God commanded women to recreate and fill the world, or who will take care of me when I'm old? I think it is outright wrong to think the world will be less filled because one person decided not to have children, and I think it is unethical to bring children into the world just so someone can take care of you when you are old. I think most of us need to rethink why we want children, and I just don’t think I would be receiving as much ridicule as any man would. In this, we look at the moral policing of personal decisions.

When society constantly whispers, “Marry now,” “Have children,” or “Don’t terminate a pregnancy,” it turns private choices into public obligations. Chimamanda says we teach women to desire marriage. And I agree, Because A woman who delays marriage is labeled selfish or irresponsible; one who chooses not to have children faces pity or scorn. I don’t even want to start on the pro-life/pro-choice conversation.

Moral policing has never been about good and bad; it is about control. Or don’t you ever think of why hoarding wealth is not bashed as a form of stealing? It strips people of the freedom to define themselves, making autonomy a crime rather than a right. True liberation comes not from conforming to societal standards but from reclaiming the right to decide, unapologetically, who they are and how they live. So when I think of freedom for all oppressed people in the world, I have you in mind.

Let’s be honest: the “moral woman ” myth.Is built on the notion of silence , Conformity, all social construct built to make others comfortable. We don’t call her moral because she’s kind or honest; we call her moral because she conforms. But morality that depends on control isn’t morality; it’s manipulation dressed as virtue.If being moral is an ankle length long skirt and not healthcare and education for all then im sorry ,one of us is stupid in this equation and its not the one wanting acess to basic human rights .

Its the same mentality with how highschool employ mechanisms like “most behaved “ for the most docile student . I know this , I went for two suspensions in my first year of highschool .I have always been one to question and for this i am not often associated with good behaviour . Hell my mom thinks its why i have never been in anything worth being called a relationship . When we say women must “behave” to be respected, we’re not teaching ethics, we’re teaching fear. And fear, by design, silences freedom. Nietzsche argues that morality often arises from the “instinct of herd animals,” a way to keep everyone tame and predictable. No wonder female sexual liberation feels like rebellion: it challenges the herd. When a woman decides that her body is her business, society feels uninvited to a conversation it thought it owned.

I struggle with the question of morality because, as someone deconstructing religion, it was my basis for what morality looked like. When you strip morality of religion, culture, and politics, what’s left? Empathy. Freedom. Responsibility. Not the fear of hellfire, just the quiet awareness that your choices ripple into the world around you. I find that morality was never supposed to be about control. Maybe it was supposed to be about consciousness?

So when people say, “Something is immoral,” I ask, “Immoral to whom?”
If my morality depends on another person’s comfort for freedom, I question its suitability. In this, I assert that to be kind is to be moral, to love all, and to care for all as ourselves. To speak life to humanity, to give when in surplus. To live free is to be moral, because morality without freedom is just obedience. And the most moral act one can commit is to choose to be themself unapologetically.

In closing, I say that more than all, I aspire to be what society calls a manerless woman. I will twerk when I want and still speak on the African Continental Free Trade Area in panels. I will marry when I want, if I want. I will have children when and if I want. I will chant #Must go and #Wantam every walking moment. Submission and sarabel will never co-exist in the same sentence, but respect will. I will wear suits and booty shorts in equal measure, and in my morality, I will aspire to love all. First and love, I will aspire to see all oppressed in the world free, and my politics will bank first and last on # Viva la Revolution.

