In the effort to find my love for writing again, I agreed with a close friend that I will have a weekly article on this blog. Even though I’m already in a new week, it’s Monday. So I’m just two days late, but that’s also two days of journal entries that will potentially make it into this article.
We move backwards;
SUNDAY
I did not leave the house. I was exhausted, sleepy, and worn down. Both physically and spiritually. I was looking forward to being able to attend service and an indoor talk on sin cycles with the Young Adults ministry in church, but I was stuck in bed. A lot of my days looked like this for the first six months of my life. Days where I just lay in bed and all I did was binge-watch shows and eat a lot of junk food. I had made a decision to replace my urge to buy junk with apples instead. But on this weekend I gave in. I even made excuses for it.
Naturally, this morning I woke up feeling empty and void. I know it seems like the same thing, but these two emotions and states of being are not the same. The familiarity of it is not. Up until roughly three months ago I thought that I would just spring out of this funk and just begin to exist in my new reality without any challenges; I was wrong. It turns out six months of habits cannot be broken in one day. I just assumed because I had no structure and nothing to look forward to, that was why I was wasting away, and once these two factors changed, I would be back at it again; I was wrong about this too. Three months in, and there have been many days where I would get up and just sit in my bed, not wanting to leave, even when I needed to be somewhere else.
As it turns out, six months of sluggishness takes longer than one day to shake off. It has been a year of transitions, and it has taken a toll on me on so many levels. I have had questions and no answers; I have had harsh realities and wonderful realizations all in the same breath. Transitioning into adulthood is a lot scarier than I thought, and perhaps it happens in stages because I feel as though for most of the year I have been in denial. The ease with which I was able to slip back into unhealthy habits had me wondering why. The comfort of familiarity, even if it’s bad for you, is easier to deal with, even though the next chapter is better than this one. Perhaps, in a lot of ways, I may be grieving what was, and at some point I will have to release the nostalgia and the reminiscing.
All this happened on a Sunday, but in other news, I got a new kitten, my sister turned 30, and I took part in an internal fitness challenge that I felt good about how well I did. On top of that, someone stood in front of the matatu I was in to prevent it from using the sidewalk as a means to escape traffic; it was an interesting moment. Until next time.
With love,
Mulai Kibaara.
