Life as I see it

One time my cousin was asked to pray and he asked the Lord to please come back when he was in Form Two so he wouldn't have to sit for the KCSE.

He also asked for blessings on Mr Kenyatta and Mr Moi. At which point we all burst out laughing. He must have been in Standard 4 and I was in Standard 6. We had learned in Sunday school that we must pray for kings and rulers, they just didn't specify whether dead or alive.

My other cousin smugly said, " We wanted Jesus to come back so much, but did we realize we would have to die to go to heaven?:"

We started to talk about death. And wondered who among us would die first. My cousin said he hoped his mother would die before him so she wouldn't have to cry about him dying.

Well, she did die, and so did many more people we would have wanted to have around a little much longer.

I may have laughed at the prayer but I honestly  didn't see my life beyond 18 years old. I somehow thought I would combust and pew ewwww. Disappear like a deflating balloon at 18 years old. 

But for the time I was alive, I wanted it to be a happy one.

We had a pictorial New Testament at home and I read it through. Then I started to read the Kikuyu version of it and got stuck at rūnyanjara. I asked cūcū what Jesus meant  by building a house on a rūnyanjara. In the pictorial Bible, It showed a rock but it didn't make sense.

We asked the pastor's wife and she just laughed it off and said 'Gathoni gakoragwo ta gatarī kīongo kīega ( Gathoni is somehow cracked in the head ). She could have just said she also didn't know. She was the same one who called us Defoworshipper when we caught tadpoles from the river, thinking they were fish. We had put them in soda bottles and were feeding them ugali everyday until cūcū said we had to throw them out. They didn't belong in a bottle. So we poured them out in the shamba and hoped they would survive somehow.

I got my answer one day when an aunt from Mūrang'a presented a song in church, she said Jesus was the rūnyanjara, and our faith must be built on him. It made sense. " Aka igūrū rīa mwathani Jesū nīwe rūnyanjara. Your faith should not be in the things of this world."

It was also important for me to believe because she was a beautiful aunt and Mūrang'a sounded like a very exotic place.

It set me free in a way. I had read about storing up treasures in heaven, and I didn't want to store my treasure on earth ( the picture in the picture Bible was quite graphic)

And somehow I started to try to find the meaning of things.

I wanted a life purpose.

If we were only gonna be on earth for a short while, why waste the time on things that don't last? Why sustain conflicts with people, why accumulate things, why try to attain everything.

Then I learned that actually, we had a chance to live again, a better life. An ordered life.

And this promise has kept me going particularly in the last 15 years.

When you are in your twenties, the adults around you seem too detached from your reality, na mtu hatakangi advise.

Then you get to your 30s and it hits you that ohhh boy, I need advice. I need someone to hold my hand. I need a mentor. 

Then you get to late 30s and eventually 40 and realise that they exited your life too soon. 

You would have like to ask them  how did you deal with this life at 40?

But 'wako kwa kaburi wanakulwa na mchwa alafu wakuwe mchanga' the words of a dear girl  called Rose, whose mother died when she was six and she came to give me the news and my heart broke and broke.

Skip the Rope to Skip the Rope Challenge

Every day I meet interesting people. I meet boring people too, a boring person is also important.

I met MD Njiru the artist at a writers workshop and promptly thought his jokes were off-colour, though I had a mouth infection and wasn't feeling funny. But something about his plan to create worldwide awareness on the topic of Suicide quite noteworthy. We exchanged numbers and I had no idea how big the incentive was going to be.

 In the few weeks that followed I was added to a group on WhatsApp that totally blew my mind, seeing the proposed topics, seeing the experts that were listed as speakers, he was onto something.