Pretty Hurts—Beyoncé

Now I’ve had many battles in my 22 years, first as a woman and second as a Black, dark-skinned woman. If it wasn’t my being taunted in primary for having a big nose, then it was because I was too dark. The truth is, I’ve had thoughts of plastic surgery since I was about 8. I tried bleaching; I think it was called Light and Lovely or something, but the only thing that changed color was my nose. Now my nose is still lighter than the rest of my face as proof of the botched bleaching experiment. But that’s not how I got here. My small brother and I went swimming, and he kept looking at my armpits. Thrice was enough to disgust him enough to alert me that I had armpit hair that needed shaving; hell, he offered me his Veet. So I look at his armpits, and he also has armpit hair, and so I’m confused... Son of man, that tells me that women shouldn’t have armpit hair; apparently, it’s unhygienic. But for him, as a man, armpit hair means he’s a MAN (yes, he emphasizes this; the longer the better). This is a 13-year-old in a boys’ boarding school, and so we have a small learning moment, but now I begin to think about how capitalism exploits women’s bodies as zones of profit.

Globally, the beauty and FemiCare industry was valued at around US $511 billion in 2022 and is expected to surpass US $650-677 billion by 2025. That’s way more than the GDP of 5 East African countries combined.
The logic is clear: the more women feel they don’t measure up, the more they buy solutions. Here, I take you through why I think beauty is a manufactured illusion for marketing strategies.

Evidence 1: Hair removal. How many times have you, as a woman, thought of shaving before you visit your man? Better yet, how confident are you to raise your hands and let your armpits show if you have hair under? I mean, there are even new agents to lighten the armpit region because apparently, darker armpits mean being dirty? I paid a hell of a lot of money and felt uncomfortable as someone plucked hairs from my pubic area. I mean, I was happy when it was just the vulva, but then she went to the vagina area, and I packed my bags and left. I see no reason why I should subject myself to such pain just to feel soft and hairless.

Evidence 2: The Bra.

How many times do we think of how our breasts look when they are outside of a bra? Are they saggy peach, or straight…… I mean, my breasts are small, and a shirt is often enough support, but that comes at the cost of the nipple showing, so I often try to hide the nipple. Yes, is it because I’m afraid of the attention? Yes. I used to believe breasts were meant for children to suck, and when I grew older, I found out they are for men as well. But what use have I for them? I am unlearning that in a way that allows me to use them as an accessory for my outfits, which has been life-changing. The Bra is an expensive commodity. They are framed not merely as support plugs but as a social tool to curate how women’s breasts look and why.

Evidence 3: The Skin Tone Theory and Why “Black Beauty” is a Lie.

First is to acknowledge that I fell into the iPhone buzz because of the (Muosho mmoja). That it does when you are in the sun. So I could look lighter in pictures, and hell, I’m deep in debt because of it, and as though that wasn't enough, I stalked the beauty company these influencers buy from and added another dent to my debt burden buying from them (Eyyy, believe them when they say skincare is expensive). I did mention my struggle with being dark-skinned. Beauty standards around skin color remain deeply racialized. For example, in primary school, the “hot stuff” list that the boys made was full of lighter-skinned girls. The dark ones like me were left to claw and admire. We are told that we are Black beauty, but notice how no one ever talks about white beauty. It says, ‘I mean, you may be Black, but you are ALSO beautiful, but then if you are white/light, you are automatically beautiful? And you may be tempted to think I went to an all-white school? No, it was actually a Kenyan school where all of us were, in fact, Black, so where did we learn to associate beauty with color? I don’t need to tell you that the cosmetics industry is a multibillion-dollar industry. We already know that; the question is why we still fall for it.

Evidence four: The big Nyash, Big Tirries facade.

. Before I begin, my crush said he likes women with big tits, and I don’t fall into that category; hence, this is personal. I do fall into the stereotype of the typical Luo girl when it comes to behinds (I think). Do I like it? Younger me, I mean, if I haven’t won in the beauty sphere, might make up for it with ass. Older me likes that they feel like a cushion, but I absolutely hate how heavy they feel when I run. Mark you, I love to run and plan to run a marathon on every continent in the world, so this here is a deterrent We are told the bigger the better and served with a side of narrow waist is now perfect, or else invest in implants, fillers, liposuction and the array of surgeries Im just saying that the plastic and cosmetics surgery industry is a massive part of the “beauty” industrial complex. The broader cosmetic surgery market is large and growing (one estimate: 35% of women opt for at least one cosmetic dermatology procedure yearly)

Evidence five: The vagina should smell like a flower.

