Return of the ex

The persistent knock on the door had gone on for almost an hour, putting to bed my attempts to sleep in and sleep off the stresses and exhaustion of the past week. I rubbed my eyes, opened them to the dim light of early Saturday morning, then fumbled around the bed for my phone, and finding it, checked the time. It was barely 7.

The knocking continued unabated. I couldn't ignore it any longer.



Photo: Rolf meme from the Internets

"It must be really important," I thought to myself and grabbed a dressing gown and leso as I shuffled to my front door.

I didn't recognise the woman standing outside my door, but I suspected, with great irritation, that she was looking for a laundry job. "Hunikumbuki ...?" She implored, startling me out of my stupor. I shook my head. "Nilikuwa nakufulia manguo..." "Hmmm..." "Halafu nikaenda ushago nilikuwa na shida kidogo huko. Nimekuwa nikikuangalia lakini hukukuwa ..." "Eeeh." "Nataka kukufulia manguo ..."

Jeez! I thought to myself and swallowed a lump, how do you wake me up this early, without prior notice, to wash my clothes?

"Sina nguo za kufuliwa, na nilishapata mtu wa kunifulia nguo," I answered. Then a wave of empathy washed over me and I stood there listening to her tales which eventually reignited my memory.





Photo: Pexels.com
I remembered how rude her husband had been the last time I called to ask if she could come do my laundry (the number she had given me was always picked by the husband), then I took her number and promised to call her some day. And with that, she left to look for another client.
As I made my way back to the bedroom, my sleep long vanished, I thought to myself: didn't she know I had already moved on? Was I supposed to be waiting for her to come back to my laundry till now? Did she not realise that once I move on, I never look back?

Part 2 coming soon.

Forty days: putting a number to it

There was a time when time was simple.

There was only time to get up, to take porridge, to take a bath, to nap, to eat, to play and then sleep in a cycle that rolled over. 

But that was before school came in and smashed this principle of time being an endless stretch to infinity.

It was there that time morphed into a concrete 24 hours to each day. And boy did it drag on. The years ahead seemed so far off.  Improbable events. But time chipped away at the long years and before I knew it school was over and then time got wings and flew.

I have lived over 8000 days in my life. So what does a couple of days – make that 40 – matter to anyone on the background of so many others?  It does when you number your days publicly. Because countdowns are usually about D-day when something significant will happen.

And naturally, those who know about the countdown want to know what D-day is all about. I'll tell you what it was not about.

No it was not about eloping, or making a career change or even having a baby.

It would probably take me more than forty days to do any of those things, though when I started out, I would have imagined those events probable in the span of such a long period. Forty seemed like this huge number and I felt fatigued just thinking about how I would trudge through the days.

How wrong I was.

The first ten days got tougher with each rising sun, but I knew backing out was not an option and I knew from previous experience that it gets easier, then worsens and then it’s over.

It was very much like rehab, with slips and falls, and rising up to do it again and eventually I got to day one.

It has been a couple of days since D-day, and the curious ones still want to hold me to account.

This is not the tell-all kind of tale, dripping with juice and mystery that has  listeners hanging onto every word. 

It was rehab and bootcamp all rolled into one. What-about I cannot tell because it has little to do with anyone else but me.

What I am saying is that numbering your days can help you become more aware and more focused towards a change you want to bring about, or more ready for something you are looking forward to.

Numbering your days will help you shed old skin, acquire new ways or build that exhilarating anticipation to the eventual big day when you toast to D-day. Go ahead and try it.