Among the topics  to tackle are:
1) How to deal with loneliness 
2) How to deal with romantic rejections 
3) How to deal with a cheating  partner and betrayal (we don't  want to hear more acid,and boiling water cases or worse  people  unaliving themselves)
4)Dealing with chronic  pain and terminal illness 
5) Dealing  with unemployment 
6) Dealing  with a toxic work place ( Last year  we saw several medical interns losing their lives)
7) Dealing with life frustrations and disappointments  ( Kuna time tu Mambo huwa haisongi no matter how much you try)
8) A guide on the healing journey for someone who was sexuallly abuser 
A) As a child 
B) As an adult 
To state the obvious, boys are sexually abused....though it's rarely talked about
9)Overcoming body shaming 
10)Healing from childhood and teen bullying 
11)Dealing with Shame, Guilt, and feelings of worthlessness 
12)Dealing with learned hopelessness 
13) Alcohol and substance abuse
14)Managing and learning to live with underlying mental health conditions  like Bipolar, schizophrenia, etc
15) Increased suicidality and LGBTQ link
16) Hopelessness and how to resuscitate hope 
17)Family history  link for people  who have lost sibling(s) or parent(s) and what they can do to reduce the  likelihood of them unaliving themselves 
18)Financial distress 
19) Academic  pressure ( How many university kids shall we lose because of missing marks😭😭🙆🏿‍♂️🙆🏿‍♂️)
20) Also someone to tackle why mental health advocates are  more prone to taking their lives and what should be done to avert that
21)Another  person  to talk to our men and women in uniform

And so I chose number seven. Number seven, because I have lived that life, you know that life when you are pushing in every direction but nothing is happening?

And in fact, that is the main theme in my first book, Going to buy a plot in Maaī Mahiū and other stories is all about. But with a positive outlook towards everything.

I recorded the video, and also read pages from my latest book- Conversations into Adulthood.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DXtYZm3DPDH/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

 In this book, I have opened up the hard conversations, the tough ones, the ones that break us up inside. By having the courage to talk about them, we begin to heal.

https://nuriakenya.com/product/conversations-into-adulthood-by-cecilia-gathoni/

I am looking forward to this event. Md- Moshua is a crazy man. He hopes to make a 24 hour rope skipping record and get into the Guinness Book. I wish him all the best. 

It's better to be crazy than boring.

 The challenge is not easy, but all in all, I think it will accomplish more than he even intended. Imagine 24 hours of free counselling, free therapy. These videos will be available on YouTube even after the event so he has unknowingly created a huge resource that can be used for research, training, education, and as a comfort for anyone that ever felt like giving up.

The event will be live on these channels: copy and paste to  your browser

YouTube

Skip the rope - YouTube https://m.youtube.com/@Skiptherope100 

Joshua Resource Center - YouTube https://m.youtube.com/@JoshuaResourceCenter-o6d

TikTok

https://www.tiktok.com/@skip.the.rope?_r=1&_t=ZS-95oJHh0vTOh

Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/skiptherope100?igsh=OHAwMmxvbjAzdnJv

https://www.instagram.com/joshua_resource?igsh=MXI5OXlkZnF5aTdzbw==

Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61570763973971&mibextid=ZbWKwL

Twitter

https://twitter.com/Josh_ResourceKE?s=09

SKIP THE ROPE- It takes courage to live.

My small town experience

 The thing about here, is that most people are just starting to explore life. So, to a person like me who has lived and experienced and decided on a certain path, it's difficult for them to grasp that someone can live like I do. they question, they suspect, they judge and then they disapprove.

And to me, I don't just get it, why are they thinking like this, why are they slow, why all the groupthink, the comparisons.

Then there is the elite part who have managed to  maintain their positions and do not like anyone who does not curtsy and bow in their presence. 

And everyone else has accepted their place at the feet of the table. Like little elves, they shuttle every eager to please.

 Woe to you if you if you cannot tow in line.

3 Lessons in Three Months

 

I wasn't looking for lessons, but the past three months taught me skills I didn't have before.

Here are three after three.

January: Postpone the Problems

In the classic Gone with the Wind, Scarlett O'Hara in one of the chapters says :

 

There were times I would sleep at 2.00 a.m trying to solve a problem, but it never worked because I would be too tired the next morning, and my problem would still be quite active. 

Now, I set aside time to think about a problem and the solution. When I have done everything in my power to solve it, I set it aside and use my energy for other things.

Feb is for Fewer words 

I am not the guest of Honour.

As such, I am not required to say something. Whether it's an opinion, a suggestion or an idea, I  don't have to say what I think at this moment.

 There are other people here; let them talk. I have tried this one, and I like the peace it brings.

March Away.

I learned the term 'chasing energy' from Chat gpt and I was kinda embarrassed. I have often found myself chasing energy.

 I gave chat this situation where I felt like I was oversharing with a friend ( I do that often  )

Sometimes it's not even about oversharing.

