Love. Loss. Lessons. Life.

2012 was planned out. I had it all figured out. What I was going to do. The places I was going to visit. The trips I was going to make. The achievements I was to add to the list. The things I wasn't going to do. The people I was forever done with.
2012 started out with a review if this blog in the Sunday Vision. 2012  started out with all these writing offers, and me promising to take them on.
2012 is more than half-way gone. I've hardly written.
Writer's block, severed friendships, lost semi-love, home-front drama and 7 months down 2012, the list is still unchecked.

I thought I was done with it all, I thought I had mastered the art of self-love, self-forgiveness, survival and bouncing back. But life...oh, life. The un-warning visitor. Bearer of news both heavy and light.
It's been 7 long months. Of sighs, questions, prayers, semi-depression and just when I thought I was all dried up, tears. The anger, pain, loss, disillusionment of the past months have manifested in rivers of tears I thought long dried up.
 Reviewing; Life in lessons

1. You don't ned your entire phone book of friends.

At my lowest and darkest hours, 6 people stood out. Make that 7, for Stella who left this sucky place 6 years back. But yes. I have been the un-official mother to tens of friends. Which means I have done the friending, checking-on part most of the time. When the tables turned; the sad but liberating truth came to life. Tabitha, Liza, Joel, Stella, Peron, Peace, Sarah N. And Steve, who eventually gave up on me. 8 people fought for my life and sanity. 8 people begged, coerced, confronted, prayed and cried until bit by bit, we got me back.
8 people saved my life. And that's not an exaggeration.

  2.  I give too much.
In "Bed of Lies" by Matchbox 20, Rob Thomas sang; "I tried to be more than me, and I gave until it all went away..."
I gave my love, my time, my attention, my...all to people, yes, people. Who took, and took, and when I was dried up, they all left. One by one, I watched the people who'd claimed so much love and care for me, walk away. 
Because I had no more to give.
Because I asked that dammit, for once, could I be on the receiving end? Could I be given the time, attention and love I was giving out?
I asked for more. I fought for more. I begged for more. And they walked. Because I was asking for too much. Because I wasn't understanding. Because I was dramatic.
Because I was exhausted.
I gave too much. They gladly took it and left me empty and dry.
But then I learned. C'est la vie.

3. People always leave.
In One Tree Hill, Peyton lost so much. To death. To other girls. And this became her mantra' "People always leave."
It's weird how after one breakup, you believe you'll never feel the same amount of hurt. Until the next break up. The next walk away. Then you know. That each breakup takes it's own piece of you. Each walk away brings in its own flood of tears.
Each goodbye comes with a dozen "Please don't leave mes." 
Each "I can't do this anymore" brings on a fresh unwanted supply of "But what the fuck is wrong with me's?"
Each" I am not so sure about us" leaves you drenched with countless " Why won't you be so sure about me, instead?
People leave. Your heart gets broken.
People forget you. Your heart hardens.
People move on or, go back. Your heart dissolves in low self-esteem and "I wish I was prettiers"
People make their choices. And it's not you.
You tell your heart to be still. There's only so many cracks-and aches-it-can-take-on. For the same people.
People leave. People leave. People leave.
And you live.

4. We invented the drama.
Maybe not so knowingly, but we did. We got into and stayed in places we shouldn't have gotten into in the first place.
Some wise fellow said that when actions and words differ, believe the actions. Actions don't lie. I am a writer so it's no surprise that I am a sucker for words. How word-love turned to foolery is...is human, I guess.
Your true friends love you even when depression means you don't want to party for months on end. When you're not so cheery and smiley, the people who love you will still adore you. Even when your self induced house arrest comes in, they will adore you. Over texts, calls, IMs and prayers.
This is cliche but true; when someone wants to be in your life, they make room for you. No amount of promises, flirting, sexting or pleading will get you onto the schedule of someone who doesn't want to make time for you.
You don't need to beg for the time of someone who wants to be in your life. Rain or shine. Miles be damned, someone who wants to see you will see you.
It's that simple. And that difficult.

5.  I tried self-sacrifice. I botched the job.
Because life is too damned unpredictable. Because I consider myself to be fairly clever but Lord, have I screwed up. And the worst screw up is, I lost the love of me. Somewhere along the way, I thought it romantic to be self-sacrificial. Asking. Begging. Taking crumbs. Not demanding for what I deserved, what I was promised.
I asked for promises to be fulfilled, I got accusations of not being understanding.
I asked for a break from the night life, I learned who my true friends were.
When I thought over giving wasn't stupid enough, I took on self-blame. Blame for a failed relationship. A relationship that needed two people to make it work. I shouldered all the blame. Blamed myself for "tying...insisting..." I believed them when they said this time, they'd make it work, then I took the blame when the promise fell through the cracks. Again. And again. And damned again.
I blamed myself. And hated myself. And questioned myself. And apologised, when I should have held my head high and asked for better treatment. For more sensitivity. For understanding.
Until a brilliant woman forced me to question my self doubt.
Until she held my crying face and forced me to look into the mirror and understand. Once and for all.
My only fault was loving too much. And forgetting the simple truth; when someone truly loves and cares for you, it shows.
You can't hide love. Also, love doesn't hurt. It feels good. Really good.

6.  Ever after.
It's been a tough road. The last 7 months haven't been easy. But I learned. To let my friends in, because they're God's earthly angels and life savers.
To forgive. God, it's hard. To forgive yourself.
To forgive someone who you've come to realize, never really cared.
To forgive the small things like not calling on your birthday to breaking promises on end.
To heal. I have taken time off for me. For once in years. I shut out the bars, the parties.
And read. Slept. Prayed. Cried. Fought with God. Wept.

Until the blackness started to lift. Until I stopped judging me by looks or, lack of looks. Brilliance or lack of enough brilliance. On who loved me and who left me.
Until I learned to take it one day at a time. One item, one list at a time.
Until I learned, again; to put me at the top of each list.

Because nobody can love me like I can.

StayTheSame; Message in a song.

I have not written anything in months. Not a single line. Well, there was the 5 lines of a brief but recurrent conversation I have with Stella. They say we should let the dead rest but I seem to be failing terribly at that. Every night, for the last three months, there have been one, two, three, lined conversations with the girl that somehow managed to make it easy for me to breakdown. Not get on to drugs and their friends breakdowns, no. Cry, sob, brood, stop-trying-to-hold-it-together sort of breakdowns. I adore my friends but I can't seem to be able to be that way with any of them. Horrible pain, death on the outside...I'll meet them and pull on the smiling mask. I have tried but it's not happening. Not soon enough. So I rant at Stella...and when my mind is just too clogged like it was this morning, I write. Silly, text-like paragraphs that I hope she'll somehow read and maybe, just maybe, ask God to let a miracle happen...and hear her voice. Or have her show up at my bedside so I can...un-choke...

I didn't get a reply to my book-text of course. Not the conventional written back response anyway. But I got a response. And now for the first time in months I opened my blog and didn't turn away in...self-loathing for failing to do the one thing I am remotely good at. Self-loathe because I feel I am letting down the God that gave me this...gift. Self-hatred because I have NOT read any blogs, books or magazines- I could not stand any written thing because they all looked back at me in derision, they mocked me for being a failure. I read Els' blog because she's my bestie and somehow, her writing, even back in school, was the only one I always felt...un-alienated to. Maybe it' s because in my silly head, she's one of my soulmates and even at my worst-worst-est, there's always a...connection.
More on Stella's reply;

I love music. Mildred says I love melancholic music. I do. So in search for strength to get me through  the day, I wrote to Stella first, then remembered that Plus One- the Gospel group always lifted me. Thanks to smartphones, I start to download some of their songs and this list of all their music shows up, I scroll to get "my" songs and right in the centre of this list is "Stay the same" by Joey McIntyre.
The connection with Stella?