My mom’s gauge of vaginal cleanliness was to tell me to smell my panties, and if I didn’t like it, I should wash more intensely. Then adolescence hits, and I begin to use roll-on and perfume, and I want everything and everywhere to smell like candy, vagina included. But Mom also says I shouldn’t wash it with soap, so it’s an inherent struggle. Naive me missed out on an opportunity to be fingered because I was worried about how I should have smelled and didn’t. How many times have you heard that your vagina should smell like vanilla or strawberry? How many times have you believed that normal soap shouldn’t wash the vagina and that a special soap is better? These products are sold as empowerment, but ironically, they deepen the idea that the body is problematic unless managed.

Evidence six: Long, straight, silky hair.

Ehhh, yes, I once bought into the facade that coconut oil boosts hair growth. Maybe it does, but it never worked for me. I have dark, rough ringlet hair, and the number of times I have been shunned for my afro is interesting. I used a relaxer on my hair because my boyfriend then said it would feel better to stroke soft hair (mjinga mimi). For Black women, hair sits at the intersection of race, gender, and capitalism in sharp relief.

This means not only are Black women told their hair “ought” to be straight/long/silky (because that’s the standard), but also they spend more (on extensions, wigs, weaves, and relaxers) to approximate that standard and still are deemed “less professional” if they wear natural hair. And yet wigs/extensions themselves are sometimes pathologized (“you’re hiding something”) even though they emerged as strategies of survival and expression.

In closing :

There is nothing like beauty. It is a construct built that more often than not buys into the patriarchal definitions of what it means to be or not. So yes, there is a need for us to decolonize what beauty means to us, first as women and second as Black women. To decolonize beauty is to reclaim the definitions and standards the world forced down our throats. It is to say that our bodies are not battlegrounds for Eurocentric ideals, nor markets for capitalist greed. It is important to remember that before colonization, African women adorned themselves not to impress, but to express the clay, beads, scarification, and hair that reached for the sun like the land it came from.

This demands that we unlearn the myth that whiteness, thinness, or straight hair equals worth. It asks us to dismantle the industries built on our self-doubt and rebuild a world where the spectrum of beauty is as wide as womanhood itself. To love our skin, our hair, our scent, and our stretch marks is to commit a quiet rebellion. In choosing to see ourselves as whole, we become what the colonial gaze feared most: women who cannot be sold their own liberation. To show up in our rawness and natural state and to understand that is the very definition of being.

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“What we leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.” —Pericles

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A near-death experience has a way of stripping life to its essentials. In those fleeting moments where mortality feels close enough to touch, the noise of the world falls silent, and what truly matters reveals itself with startling clarity. In that moment, you begin to think about what people would caption your photos as they so feigningly mourn you. Mine would be that I had ambition and that I was disciplined and relentless in my pursuits. What will not be said is that I was a good friend; it will be remembered that I was cold, nonchalant, and unbothered about loving and/or being loved. Averse to emotion, A terrible legacy if you ask me.

The writer's curse. That you have to be alone and obsessive, and those close to you will find it hard to bear. The writer’s curse is a strange kind of loneliness because the people are there. Yes, your ambitions blind you from seeing them. This obsession is rarely soft on relationships. To those close to you, it feels like abandonment or distance. They may not understand why you disappear into your head. They interpret the silence as coldness, indifference, or, almost always, neglect.

My near-death experience saw me survive; what it killed was my facade of success. Then I would wake up, run, read, and eat all before 6 am. I wake up lately, and there is some sort of befuddlement, followed by another struggle to keep the struggles tolerable. In all this, I feel no sense of exhilaration, no pleasure in the fight; I am in thrall to the declivitous, and a part of me welcomes such existential purity to the curse that plagued me. The writer’s curse.

