Tomorrow,
October 23, 2013, I turn 39.
That’s right.
For those of you who had me figured for 29, just a year shy of 30, you were
right to be impressed by my good genes. You’re not alone; I’m impressed too.
Every day. It never gets old. I look in the mirror expecting to see some
ageing, balding guy and it just never happens. I get surprised every time. Ok, I’m going to stop now
because someone is whispering “narcissist” in my ear.
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| "Aah, CK, Stop it..." |
39 going on 40.
It kind of
has a nice ring to it. It means that I have finally grown up and it may be time
to leave behind my childish ways (I don’t wanna!) and embrace maturity (I really don’t wanna!).
Seriously
though, I always thought that it would feel old to be this age, but it doesn’t.
I feel the same way I’ve always felt; young, vibrant, and full of hope for the
future blah blah blah. The only thing I should mention is that it takes a
little longer to heal from physical injuries. Yes, you young ones; you have that to look forward to!
I noticed
this after a nasty fall in wet weather and I hurt my hand. Almost two months
later, it still hurts something crazy whenever I use it for anything more
strenuous than typing on a keyboard. I think I might have broken something or torn
a ligament. Whatever man. My pride refuses to allow me to go in for an x-ray to
find out what’s going on in there.
When I turned
30, I went through all the grieving stages similar to those one experiences
upon the death of… something. Or someone (ok,
maybe I’m reaching a little here). I had suddenly lost my youth and it wasn’t
ever coming back, I thought. I felt a sense of profound loss of a decade of my
life in which I had struggled to find myself, and I wasn’t sure that I had
succeeded. I didn’t feel like I knew who I was, or what my place in the world
might be. Finally, all those years of weed smoking in high school had caught up
with me and scrambled my brains!
I went into complete
freak out mode, or as the most eminent of psychologists would describe it, I completely lost my shit! 30 was the
end of my life as I knew it, but lucky for me, I had the next decade to sort my
shit out.
Have I
succeeded? Have I redeemed myself? Have I found myself and my place in the
world?
I must say
that my thirties have probably been the best and the worst period of my life. Yes, I did finally figure myself
out, and it has not been an easy journey. I have enjoyed success at the things
I have done, but I’ve also gone through colossal failures. And every day I am
grateful for the experiences of my life because they have defined the man that
I am today, for better or for worse.
I am wiser
now in the ways of the world, perhaps not because of my age, but mostly on
account of the sum total of my experiences. There is a part of me that doesn’t
feel 39. I feel 18 with 21 years of experience. I like that.
There are age
mates of mine for whom wisdom is just… a word. Wisdom doesn't necessarily come with
age. Sometimes age just shows up all by itself. – some
dude called Tom Wilson.
I am grateful for the
things and the people that God has brought my way. I don’t take anything for
granted, and I know I’m probably saying this just because I happen to be in an
introspective mood right now, but I really do try for the most part.
I’m in a business I enjoy,
even though it hasn’t made me rich yet, but there’s time for that yet. I enjoy
a cold Tusker every once in a while, sometimes every day, but I’m trying not to
be labelled an alkie here! I love
good music, and I’ve discovered in recent years that while I may not have a
talent for music in the way that I might make a living off it, karaoke is just
the thing to get me to unwind in the evening. I love that shit.
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| Belting out some cool tunes... |
I come from a very
interesting family that is spread out in Europe, the Middle East and here in
Kenya. While we have had our share of drama, ups and downs just like any
ordinary, healthy family, I wouldn’t trade this
family for any other. And to my siblings, Mathew, Josephine, Wangeci, Carol,
Karanja and Liz, I want to say I love you.
To my nephews and nieces,
Larry, Alex, Peggy, Sheila (and your children), Jesse, Misheal, Njuguna and
Waithira, I love you too. Angela, you will always be an important part of my
life and I love you. Judy and Ian, you make the cutest mother and son pictures
ever, and there’s plenty of love for you in this corner. Lena, Sverre, Rune,
Ann-Kristin and my other European relatives, I am glad to know you. My parents
don’t read my blog (good thing), so there.
All of you guys, I want you to know this, and I
know you’re reading this post: you touch my life in ways that perhaps only I
can express in my heart. You’re awesome!
I am blessed to have
friends who are not trying to be dickish
all the damn time. We’ve had some good times and some bad ones too. I have
friends who have come with me from way back in high school where for a brief,
crazy period, I was a drug courier. Yes, I used to stash weed inside the brown
covers (do those still exist?) of my exercise books (yeah, call the drug police
on me, you, one of my dickish
friends, see if it’s not just hearsay at this point!). I’m not sure if I ever
got caught; my high school years are kind of a haze... oh, and I fell madly in
love with Grace, one of my classmates’ sister. She was older than me by four
years and in college and oh man...
Sorry, I kind of lost my
train of... something.
Yes, I have childhood
friends who treat me more like a brother than anything else. I have made
friendships in my adult life that have enriched my life in ways that are beyond
words. I have also made friends who have almost led me down a path to the wrong
side of the law, and for these I am grateful for the excitement. But I have
learnt to cut them from my life, because until you’re seated in the inside of a
police cell, you have no idea that freedom isn’t just an abstract concept.