That was "our" song. The song that got two, liitle (short is...disrespectful, people)...two little, volatile-tempered, fast-speaking, overflowing with pride and attitude but stuffed with...pain, that song made it easier. Pain brought on by first loves not going so smoothly, people who made it their business to poke, pinch, a school that made prison seem pretty attractive...That song was the one thing we could always quote to each other when life happened and our own words could not do. So I go "WTFH?" She answered my...filled-with-despair-and-I'm seriously-going-to-break-down-if-someone-does-not-find-me-fast message.
As soon as yesterday, as soon as the last three fucked up months.

The excitement was short lived though. No, I do not doubt that Stella actually looked down, turned to God and said,

"Listen. I know it's not Your way to do things that're not your perfect will, but my friend is gone. She's died a little more everyday. She's told Els, Tab, Sarah, Celia and Joel that she wasn't so okay but she didn't say how not okay. She's shut out every except You- who strangely are holding back from rescuing her and, me. And I get that this is your territory but that down there was part of my territory (aka, soul-mate) and You know well how stubborn, how strong-willed that...mateship...partnership was. I will not watch my friend wither away. I turned her world black once before and if she doesn't get...help, she's going to turn some few worlds dark. Soon. So, I'm going down. With or without You God, I'm reaching for Moe's heart, and soul, and mind. Not showing up physically...that quite can't happen but I'll...reach. I'll reach in a way she'll know for sure is me letting her know I listened. I never stopped. It might be after 6 years, but dammit Makuba, I never left you. Now listen to that song, fall apart all you want, then let's get you back to living.

And nope, you can't come be with me, Moe. Not yet. You will, you will. Just not yet. Live the life we'd mapped out. There's been too many changes, I know. Too many and too unhappy.

Stop stiffling, stop fighting, stop trying to not feel. It is okay to be in pain. It's okay to be without enthusiasm for...anything or...anyone. It's perfectly normal to want to run away. It's okay to...lose the fight in you. It's okay to...not want to fight for...friendships and relationships that you cherish so damn much because sometimes, the fight is what takes the warmth and fire out of them. It's okay not to want to...remind the people you care for of your presence...if they don't remember...it'll pinch but babe...you'll live. You will not be this person anymore. For you. For me. For the ones who...care. And you will remember that just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to, doesn't mean they don't love you with all of them.

You used to be brilliant, what's been going on, woman? Whom have you been hanging with? Shit will happen. But you can't go down any further Moe, you've sort of hit rock bottom. And we know how off tangent you can go. In your silly head, it's attractive but the plan was to leave the stage with applause ringing..not glitzy applause but to leave a few hearts glad they got to know you. But you're at the point where if you left now...there'd not be a lot of gladness. It is life. It can't not change. It can't be sunny and rosy all year round, it can't be clean and laugh-ey. But you can't change with each season.

Look where that's gotten us.

Now people are going to think you've actually lost it. Truth be told, they always thought so ;-).
Be brave Moe.
Start fighting for your dreams. Again. And again. And again. In the meantime, stay the same. Mwaahs. Mwaahs. Flowing love. For always."

That is my crazy mind's analysis of this morning's...happenings. Maybe it's silly that I think my friend spoke to me through a song...maybe I'll still be unhappy tomorrow. But it's not silly that my Android music app said "Stay the same"  was from an album titled "Plus One". Maybe it's silly that I know of three people who like me, seek for solace in the arms of people who've left this world.
Maybe today is the day my mojo got back from vacation?
Who cares?

I have written for the first time in months and that feels...good enough. I'll question the strange journey my mind is taking on another day.

For the first time in weeks, I got a...sign that there is a light at the end of this dark tunnel. And sometimes, that's all you need. A sign- that life isn't over. That the fight is still on. That you lost some battles but you're not out.

That it's time.
To snap the heck out of depression. That it's not as easy as writing that last statement was. That there will be withdrawals and bad days, and sleepless nights but there'll also be smiles and love and hugs and Coke and...and friends...wonderful friends; the people who will not let you go down that easy. The people that will move mountains and do what it takes to shoo the darkness out of you. Even if it means reaching down from heaven and sending the message through a mobile phone mp3 down-loader.

I was at a dangerous low this morning and my 'Ella reached for me.

I have been at a dangerous low for months and my friends have been reaching for me, but with each reach, I've been slipping further away. Now, I'll let them hold my hand.

This is for the girls who have fought for me and my sanity over the last three months.
For the friends who have checked because they love and care and not because " You've been quiet/ lost Momo/ some chucking...blah fucking blah."
Yes. I am mad and hurt by everyone who's checked because I have not checked on them in a while. Maybe it's unreasonable but does it cross your mind that I need to be checked on? Once in a-three-months-while?

For Els who has...I can't find the words, and I just teared up, you osso. Thank you my love. For prying, then retreating, then prying again, then getting tough. Even if I avoided it all. Thank you for always fighting for me. In your silent, Google chat way. Thank you for not walking, even when the walls refuse to budge.

And Tab who loves me enough to have dreams of scarily-unhappy me. For reading my silence and disappearance better than anyone else I know or claims to know me. For fighting with me because I was shutting out everyone. For insisting that I talk. Even if that didn't happen, I love you. Because the first fight we ever had stemmed from you not willing to let me give up, but most of all, you not willing to let me fight alone.

For Sarah. My Mere..I heart you. For telling me to fight on my knees but being sensitive enough to not push it. For constantly checking on me even with just days left to bringing our little miracle to this world. For being my friend.

For Joel...Thank you Sunshine. For trying to see me, for checking, for letting me be. For that beautiful piece on the book group. I will make it up to you. All the cancelled dates. And you can choose what I'll wear. Pinky promise.

For Agnes and Betty, my spriritual mentors.

For God...who always finds a way in. With me, it's always been the same routine. Through my friends. My angels of friends.

For Stella. Who for the first time in 6 years, actually answered, and just on time. I miss you 'Ella. God, I miss you.

For me.
Because I wrote. Because I am giving myself permission to be happy. To stop trying to do it all. Because I don't know when/ if I'll write again. Because I know that what I can do, what I have, are not the only determinants of who I am. Because I read Mildred's blog. And ULK. Because it's been too long and too hard but I finally read other people's work. And got Google Reader on my phone.

To Android and smartphones, banaye!
Without them, this day would have gone and ended very differently. Badly differently.

To life. I am back.

No. I don't have to

be strong all the time.

I am allowed a few melt downs.
I cannot always find that determination that kept me afloat on those past horrible days.
Sometimes, I just CAN'T reach it. Or find it.
Sometimes, I will let the pain and the sadness and the sheer load that life can sometimes be, show in my eyes.
And I apologise if that scares you.
If the realisation that I too can get overwhelmed, frightens you, I apologise. For feeling.
For not masking yet another shitty 72 hours at the back of an already crowded room of masks and pretences.
Maybe tomorrow,
Maybe next week,
Or next month,
I will wake up one morning and shoosh the shadows to their hiding place. Maybe.
Not now. The strength to pull the actress mask on for you, I do not have.

be cheery, smiley and bubbly.

Because first of all, that is totally unnatutal.
Extremely.
And maybe I have myself to blame. For showing you and the rest of the world what you want to see. Maybe it's on me-that less than 5 of the people in my world don't judge me on the days I don't have any filled-with-wit-and-sarcasm come-backs to any of the conversations going on.
Sometimes, it's because my witty self has been clouded and taken over by my sad self who if you read the previous paragraph,  rightfully deserves the lead position once in a while.
Sometimes, it's because I DON'T have anything to say. It happens.
More than anyone could even begin to imagine.

The truth is I am more comfortable with my own silence.
I am extremely picky about the people I spend time with.
I adore my friends. Especially the ones who know when to not push chat sessions that have already gone too far.
Or insist on getting the words out on my silent days.
I am dreadfully shy and realised years ago, that people will term you proud, aloof and arrogant for loving your space.
The idiot I was then, turned to bubbly-ness in desperate attempts to be normal.
I didn't like being called proud. Or arrogant.