Failed relationships, no matter how subtle, are a terrible admission of failure. My life is full of those. For most, I have forgiven myself, but there are those that linger hauntingly each day. I wish it were different, but even though there is a very big difference between the theoretical and the hard-faced typography of the actual. There is also guilt in this. I want to be present for the people I love, but presence feels divided when my mind wants to be consumed elsewhere. I would rather spend Friday night behind my laptop, but the inconvenience of building community means I have to be at a games night laughing with friends. I have to confess, I have never felt this loved, held, and seen. The power of community is this, but this makes me ponder over my failed relationships.

A failed relationship, they say, is also a death, a living one, as the person you are mourning is sentient, still walking among the living, but without you. I have lost people before, and although I saw particular ones coming, nothing announces the end like that awkward moment you walk past each other in real life. Not even a hi, just memories of where love once lived, and beyond that, there is minimal contact, just a long-ingrained awkwardness curtailing any ease of familiarity.

I realize now, the moment the familiarity dwindled. I remember laughing when I heard it blurt out that I find better friends every time I scale. This was no joke; it was a declaration of sorts and one with a subtle amount of context to it. I watched helplessly as the landscape between us widened, a bond irreparably damaged. A permanent schism didn't happen for another four weeks. Such things rarely end with a loud, decisive bang; it's more of all the phases you go through when confronting a terminal illness. Anger, denial, more anger, denial, and maybe, if you are lucky, acceptance.

The hardest part is how quiet the loss is. When a friendship ends, there’s no funeral to mark its passing, no moment where you get to say goodbye properly. Instead, it’s an invisible ache. I catch myself reaching for my phone, wanting to share good news or confess a fear, only to remember that the person I’d usually call is no longer there. Photos pop up in my gallery, smiling faces frozen in time, mocking me with the reminder of what we used to be. The silence where their voice used to be is deafening.

Sometimes, I replay moments in my head, wondering when things shifted. Was it the small misunderstandings we never resolved? Was it distance or the slow pull of life tugging us in opposite directions? Or was it that we both changed in ways that couldn’t hold hands anymore? That uncertainty is a special kind of torture, because unlike death, there’s always a whisper of what if. What if I had tried harder? What if they had? All I know is that I was to blame, and for that, I apologize for not doing better.

But here’s what I’ve learned in the grief: the pain only runs this deep because the love was real. Those friendships mattered. They shaped who I am. They were a part of who I was, who I became, and even though I always felt they were dispensable and momentary until I found the next high, I concur with Martin that you only miss the sun when it starts to snow.

I am slowly learning to let go with grace. To hold the memories without letting them turn bitter. To say thank you for the season we had, even if it couldn’t last forever. Some days, that acceptance feels like peace. Other days, the ache returns like an old wound. But both are part of healing. The balance, Im learning, lies in learning to carry obsession without letting it consume all else. To allow myself to be inconvenienced. To show up even when I would rather not, to pet their faces and hold their hands in the dark. To allow them to rest their heads on my shoulder and sometimes to carry them on my back.

Friendship grief has softened me. It has taught me to love the people still here with more tenderness, to check in more often, and to hold hands a little longer. It has also taught me that love, in all its forms, is not about permanence, but rather presence.

Beyond that, I believe my legacy, if I leave this world tomorrow, will be that my last sentence will be simple and true: I loved. Not the loud kind the stories prize, but the steady, stubborn love that shows up in the small violence of living, calls made at 2 am in the night, the stubborn patience when words failed, and the hands that reached before permission was asked.

My act of resistance is my refusal to cower in the guise of heartbreak. Let them say I held. I held friends when they trembled, when their edges cracked, and when the weather inside them turned fierce. I held space without judgment; I held arms when bodies needed warmth; I held faith in people who had lost it. Let them remember that I ached. I wore my wounds openly. Cried, sighed, cursed, and through it all, I learnt to smile always.