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| Good place to do your thinking, but... no thanks! |
I have never found it easy
to make new friends, but it’s gotten easier as I grow older and more confident in
who I am. I care about making a good impression, sure, because I wasn’t brought
up by wolves. But I find that I care less about people’s impression of me; I
figure that that’s more their problem than mine.
I do the best I can to
maintain my side of the “contract” in friendships, but I’ve also grown more
demanding of a higher standard in the level of expectation of how my friends should
treat me. Someone said to me the other day that I don’t take shit, and I’m
vocal about it. Well, I used to be very laid back at some point, so maybe I
should try and find a balance because I don’t want to turn into my father (he’s
a great shujaa, but no thanks!).
And to you who I am
privileged to call my friends, you will forever occupy a special place in my
heart.
I have to go back to
Grace. She was my first love. She was also my first experience with unrequited
love. I wrote poems for her on custom made cards. I begged her to be my
girlfriend; I did everything that my teenage mind could think of (remember,
teenagers are stupid) to make her mine. It didn’t work. She was a college girl
and I was just a high school kid who couldn’t tell his asshole from a hole in
the ground. In the end, she broke my heart.
I blamed her for a while
after that for my inability to perform well in my final exam of high school.
But in all fairness, it was probably the weed and other distractions. Also,
school was boring. I did get over her, and we became really good friends for a
few years before we lost touch.
I have loved women and
they have loved me back. I have been loved by women whose love I could not
return. I have loved women, like Grace, who for one reason or another, could
never love me back. That is how love works. It is at once an exhilarating
experience and a devastating one too. It can take you all the way to the
heavens beyond the clouds, or crush your spirit until you just want to curl
into a ball and cry like a little girl. Sometimes I think God looks down and
enjoys the circus.
There is a woman in my
life. She is not my girlfriend; perhaps she may never be. She is a really good
friend for now, and I love her totally and completely. She likes me, but she’s
not convinced that she and I should be together, perhaps because of my rapidly
advancing age (heheh), or because of something else. We enjoy each other’s
company. She’s funny, charming, and I think every day that that woman leaves
her house, at least one man falls in love with her. She’s that kind of a girl.
Everyone loves her. She recently sent me a text that read: Love is something we can’t completely explain in full length and we
can’t choose who to love either. We also don’t always have to have those we
love; sometimes it’s not meant to be. And that’s why it hurts, but with time we
feel better.
Perhaps that was her way
of letting me down easy. Then again, I’ve also found that as I grow older, I
don’t walk away from situations as easily as I might have in my younger days.
Time will tell.
In the meantime, I have no
regrets about any of my relationships. Some were good, others were simply mistakes.
Nevertheless, each one had a lesson therein, and if they didn’t make me a
better man, then perhaps I’m just a poor learner and I can’t be helped.
My relationship with God
has always been one of mutual tolerance, at least in my mind. I was brought up
in the Catholic Church, and I always found the church to be full of rituals
that I found to be boring and unnecessary, and little else. So the first chance
I got after I officially became “emancipated” from my parents upon reaching the
age of eighteen, I quit church and I never looked back.
And it has been that way
for twenty odd years, me praying whenever I needed something handled by God and
promptly moving on with my life, and thinking that God couldn’t really be
bothered with little ol’ me out of a
population of over 7 billion human beings at the last count (read that number
again and let it sink in. Let it simmer, and
then weep at how insignificant you really are in the larger scheme of things.
Ha! Just kidding! Of course you’re important)
I have however, in the
recent past, felt a gnawing need to know and understand who God really is, and what His role in my life
(His life, really) might be. I have
friends and relatives who are very staunch Christians, and to them I have
opened my ears. I have listened to them and I have heard. And I have developed
an interest in improving my relationship with Him.
I have started attending
church, though I have not been very good at maintaining the momentum. I’ve also
joined a group under the banner of MIZIZI, an initiative of Mavuno Church in
Nairobi, also adopted by Nairobi Chapel that seeks to plant roots in one’s
faith, and in their relationship with God. I will write about that at a later
date. Oh yeah, I need to shout out to my new friends at Plug In. That’s right,
you know who you are, and is awesome
your middle name or what?
As I grow older, and I
know I keep using this phrase, I find that I’m more introspective, more inward
looking. And I’m now questioning what my real purpose on this earth is. I had
never believed that God made each one of us for a very specific reason. And I
now find that perhaps I was wrong. I am
special. God took time to make me, and he made me extremely well, and it is unfathomable that He would do that just
so I could fill up space on this earth. I reject that notion. Therefore, I’m in
the process of seeking God and reconnecting with Him so that I may find His
purpose for me in this world. I am a Christian.
Next month, I plan to do
something I have never contemplated doing. I’m seriously terrified of heights,
and just to illustrate to you just how bad it is for me, if I were a woman, I’d
never wear six inch heels! But I’m going to drive up to Sagana, climb up a 60
foot tower, get strapped into a harness and dive down towards the Tana River.
Yes, I’m going bungee jumping bitches! New experiences are what I’ll be all
about in the next phase of my life.
As I enter the final year
of my thirties, I am grateful that I have lived a good life. I have had
spectacular failures, but I have also had splendid successes. And if God
doesn’t take me in my 39th year, like he took great men like Tom
Mboya and Martin Luther King Junior, I know that my forties shall be the best
decade of my life yet. I know better now, and I am hopefully wiser too.
I am happy to be alive
right now.
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| 1974 - |
#39