The lesser idiot that is typing this is done trying.
I am...me.
My best friends have not been made or found at the loudest parties. They didn't meet me at my most "alive-ness"
It was in those rare silences. On the don't-have-anything-to-say days.
It was at the time when those I thought knew me disappeared.
They went away- they couldn't deal with silent me. Maybe they'd drop by tomorrow.
Stay if they found the me they wanted.
The me that suited their selfish, shockingly ignorant and awesomely hypocritical egos, ego-esses, and insecurities.

I am NOT responsible for anyone's happiness.
I am not ordained in the-making-everyone-smile-every-day profession.
I am not a plastic doll. That means that who I am today might not make it to tomorrow.
It also means that yesterday's smile might not be here today.
The laughing eyes might be minus-expression in the next hour.
I am not going to be the buffer that brightens everyone's crappy days.
Let my frown be.
It has more claim to my face than any of the fake smiles I've been wearing for people who will not smile for me on the days I can't find the sun.
The me today has not even a single fear of any all labels anti-social.


Find you own smiles, for fuck's sake.

borrowing a title; for women who are "difficult" to love.

I have not written, well typed in the longest time. I have written though. On paper. I have gone back to writing the way I used to know it. Maybe its because of this job that requires I jot down just about everything. There are post-it notes around me. Two work notebooks. Two fill-my-bags-all-the-time personal ones. Filled with to-do lists, bucket lists, blogs to read, books to buy...and then the real words. Phrases that drift by during hour-long briefings. Sentences that come through while I try to re-word pages-long work files. Paragraphs that I sneak in during the first 20 minutes of the lunch break.
There are scattered and incoherent lines all over my notebooks.

I am writing the way I used to write in high school and at university. I wrote on the covers, mid-pages of my class work books.On my palms. That used to infuriate my mother.
Now I buy my own clothes, so I take more care.

Words are the only constant in my life. Even when I behave in a way that makes Blair Wolforf seem pretty tame, they never leave. They are not like my sleep patterns which are highly unpredictable. Nowhere to be found all night, all over my face at 10am.

Also, I have the world's bestest bestie.

She sent me a link to some of the most beautiful writings I have come across. Not the heady-in-your-face kind, no. The...flutter-by, settle-upon and touch-the-most-core-parts-of-you sort.
So I read a poem. I read it and just sat there...staring. Re-reading. Wondering. How someone else could capture so clearly, so simply and yet so honestly, your entire mesh of fears, insecurities, worries and lonely thoughts. How another woman on another continent probably sat down to write about herself and ended up writing about me and several other women. How another woman put pen to paper and brought to life all the aches, all the self-doubting questions, all the years of masking, of trying to be..."normal"...just so someone (usually, some man), could love you. Could accept you.
Could stop to try changing the chaotic mind and not-willing-to-be changed spirit that is you.

There are women who are born..."normal". They're pretty.
And soft.
They play keep-house. They like dolls(urrrghhh). They don't question. They are quiet. They dance without barely moving a limb.

Then, there are the women who always grabbed at the pens in their father's shirt-pockets. They played scrabble. They could not understand dolls. They understood books. A LOT. They found peace in their solitude because it was easier. Easier to lock yourself in your cousin's room at her birthday party and read a good book, because the other girls are playing house and dear Lord, that ish was just so common, so dull, so exhausting, so un-original. Francine Pascal was your best friend. And Elizabeth Wakefield was the character you felt closest to.

And when you started to dance....

Some women are born to have it easy.
God gives them the traits that make it easy to love them.
Lucky, lucky women.

Some women burst onto the planet with so much energy, searing passion and the inability to master the art of slowing down.
Fast walking. Fast reading. Fast writing of class work so they could go back to Enid Blyton.
Wonder how I got the scar under my left eye.
Then the world asks them to stop. When they don't listen, it punishes them and says it will hurt them some more if they do NOT stop.
Bruises. Scars. Permanent sadness. Constant failure to settle in. Majority of your friends are boys. They don't try to make you giggly.

Until they start to bring on the pain.
The worst sort.
You fight and damn near defeat the demons that nearly snuffed the life outta your spirit, only for the people you think will help fan them to full brightness to walk in and stamp out the small, delicate embers you'd began to light.
You shut out anyone with the makings of a light dimmer, you let in people who you believe get you.

And then, you hurt them. Badly.
Your entire world is falling apart and you hurt the one person you probably need around the most.
For the first time in over four years, you break down and cry. And the only person you tell this is the one who walks away. The one person whose hug you need the most will not give you their shoulder.
But you hurt them. So why would they want to make your day a bit brighter?

Because you would never walk away at the time when they most need you.
Because you tried.
Because you were in pain.
Because you opened yourself up at your most vulnerable and told them you were d.y.i.n.g.
Because you're styupeed.
Because walking should NOT be that easy.
Because you're searching for the pain that you thought would consume you and its not there.

Because you met a stranger, a woman who called you beautiful.
She said you deserved deep, committed, will-last-through-the-ugly-days sort of love.
She told you to wipe the pain from your eyes. To let the hurt go. She said you needed to forgive yourself.
She reminded you that you deserved to be happy.
Good, bad, perfectly put together, t-shirt and sweats, hair perfectly coiffured, messy tousles, you deserved to be loved and cared for and worried over.
No half measures.

And you believed her :-) Really, you did.
Then your bestie sent you the link and you thank God for the constants. For the friends that never go away.
You make each day easier, prettier, smile-ier and I am a lucky woman.
Difficult to love on some days. Easy on others.
Deserving love on all.

"For women who are "difficult" to love"- Warsan Shire( Look for the poem. Its the "For colored girls" of 2012.)

Moe.
With love.

Alive. Well. And Smiling.

It is weird how life can punch you so hard in the gut one day...and then elevate you to nearly-blacking-out joy the next day.
On some page in Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "Love In The Time of Cholera", a character who's been recently widowed points out( thinks...out?) how the people whom one loves should take their things with them when they die. I agree.
But in relation to the people who...leave or whom you leave. They should go with their memories, the shared moments, the feelings...they should all be taken too.
Because it's painful. It is sheer torture to be left with mind-refreshers of what was. It is simply too tedious to remain with memories that in my case, are being pushed out of my mind with each ounce of strength and self-will that I can summon.

When the good-byes have been said, the memory slate should be wiped clean. Because memories of what used to be don't exactly bring any sort of serenity or melancholic happiness. They make you sad. And achey. Then more sad. Then, mad.
At the universe.
At your creator.
And at yourself. Those moments when you're able to detatch yourself from emotion and think/ look at the situation realistically, you get angry at yourself for...being an idiot.
Then your heart-mind combo that you just insulted re-plays a memory; one of the nice ones and you stop questioning your intelligence.
You are only human.
It is okay.
You will be fine. Really. You will.

You move through the motions. Pain. Hurt. Numbness. Questioning of your mind's working processes. You spend two days trying to not let yourself get overwhelmed by all feelings nasty and negative.
Two days of working, friend-ing, family-ing and trying to NOT feel. Then you get convinced that you might have to deal with all this chaos for a longer while. It won't go away just because you are willing it to.
So you accept. And brace yourself for all those quirky mannerisms that really translate to you dealing. Furious reading, over-working, falling in even deeper love with your music collection. And, careful avoidance of friends. You will NOT talk about this.
Over my pile of ashes ( guess where I borrowed that from?)
Then as you finally allow the mess in, it...goes. Not totally, no.

You are aware that you've lost something you really and truly valued...but you also know that it would have drained you. If you had not let it go, it would have gone from happiness-bringing, care-receiving-and-giving, mushy-turning..it would have lost its entire beauty.
And then the memories of that...those would have been dark and ugly.

Everyone deserves to be happy.
Everyone has the right to decide who brings them the most happiness and to stay with that person.
And everyone should bloody know when to walk. When to let go. Or, try to let go.
Life can be harsh. And plain mean. And confusing.
But life always lets us choose.

