SCARY AFFAIR

We  were sitting in a room , my pal kept staring at the ceiling with that spaced out look. He had been like that for a while now, oblivious of the world around him almost in a trance as it were. "You guy kwani what's up?"

"What the hell is this now, she's telling me that she's late man"

I couldn’t help but burst out laughing, we'd been in this precarious situation before and time and time again, ad told my pal to always take the necessary precautions but hey, Shit happens right. I could see the frustrations lines  form on his face, that helpless look you get when you feel the world around you caving in, " Dude screw that maze, me am not dealing with that crap".

I was trying to look for words but then again what do you tell someone in that situation? We've all been there once or maybe a few more times than we'd care to remember, that fear filled moment when you think you're gonna be blessed with a bundle of "joy" and you don’t know what next step to take. Whether to bury your head in the sand and hope beyond all hope its just the universe playing a sick joke on you or maybe the gal is simply trying to find out how you would really react in that situation. Let's take the latter for instance, so  a girl tells you she's paged and she's gonna keep it, any rational guy who hadn't planned for that of course isn't gonna want to listen to that story so how do you think he'll react ? We both know it I just don’t have the courage to write it here, bottom line chic breaks up with guy. Back to the story, so my boy calls up the gal to find out if she's playing games (story for  later ) or she's for real.

The conversation starts up kinda sketchy, guy doesn’t really know how to bring up the issue without sounding insensitive  so he beats around the bush with small talk all the while building up to" the big question". Finally he just blurts it out , " Are you for real or are you just messing with me ? Cause if you are we are totally done." You can see his face start to cringe in anger all the while I'm trying my best to hold back the laughter. I can faintly hear her voice, you know how loud speakers can be sometimes. I make out the words two days so I start thinking to myself , maybe it's just been two days you know ,  things could work out for the better. My pals face changes my conviction about the same, he's near tears now I'm wondering what the hell is going on, finally he gets off and obviously am eager to hear what's happening. He's barely audible, "………two days ago"

"Dude, ebu speak properly I can't make out what you're saying or its good news huh?"

 I tap him on the shoulder his expression's still the same, then he just goes ballistic tell me all about how she was messing with him and that she had started two days ago. His face is torn between joy and anger but my goodness ad like to see what he does when they finally meet up, but that my friends is a story for another day.

A LEAP OF FAITH

Life can be funny sometimes , I keep hearing the phrase you don’t know what you have till it's gone and recently I was thinking about it. Now I know a couple of you have been down this road before maybe because you thought you could do better or maybe you were leaving the one you loved for someone else, reasons are numerous but the fact is that you did it. You left someone and a little ways down the road you regretted it so my question is who do you blame ? Yourself for making a foolish mistake ? truth is there's no one to blame, sometimes we just make a bad judgment call and the repercussions are what make life what it is .

 I had been debating whether I should leave the relationship I was in because I kept feeling like I was giving it my all and the other person just didn’t feel quite the same way. We always got into fights over the silliest things and truth be told I was getting tired of it , my belief has always been that relationships should be mature and if that’s not happening then what the hell, I'm not staying. So during a period of one of our  "misunderstandings" I happen to chance upon a beautiful soul with the name of a flower. Now normally feelings like this would go away but this time they didn't, they seemed to want to linger a little longer than I would please and the worst part is I liked it. I let myself feel things I had long forgotten oblivious to the fact that this wasn't going to end well. You know what they say, the heart wants what the heart wants plain and simple.

This went on for quite some time and each day I fell more and more in love with this new person ever so slowly setting my troubled relationship to fade into the background like a shadow in a picture. I couldn’t help myself, I wanted to feel something real with someone who shared my dreams and she seemed to be that person. I look back now and for some reason I still keep thinking that I should have tried harder but then again sometimes it lasts in love but sometime it hurt s instead.  I had pictured every scenario in my head and I knew that it was better to have loved and lost so I thought to myself, why the hell not. I decided to end the predicament that was my current relationship and take my chance with this beautiful damsel who had won my heart with her kindness and charm.

