BACK and moving on.

For the past 13 months, I have had no time to think. Think about what the world around me thinks. Think about friends I once had. Think about acquaintances I once made. Think, think, think about anything that was not my mother, money, classwork and how I hate waking up at noon because I slept at 6:30 am trying to meet deadlines.

I have been not blogging because I simply was out of energy but I had all the time and materials. I forgot about manicures, pedicures and shaping eyebrows and for once I know that people don’t die because they don’t have those. I even stayed for two months without braids in my head!

Today is different though. For the last two months I finally came to terms with the fact that my mother will always be terminally ill for the rest of her remaining life. I had a hard time accepting that and had hoped from one hospital to another, surgery after surgery, doctor after doctor. I forgot to look out of the airplane’s window to marvel at a sight I could treasure forever and looked out (without seeing anything) to curse the world and to question God on things I can’t change. Yes, I’m just human. That means I need to get to blame something or someone before I can finally accept that my fate is sealed to the worst of a girls nightmare.

The fact that I will eventually lose my mother does not bother me anymore. She is almost sixty and still looks forty (despite having changed acquaintances to not only include businessmen and government officials but to have doctors (pending and on call) and resident nurses). What bothers me is that one day I will not have my best friend. I will not have her to patiently hear me rant about Noel the antichrist who fucks my brains out with his stupidity or Julius the Kisii man who thinks he owns every woman in the streets of Nairobi and who I have no idea why I have him as a friend (yet he still is). One day I will have mom’s sisters trying to boss me around because they will think I am their responsibility when mum is gone. I will not have her having her friends convince her that the only hope of me having more money than I can bathe with is getting a nanny job in Qatar or a waitress job in Abu Dhabi. I will not have her running to my house at the death of the night because I am in labor or have her boarding the next flight to Kisumu because I can’t eat fish or the next bus to Nanyuki because I have a cold…yes, I will wake up alone, with no one to fuss around about their fragile daughter who beats the crap out of ‘matatu’ touts and keeps men awake coz she is competition they have a hard time beating in this fishing business.

So, today I decided to do what I do best. Keep myself at par with my emotions. Take them where they are most at peace. I got my reader and laptop out of their dusty daze. I read the blogs I stopped reading 13 months ago. Maguga Williams, Bikozulu, Savvy, Potentash, Dear Doris…I even read Onyango’s annoying religious diarrhea!

In Bikozulu, I met his mother pieces…and I met Joe Black (again! That guy can write) and his once upon a time dark world and what he has done with it. I read Biko’s mother pieces and I realized that I will, sooner or later, learn to move on after my mother breaks my heart. The difference between him and me is that I keep expecting that call from that new nurse (I am yet to grasp the name she uses) and Biko did not. His heart was broken with an ear crashing heart shattering crash, mine has been breaking bit by bit and that day will only be a seal to a fate I very much know is coming. A start to a life I dread. A journey to a destination I hate to envision but which I have accepted whole heartedly.

It is not that I don’t love my mother. I do. She is funny, loving, caring, strong and dutifully loyal. And she is my Mama. But then, who tells fate what to do except karma the bitch? I sure don’t know where he parks his goatee!

So, today I walked out, watched the sun rise and made myself a promise with the elements as my witness: I will live day by day. Cherish my mother day by day (annoying as she can get at times) and treasure the friends who have been there for me in it all (hoping that you still stick around).

So, am back… and I know I was not missed.

Wanjiru2015.