
Disappointments! Disappointments wadau! I thought I’d be writing this while on a plane. You know, like Biko. How the big boys do it! Heading to Norfolk, clad in a Dammit Arsenal hoodie, to catch Arsenal’s game v Norwich, a Boxing day special. Still puzzles me how folk who are not Arsenal fans survive. Must be sad.
Anyway, away from your sadness…that is how I’d envisioned it. The one gift I had asked Santa for this Christmas. But what do you know, the dude’s racist! Instead, I’m fanning myself with my left hand as I type this. Seated on some Swahili stool, wondering whether Coast being 0m above sea level is a neat way of saying 0m above hell because the temperatures…GODAMN!
Christmas. Well, the name loses taste with time, doesn’t it? As a kid, this was the all or nothing day. If your parents managed to buy you new clothes, then it was all for you. The flex was unmatched! If you had new clothes and shoes, then it was double flex!!! If you had new clothes, shoes and the demigod sunglasses, (you folk know which), then it was triple wahala for the whole neighborhood kids! You would walk with more bravado than a UON graduate.
Unfortunately if the year had been knotty for your folk, and you somehow missed on new stuff, then the day was zippo! An absolute bum of a day! The carols would just be daunting noise and the smell of either pilau or chapati…choking! You wouldn’t set foot in church. I mean the thought of your crush seeing you in the same kitenge shirt, hanging lose on one shoulder and oversized pants for yet another Sunday, was, well…crushing!
But time being time, here we are. All grown up. We are no longer arguing with 50 other kids about who cried the loudest when the whole gang was whipped after coming home muddy. Instead, we are arguing with our conscience about what really success should look like. Whether love should be sought after or if it knows its way home, and if grades really matter. Fudge is no longer the go to snack, but besties…Times when peace of mind has become very pricy and well…smiles like African Dior…if you get the gist. Christmas is no longer Christmassy and all you can do, is allow yourself, once in a while to drift into the past. Let nostalgia do what it does best and live in the good old days.
However, that doesn’t mean we can’t be better than our present-s (pun unintended). We can give others what we once had. We can still be compassionate. Imagine not experiencing this even in your childhood. Not getting the new clothes, food or worse still, the love. Imagine getting, rained on, instead of gifts. The world could be kinder, and you could actually be the world, dear one. Christmas may no longer be Christmas for you, but don’t let it be that for someone else.
Also friend, if you were counting your accomplishments this year and the count went not past three, here are some; you survived, you smiled, you cried, you survived and better still, you survived. You may have been at your rock bottom, but hey at least its rock…not snakes or bees (I don’t know what I’m saying). I read that one cannot fully embrace success if your lips have tasted not, of failure. That the fullness and sheer magic of being happy can only be felt if your eyes once lingered in sadness for a bit, or a lot.
So no, the world may not be your favourite chill spot, but hold on dear friend. Maybe the universe was meant to somehow align for you, but it’s just not the time. Maybe your chakra was settling, but you know how the wind can be, don’t you? The life that you presently have, live it. Don’t end it, because endings are never good, only in movies, unless the movie is bad. Be real in this world of make-believe, or as my favourite Victorian would say, be you cause everyone else is already taken.
Gregory says, next moon is a new year and I don’t know about that, but what I know for sure is that the sun will set and rise again. And that when it so rises, then the rays come with it, a new chapter, a chance to right the wrongs and rise from the tribulations…because no matter how bad or good things are, they too shall pass…