So I made my choice. The choice that choked me for the past two days.
A choice that took someone I had grown to care for so deeply away from me.
I let go of the one person that I currently want around the most.
Because life gave me the situation. But I made the choice.
Sometimes, the hardest thing and the right thing are the same.
Sometimes, separation brings clarity. The sort of clarity that togetherness doesn't really accord you. You look back and realize that you were playing risk games with your heart. You finally ask yourself, "Did I ever think of how this would end? Did I ever stop to ask myself if I honestly believed that maybe, just maybe, they would choose me? Really?"

I made my choice and spent close to three days bearing a great amount of pain. Then I decided to let myself face the pain, and asked God to hold me together. I was not going to break down. No.
Everyone deserves to choose whom they want to take their journey with.
And sometimes, you're the one who gets left behind. There's Meredith and Allison.
And you're one or the other.
You can't be both.

Almost three days of aching and you wake up with a song in your heart. You slept almost-quite-perfectly and you wake up minus the heaviness.
So you try to recall if you got intoxicated the night before. But you were home by 7pm.
Then you recall the prayer that was your last conscious thought before you slept off.

"Dear God, at the risk of sounding silly, I can't quite find any verse in your book that speaks to my current situation. No chapter on aching hearts and difficult goodbyes. But I know that you care. Even if I am currently furious at you. Please, please. Please, Lord, make me better. Hold me together. I miss smiling. I need the joy that surpasses and brings all understanding.
Please, God. Please. Hold me. Moe."

Also, there was the IM from your very wise friend that said something about God having a better and higher plan.
You tell your heart that's leaping to every dance-y song to cool it, too much of something can osso be bad. Be-gone, euphoria.
You calm down and tell yourself you'll face the day, second by second.
And you do. A few pangs. Several reminders. Way too much missing-ness. But way less aching.
And that's a good start.
Or, a good third day.


For Maux.
Because she smiled today. A lot.

On the wrong side of right. I think.

Passion. Fate. Friendship. Depth. Intimacy.
Bloody, majorly sucky timimg.
Confused? Me too. Join the party.
Welcome to the elements that have conspired to make me giddy happy and indescribably sad at a go. No. The elememts that conspired against me and have slowly but surely and successfully managed to create a sad, achey albeit happy tale.

And the gods. You have to give it to them. At least, I do.
You win. I allow. You take the gold. For a chance at a beautiful and amazing...thing. For lack of a better word because"relationship" feels like I'm cheating. Lying to myself. Being stupidly and mouse-like blind.

FATE IS A WOMAN.
And when I finally do get to meet her, I will not kick or yell at her. I will bow down at her feet. Confess my boundless admiration for the bitch the bitch is/ can be. Then, I'll calmly ask to be her protege. Right after I have learnt all her sick, heart-breaking, dream-busting and happiness-busting tricks, I will throw her off her high and lofty throne, make her human and wreck malicious havoc on her life. I'll let her live long so till the day she dies, I can still mess her up.
Also, I will mess up other humans. I am a woman please. Fate shall just be my biggest project.

What do you do when you have to let someone go? Someone whose only crime is...perfection? Not angel-like, I've-neve-sinned-a-day-in-my-life sort of perfection.
No. Can anyone stand that?
I mean...someone who is a perfect fit to you? Quirks, perks, issues, inch-high temper, semi-craziness, major vulnerablity, sickness that seems to have picked the last three months to pay continous visits to your system...how do you come ladden with all this, and still find someone who without a doubt cares deeply for you?
How do you finally find friendship, support, laughter, brilliance that quite easily beats your own (which by the way, is major. Ahem.), and not be able to have it?
You convince yourself that all the people who could possibly get your outrageous mind are all taken or...dead...(RIP Mae West.)
You meet some of these people and you start to finally feel you belong. But what fate doesn't tell you is that, this person will get you. This person will go from being a make-work more interesting mate to...the person who for the first time in your entire dating/ flinging/ semi-love history that you will let yourself be vulnerable with. Not over flat tyres.

Over things you previously thought would either scare people away or not have their gravity understood. So you spend the day puking out your innards from the latest migraine attack, you spend the day with your dreams on the collapsing train because your work is not fun anymore, but tell your significant other you're fine.
Because you worry that telling him about the migraine from hell or the asthma attack from...out of the blue will scare him away...or that he'll give an arse-like answer to lost-job-love such as" at least you have a job...some people..."

I am NOT vying for sainthood. When I'm in the down and low zone, I don't want reminders of my luck at my being employed. I want support. And understanding. And attempts to make me smile. And practical help; point me in the direction of something that will make me love Public Relations again.
And then fate comes a-calling. She doesn't knock, the ill-mannered woman. She glides in. Un-noticed. One of only few females who don't love attention. She'll patch onto your shoulder and right when you think you've made another great friend, Fate telepath-messages Cupid...and the two busy-bodies proceed to entangle you in a twist so viciously calculated, you want to tell professors to revise calculus syllabi.
Fate and her friends create better and more complex puzzles and problems.

When you have spent your entire life masking your weaknesses, when you have been the first born that's not allowed to cry or make mistakes or be a child because well, you are a first born, when you have hidden the intensity of some of your illnesses from even your closest friends because you will not let them see you cry and turn red from horrible headaches...you get accustomed to that.
You become the perfect first born. The friend who tries to thoroughly love and protect all her friends and the daughter who makes her mama sunny-bright proud of her.

You forget with the years, how it feels like to cry. Over the breaking of your favourite CD.  You forget how it feels to be weak and human because you don't know how your friends will react to you crying. Not at a funeral. But over a bad day, a love that wasn't love at all. A job that's starting to suffocate you.
You forget what it's like to be a woman. You click your heels and be witty and proceed to best-friend God.

But God doesn't text. Or hug-lift you off the ground. Or check on your currently skiddy health.
God doesn't make you feel things you last felt with the release of Twilight 1.
God doesn't make you smile silly, silly smiles all day, all week and not be scared to be thought cuckoo by your workmates.
God allows you to be vulnerable. He does.
In the dark of your bed room or in a quiet, peaceful chapel.

But then, you have spent the last 20+ years suffering from the God-complex. You are tired of closed-room break downs. You are fed up with being damn strong. You're done masking throbbing migraines because you don't want to be the party pooper and have dates and friends leave early.
You're done.

So you slowly let in this person. You breed a monster as you let your usually stoic self show sides to you not even your closest friends have seen. You become a pile of major, jelly-like mush and somehow, somehow you're not self-conscious, or mentally dissing yourself for being...that way.

You're being silly but happy. You're caring about someone but you're being cared for as well. Sometimes, even more. You're excited but you're also calm. Because unlike most of your past closeness-building scenarios, this one has a great deal of solid about it. So even when for whatever reason you go a day without talking, you don't spend hours analysing all the possible ways you could have screwed up and gotten un-attractive over night.
You try to be a better person because you are imperfect and sometimes hurt and annoy this person but you're not scared of screwing up.
Because while said person doesn't take your...errr...crap, they also don't de-mean you in an attempt at bringing maturity into your sometimes childish self.

This is when Fate sweeps in and does a number on you. A major, number that leaves you up at 3am listening to Christina Perri and telling your heart that heart ache and loss are around the corner, she'd better get prepared (at least this time you saw it coming), you try to mentally prepare for the time when this person has to be set free, you tell yourself that God, the universe, has a better person in store.
But this is as better as it gets. I think.

Fate leads you to an amazing being of a man. And then Fate says you can't have him.

You smile but are ambushed by constant, subtle and sometimes loud reminders that this has a shelf-life. You attempt to cry but wah. Nada. Tears deserted you ages ago.

All you have are your words. Even those somehow fail you for weeks on end.
So you give up the battle to get answers from deities and gods who play let's screw-up-unsuspecting-humans games for fun. You convince yourself that the person in store for you will rock majorly more than this.
But you also can't help thinking..."What if I'm one of those people? what if the rest of my life is going to be a movie sound-tracked by Hinder's Lips of an angel?
Just, what if...this is as close as I get to almost.....(GULP) falling in love?
The real deal?"
Because while you're quite happy with what you have, you're not brave enough to fall all the way.