 It's when you expect feedback from  a source but they are taking their time so as you wait you keep in contact hoping they will remember they owe you an answer.

In March, I learned to redirect that energy to something productive.

IMG CREDIT: LUKE CHEN VIA Pintrest

Gratitude: Remembering those who got me where I am

 I am coming to understand that, in spite of the hard times I have faced in my life, I have always had very good people around me.

Today I saw a like on my Facebook post and it was a lady who was a colleague in 2004, at my first office job.

She worked in the cyber cafe side of the business, and I was the receptionist on the Internet Supply Office. And she reminded me how I would go with pages of written stories and ask her to help me type. I was writing a column for a local Daily and would write my articles on a notebook.

She told me I was always motivated to be a writer, and she is proud of the steps I have taken. Then she sent me the number of another colleague, and when I called him, he was like, you know how you have a favourite uncle (I don't have the father experience, so we'll go with uncle). He asked if I had eaten enough to grow, and whether I am still tiny with a little voice.

And it hit me that, the reason I never toppled over were because of people like these. They would buy me lunch when I didn't have any money, and they even recommended me for jobs and scholarships. And even if they didn't know that I was going through the most horrendous period of my life, and hanging by a single thread, they were in my life then.

And I am grateful.

With a Classmate int he Library, Digital Film and Tv, LUCT, Cyberjaya

Nothing lasts forever

 Oh how quickly we forget the once familiar places

How they fade into insignificance.

How faces we loved become  memory

And new ones become the reason we exist.

Nothing Doing

 

The strange thing about life is how much of it goes on about without out direct interference.

There is the positive, like peace in the country, sunshine and rain, and good relationships with others.

There is also the negative deaths, illness, bad economic times and falling out with fellow humans.

And sometimes we spend too much time trying to ensure that everything remains at optimum.

This we do, sometimes at the expense of something greater, our time, our mental alignment, our health.

The more we try to keep all the balls in the air, the more we lose the rhythm and oft times, everything comes crushing down on us, at our feet, leaving us sometimes in paralysis.

But what can one do when being alive means  constant attention to every aspect of life
Internal and external?

Keeping still.
We limit our reactions.
And somehow, we train ourselves to cope with every changing season.

Entitlement

 When someone feels entitled to your time, your nervous system will pick it up.

some people operate from urgency and control. They think pressure equals seriousness.

People who are used to money solving access often confuse access with ownership.

Peer Pressure for the 40 year old

 I have always been stubborn. When our class prefect was away one day, in 1995, people decided to use up the coloured chalks to write and draw on the board. They wrote what they thought about her leadership, what a terrible person she was. They tried to get me to write something but I couldn't, she was my friend and a member of our fatherless race.

The following day, someone told her that everybody had written something about her and there was a plan to oust her and make me class prefect. I tried to defend myself but my voice was drowned in the crod so I took out a a book to read.

Someone tapped on my shoulder, it was my friend, asking if I could ccompany her on a teacher errand. And as we walked I started to tell her how I hadn't been involved. She simply said - I believe you- You are my friend.

I could have cried. It was the first time someone had believed me.

A few years later, when we were preparing for our final exams, some girls started to form chamas to share the latest gossip before sleep. I didn't join even after several invitations. It's not like I had something important, like reading for the exams. No, sleep was my priority.

One morning, every girl except three of us- the nerds- were summoned into the classroom. Kumbe they had been caught the precious night gossiping about a teacher and been asked to write down all their names. I was there wondering, ' what's going on.'

I tell people I had more courage at 12 that I had in my 20's, but still I have't been one to be pulled downby peer pressure. In college, there were several opportunities to cheat in exams but I didn't see the point. I failed, miserably in one of the Business Management units but there was no way I was going to copy just because everybody was doing it and the invigiletor was acting like she had somehting to do on her phone- we didn't even have  safaricom bundles then.

Anyway, since I moved to a smaller town, I am finding myself in situations where people who haven't worked on their own convictions would feel better if I didn't make their consciences ache. But me,  being stubborn me, and not interested in pandering to anyone's conscience but mine, I have found myself making enemies quick.

Conversations on The Complicated World of Humans

 I have been thinking about, how our African culture, colonization not withstanding, is a giving culture. We always serve the visitor first, we smile at the stranger and we are ready and eager to share what we have.

