A PILGRIM IN THE 20s

 

 

It is around 7 am, I am in the ferry, Likoni. I am heading to Mombasa mainland from Kwale county. For starters, being on the transit by 7 in coast is reserved for but a few. God knows how early I had woken up. Reason for all these? “we are hustling”

I am standing next to the vehicles, which is what we who are on a hurry do. Those who find comfort in sitting are viewed as not in any hurry, not for the day nor for life. It is almost as if, if you sit down life passes you by, you have to always be on your toes. You blink once and before you do the second time it is no longer August. you take a seat to breath in, before you breathe out you are no longer 21 years!

Anyway, as I was standing in between the cars and surrounded by hundreds of people who like me are rushing after life, I afford some luxury to stare at the massive waters holding up these huge ships and boats. I ponder on how deep the waters are and wonder what might be hidden in the waters that our naked eyes cannot see. You know, a lot goes on chini ya maji. I wonder if I could survive in case our ferry drowns. Even though I am confident with my swimming abilities, my mum has always said that “waters do not have heroes”.

As I am lost in this trance of musings the question of existentialism visits again: Get born, go to school, get a job, raise a family and then die? Is that all that life has to basically offer? What for? Is all the trouble we go through worth it?

My train of thoughts is distracted by the commotions next to me. The ferry was almost halting and so people were getting ready to jump off even before the vehicles. I am of course among the first to get off. I board a matatu. I am heading to Tudor. It is on a Thursday and so as a culture the music being played in the matatu is old school bongo, bongo hiphop to be precise. “mtoto wa kiume” by Geez Mabovu is the one threatening to blast our ears. If you know the song you know what it is capable of. It can be a good motivation at the same time be a meditation catalyst. It took me back to when I was only a teen. Life was pretty nice and very promising. I believed I would have figured by 23, don’t get me wrong, it was not wishful thinking. I had a plan.

Nobody ever prepares us for the world. The school doesn’t, our parents don’t, neither does the society. We get in our twenties, if you are lucky you graduate from a tertiary institution and then wallah! Face the world.

Out here we are beating our ass off for making mistakes, agitating for spaces in jobs we do not even like, or rather like but the jobs do not like us, we dig our mental health into depressions. Pressure is piled on us, pressure from our own selves, pressure from our families, pressure from the society. The statements “you have to make it” “you should have made it by now” occupies the lions share of our thoughts. If you are the firstborn, it is even worse. The making it is not just for yourself but for your siblings, for your family and even the entire village.

We are succumbing to a poisonous gas called comparison. We forget so and so is not 23 years. Neither did he or she make it at 23. Well, unless he or she is from a wealthy family or the lady luck fell for them early. And yes, there is luck in play. You will hear orations of it being hard work  and not luck, do not be fooled, there is a lady luck roaming around the universe. (We will talk about this lady some other day).

As I thought of the people I look up to. People who have a fraction of what or where I would want to be, (I have never found a perfect example of a person living my dream life, my dream life is yet to be devised. I have to do the invention) and I realized most of them are in their forties if not fifties. Well, I want to get there earlier than they took, but for heaven’s sake I have to stop beating my ass up for not being there at 24. I begin to learn that patience and resilience is what I need.

Above all, we have to enjoy, we have to have merriment in each and every stage of life, because this is it guys. We are living not leaving. And as Nyashinski reiterates, usishi vi-basic ni kama kesho iko promised. Always yearn to find yang in yin because the yin will never miss to find you in yang.