We were different but so much the same and that is what I had loved about her, the fact that despite all that we were there was still ground for us to find footing together, to complement each other as it were and as it should be. So I took a leap of faith and told her my decision, I'll never forget that fateful afternoon when I got to hold her hand one last time, her soft and delicate hands . When were outside on a bench under a gentle sun, I can remember how fast my heart was beating. I was hopeful, eager to set forth on the precipice of change so unprepared for what lay ahead.  So I told her how I felt and that we should be together, I can't remember exactly what followed but in the midst of all of it I remember the words " I like you but….." . In truth it doesn’t matter what those words were because she said no, the girl I thought was the one said no and I had to let her go.

That was a while back and a lot has changed since then but my advice is this,when a person is in a relationship there are many factors that come into play and through it all sometimes we fall out of touch with what made us fall in love in the first place , in a sense we no longer  take the time to smell the roses as it were. The stolen glances and sweet nothings all get lost in the complexities of daily living, people don’t stop to appreciate each other anymore and these could be prelude to many problems to follow.  I was reading an article about how a husband wanted to leave his wife for another woman and the underlying reason as he put it was that he had fallen in love with someone else. The wife agreed to a divorce on condition that the husband wait a month because their son was doing exams and that he carry her out the door every morning. As this went on the guy remembered why he fell in love with his wife in the first place but the sad bit is that she had cancer and she died at the end of the month he hadn't known and when he had decided to stay he had come back home to find her no more.

Time waits for no man and sometimes you have to stop to appreciate what you have, don’t look for reasons to leave, find reasons to stay because at the end of the day nothing worth having ever came easy. This is easier said than done but I believe that if you stick with it at the end of the day you'll be happy you did.

I'm just sayinG

THE LOOP BACK

Another sleepless night and I can't help but think , this was a night meant for writing. So av been looking at a scenario and I think I'll call it the loop back , when you find yourself back in a relationship you thought had ended.

Here's how I remember it , we'd been sitting there for quite a while now and the thought had crossed my mind more times than I care to mention, I kept thinking to myself this isn't gonna work. Now the relationship hadn't been going on for too long ( I'm starting to think maybe I have a curse on me or something ) and in the back of my mind I could already see where this was heading. I didn't like it one bit and in all honesty I don't normally know how to pretend so why was I gonna start now.
So i begun a conversation whose outcome I had played in my head a million times before , would she try to slap me ?
would she cause a scene ?

The list is endless and frankly none of you has the time or patience to hear the whole of it.
"so , av been thinking and the way i see it we seem to want different things ....."
You can already see the build up if you've been here before , you gamble with the right words to say while still getting the truth out there but in the process you don't want to sound like an insensitive prick. Women are delicate, a wrong choice of words might just rub them the wrong way.

So you go through all this maybe a couple of tears for times shared and you think to yourself it was the best decision to make and everyone is the happier for it aka YOU. Flash forward about one month down the line and the single life aint all it was cracked up to be , shamelessly falling for girls you can't have with no hope of salvation. Then you remember that relationship that you wanted out of and how lucrative it looks right now, most of you will agree with me that this is probably a bad idea but who ever said that we make the best decisions I mean c'mon we're only human after all. So you think to your self that things are different now and it will work this time , but will it ?? Will it really ?

You throw caution to the wind and against better judgement decide to take another swing at it , there you are whispering sweet nothing's trying to convince her that It was all just a big mistake . Truth is no one likes to be alone and you're simply avoiding the possibility of being single for who knows how long. So down that road you go again , an imminent breakup in the future as history simply repeats itself, the anger starts to bubble slowly frothing to the surface as you both fall in to the same pattern. The more things change , the more they stay the same , I'm sure you'll agree. Before too long it ends again only to begin another time , a cycle that if not broken out of could work to ostracize you in future relationships. Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith and hope to fall in love.

I'm just sayinG

MOVIES GALORE

Whatever happened to go movies ? The kind of movies that would leave with tears cascading down your face (Lion King comes to mind) movies that depicted true human nature and things that could actually happen to a normal human being (The Champ, if you haven't watched it then I don’t know how your childhood was). These is less than a tip of the iceberg and I'm sure movies are already popping into your heads, you could always comment them give some of us something to watch. I miss those kind of movies and can’t wait for the day when we'll finally go back to such a prime age of quality movies.

Why have I decided to talk about movies ? I don’t know, just realized it's been a while since I watched a genuinely good drama. I want to feel like the movie I'm watching has more drama than my life(note: this is to exclude all Naija movies honestly can't beat their drama even if I tried), I mean what would be the point of placing my tush on a couch to spend a considerable number of hours for something less exciting than my life??