Sadly, it's not the same for Africans and people of African origin.

When we visit a white dominated country- Europe, The Americas, we are regarded with suspicion.

You visit a monument, ride the train and feel the eerie assumption that- this one should not be here, this is ours-. And my conclusion is, sadly, the lighter coloured sons of Adam are selfish. But maybe they know they don't have enough to share so they must keep being tight fisted. Fact is, Africa has many many unending resources, and we know it, though most of us don't realise it.

Despite many years of (I don't know what kuporwa is in English), the content keeps on generating more and more for the entire earth to use.

And my conclusion is, the only place where an African can be at peace is Africa, this is home, and we welcome everyone regardless of their origin, because that's who we are, givers and we always have enough, and more. Okay I will start a podcast 😅

Finding God: Mortality

 About a year or two ago I really struggled with life. I went through a slump where I kept wondering what was the point of it all. I had not given up on life, I just didn't see the need to keep potting about if this life was headed to the pit. I mean, why din't the creator just wrap up the shebang, refresh and have us living  a better life? He can do it, why didn't he? And each day felt heavier  than the one before it, and the one after felt dreadful.

But I had an epiphany one day. And I made a resolution to keep living as best as would be possible. And that meant that everything I was doing was to help me make the next step. Any decision I made, I made with the end goal of living one more day. And the days kept rolling into each other, until that feeling disappeared.

Recently, I woke up to the fact that, I am just a mortal human girl. I will die one day, probably sooner than later. But by God I have to keep taking every breath that is given to me. I cannot despise the gift  that has been given to me from my source.

Someone , my phsyotherapist said to me the other day- I wonder why God keeps this world moving on while life is so hard, people are suffering, some have depression. Some want to kill themselves-

she tells me many stories to disract me from the pain she inflicts, she has been trying to set my sprained ankle right.

I told her, from the bottom of my hear that. "As long as we are struggling, we are giving life a chance, we are not like the ones who have completely given up and jumped off a building."

And I am believing this with every fiber within me. Challenges, hard times, they give us a chance to fight. 

We refuse to drown, we refuse to drown.

We keep grabbing at the shallow rooted reeds at the banks of the rapid gutted river that is our lives.

Text me at +254701030005 to order my latest book, Conversations into Adulthood

                       You have seen how many places I have gone. Put my tears in Your bottle. Are                             they not in Your book?

You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.

                         You have taken note of my journey through life, caught each of my tears in Your bottle.                          But God, are they not also blots on Your book?

https://shorturl.at/pfzOF

Absorbent

Tomorrow I'm going to visit my friend in her rural home. It's far, it's inconvenient, expensive and all the planning ahead has been quite exhausting. 

But I will go, and even though I risk getting malaria I would never let such a chance go because it's not everyday that someone says, "come and rest a little here."

A few years back, I never imagined that the only thing I would be longing for with al my heart is a chance to just walk into my mother's house. The calm green walls, green velvet sofas, a calm cup of Kericho gold tea, the softly humming TV forever tuned in to a news channel, the soft radio on Sunday morning tuned to a Sunday morning prayer that went on for a few hours, and the green bedspread she always made my bed with. My bed had a green velvet headboard too, and the kitchen spelt a mixture of dry tea scrubbed wood, sometimes, the fading scent of a paraffin stove smoke which you taste at the back of your throat.

My mother would say '|doh *ke <oh>shere.' and I would carry myself grumply and go. We would talk about her cat, she would tell me about some news at her work place. 'siku hizi kumejaa wakisii.' other times she would tell me about the Maasai who had a wholesale and retail shop near the house. ' 'Akoragwo na itim<oh njohero' They were simple uncomplicated visits. 

I have gained friends who tell me 'just come'

Sometimes I just want to slip away from my solo life.

To just be immersed in a family. Where everything is happening around me and I don't really have to participate.

Do you know  I write about family, loss, brokenness, hope and contenment in my recent book?

Order your copy of Conversations into Adulthood here {+254701030005}

Polite Society

When you finally get accepted into polite society, it is easy to assume that  you are now  fully integrated and one of them. You may now walk, talk, and have the same mannerisms as them, but there  will be  some things that will remind you to know your place.

 But knowing your place is hardly the thing you want to think about after you have put in so much effort, yet knowing your place, even in the new society set up, can be the way to actually hold your place within.

