Life expectances

I’m 25 this year. That makes my childhood playmates- SG and SN - 30. That’s really old. That was my uncle’s age a few years ago and I thought- this guy is age mates with Noah.

When I was 16 and knew everything, I thought at 23 I’d have progressed to speaking bulleted points with every word that came out of my mouth.

A 22, I had my doubts and eventually I realised that I was a blithering idiot.

I also thought at 24 I’d know things, like how to deal with people, keep a job, cook properly. I still cannot, so maybe push the goal to 28?

One thing I can confidently say I am capable of handling is money. It becomes quite easy when you mainly deal in coins. For things like rent and bills and rent I think you just pray.

25 is a great year I must say. I’ve promised myself years of beauty sleep seeing as I expect wrinkles to start showing anytime, but I have a few things to settle.

Like the admission that I am not as smart in the head as I’ve always presumed, so there’s nothing to be proud of and I have to open my mind to learn new things and to accept correction, like when I say hotel when I mean restaurant because in my mind it’s hotel for restaurant and big hotel for hotel.

I’ve also been able to determine that I can only do a bit each day, so I’ll have no pain killing myself with putting up pictures on google earth to show the world where Nanyuki is, someone else will do it.

Also no point in trying to learn Tamil and Chinese alphabets when I’m still struggling with Bahasa Malay, and even if I don’t perfect Bahasa Malay so what, I never perfected sheng and survived Nairobi with Swaenglish.

But above all, I’ve learnt that the basic human has a cord which anyone can reach if they try hard enough. So it’s not weakness in my part to apply persistence with humility because on sticking that cord, impending doors can easily open.

My face will soon turn leathery, and my teeth fillings and masking will fall out.

Last year I pointed out to my friend that I really felt like I had matured in to an adult. After a nice laugh he said- I don’t think so-

This took me back.

Then he said

-You could say you’ve grown more into a woman but grown up? Artists don’t grow up-.

So that’s it, perpetual childlike existence. Every day.

This world is a huge place for just that

(picture by Aobakwe Moeti)