Some wounds never quite heal.
Some scars never quite fade away.
The break from such a fall would leave some massive injuries. And tell-tale scars.

You sit at your work desk and pour your emotional mess onto your blog because you do not want to even think of talking to any of your friends about this.
Not because they're not amazing friends or because they will judge you and be cynical.
They will hug you, and check on you every 5 minutes, but most of all, they will see you vulnerable.
And you don't do vulnerable well. Well...with some people, you actually do.

So you stop youself from fearing the future. You know you will be okay. Somehow.
You have horrible days and lonely, scared nights because you know you're the running sort who's not above sending a 4am "I can't do this anymore" text.
Because you do want to do this.
You make peace with the fact that, a good number of years from now, you will be happily married and mothering some beautiful children but might occassionally think of this person.
And what could have been.
Then you'll sit your children down and tell them of life's real issues. Not Harvard graduates whom they should emulate or your success which they should strive to achive.

The real problems, the real issues, are the ones you're never prepared for.
And the worst of the lot are the ones that come coated with bitter-sweet icing.
The ones that come bearing inexplicable complexities and make you question your creator. And His sometimes not-funny-way of doing things.
The real problems are the ones where smiles and aches quite easily go together.
And bear equal intensity.

Also, and most of all, you thank God and the universe.
Even you, Fate. Eh? You rightfully deserve a mention.
You thank the powers that run this universe for all things deep, tender, sweet, mushy, strong, caring, brilliant.
You thank them for wrapping this in 6'1 feet of darkness and awesomeness.

Then you post this. And go home. To lonely thoughts. And Christina Perri.


For...
You know yourself.

And to my friends; I shall not be taking or answering any questions.
This time, let me be.
Please.
Especially you, Yasmin. (that is said with love.)

Moe.

Hold me. Embrace me. Intoxicate me...; On Support Systems.

I am a deeply stoic being. But I am also a vulnerable woman.
The trials, the life-punches-the first-bornism, the-never ending appearance of pain, hurt, disappointment and inhumanity have made me stoic. What are you going to do when the would-be-love-of-your-life is already taken?

She is lucky, the one that got him first. In the next life, not only will I beat her to him, I will get into and fill his entire system until kryptonite begs to be re-defined.

I met a man I like. Really like. Except this man was a surprise-like. Here I was, trying to forget Mr.-But-are-you-back-for-good-or-not-out of my life or into it?( It is complicated. Very. Extremely), and he appears.
Not a single romantic or lusty thought towards that man. None. Just total admiration for the brilliance that he is.
P.S- Did I mention that brilliant, brilliant and gifted men do hazardous things to my system? I am sorry, Mr. Pretty-as-a-pin. Brains. Not chiseled jaws.

There was a time in my life not so far back, when everything seemed to be falling apart. My dreams were draining the life out of me, the man who never leaves me had just made a re-appearance, the corporate world was showing its ass-holey side; brilliance, not-so-bad-looks and talent don't get you up the corporate ladder. They get you on the wrong side of the dumb, ugly, unflattering-walking and flat behind-ed bitch who has mastered the art of spotting betterness a mile away, and smothering it.
Don't smirk too long, witch. I am gifted. The gods favoured me. And the hips help.
Two years, and I will be bringing the Blair Waldorf in me to life. I'll make Waldorf seem like a very, very, bad amateur. And God, will I B.Y.A.T.C.H.. .
Oh, you didn't know? I don't forgive and forget. I remember. And plan. And stick my heel into your heart.
I can hardly wait.

The world is such that even the we who consider ourselves strong and hardened and able-to-face-anything, we the ones who will smile when every bit of ourselves is crumbling apart, the world is made in a way that even we, we fall.
Hard. Bad. We swerve off course so suddenly and at such full speed, that no one sees it coming. When people like me hit rock bottom, it is NOT rock bottom. It is the part beneath the layer underneath the section that holds the parts that support rock bottom.
It is horrific. You watch yourself fall apart daily, you watch your self intoxicate with substances you know for a fact will not make things better, you turn off your phones, go to the bar and further self-destruct. You laugh and dance with your friends and hope, pray, that one-just one friend will glimpse the death that now resides in your eyes but your friends do not. Not because they don't care, but because you, the perfect actress has learnt to layer the death in her eyes with the light she wants the world to see.
And light, they will see.
Until one of them approaches dangerous territory. And asks. "Are you okay?"
And the ego-ess that you have bred so well jumps to attention, to declare how you've never been better...but somehow the heart, that precious thing you have silenced for so long, with one last effort, shuts Miss Ego up and says," No, I am not okay. I have not been okay in months. And I am perilously close to falling off the edge. No, Sarah, I am not okay."

Ladies and gentlemen, I am a masker. My pain and hurt discovered they are happier hiding in gin bottles. Not friends' shoulders. But pain and hurt didn't count on Sarah Nsubuga. My recently-found soul mate(yes, the relationship was rushed. Feelings do those things to you.)

So, this post is to thank the women who have held me up for the last four months of my life. Women who have IM-d me, texted me, cancelled appointments to speak sense and encouragement into me, women who have gotten me intoxicated because at the time, that is ALL I wanted. And women who have and still are slowly, but surely leading me back to God.

Acan Sara and Kahunde Lauryne.
My big sisters. Who get me fed, then totally drunk. We talk men,and life, and work and God...and Faith. We dance to Mark Morrison and whomever old school musician that Steak Out decides to play at rock night.
I feel for those two bar men who always serve us. We have scandalized them to levels I dare not analyse.
But I really don't care if their prim& poor-service selves have been open to conversations strictly-meant-for-bridal-showers.
I have had two of the world's best biggest sisters with me during some of the crappiest moments of this year.
The bar men shall live.

Akiiki Tuhaise.
Thank you Akiiki, for cooking me the most delicious meals....and concocting those deliriously-mind-altering cocktails while I lazily watch your TV.
Thank you for letting me feel secure in the knowledge that I am not alone-in my ability to beef, block out people and not feel a thing about it. Banange, that helped. The thought that I was the only being capable of such hardness was not so light a burden.
Now there is me, and you and all those intoxicants.
I heart you immensely, Akiiki.
For giving this first born the chance to be baby-ied.
Bisous.

Aimle Caroline and Melanie Kaita.
Two best friends who couldn't possibly be any more different.
Two brilliant, brilliant, gifted and crazy women.
Two women who love the LORD so much and who have subtlety, sarcastically, mercilessly, relentlessly and effort-fully led me back to God.
Most things in life happen for a reason. Meeting these women was one of them. Out of what would have otherwise been a disastrous situation, came the relentless push to pursue my dreams. The real ones. Not the ones the world I thought I should pursue.
At a time when walls were crumbling and life-long securities were losing their sheltering abilities, came in these two women. Armed with the strength of battalions and the energy of the Red Bull making factory. I swear.
Giving me books to read, showing me how to pray, praying with me, re-minding me of who I really am.
Minus the heels, and lipstick and wit.
I am my father's child. And for this year, this has been the greatest reminder.
Mela. Carol.
Thank you. For not taking my insecurities and worries and fears lightly. For knowing about the horrors that plague my life but still looking at me through un-tainted eyes. For laughing, scolding and teaching. For constantly checking on me.
For being my friends.