Profound Thoughts

 Today in one of the English classes we found ourselves discussion the question - what event in your life shaped your the most?- The student said, she had many, and when I asked her to pick one, I also mentally picked one.

Hers was the period between her parents' divorce at 16, teenage rebellion and the resocialisation she experienced when she moved away to study at 19 years old.

I told her about moving in with my mother at 17 years old and suddenly becoming aware of my new position. Before, with my grandmother and uncle's family- I was just a growing child, then young woman. With my mother, I was an adult  that needed to pull her weight.

I didn't also mention that it was also at this time I realized that I had squandered all my chances.

Let me explain. 

I was a performer, an A student through primary school. In highschool I just  lost interest. So when I came home with a very average B, in a year when 60% of the country's top students had an A and A-, it wasn't well received.

My chance to get into a mainstream Uni, where I would get a Government Loan was lost. My mother could not afford a private Uni.

I was cooked.

And right away I realized I was gonna have to work twice as hard to take care of myself because the period of handouts was over.

That is how I found myself doing two jobs and evening classes at 19.

I am still doing multiple things. I teach, I lock hair and I sell my books.

My third book is out now and you can order it at +254701030005.

Price: KES 1,300

Peace, Maybe

 

I have been thinking, talking and even reading about peace and today I thought about how, despite not always feeling very peaceful, I  have managed to somehow find peace within myself.

Not that everything is alright, I still have noise in various parts of my life, but when I come to my house, take off my shoes then brew a fresh cup of cardamom tea, I feel really good. I almost feel like everything is alright with the world. And perhaps it is, at least in the universe that I frequent.

My friend asked me how I was feeling and how it felt to have moved to a different place, away from the bright shining lights. I told her my nervous system has calmed down. And the minute  I said it out loud, it's liek I confirmed it, that yes, the wheels are turning  a little less faster than before.

It's not to say  that I haven't spent some nights wondering what's gnna be the end of this? Or  what will be the outcome of this other big risk I have  taken? There  has  been uncertainities, but through them all I have managed to calm myself  down and do the next thing  that needs to be done.

And  maybe  that's what it is, peace might be; the energy one has to be able to get up and participate in life.

This Chic: Growing Finer.

One of the things that have me really pumped is how beautiful I feel recently.

 I have never had a problem with my physical appearance, but whenever people said to me- oh you are so skinny, I wish I was skinny like you- I have always slapped back the compliment by saying- oh, but I wish I had more junk in the trunk, and a cleavage-

Because when you are born on this continent, you find out quite early that if you cannot shake your bum bum, then something is missing.

 I tried to gain weight, several times, but the more I tried, the more I lost, and one time when I actually put on some kilos, it all lined up along my midriff,  and burst the mixed tribe race myth I tried to hide behind and confirmed me  100% Kikuyu, no DNA required. 'Tires' are a speciality we the daughters of Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi cannot escape.

So being slim all though my 20s and most of my 30s wasn't really ideal, and even when I look at my pictures from then I cannot say I really like the look.

Then came the 35 turn and things started to change. I got fleshier, my skin looked brighter, and with my hair locked. I kinda locked in the look I have been wanting all my life.

One time I even texted a friend to ask 'Okay, now I have cleavage, what do I do with it?'

Hitting the gym was a game changer too.

SO many times I have caught my image in the mirror and mentally done a double take coz damn, who is this fine looking mama looking back at me?

I love my body, I love the calm pace that I have attained. I no longer rush through life melancholic like I did for so many years.

 I guess it has something to do with acceptance too. Accepting that this is my life now, this is the best it can get, and the people in it right now are the people I have carefully tried and tested and finally decided that, these are the people I want circling my orbit.

These are the people that know my flaws but still hold me when I need to be held. These are the people who give me strength to be great. Because  even when I have lost faith in my self, I get a little prod in my back to tell me, 'keep carrying that light you shine high.' I have a whole battalion of humans and other living beings that support my existence.

 Part of living is understanding that we cannot exist in a vaccum, we are communal animals we are living breathing creations  that must be, not only connected to the source, but, must continually feed from other creation. We are co-dependent, and slightly fused, if we attempted to detach we'd fail terribly, collapse, lose it all.

There is extreme beauty in my life.