That I loved, always loved. Always.

“You can’t outrun yourself. You can’t outrun the things that are inside you.”

Augusten Burroughs

I like to run. The rhythm of my feet against the ground, the rush of air through my lungs, in that moment when I can’t breathe and it’s like my thoughts suddenly become clearer, the pounding of my heart, it all feels like a kind of freedom, a space where the world narrows to the beat beneath me. That’s on the outside. Inside, I run from the parts of myself that hurt, the memories I cannot face, the emotions I cannot name, the grief and fear that linger quietly in the corners of my mind.

Running has become my refuge, a way to outrun the weight of feeling. The longer I move, the farther I seem to get from the thoughts that threaten to slow me down and yet, no matter how fast I run, no matter how far, I realize that some things cannot be outrun; they only wait for me to stop, turn, and meet them If i feel anything i cannot comprehend, I run. I have run so many times, I’m overwhelmed at just how many things I have had to feel, to process, and to sit with. In this season, I am learning to sit with it.

We are often told that time heals wounds. In retrospect, what time does is to give us time enough to learn to live with the wound. We live with the expectation that things will get better and we shall, in due time, get healing. I am 22 years old now.16 years is a long time to find healing. In my experience, we never heal.

Never, because we keep pre-disposing the time " not now" seems to be a good enough solution, because if not today, then tomorrow. But tomorrow never comes. So, when exactly does not now become never?

I smile at this question. Yes, smiling is a response and one very suitable in this context. I smile because the answer, as absurd as it sounds, is never. Never, because one can never reach a point of acceptance, that place where you can finally look down memory lane and smile. For years on end, you have lived in denial, deliberately refusing to face whatever it is that you would term as darkness. Whenever it pops up, you simply tell it….not now, sir, not now.

I have tried to live life forward and understand it backward. The past has a way of refusing to acknowledge the present. I think it is sad that some of us don't even get to choose what we want our past looks like. But again, is there anyone who has full control over their life, or is it simply a predetermined game of chance and happenstance? For years, we have been robbed of choice, and when we finally have the choice, we are so caught up in the shackles of the same past that we want to dwell in it, agonizing every single minute of it. We are simply angry.

Anger. We choose anger.

That is a choice we make. If you ask me, I would tell you anger is a sensible response to pain. We decide to live with the ramifications of our actions. Though we wallow in guilt, we still opt to choose absolution. We choose the forgiveness angle instead of blaming ourselves.” Forgive, as my father in heaven hath forgiven you". we've always loved the sentiments behind those lines; the idea of an eternity without anguish of poverty, anguish, or adversity; a celestial pay-off for the vicissitudes of life clouds our judgment to a point where smiling through our pain so we can smile in front of the father and his son seated on a throne. Anyway, who can blame us? I hear humanity has some form of ass kissing properties. The kind that manifests better in some and not in others.

Part of growing up involves the rare responsibility of finding your own healing. I hear grief is the price we pay for love, and we grieve ever so often. I see now how my sister’s suicide shaped me. I see the damage, and I see the consequences. I am finally ready to sit with it, because when you are ready, it will find you and upend your world with faded Kodachrome memories and vibrant, persistent pain. You may feel you’re not ready, but when the pain arrives, you have no choice.

It comes when it decides you’re ready for its momentum: a large, compressed mass, which builds its slow power over the years. You know you’re ready when the pain comes. You feel like it will destroy you, and it might; not everyone survives its power. Take comfort in the knowledge that when the pain arrives, a freight on rails, you’re ready. You have to trust this truth because you won’t believe it for many years. When you look back, you’ll realize the pain wasted no time: as soon as you were ready, it arrived. I don’t have any illusions about the severity of her actions. Pain stole a lot from me and twisted up what was left behind.

I just lost it completely. I stopped eating. I was always crying. Breaking through the denial and trying to fit into a new reality totally shattered everything I felt inside. My whole life had been a facade. A constant running away from memories I thought I would forget with time. I mean, you can forget falling as a child, but how do you forget finding someone hanging from the ceiling, tongue out?