Sarah Nsubuga Senyonyi
My Mere to me-Yang.
That is from Grey's anatomy. Sarah is happily married so I had to find a spot that hadn't been taken yet. He is the love of her life.
I am her soul mate. Shared love of all things meaty, a bit of snobbishness, deep love for well-written books and the friendly-but-serious competition to be Maya Angelou in the next life. Or meet her first in this one.
Have I mentioned that she cooks like a charm?( Lucky love of her life)
Sarah and I have one of those unexpected friendships.
But the things I tell this woman....are things I have failed to tell some of my longest-lasting friends.
Maybe it helps that she sits next to me( We work for the same company), or maybe it's because, unlike the rest of the world that sees me in heels and passes judgement, she sees me in heels, lipstick, singing to weird rock music and still looks at the woman behind it.
For a Christian woman to know my flaws, my recurring mistakes, my erroneous decisions but still support me unconditionally, rub the injuries when once again, I shoot myself in the foot and to believe in me enough- to encourage me to take the paths that will better me, reward me and give life back to my passion.
For a woman of high such high and unshakable principles, to know the dirty on me, and still be my Meredith-loving, unassuming, and tough when necessary, I can only say....Thank you, O so very much.
I love You.
And I promise not to show up at your bedroom door, semi-depressed and ask Mr. to push over, or go to the couch. ;-)

My control systems, my sanity re-storers, my red-coloured hair and Joshua Radin addicted guardians, my party sisters...Thank You.
Without you, rehab for me might be a very real possibility right now.
Love. Love. And, more Love.

"I have been alone, when I am surrounded by friends,
 how could the silence be so loud???
 But I still go on-knowing that I have got you...."
     
                                                    "Ave Maria"
                                                     Beyonce Knowles.

THE STATE OF ME.

So my new lady love whom I gushed about in a previous post asked me to whip up a post on THE STATE OF ME. 
Its part of a blogging meme started by http://angelakintu.com/ , another blogger. And because I welcome any excuse to gush about my tres hot and vivacious self, I jumped at the opportunity. Yes, I am going to go on about my favourite topic; ME. Be prepared please. Shocks are bound to happen. Gasps even.
This woman is going to spill the beans and provide the dirt on herself. The real, dark and muddy dirt. No masks.
We go.

I have a big heart.

Literally.
I have the hugest heart ever. While the truth is it accommodates a few, well-chosen individuals, my heart is still big. I do not know how to feel in halves. I do not know how to love but hold back half of myself . I do not know how to be a friend but not help you fight your battles.. I have never understood the point in staying in a relationship that doesn't make you happier or smile-ier. Because I am the woman that will love her lovers, her friends and her families with every inch of my heart, mind and soul.
And on a really good day for the lovers, I will throw in my body. Or a bit of my body, anyway.
I am a Gemini. And passion is my blood.

This....and more.

I am shallow. Excessively so. People who are not well spoken and well written turn me off. Literally. I turn up my nose at them and make no effort to hide it. I use the ability to do cross words as an S.I unit for any man running after me. Yes. A girl's gotta have her words.
I am not above judging you because you wore the wrong top for even wrong-er jeans. I am also not shy about sneering at people who think Ragga Dee and Soulja Boy can do any sort of singing. On a day when I'm in the really-narrow-minded-and-judgemental zone, I will dismiss any sort of seriousness in your persona just because I think watching "How I met your mother" spells serious humour dysfunction.
Friends rules.

Shut up already.

I am thoroughly self conscious. My hips give me day and nightmares. The things have a mind and life of their own. I'm still uncomfortable when people look at them pointedly.

Me is a caffeine addict. Happy junkie. Coke, coffee...any time.

I love good food. Crappy food gets me cranky. And totally bitchy. So does crappy restaurant service. I've been known to write burning reviews on hopeless eating places.

I LOVE GOD. I cannot break that down.

I do not comprehend meals that are meat-less. Vegetables are not meant to be a major sauce. Ground nuts are evil. Matooke is NOT food.


I am 5'2 tall.
I love heels. Mostly because of the 5'2 factor.

SHOESES!!!!

I am attracted to men who are much, much taller than me. Something about tilting my head a bit to look into their eyes. And get me a snog.
Dark, manly men get my blood racing. The light and pretty ones make me think of....make-up. Making them up.
Sean Connery is one of my greatest loves.

Clooney has my heart.

I LOVE MY FAMILY. Mama, Martha, Arnold and Lindah, I would kill for.

I suffer from migraines. So, no chocolates please. I am trying to get off red wine. It's not easy.

I want to be a vampire in the next life. A smouldering, female vamp.
Or a man. So I can get the big deal with booty.

I am the world's bestest grudge holder. I block people out when they hurt me. In their place, I see dark spaces. Or voodoo dolls which I stab with my mind-needles.

I have never had a true or real love. I have had love, but I always left when things started to get un-pretty. Because I don't think love should hurt. Or demean. Or smother. So, I am a runner. Me and my friends await the one who will catch me. We're praying for him because, if I haven't said this, let me. My mental wires are loose. Perilously loose.

I have a shocker of a temper. I have broken crockery in fits of anger. And verbally broken people.
And slapped someone. I love you, my pretty.

I love gin. Seriously. I love gin.

I love, love, love to read. Anything written gets me.
I love to write. I was born to write. Writing is my life line. When I'm not typing away, I write in my mind. Most of that fades away, though.
My bed is my favourite place. I love the water. The ocean-type of water. One day, I hope to own a beach house. Complete with a cocktail genius of a bartender.

Somethin' like this.

Rock music is one, big soundtrack to my life.

I am insanely private. I do not let people see me cry. I do not let people see me broken. Unless I am intoxicated.

I believe in love. And fidelity. Cheating men have no place in my life.

I cherish my me time. No men, no friends. Just me and my thoughts. I have been called anti-social. And I do not care.

I have a tattoo.
I am still learning. Still growing. Still getting to know God. Still fighting demons and ghosts from the past.

But I am a strong one.
And will emerge victor.

Calling it; STATE OF ME AS AT 13:10 hrs. Friday, 02 September, 2011.

Dealing. Faith. Breathing.

I have the most murderous thoughts going through my mind.
Gruesome images of body-mutilation and stabbing and choking. Not of myself please. I am way too narcissist to consider putting my pretty self through any physical pain. I want to hurt you. In ways I haven't wanted to hurt anyone since the day they went and cancelled Friends. Okay. It wasn't that bad. Still.
I want to hurt you for hurting me and for being the biggest asshole this side of the planet. I want to hurt you because you re-define callous and reckless. And heartless. Yes. You, the-one-that-I-just-let-go-of are the universal definition of heartless.
And I am the universal definition of proud and strong-headed and mentally-loose-ish. At least by your standards. So, what the hell was a brilliant girl like myself even doing getting close to a...person like yourself?
Brilliant girl is not seeking answers. It is a rhetorical question.

This is meant to really hurt.

Alcohol is my drug. Gin is my bestest friend. Somewhere up there next to God-when I am not venting and telling Him to leave me alone.
And those Black Russians? Man, oh man...Vodka and rum are my comforters. Especially when it seems all my guardian angels are taking a very long and extended break from me. Alcohol helps me deal.
Stella used to. Then she just had to go and die. How so real-life-like. For the one person you allow yourself to be broken with, the one person you can cry with, to die in the year when real life and all its complications start to happen.

I miss you. Always.

There is Celia. But then she works in Nairobi. Convenient right? I should learn to cry over the phone. Except that will be quite frustrating for poor Celia and damaging to my smart phone.
Where on earth is Michael when I need him desperately? What's a woman to do when the very persons who are her warm arms and I-can-be-my-messy-and-currently-weepy-self with people are not within a boda ride's reach?
Said woman turns to alcohol.

My bestest....well. One of...

Dealing is difficult. Dealing is painful. Letting go is exhausting. Moving on sounds so easy when Oprah says it. In real life, moving on first of all requires you get out of bed in the morning. And getting out of bed is the hardest thing to do when you have to move on. There should be a warning manual for the twenties. Life gets foggier, friends get...complex and judgmental, God becomes a disturbingly distant figure and the Bible ceases to make sense.
Snogging people you have no right or business snogging becomes well....very likely.

