Gravity

Many times I  have felt myself pulled in different directions, emotionally and mentally.

And of course, that's when I get an overwhelming desire for flight.

Recently though, I started to work on my internal gravity.

I started to tell myself  ' hold still, give yourself time, ' 

and like one  would  command  a dog in training that has  a tendency to  get  agitated,

I commanded myself to:

 

STAY!

Ciss, STAY!

Whenever I have  to  the urge to move, move  or be active, be present, be useful, be helpful,  be there.

I tell myself ' si utulie msee.'

It's not easy,  for a number of  reasons.

 I could say culturally, a woman is expected to be on the move  and  not  stop to even  have a meal, because  when you are  serving  everyone, touching this,  and  that and finally  having  your meal  in tupperware  beside  the sink as  you wait  or the  sufuria  ya  ugali to soak so you can finish cleaning up before  you go  to sleep at midnight, means  that you are a complete  woman. Not lazy. And  your in-laws will love  and admire you and  praise  you but  still criticise the  quality of your chapati.

So that  is how I was raised, to be on the move even  when all work is  complete and it would make more sense to take a nap and get up later, BUT we keep  moving.

Or it  could be conditioning. When I was younger  and unable to finish my education because of lack of fees, I panicked  and  imagined  I had  to work four times as hard as anyone  that held  a Masters, a Phd or simply  managed to  find  work immediately  after  completing their Diploma in Project Management. Some people  had it smooth, some had connections, and some just settled into life earlier.

After years of hustling just  be able  to afford milk and potatoes, it has become  part of me to do this and  that to keep afloat.

Even  when I don't  need to.

It's as though my sense of self is attached to how exhausted I feel at the end of the day, how depleted I am at the end of the week AND how many times I can keep telling the people around me that ' oh my gosh I am so tired. '

You know that common phrase about not pouring into an empty cup?

Sometimes I feel like I am running on an empty cup.

 The good thing is, I can now recognize when I am running on empty, and I take time to recharge.

I have also understood, through a lot of experiments, that actually, when we learn to quiet the internal storms, then the outer storms don't shake us when they arrive.

Though I now have to find a balance between, moving away from constant  movement and interaction while also avoiding the loneliness epidemic