I was in a vacuum for years. Balancing the religious frame whilst hating all that it represented. I can't remember just how long I cried because I was inconsolable. It’s like my emotional brakes failed all at once. I had never been an expert at controlling them because I always made sure I didn't feel anything, or if at all I did, I escaped it, but being here now, I was tired of fighting. So tired, I surrendered to life's unbridled rage. The relentless deluge of frustration, despair, and guilt.

Looking at such a big thing with such a small lens has a way of altering everything in someone. I suddenly understood how I was always alone in this big, wide world. I was alone. I felt angry because now I understood that all my life, I had just been trying to run away from the clutches of my past. Now that it stared me straight in the face, I wondered what had been so bad about it. Naturally, I don't capitulate on the spot. On the contrary, I became deeply confused about the whole notion of acknowledging pain as a way of accepting and embracing a painful past.

I sat waiting and hoping that someone would come and save me. That someone would love me enough to help me forget my misery. I wanted to be loved, but I also wanted to remain hidden. I wanted to feel safe in someone's arms, but I kept thinking those would be the same arms that would strangle me if I ever dared to look away. Pain is a shadowy companion often stalking us unaware. Its presence is so mild, so decimating. This knowledge strengthened my resolve to make absolutely no human contact one could be trusted with my fragility.

If anything, I didn't choose to be in such pain, and that's the thing about life. We often don't get to choose anything. I was hurt. That gave me the right to hurt others as I pleased. After all, we all should get to be the demon in someone else's story. There comes a point in life when one looks at the problems of others, agrees that they are more intense, and turns to pity them instead. It gives a temporary exit to our own state of sorry affairs, but yes, escape is escape. Life is a continuous struggle. After each struggle, we brace ourselves for the next.

Grief is a confusing arena for anyone trying to understand what really happened to you. It is even harder to find the words to explain it to others. In my mind, I have always been clear that I had no intention of sharing anything. Part of processing this situation has been acknowledging that I have every right to choose when and what I want to share. I have every right to lie to the world for as long as it makes me feel good about myself.

But in all honesty, one can only lie to themselves for so long. Eventually, and without notice, you will have to either acknowledge it and kill yourself or deny it and hate yourself less. In my opinion, by killing yourself, you get to rise through death like a phoenix. A creature of rebirth. Born out of the fire, yet as a new beginning. I choose to acknowledge it, to kill my past, and well, let us see what I walk out of it with.

I picked it up early on that if I was better at something, the environment at home would bend to my will. I had “Ask for and Receive” privileges, and my parents would be at my beck and call. They had equal bragging rights, and our living room was decorated with an array of my medals, certificates, and prizes. I was an exceptional kid, and this came with inherent privileges.

All these privileges were revoked immediately if I failed at anything, so I made sure not to fail. Affection was contingent on compliance, and approval was doled out based on how well I played my part in being the exceptional daughter, and on this end, I have won mostly. But no one warned me that this would never work with romantic love. On that end, brethren, I confess I have failed more than I care to admit.

I remember my first crush in grade eight; I liked him not because of how he looked, but rather because he was my arch nemesis in competition. He was faster than I on the tracks, way more articulate in debate, and more often than not, always defeated me in class. As though that was not enough of a blow to my ego, he also always managed to finish reading books before me.

I still remember the tingling extremities that were supposed to be random thoughts but manifested as physical sensations. It is like a scratch that never ceases to tickle, but with each tickle, it's something like a trigger. It's like the blood circulation in that area stops in that moment. My mom says she was bright in school because she was always competing with boys, so I make him my muse, but one to teach me math, and on the tracks every evening we race, and I'm slowly catching up to him. I even tell him that I like him, and we laugh about it. Well, I laugh until he gets a girlfriend, and that girl is not me.