Dear God.
At what point did life take such a ferociously dramatic turn? How did the aches, pains, sores, wounds pile up without me realising it?Why the hell does my spell check thingie insist on me spelling realise with a z? I am a product of British, NOT American colonialism.
Bloody Americans.
I am a victim-self-made victim of stoicism, facade(ing), first-bornism( that one's on the parents) and the psycho illness a friend described as the God-complex. Saving everyone and pushing me aside until I wake up and realise I have created my own hell.
Shadows don't make for nice company. Aching hearts don't make for easy breathing. Especially if one is an asthmatic. Stoic natures don't make for easy crying. And this does not make for easy dealing.
Because crying doesn't leave bright and sunny spaces in one's heart. It squeezes out a good deal of the pain.
But it leaves despair. Dark, empty and bottomless despair. I am not one for crying. But I think its about time.

Time I took the mask off, rolled aside the thick rock across my heart and cried.
Real, deep, gut-wrenching and heartbreaking sobs. The sort that would send my demons packing. Because my demons are of that nature. The lets-pretend-and-play-fine. They hate emotion.
I think its time. That.I.Cried.
I do not need company please.
Stella's ghost and gin bottle are quite enough.

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."-Hebrews 11:10.

 And in that one verse, the good-intention(ed) apostle Paul went and made faith the most forsaken, challenged and ignored substance of life.
Because faith is the very basis of all things-faith in a better day, true love, totally accepting friendships...faith for the dark in all its forms to finally go away.
How does one expect mortal and fallible beings such as the 6 billion mass of pain-ridden, wound-carrying and fearful human species to have faith enough to last one through the tragedies that most of us call our lives?
In a world of cause-less wars, starving children whose only crime is being born of parents who have failed to master the concept of co-existence, in a country where class-differences are slowly building up enough reason for war, how do you speak to us of faith?
Faith in what? or whom?
A deity that walked away from this place centuries ago? Governments that plunder, loot and then stand by their patriotic albeit hypocritical and clearly-wrong decisions?
Excuse me please.
We might be made in God's image but surely there is a reason God took His own away from this just after 30 years. He should have stayed. Keep encouraging the rest of us mere mortals along.
But what sort of loving parent leaves their beloved son in this forsaken place?
So pardon my cheek God, but when do you plan on coming back for the rest of us? We also are your children.
Right?

Say Paul, ya think you could write letters to this day's peeps?

There is alot to be said for life's happy moments. But in summary; they do not last. Love dies. Or fades away. Or burns you.
Friends leave, friends move, friends die.
I will miss you Yasmin. Come back soon. Please. Please. You're one of my rocks.
Dreams die or take the life out of you as you fight for them.
Men can be real scum-of-the-earth-characters. Not all of them. On this, I will always insist.
Happiness is fleeting. Joy is something we all write about. Way less than all of us actually believe it.
The truth is, it is as elusive as happiness. Pain and hurt are lacking in the etiquette department. They do not call before they show up.
So we smile. We laugh. We kiss and make merry when we can. We grab at our dreams the first chance we get. Because deep down we are painfully aware of this-that this minute's happiness most likely doesn't have any intentions of making it to the next minute.

So this girl turns to alcohol. And mentally challenges the now sainted-and-heaven-residing Paul.
And reaches for her inhaler.
No one said this was going to be easy.

Drunk, achy and...waging war. Mbu.

Dear Life. (Rated R. For Some-What Strong Language)

Friday;
Dear Life.
Thank you. For the chance to live out this story. Thank you that I have been blessed with the amazing opportunity to be part of this dance. I have lived. I have loved. I have been blessed. I have excelled. I have learned. I have been loved. By friends. By family. By lovers. I have been at the receiving end of some good loving. Ans spoiling. Thank you for family that has loved me, supported me and stood by me. Thank you, Life for the gifts I have been blessed with. My way with words is not only my greatest gift but my greatest release. When I write, I put into words the things which would otherwise choke me. Thank you for friendships. The ones that have lasted years, the new ones and especially, the unexpected ones. Thank you, life for the love of books and all things written. Thank you for Maya Angelou and Liz Kobusinge-two of my favorite writers.
I thank you, from the bottom of my soul for rock music. For performers who speak from the heart. For Life House, Joshua Radin, Ingrid Michaelson, Amylee, Ne-Yo, Eminem and Christina Aguilera. Thank you for The Weepies, Sara Bareilles and Rob Thomas. And Lyfe Jennings. And Beyonce. I cannot leave out B.
Thank you for a heart that can love, has loved and still loves. Thank you for the scary but very-real ability to open my heart and pour all of me into loving others. Thank you life. For the chances that keep coming my way. Oh, thank you for another shot at my dreams. For Lucie and Liz-who pushed till I got my writing out there. Thank you for the ones who take the time to read my work. Thank you for whispering the words that put my aches and pains and fears to life. Bless you, for coke. And gin. And meat. And sleep. Yes, sleep...
Thank you, for forgiveness. That I have received. Especially the one I have given.
Thank you life for the story that is Makuba Muhairwe Nagasha Maureen. The story that is still being written.

Momo!

Saturday;
Dear life.
Please. Stop. The pain has become unbearable. The aches have the strongest holds on my heart. My dreams-the dreams you put to life, the dreams I have fought tooth and nail for, the dreams I gave up all comforts for, the dreams that have been putting the light in my eyes. Those dreams? They are crumbling before my eyes. The passion, the words...they are getting away from me. The voice that whispers the rhymes...that soft voice? It has gone still.
The pain of the ones I love the most eats me up. Burning my soul, squeezing my heart...the pain in their eyes, the questions I cannot answer, the past I cannot undo. The price for sins not my own, I cannot continue to pay.

Please....?

Dear life,
It should not be this hard. The search for the love that lasts, the smiles that stay and the laughter which never fades...it should not be this hard. My heart should not have to be ripped out just so you can test if I'm still alive. My soul should not be burned just so you can teach me yet another lesson-on faith. The begging should not be this demeaning. I should not be brought to my knees just so a few prayers can be answered.
No, I'm all out of tears to cry. I do not have enough spirit to even begin one more battle. I have not the faith to believe in miracles that take decades to get to me. No, I do not want to beg just so I can die. Yes. Die. Because when it gets this difficult, what is the point? To live with no light in my eyes, no spring in my step, no song in my soul...no. That is not to live.
I will take blackness. I will be glad to never wake again. I will choose the unending darkness. I will give back to you this...life. This life you call a gift to me, I will give back to you. Because it's no gift.
It is a burden I can carry no more.

Sunday;
But life.
WHAT THE HELL??
At what point do you stop? At what point do you draw the line? How do you go and give me something and then turn it to a burdensome load? Because now, I am mad. I am screaming and cursing you. Because you are a shameless bully. Because you love to complicate things. Because if its drama-free, you go and create the drama. Just for your private entertainment, you play chess with me and then smirk away as yet, another battle I lose. But not this time. My begging fell upon your conveniently-deaf ears. The pleas faded away,past your century-old and battle-hardened heart. That I offered to return the gift to you, was not enough. That too, has to go according to your timing. In the meantime, you poke. And prod. And pinch. And squeeze. And to lace it off, you punch. But man, have you picked the wrong person.
Dear I-do-things-my-way-even-if-someone-has-to-bleed-so-I-can-have-my-way aka life. I can bitch pretty good. Scratch that. I bitch awesomely. You push to the edge,I push off the cliff. You throw punches, I fight to knock out. You drain, drop by drop, I suck dry.
O Life. I learnt from the best. And I am a fast learner. I do not lose my lessons. You will stab my heart but my dagger will draw your heart out. You think you can rage? You should see my tantrums. You believe your tornadoes and storms will wear me out? You have not seen me blind and mad. I leave nothing un-turned. Not a single leaf.
Life. I am done. Begging, pleading, bargaining, waiting, hoping, false-smiling, pain-hiding. I AM D.O.N.E.
Two can play this game. I am grabbing you by your thick-dare-touch-me neck and I am not letting go. Until you relent. And let go. Of my dreams. My heart. My soul. My joy. I am taking back what you happily gave me all those years ago. My Life. I am taking it back. And I am going to live it out-loud. You will either join in the merry-living. or you will sit by and look on. You are not in charge anymore. I am.
Dear Life.
It takes two to tango.
And boy, can I swirl. And twirl. And jaba. 
Dear Life.
Leave me the fuck alone.

