Slow mo

My father wants to talk to me about my 'plans'. I've been avoiding him for a while. He made it easy by practically moving to another country, but now he's back and he wants to talk. How do I tell him that I have no plans? No concrete ones really anyway. Especially now that I know for sure that because of very very stupid things I did I won't be graduating with my class, and that I have no interest in pursuing a career in the field in which I've been training for for the last three years, at his expense. The worst tpart is that he looks like he's going to do the whole 'I understand, where do we go from here' thing. He's going to forgive me and pat me on the back and make me cry. I want him to scream and yell and throw me out of his house instead. Ok, not really, what i'd really like is for a fast forward to when this is all over and I've finally done something that he can be proud of. Something that will make him smile instead of sigh and offer me up to God as one of the issues. So, I'm skirting around him, and I know how. I am not ready to have that talk, not this week anyway.

For P.
I hate how they say that you 'passed', like its a test and we're failing to do all the things that we must. You're rising, we're falling. The despair has no bottom , no sides, just a vague awareness of weight. My feet are firmly on the ground, no spring while I remember. I will not forget. Nor forgive. I promise. I have no forgiveness for you, for them or for myself. They say you are gone and yet you can't be, not while I'm still here. There must be a me with a you in a parallel universe listening to T.I's No Matter What which is so you. I don't see how else it could be. You must be, or I'm not.

Dear Bloggers

A friend of mine is interested in interviewing bloggers for a research paper she is writing. Would you mind if she crashed UBHH with a notebook and an eye? Or if she emailed you and bothered you with questions and watnot? How about if she stalked you(ok, not really but, you know...)
Smiles

You are my obsession,

the point of a circle that leads me to you whenever I turn away, that leads me astray when I'm here to stay. I mean so much more than the idea you have of me. I'm different, just the same. Is death the end or just another door shutting in my face? I'm flying at the bottom. The heights I've reached are still way below low level.
your heavy heart is made of stone. Chris Martin

Hate is my only continuance. It numbs me from the pain I never want to meet.
My hope is at the bottom of a lake, the living fight over the dead, red cars keep me awake. The end of the world has come and gone, taking you with it, leaving us surrounded by a war we never asked to fight. Life goes on. I don't want to go without you. What is the point of life if it ends at the bottom of a lake surrounded by people you love and i hate?

hugging the wall

I must confess that coming back is harder than leaving was. It doesn't help that Internet went away from our home last week and hasn't yet come back. And I hate cafes, because they steal my money. I prefer MTN, because they just steal my daddy's money.

My dad was giving me meaningful looks in the morning. I bumped into him at the place of ironing things(wussname?) and we got into a convo about 'what comes next'. Well he got into it. I was just dodging all the questions. So I told him I still have to finish my research and stuff, blah.... I was just mumbling away but he was actually listening because he kept asking me questions about what I'm researching, where, watnot... We were doing good, him with the questions, me with the mumbles and then he asked for my supervisors name. I tried to mumble that away but he got it out of me. Good thing is he doesn't know her because he was asking if she's helpful...wonder what he'd say if he found out that I'm the one that's stalling the project. So i survived that, and I even got some money too. I was so touched that he just up and gave me money because he 'hasn't given me money in a while'. His words. Although, maybe he read my mind and decided to beat me to it, because I was meaning to ask him for money...three times what he gave me. Have I been duped?

Is it possible that at 22 I have loved the love of my life and I'm now doomed to wallow in mediocrity forever?

words are another kind of violence

Is it presumptious of me to believe that we can pick up where we left off?

let's see how far we've come

I'll be 22 in exactly a month. I made a list of things to do before my 21st birthday,which carried on into this year because 21 came faster than I worked at them. Those things on the list are still pending. I'm learning to let them be. I made a wackier list for this year and now with a month to go I'm not sure where I stand. Because I cannot show you my list, I'm making you a special one. A list of how far I have come.

December 17th 1985: Nairobi peace deal was being signed. Keeping with the theme, my parents chose 'peace' as a name. Thankfully not in English, because it sounds better in the language of the Kings. Jaz says I was the yellowest baby she ever saw. My name is still the same although I fight way too much and I'm much much darker now.

December 17th 1988: My last born role had been usurped in June of that year. I was still smarting, although I was talking to my Ma again. The chocolate cake was kind of small, but it more than made up for me having to be moved to my bigger sister's Sunday school class. They say it's because I was afraid of being on my own. I wasn't afraid. I was upset because a white boy called me black. I'm still black. Proud of it too.

December 17th 1990: I had learned that to survive I must blend in. Unlike my older sister who insisted on keeping her 'accent', I lost mine and learned to imitate my nursery school teachers. She was labeled 'spoilt' and got a bad report while I was teased at home for saying 'sief' instead of 'thief'. I still blend but the Queen would be proud to hear me say 'thief' now.

December 17th 1992: I was still walking on the clouds after my stellar performance as half of the prettiest pair maids ever. My favorite shoes had been stolen but my cloud couldn't be touched. I've been a bridesmaid only once since. I still looked like a doll with all that makeup on. This time I kept my shoes myself.

December 17th 1994: P.3 was much harder than I thought. I was extremely wary of my teachers having heard the horror stories of Miss Wakabwa and Miss Nyanzi. They did not disappoint. Bamboo doesn't frighten me anymore. I would even decorate my house with it now.

December 17th 1998: I was teenager! I don't remember how I survived the year of the maroon coat. My daddy was so proud of me. Now he could say that being Head boy/girl run in the family. He didn't know how suffocated I felt seated next to the Headmaster at assembly, envying my friends who could laugh at the lower schoolers and teachers freely. I'm still maroon-coated everywhere I go. Responsibility is stalking me.

December 17th 2002: 'In love' for the very first time inspite of my sisters' pleadings. He said he wanted to be me and I was in free fall. Then he broke my heart and said it was because I was too good for him. I still don't know what love is, I'm still not listening to my sisters and still falling when I shouldn't.

December 17th 2005: 20 in Nairobi. Dealing with being a 'fresher' and getting over a broken relationship. Campus was totally different from what I thought it would be. No endless parties, a lot more work and less friends that stayed the same. I'm still baffled by campus and broken relationships are even more jagged and complicated.

November 17th 2007: I was a weird child,I'm an even weirder adult. A month to 22 and I'm afraid of looking at my list. So, I decided to ask you all to help here. Make me a new list for this last month.

p.s do take into consideration that I start exams week after next meaning that I can't leave Kampala, so make your suggestion Kampala oriented.