I mean, I'm sad, but the grind must go on, and somehow I’m perfecting myself a things he is better in. I'm coming first in class. I'm now the fastest girl in the school, and we tie sometimes, but he is not faster than me, and the tingling quietens. I'm not sad that he didn’t choose me anymore, and even if I am, I am better than both of them. The crush may have been unrequited, but in my mind, I have won . The chase for me is like climbing Everest; there is the fear of the possibility I might not make it out, but I do it anyway because of the highs of the rush.

The next time I have a crush, and this for me equates to the next time I find a boy I consider to be better than me (partly because I am proud enough to think I'm better than everyone), Im in my second year of campus. Let us call him Erelle. Erelle is smart and dreams bigger than life. It's not the kind of smart that is subtle; it's the kind that is calculating. Now, all my life, all I have been is book smart. I want to be street-smart too, and so the chase begins. I heard him tell his friends he would never date a girl like me so this is personal, and nothing triggers me like the chance to prove myself to be the better breed.

The chase ends five months later, partly because he professes his love to me, but mostly because, in my mind, I'm now astute in the ways of the street. I am entrepreneurial and good with finances. I now know about saving and investing. I have learned enough from him; now I can learn the rest myself, or so I think.

I don't realize it then, but this is where everything goes wrong. I don't love people who love me; there is no adrenaline in that. The adrenaline is in the chase, in the performance. Rumi says, “ I choose to love you in the silence, because in the silence I find no rejection,” and I stand to understand where Rumi was coming from. It’s as though he poses the fundamental question: if I were to tell you I love you every day, would I still say it even though I knew I would never hear it back? Because for five months I waited, and not a single day did I hear it back, and I said it, always that I loved him, as often as I could. Now that I have heard it, I have won.

It’s been three years since, and each day I wake up thinking I’m in love, I find I am fully in love with someone who doesn’t love me back. This, to me, is like a noose tied to my neck, slowly waiting to strangle me if it must. I’m an emotional stretch of darkness over dawn. Sometimes I wonder what the world had in mind when it created love for everyone to find. I may never know if it’s offspring rather than resentment and loss. I may never know how it feels to be fully relaxed and able to breathe properly without someone telling me to let it all out. I love you, and that’s all I know. It’s all I genuinely care about, even if you never find yourself loving me back.

So I fight, I claw, and I fall in love not with what is given to me freely, but with what resists me, what runs from me, and what denies me. Whatever appears unachievable or unattainable instantly becomes attractive in my eyes. I do not settle into the arms of those who would stay; I chase after the ones who would, in my view, never want me. It is as if love, for me, only becomes real when it is out of reach. And so I compete. I strive to become better than them. because then maybe I would be someone they would aspire to be with, all in the hope that they will finally look at me and say, "You are enough."

But when they finally do, when they return the affection, when they say the words I was dying to hear, then the fire burns out. The tingling is gone. The chase that gave me adrenaline, that made me feel alive, suddenly collapses into silence. And I find myself drifting away, searching for the next impossible love, the next battle to fight, the next battle to conquer.

In this, I finally acknowledge that in the game of love, I have always been a loser. I learned that love is not safe unless it is pursued, fought for, or nearly impossible to attain. Somewhere, I absorbed the belief that I am only valuable when I earn affection, not when it is offered freely. Unrequited love feels intoxicating for me because it mirrors my ability to find being enough in the performance, and my body mistakes that ache for passion. The chase is thrilling and feels safe because in the chase, there is no rejection, and even if there is, there would be mourning because I would have won elsewhere.

I'm in the journey of becoming and unbecoming, and in this, it will mean sitting with the discomfort of being loved without trying to earn it. Loving without feeling the need to perform. To acknowledge that love lies not in the chase, I won't lie that I know where it lies, and when I do, I hope I get it right this time.

One “ you can’t heal forever don’t make healing your whole heart identity “ it’s been more than 15 years of being the Victim . It’s time to acknowledge the part I play in my suffering .

