Hang On

It is 4:59 am and no, I didn’t just wake up at 4 or 4:30. I have been awake since 8pm last night. All nighters are part of me right now. The semester is that bad, and I am a mess. You should see me in my baggy shorts, ankle socks and SpongeBob hoodie. My bed is also a mess- duvet and bedsheets on one side; books, pencils, laptop and I on the other side. If it could speak, my mug would be complaining of how many times it has been refilled with coffee. Then there’s the empty plate next to it, which is just a painful reminder that I am officially out of cupcakes and I need to buy more. The three notepads on my lap are working round the clock to help me finish my next piece. Deadlines!

There’s not much going on nowadays- just exams, two hours of sleep daily and five minutes for social life, that is if your social life revolves around memes and texts from your favorite person(s). Ooh and the stickers sent by your classmates after finding out that the exam venue has been changed from lecture theater 1 to third floor Afya Center, and seeing the “exam will cover everything I’ve taught” message from the professor you’ve only seen thrice the whole semester. Education!

I think I mentioned that I’m a mess. The last words she said to me were, “Your genius has no off button, and I don’t know the you outside all this smart brainy stuff, you are smart and I guess I’m just not smart enough to be with you.” She is now a third year medical student but hey, its not like I still keep tabs on her. I moved on, and I believe that in all those words she was simply trying to say ‘it’s not you, it’s me‘.

There’s two ways to look at ‘it’s not you, it’s me‘. On one hand the person might be genuinely referring to the fact that they don’t have the emotional readiness required to make the relationship work, and on the other it is just a rude way to avoid talking about why they want to leave. They have already made up their minds to leave and they just don’t want to explain why. I’d argue that there’s a third, people who don’t know what they want and when things start getting real, they leave in the name of ‘it’s not you, it’s me‘.

Chances are you might have not heard those words or even said them to someone. Then again at some point in your life you must have, in the middle of a poker game, uttered the famous niko kadi and the other players on the table slapped you with a streak of jokers, three’s and two’s that leave you questioning whether it’s just a harmless game or they actually have something personal against you as. The feeling you get there is a thousand times less painful than the one you get from it’s not you it’s me so, do the math.

I’ve heard you peeps are dumping people because they are too available, too loving, too understanding, or just basically because they are too good at being your significant others. It must be terrible to have someone love you that much. In this case you are truly the problem, it is you. Someone somewhere posts “I know you are looking for good people to date, but ni sisi ndio tuko” and the shareholders of the ‘Sisi Ndio Tuko Sacco’, driven by their incessant need to prove to everyone that they are okay with themselves, will screenshot and repost it because leaving a good person must be such a flex. If you truly were okay, you wouldn’t need to prove it to anyone.

If you found your person and managed to ‘it’s me’ out of their life, go find them. Take them somewhere special when the night is young and tell them everything. Hold them and tell them you can feel the love in their breath, the warmth of their lips on yours and the slight tremble in their arms. Tell them you know they are nervous, and you are too, but you are nervous together and that makes you happy. Tell them you can feel the wind pushing you closer together, you can see the moon smiling at you, and the excitement in the twinkling stars. Tell them you can see nature’s approval of you, and that makes you happy. Dude, tell her you see her, and only her, and that makes you happy. Girl tell him not to look away, tell him to keep his eyes on you, cause that makes you happy. Just tell them, not in those exact words, but just say something.

A good friend says, ” there’s moments in life you can’t rewind; like the moment you make eye contact with a fine stranger just as the super metro is leaving Juja stage, and moments of true happiness- so when they come along don’t just hold on to them, hang on to them like your life depends on it.” Pretty wise words from a guy who argues the earth is flat.

How often are you genuinely happy, and who are you with in such moments? Who is responsible for your happiness? It’s not me and it’s not him or her either, it is you.

I am just from binging the last season of Lucifer, and even he has a “wife” and a daughter (sorry if I’ve spoiled that for you) and you are out here trying to stay more dangerous than the devil. Choose happiness and don’t lose good people in the name of keeping it taliban. Hang on to whoever makes you happy.

~Chiko

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