SOD OFF.

For Isabel. And myself.

Self-Love; A Delicate Art.

"Love Thy Self." With flowers, if necessary.

"I love you, Maureen."

That is me sending myself off at the start at each day. Yes, I look myself in the mirror,try to look beyond the new zit that has comfortably lodged itself on the most visible part of my forehead, and tell myself or my mirror reflection that I am loved. It is sorta corny. It has a desperate ring to it. And I will be the first to tell you that it works. Not the mean-staring at the zit in the hope that it will melt away. Pimples do not respond to psychological torture.

The expression of self love. That works. We as human beings are greatly flawed. We have shortcomings, laced with quirks and to top that off, a pile of sins that would call for Christ's second crucifixion. Yes, we as a species can be very unlovable. Most humans in fact, go out of their way to make themselves especially unlovable. 

I believe for most people, it would be okay if the lack of love was limited to the rest of the world. Who cares if the girl at your office loathes you because you have all the major designer labels as permanent residents of your closet? Eish!!Find a good knock-off dealer.

It IS the real thing.

But when the lack of love for self emanates from the self itself...well...Trouble looms.Trouble that can be spelt in many different ways; low-self esteem, self-depreciating thoughts, self-hate, negative self image, and in the case of Gilbert Arinaitwe, plain old stupidity. If you're going to vandalise private property, attack defenceless political figures in full view of TV cameras, wear a hood, or cap. I mean, there's a reason all these crime series are all over our TVs. And it has nothing to do with mastering forensic science.

The majority of us lucked out when we majored in literature and divinity. Self-love is necessary, as necessary as breathing. In the long run, anyway. Self-love means you look your majorly-injured self in your impaired-eye and learn to:

Fully Accept

That you will forever be 5"2" tall or short, that your hips are actually dependant on bone structure&; no amount of dieting will lessen their width. Or girth. For one to even have a slight element of success in loving one-self, one needs to fully comprehend that most of our flaws, or assumed flaws cannot be overcome. You cannot change the fact that your father decided his love& commitment came with a shelf life. You will not change the fact that you gave years of irreplaceable time to a man that woke up& decided those years were not enough. He had to take your heart& belief in all men good. No, you will not change the fact that your only show of family wealth is your university degree. 

But you have an education, and so you can start a whole new family drama where your name will be a force to reckon. You can grieve over that man and understand that loving someone with all of you is no guarantee they won't walk all over you. You can realize that while you missed out on fatherly love, you maxed out on motherly affection& sibling rivalry. Which teaches you self control.

Acceptance doesn't mean you let yourself stay in mediocrity. It doesn't mean you remain in an unhealthy relationship-romantic or otherwise, because you feel its your " Burden to carry." 

It means, you allow that the powers that be already decided how your body will look. The people you love have their own minds (even when you know you have a better mind)& most importantly, we cannot control most of what happens to us or change what happened. We can forfeit denial. We can accept it.

At least the tape still fits.

Forgive.

My very first lesson in forgiveness involved forgiveness of another. You know, the Bible story where Jesus tells those people that they must forgive one another in multiples of seven? That one. I believe that to forgive others who have in some way, caused us pain is noble. I mean, how could they stop writing "Friends"? That took time to get over. I know that to forgive spells maturity in character and spiritual evolution. But I also know that when someone causes me any sort of harm, I prefer revenge. Served frozen. With second helpings; my anger has a healthy appetite. Forgiveness of others is difficult. You're telling the one that caused you irreparable damage that you're choosing to grant pardon. That you're willing to put away their painful act as one of life's lessons. Okay, while at it, don't lose the lesson. Forgive. NEVER forget. Not me. I am-an-eye-for-an-eye-woman. I do not owe any one any forgiveness. You hurt me, I deal how I know; frozen responses.

But to forgive others is not my problem here. My mother has made it her life mission to instil this virtue in me. There's hope. She did get me to start cooking. I am at the sausage-grilling stage. 

The greatest lesson in self-love is forgiveness of oneself. 

So, no one else will....

You need. No, you MUST learn to forgive yourself. It is easy to cast stones at others. It is easier to point fingers, since stoning might damage one's recent manicure.  But how do you cast a stone when the finger is pointing at you? How do you look yourself in the mirror and reconcile the reflection to that insensitive thing you just did? Like look that girl in the eye& tell her you are not kissing with her boyfriend. Then proceed to send said boyfriend a text. Complete with a kissey smiley.

Say," Auntie!!!"(Stock Photo)

To get past the fact that you have caused hurt. You, have broken a heart. You, are the reason someone else is crying. Not because you just keeled over& died, but because you are bringing their world down, passionately. Heartlessly. To forgive yourself for poor choices, for opportunities not taken, for decisions that took the lift and life out of your character. That is difficult. Because it is kinda norm for people to disappoint. Expected even. But when you are the disappointment, that is....sad.

Since I can't serve myself iced reactions to callous behaviour, I have learned that forgiveness of self is best. It soothes my guilty soul. It makes it easier to point fingers at others. But it is no easy task. Mostly because I have such high standards of behaviour for myself that when I fall even remotely short of them, I freeze. 

And panic.And hate myself. Then I drag me from the mud I've slung at my sinful self. And make smarter choices. You grant yourself permission to be human. You walk away from other girl's boyfriend.

Un-cautioned borrowing affects the borrower. Ditto unforgiveness. Of self.

Moving On.

Anyone that has read any of my posts knows I am kind of stuck in that time zone. I miss Schweppes. I miss, miss "Friends" I have failed to move on with "How I Met Your Mother." I love Sean Connery.

I love you, I love you, I do.

Enough said, I believe.
So it is no major wonder that I have failed to fully let go of things and people that in the first place, had no business being in my life. That I let them in is shocking enough. That I am still attached is beyond shocking. 'Tis baffling. And liable to make you feel really silly. Not in a funny way. Me?? I granted myself full permission to be silly eons ago. That was when I realized my affinity to the past. Probably why I still am stuck. Because moving on requires for a sound reality check. It means you have to look at the phone& realize he is NOT going to call. Again. Ever. And then stop yourself from wondering what you did wrong.

To move on calls for courage; to leave that familiar office job& start at a new venture, doing something you truly love. Drat less money& hence, less new shoes. Inner satisfaction is a greater treasure. I believe half the issue with moving is is the getting out of the familiarity zone. The cheating boyfriend still knows which spots to kiss best. The never-there-when-you-need-them friend still knows your darkest secrets and greatest fears.

And the said-brighter future which is promised for those that move on is...well, it is the future.
Why move on when you have the comfort of old hurts, the solace of beautiful-turned painful memories? Why move on when your heart says it doesn't think it can do it? The poor heart has resolved to love meanie boyfriend just as he is. Why not let it be?? Why move on to mountain dew??

Because Schweppes is NOT coming back.

Because if he missed me even an iota of how much I missed him, he'd have called. Because if he didn't love the other girl enough, he would not have married her. Because the new job will start to pay off majorly. The universe blesses all work done with love. Because staying in a  bad situation, actively or memory-wise is wasting precious time. Because self-love requires you pluck yourself out of the past.

The future awaits. It favours those who carry no remnants of previous bad times. Nanti it is also on a roll. No time to back track.

One past step at a time.

Self-love is a delicate art. Because mastering it today is no promise you'll remember how-to tomorrow. Because practice doesn't make perfect in this case. It makes acceptance. It brings forgiveness. It leaves the baggage behind. Self-love requires you to daily perform small acts of compassion to yourself, because each day brings more reason to dislike yourself. Self-love is looking in the mirror and loving the unique magnificence that is you; flawed, broken, chapped, bruised and sinful.

Self-love is doing this each day. Self-love is the greatest lesson you can learn.

Also, it is the one easiest to lose.

And what a biiig hit, it is.

"I love you, Maureen."