Two, the  words of Juno Diaz in saying “ one can never run away ,not ever , the only way out is in “

Three ,  the words of Yorhan to me on that cold Wednesday afternoon : 

“We are not friends, haven't been for a while now. You are a bad person, and you actively don't know it. I am unfollowing you, and have removed you from following me. Have a nice life and don't ever bother replying.”

And indeed I never bothered to respond, one because begging goes against everything in my modus operandi, and two because  Sarabel and bad in the same statement is a problematic concept. But you see, it's been two years and im finally acknowledging that he was never wrong. I am in so many ways a bad person. (sigh in painful admission of guilt)

Four my mentor “ you live in your head a lot , you clearly have a lot to work through you need to start figuring it out “

And five is that yes , I just found out I have always been a bad person .

Now, how did we get here? . 

The first six months have had me constantly on the move, and I am yet to pinpoint the why, but walk with me. June hasn't been my favourite month yet; if anything, it was a hellhole. June was a mirror, clear, merciless, and unavoidable. They say feelings demand to be felt and that you may avoid them but one day you will wake up and realize you are crippled by the intensity of the very emotions you once avoided. There I was doing my thing when the storm caught up with me. It should have been after my first week in America. It came quietly, without announcement, yet shook me with the intensity of its revelations, and the truth is, I flinched not out of disgust, but out of deep, painful recognition. I was no longer the polished version of myself that I had grown comfortable presenting. I was just… me. And I finally saw all of myself. In seeing myself, I opted to look away, maybe out of rage, but mostly pity. I turn 22 in a month, and I have not been myself for all these 21 years. How can it be?

 A man would opt to run if forced to face who he is, and to run I did. 

I again don't happen to be a good listener. If anything, I hear what I want and discard what I don't. It's the same way I only see the things I want to see. Because all this time, I have been seeing the bad in other people, but never have I ever actively seen or even acknowledged the bad in myself. For the longest time, I walked through life labeling others as bad, judging their choices, their flaws, and their shortcomings. I thought I was different. A superior breed morphed in steel and character unseen. Better. Wiser. Smarter. More strategic. June, in all its raw honesty, revealed to me that I am often the very definition of the word I project onto others. The same things I despise in people exist within me. I have sat with the self and in all honesty, we nod to acknowledge that we are not all that and we never have been, all we were was good at the hypocrisy of mirroring what we thought we should have been. But the fundamental truth to the question of who or what we are baffles us still.

a long while, honestly, I don't even know if I have cried since 2021. If I dare feel anything, I retreat. I overanalyze, and then I justify it in my head as strategy 001. Always being a step ahead.Life to me is a game of chess and the game has always been in my head Because living in my head helps me to run outcomes, in my head, I am always at fault, and that means I am never angry, not at myself, and not with others. The first step in this new phase is to be angry at myself.

Im realizing  that my avoidance of feedback is not just a quirk, is a wall. And behind that wall is the person I have been too afraid to grow into. I saw how the absence of mentors in my life has left me floating, unanchored, creating echo chambers instead of building wisdom. I crave guidance, but I don’t seek it. I admire people, but I rarely ask for their insight. I’ve mistaken independence for isolation and called it strength when really, it was fear in disguise.I have a mentor now , her first question to me was what kind of mentee I envision being and my first answer was “ the kind that doesn’t run away “

This leads me to the hardest truth of all: solitude, which I have long considered a form of safety, has also been a form of avoidance. Solitude can protect you from the world, yes. But it can also protect you from accountability. When no one is around to challenge you, to question your logic, to call out your blind spots, you start to believe your version of reality. You start to live in your head more than you live on earth. You start to call it peace when really, it’s just silence, a silence that hides the noise of all the things you refuse to deal with.

And so, June did break me, forced me to confront myself, and in doing so, invited me to look in the mirror and instead of running to stay and confront all these parts of myself.