TETHERED

"How did I get here?" Emotions send me on a downward spiral with questions unanswered for I am bewildered as to how did I end up where I was. I look around dazed in a strange place that I hardly recognize as a world torched after an apocalyptic event while my head was pounding like iskuti drums were being played on a typical matchday of the "mashemeji derby". Memories flood in as nausea threatens to choke me to oblivion. I rush to the nearby toilet to relieve this physical deficiency that has my insides churning swearing never again it is but the last time. Before I gather my wits a yawn draws my attention to the bed I just dashed off and to my shock and shame, a belle I did not know was looking at me lazily. "Who are you? Whose place is this?" I ask much to her annoyance responding...” Don't you remember we met last night and you graciously offered to make me breakfast in bed before you unceremoniously passed out." Well that was my cue to exit stage left as this was getting out of hand.

Walking more like sauntering in the streets trying to find my way home as the high noon sun was punishing me for my sins giving me no quarter exacerbating my dehydration. I sat at a kiosk asked for a fanta blackcurrant "baridi" and some mara moja just to ease this headache. Again I asked myself how I got here. How did it come to this that I am a shadow of the responsible me was waking up in a stranger’s bed empty feeling worse than I did before I had those shots and tots that I drowned a whole bottle? I rested my head on my hands before I knew it someone was "cutting onions" as tears streamed down. Again I asked. "How did I get here?" I was reduced to a shell looking for anything and everything to fill this hollow self that threatened to swallow me whole.

A trip down memory lane having this introspection as to how and when did it start going south ensued. Life seemed at the grasp of my hand, I had everything going on well for me, good career check, money in the bank check, a mostly Sunday Christian who tithes hoping God would overlook some of my indiscretions like yeah at least he gives me what is mine. As tears streamed down my thought process and emotional state was broken by a rude almost maniacal comment “wewe enda ukalie kwako”. I was snapped back to reality and reminded myself bana I have to stay ‘Taliban’. As I walked off I wondered on the real though until when? Until when will I make excuses for my excesses? Until when will I face the hurt and the pain that had me down in the pits trying to drown all my sorrows just to numb the pain?

I got home in a daze, my sight was not clear and mind was in a daze. I got into the shower hopping to wash off the filth that was last night’s debauchery at least physically on some level I would be clean. I have to deal with this, I cannot go on or I will self-destruct leaving a trail of regret and devastation in my wake. Tracing my steps to what was the trigger, trying to put a finger on where the turning point was that I stopped caring, turned cold and closed of my heart and mind to all reason? Was it that season that I hardly had time for church because chasing paper came first, was it that time that the woman I loved had an affair and I brushed it off as my fault as I was hardly there? Was it the time that a family member broke my trust? 

I can’t, I just can’t keep on living like this, I need to take control I need to get back to the better version of me who would sit and write, cook with love and share, the me who would gladly go to church every other day freely serving before money and work became everything. No, I cannot simply go back I must move forward. I need not rehash the past trying to reclaim my glory days but look to the future while facing my present. My story is still being written and I hold the pen, flip a new chapter as this is the story of my journey to redemption.