Perhaps that's the reason I feel beautiful, even with scars and a body that likes to take long agonising breaks sometimes.

I recognize radiance in most spaces I find myself in. I have the ability to hold beauty and ugliness in both hands, I have enough  grace to clutch tightly at pain in one hand, while joy reverberates on the other. I have gained the poise to know that while I may be good, while I may try to do good and live a decent life, I am constantly making mistakes, giving in to wrong ideas sometimes, my toxicity is always present in my life. But there is consolation in the fact that I am dust. Not star dust, that's too high, I am earth dust. 

But while I may be clay, I am trying to be the best version of clay I can be.

(CATHARTIC)

A Home for the Nomad

 Between chasing the chicken from the outdoor kitchen for the 100th time, sweeping the rice grains now scattered on the floor  while trying to stop my grandmother from eating the raw onion that rolled to her feet when I scattered the chicken, the village gives a body enough activitiy in a day. You do pilates, yoga and zumba all before 10.00 O'clock.

And when you again get to the sink and notice the pile of dirty utensils that has gathered once again, peace is not the feeling that you get.

But amidst the disorder, there is a pulsating energy that carries you on it's shoulders  like a flood current, slower, but all the time moving, moving.

I walk bare footed, all around the rooms, around the compound, up and down the land. the heat  in the earth wraps my feet like therapy, like reassurance  that, I was part of the ground. That I am the daughter of the soil, I was hewn from this earth, and each step grounds me, firmly.

Someone asked me ; why do you move around so much?

I gave her an answer.

But my truth is different, I move around so much because I have never found a place to call home.

Perhaps it's the pastrolists blood coursing in me rendering me restless. Moving with the seasons, and only stopping at one place long enough to exhaust its green grass, and then it's time to move again.

I only recognize one place as home, the one that I grew up on, next to the forest. But I cannot be there, so as long as I am alive, I am a temporary citizen on this earth, with no particular attachment to place, person or tribe.

I am a soul that walks its own path, guided by my own  true North.

Conversations into Adulthood: Dating after 35

When I was past 35, I thought to myself, nothing can move this heart anymore.

And I was fine, happily running the rat race, making connections, finally able to afford some comforts, living in a leafy green neighbourhood with friendly neighbours and shopkeepers, with fat stray dogs and hardly any stray cats.

Then one day I got a dm asking me on a date to discuss a life ever after.

It was exciting, to think that I could actually go out on a date with someone, The last date I had been on was when I was 25, which wasn't even really a date, more like a fishing trip gone bad.

I even went out and bought a little black outfit to wear on the supposed date.

And my heart thumped as I rehearsed  answers to questions I expected to be asked.

I even started daydreaming about future dates and and how I would be telling younger women 'you really don't have to search for a husband, when the time is right the good Lord will provide one.' 

But before the supposed date I decided to ask someone, 'hey by the way, without giving me dirt what can you tell me about huyu mtu wa kwenu?

And mtu wa kwao said, 'well, Cecilia if being fed and clothed is what you are looking for then go for it, but you and I know that you have been feeding and clothing yourself long enough.'

I understood that without the need for subtitles.

In the wellbeing pie chart that includes physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and financial triangles, only one of them was shaded.

And soon enough I would be proved right.

Picture a middle aged woman,  in the middle of the night googling 'What is loving bombing? 'what is ghosting?'

Within two weeks, I had been lovebombed and ghosted, left hang to dry with my little black outfit which would never see the light of day.

And as I tried to understand that kind of behavior I got a better understanding of modern human behaviour.

And so  I choose my peace, I can only accept silent treatment from Che. Not a fully grow up person, hī, ūngīkīgūrūka. You can lose your head.

Good thing is, experience has taught me to turn negative energy to productivity.

And that is how within a month of my heart being wrung out, I published my first book.

Buy my book to read more conversations.

+254701030005

Conversations Into Adulthood- By Cecilia Gathoni

 

1. Conversations on Becoming an Adult

There is a moment in every life when laughter becomes a little heavier, when one’s reflection in the mirror starts asking questions instead of giving answers. Conversations on Becoming an Adult opens with that subtle shift — the realization that growing up is not about birthdays or tax forms, but about the quiet decisions that shape one’s moral and emotional core.

