All we can wish for

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On mornings like these, getting out of bed feels like having an unwanted pregnancy. The previous nights are always the best—before you have to wake up and face life with all that it bears for you. There’s never really any time or space to think about anything else except all the comfort, pleasure, and freedom the night holds. Then, as if by nothing else apart from sheer time travel, it all feels lacking and insufficient. It always feels that way because soon you have to get out of bed and into the life which you mostly don't enjoy, or go do the job you never thought would someday start draining the life out of you, with the people who are somehow always just one word away from pushing you over the ledge. Now, I don't know how it actually feels to get an unwanted pregnancy, but I imagine it must be vaguely similar—in the same way all pain is vaguely similar, or in the same way all people are vaguely similar.

That thought reminds me of something from high school. Just before sitting for our national exams, the school’s administration arranged for a motivational speaker to visit and address the year’s candidates—us. At some point during his quite moving speech, he vehemently pointed at a student seated in the front row and, among the many words, he said "...you are different, just like everyone else..." I realise that there are much more profound things I should've picked up from the motivational speech, but I was a teenage boy, and it is customary that teenage boys be idiots. Therefore, that's what I still clearly remember, even decades later.

We are different, just like everyone else!

What a strange thing to say.

And yet—since it allows me in this moment to compare lazy mornings to unwanted pregnancies—I’ll take it. Over time, I've come to learn that days like these do get better, and it's not as scary as it seems. The cold goes away, the energy to live does come back—eventually. You only have to not abort the day's mission.

Today, it was quite the same. A familiar severe morning lethargy, coupled with those terrible abdominal pains—triggered by either indigestion of the food I had the previous night or indigestion of all the hurt I carry in my soul—sends me their usual good morning messages. These abdominal pains always seem to keep my lonely soul not so alone, but most importantly, they keep my circadian rhythm constantly up on its toes, which is good for my next-door neighbors, because I'm always up before the alarm goes off, and I'm able to spare them the torture of having to wake up when their cue is not yet come. I'm sure they appreciate my consideration for them, and one day they'll express it in either words or actions; and I can know their names, and the names of their kids, and maybe we can be actual neighbors. However, for now, I just have to do better. I have to be better!

It’s a special day today. I'm taking a break from work, got a new hobby to explore, and a life to distract myself from. If I were to list all the things I'm good at, planning would be somewhere at the top. I like planning things; I like living the future all in the comfort of a document. I could visit the capital city on Monday at 9 AM, fly out to the coast the next day, have a glass of ice-cold rum at 2 PM, and a big piece of roasted chicken at 5 PM. I could sunbathe the next day or maybe do kayaking. I would obviously also have to leave some time to hopefully meet a beautiful girl who likes to talk about dogs and philosophy and make bad jokes, and maybe she could love me and I could love her...for a while, before things start to go really well for us—maybe a bit too well. Which is not a concept fathomed by my heart and soul, and so after a few days or a few weeks or a few months or a few years, on a random Saturday at maybe about 7 PM, I would make the call and explain how this is not working out for me, how it doesn't feel the same, how something is missing. And in that moment, she'll feel sad—she'll feel really sad—and I will feel sad too. And the next day, when I wake up to no "Hey babe, how you doin'," I'll feel alone, but I'll also feel a sense of relief, and it won't be for a while before I realize how safe my heart and soul feel in this sadness and this darkness. Oh, darkness, my old friend! I could plan all that in a neat and well-detailed spreadsheet with nice headers, and nicely color-coded rows and columns, however, fail miserably when it comes to actually executing the plan. And that is exactly what happened today.

"Fuck, nafaa kufanya at least one thing leo, ghai!"

I mutter to myself, wondering how it even got to midday and the show I somehow magically started watching isn't anywhere close to coming to an end.

"But at least ni season moja tu."

I was wise in the sense that I understood the limits to self-sabotage—meaning, if I was going to lie to myself and binge all day, I was also going to choose something that has only one season and isn't going to keep me glued there forever. I stand in my living room, anxiously being entertained by the last few episodes, which in all honesty are kind of being dragged on for too long at this point, but I'm still unable to turn off the TV.

Watching this show has quickly depleted my moral license. I now figure I have to do something to renew it. At about half past 2 PM, I finish the show and decide I'll have to do something—anything—to regain my own trust. If I can manage to do something meaningful today, I won't hate myself, at least not more than I usually do.

So I prepare myself and take a matatu to town. There's a spot I know that has a little bit of a safe-haven vibe to it. I'm not sure if it's because it's entirely run by women who have some bit of warmth to them, they neither shout nor try to kill me every now and then, something I wish my mother should've done a bit more of, or maybe it's just because they serve really good mocha.

It's definitely the mocha!

I get there, and I'm quickly presented with a menu by one of the waiters. Although I'm feeling a bit guilty, I'm also feeling a bit free and naughty, and so I want to try something I haven't tried before in all my years of coming to this place. I presume the menu to be a new book I just bought. I intently go over every single item in there, reading the text and the subtext. I was on a mission, and this time I was going to win.

As I was still going through it, I could see from the periphery of my vision that someone was coming towards me. In all my years of coming to this place, we've never exchanged more than normal pleasantries. And so, as anyone with an acute self-diagnosed social anxiety would do, I quickly respond the moment I hear this waiter say something to me.

"Ohh, bado."

"No, I was saying it's been a while since we've seen you here."

"Right right, yeah, no, nimekuwa a bit busy." I add a fake giggle on top of the lie.

"Oh okay, it's good to see you though," she says surely and confidently. "Are you ready to order?"

"No, not yet," I reply with a bit of cool, calm, and collection that I've learned to fake from all the TikTok I watch.

"Okay," she says, and then she walks away.

Then I begin doing the things I'm good at—I rewind, deconstruct, and analyse. I play back the conversation we've just had.

"What the fuck," I think to myself.

I spend the next couple of minutes thinking nothing but "beautiful thoughts" about myself and wondering why I am as I am. I look up, and my eyes meet the eyes of the waiter who was just here.

"Shiiitt!"

I feel a sudden pressure to now place an order. I signal her with my face—a slight nod, the same way toxic masculinity has taught men to greet each other, expressing utter nonchalance to fellow men. She comes, and I pick the first thing I see on the menu: coffee and masala fries.

Who the fuck orders coffee and fries?

Me, apparently.

It wasn't until the pressure to place an order was lifted that it dawned on me. These people saw me when I was around and they had felt my absence when I wasn't around. I may be just another customer to them, but I am also a physical thing occupying space, and in my absence, I'm missed. I would've cried if I still had a bit more tears in me. I look around and see strangers all around me. Every now and then, I see a waiter float by to serve someone else something else, and then I wonder what thing hurts them, what thing keeps them awake at night. Maybe we are not so different after all—or maybe we are just all similar in our differences. Later on, when I paid my bill, I told that waiter thank you and I left. However, what I actually meant was, "Thank you, for seeing me, and noticing my absence," because that's all we can wish for in this life.