That said I can't help but marvel at how far technological advances have taken the sci-fi movies , after watching "Dark Knight Rises" and "The Avengers" you 'll agree with me.  Actually gave these movies a standing ovation , they left me hanging on the edge of my seat anticipation every piece of juicy action like my next breath depended on it , the seamless integration of beautiful acting and well thought out animation has become something to truly behold. Actually left the cinema hall with a big grin on my face all too eager to defend the movies show anyone come up with a snarl comment (not that anyone actually did). 

Right I remember why I started this post, the Kenyan movie that was nominated for an Oscar(shamefully I still haven't watched it, hope it's still playing ). So based on the reviews that have reached me it seems exactly the movie that meets my drama criteria, a true depiction of life in a related script I would assume based on a true life story given how the story plays out. How rude of me , still haven't given the name of the movie, "Nairobi Half Life" .

This kind of acting (again based on others review, I'll give feedback soon as I watch it) is where we expect Kenya and other African countries to head, we're tired of sub-standard acting with lines that clearly look like they were scripted. Innovation is a tool best used free of restraint, this is the only way I see the film industry in Kenya to be particular ever making step forward.

I'm just sayinG

THE BREAKUP CYCLE

No one takes breakups easily, you become crippled with so many emotions at the time and we all know the heart is not so smart (damn it now I got that song stuck in my head). There are so many phases you go through but I’m sure we can break it down to about 4 phases, the bitterness, the “what if”, need to move on and if you’re lucky ,time heals all wounds, so I’ll begin.

THE BITTERNESS

You’ve been in a relationship for (insert timeslot here) when suddenly one day you wake up and this other person is telling you how they don’t think they can do it anymore. Normally at this time is when you get that adrenaline rush but not the good kind more of the utter frustration type and you’re thinking to yourself where did we go wrong? In the background as you zone out you somehow make out the words “it’s not you it’s me…..” this is where you snap back to reality and go a little bit crazy. Scream a few words ad rather not right but at least the profanities help keep back the tears and give you some level of control over the situation. But let’s be real, we all know this is what the other person was expecting all long because that’s when they start to curl up and take all the insults. If you’re fortunate you’ll be able to walk away before the tears start streaming down your face but the bitterness doesn’t end there. Of course you have to go bad mouth them to your friends as they dig in with their true opinions of what they really thought about your “better half”.

THE “WHAT IF”

Now this phases is my favorite , this is when your heart and mind start to truly battle. On the one hand your heart tells you that you made the wrong decision and that you should try to work things out which sometimes is true but logic dictates that if things didn’t work the first then what's changed in that time and why should it be different the second time around , Right? I mean if we're honestly speaking then look at it this way, the more things change the more they stay the same, maybe am right maybe am wrong, depends on where you're standing. This is where many of us end up getting stuck because you keeping on playing back the scenarios in your head and we all know that doesn’t do anything to help your situation but then again when did people with a broken heart ever reason rationally .  You need a strong will to get past this truth is you may never truly let go but you must get to a point where the could be future doesn’t bother you. 

NEED TO MOVE ON

Tricky ,confusing ,impossible. These are some of the words that come to mind when most people are faced with such a situation I mean come on moving on isn't always as easy as some make it out to be.  "She wasn’t worth it you guy   " I can almost hear the words so clearly. In the words of Lemar "it's not that easy" , words don’t just make feelings go away. It takes so much more and this is where the need to move on syndrome comes in. After a break up you want to get back into the game and sometimes we make the step too early, problem is we don’t know that. So there you go trying to feel something for someone else and for a while it may work , a spark will ensue but sadly that’s all it will ever be as hard as you may try.

This might go on for a while but in my opinion its necessary for one to actually move on, kiss a few frogs as it were(not that am saying the rebounds will be ugly). Feel what you need to feel then when time comes to let go you do so and learn to love someone new.      

                      

TIME HEALS ALL WOUNDS

Finally we get to this point, well , some of us that is. When all is right with the world again and we're ready to be hurt all over again or if you're lucky , really lucky, you'll get to meet someone who makes you laugh when the world puts you down, someone who makes each day a little bit brighter, someone worth dying for, the love of your life. And that my friends is why we never stop looking , to live with hope is not to live.

Am just sayinG^TM