On Reaching 24: Sentimental Notes

         On 29^th August, 2013 (a Thursday) I turned 24 years; a remarkable milestone. It was low profile; spent in the village with all family members except my younger brother in high school preparing for his final exams. I attempted to reflect during that special day to fruitless avail. Again, I wanted to relook at my academic life, love life (notably contentious of late), social life, writing prospects – it disturbs me every waking day. Will I succeed in fiction? Which newspaper will I write for? Still, will I flourish as a man of letters? These questions among others constantly flicker in my brain. 

            At 24, I have realized restlessness persists and it’s even worse if you are a black sheep. I defied conventions when I dropped out of college to pursue my dream. I follow what I love. I follow my heart. You may laugh at it, finding it rather juvenile, but I am resilient like that. Richard Branson of Virgin Atlantic is still my hero. If odds favor me, I take it. I take the ‘road not a taken’ even if ramifications are grave. That’s how I try to define and lead my life these days. I don’t want to flow with the current. I don’t feel being just part of crowd for the sake to please others.

                       

            Lately, too, I have experienced extreme nostalgia. A yearning for the past that cannot come back anymore. Change is inevitable. Stubborn. It doesn’t care if you cherished some moments. I am still coming to terms with the heartbreaking news that my first love got married. Recently, I have noted something unsettling; disturbing and plain depressing to accept. I cannot freeze life. I cannot stop things and let them remain the way they are. It’s just stupid to even think of it, but things are changing fast. I get more afraid these days than, say, when I was in my early 20s. Why? I even don’t know. 

            Something ungraspable is passing across my life yet I am powerless. It’s fleeting with friends I used to know; girls I schooled with getting married and not further education or career progress. In the village; I don’t know whether I belong anymore. In the city it’s impossible to fit in comfortably. Building strong friendships take time. Even in my estate; a rather semi-affluent neighborhood, young people are distressed with the surrounding vanity and emptiness of chasing after girls while seeking ways of navigating the gritty city life. 

            Death is even worse. It lingers in my memory for a long time these days. The passing of aunty Risper on 15^th June left me with a severe emotional scar. I constantly think of her because I will never find another such as her. All our cousins miss her.  I rebuff the saying that ‘Death is Sacred’ hence we cannot do anything. And it’s the truth anyway, unfortunately. I still remember the beaming life that characterized grandfather’s homestead and I ask self: Where did all the good people go? Death is reaping bountiful harvest and one can tell from the pale faces of jodongo (elders); the aloofness and dejectedness in grandmothers’ lives. Young people are losing best friends to HIV/AIDS pandemic, road accidents, diseases and grisly murders that constantly flabbergast the village. God, what did your people do, I ask myself? I am unable to capture the grief, but of late, in my new 24, I get easily paranoid. It keeps me anxious the whole day the possibility of dying in a road accident and how my mother or father would feel. What of my brothers and only sister? Maybe I am sentimental. I romanticize events. But that’s how I feel lately. It maybe my nadir. 

            I am still searching for contentment. That’s what I go for these days. Happiness. Living today. And a fine woman. Fine in the sense that we share something deep beyond lust, pretensions of youth culture, partying (I am reducing it. It doesn’t spark me anymore) and just any other thing hypocritical. No, I am not saying I am for perfection. Not all. But something closer to the prize.