In a voice that is both wry and wounded, Gathoni examines the intersections of independence, longing, and self-definition. Through recollections that oscillate between humour and heartbreak, she sketches a portrait of what it means to be an adult in a world that expects performance rather than authenticity.

There’s wine and worry, self-doubt and stubbornness, but also the smallest rebellions — like refusing to conform to someone else’s measure of success. It is a chapter for anyone who has ever whispered, “I think I’m doing this wrong,” only to realize that everyone else is, too.

A meditation on becoming and unbecoming, this is where the reader begins to sense the heartbeat of Conversations Into Adulthood — steady, vulnerable, human.

Would you like a copy of the book?

Text Gathoni at +254701030005

(Disclaimer, this article was AI Generated.)

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This Chic- Meeting People who Remind Me that Life is Beautiful

 

The other thing is, I like interesting people. And meeting interesting people. In fact, if I meet an interesting person, I become actively involved in bringing them close to me, it can even get a little awkward 😸 Especially if it's a man, or a young man.  They might think I am pursuing  them. I have had to do damage control at times to tell the person.
'No no no, I don't like you like that, I like you, as a human being, nothing more. I can't even imagine, you me, me you, ew, no, no 😸😸.

I met two interesting people this week.
I should mention that this was a good week for me, above average. It had both the good and the bad in equal measures.

The first one was a girl, who knows about plants, and animals and she can cook.
The other was some guy.
We met in a small pig (gakūrwe).
A small pig is a passenger service vehicle that doesn't qualify to be a matatu, but it's not a probox either, Iko hapo in-between.
We were headed for a funeral, and as people talked, ( coz in small villages people chat and catch up in public transport)

I asked the one that seemed to know a lot if they knew where there was a funeral in the area.

He called a few people and soon told us where to get off, how much the motorbike should cost us and if we decided to walk, how long it would take. The guy next to me said he was going the same way, but he would walk.

'Can you walk?'
'Not so fast, but yes.' I said.
I told him I am recovering from an injury, he immediately took my bag and carried it for me.

As we walked, we talked about death..how suddenly it can come.
He told me he lost his sister one year ago.
'I am beginning to recover but that hit me really hard.'

I inferenced that humans were not supposed to deal with death.
He asked if the frame of my leg was affected and  advised me to take minerals, vitamin D and B 12. I told him I was taking them.

On the way back, he told me we could go back together.
I learned he was an athlete. A respected athlete.
He got me a ride with his guys.

We rode, me, my new friend, who's friends thought was my husband, or boyfriend. He was  neatly dressed I noticed, and well spoken.
His friends made jokes, the kind of jokes my brothers make.

They do deals, like every other younger Kenyan millenial.
The driver said, 'Haha nīho tuokaga kunyua mahehu'
'Mahehu nī matūī?'
'A we ndūngīmenya.'
'Mwīre nī caai aiganīre.'
We laughed.

'Na nītūkūrūgama handū tūnyue gacai,'
'We rīu tūrīgūtigaga mūciī nīwakūra.'

What I've found out is  that many dull people are actually very interesting if you manage to get past the dullness.
Not always, but you know how the loud can hold a crowd but with no substance?
The seemingly boring people can tell a well rounded dark joke without batting an eyelid.
Their counterparts would need a translator to get it.
Some loud people can be worth your while  though if you can get them to calm down.

After the meeting with that athlete, I couldn't stop thinking about artists and creatives in the 21st century, and how despite the clear knowledge about the role of creative art in modern society, we still get shoved to the corner. We stand by the sidelines.

He is a runner, who trains every day, morning and evening, but has to work on his farm to maintain his daily needs. The few races he may join in China or France can only cover so much.. He cannot earn from his God given gift 100%.

Just like I could never afford anything on a Feature Writer's pay.

So we have to do a side hustle.

And attend courses we don't really enjoy. Just so we can get a job.

Did I enjoy business classes? I did actually, apart from the Quantative Methods, which had me dropping big tears on the exam paper when I saw the test had more than three questions on my worst topic- Probability. I failed. I passed everything else. Excelled actually, in Communication, in Personnel Management, in Marketing,  and surprisingly, even in Financial Management. 

But KNEC, being KNEC, does not just issue certificates at will.

I may not get a chance to explore every new interesting person I meet, life is moving at a startling speed. But when I do, at least o the intial meeting, I make the most of it.