Back from Bedlam

It's July. This month for me has always represented depression. Not in an 'need psychiatric' help kind of depression, but the 'nothing seems to make me happy' and 'I am too cold' kind. This started when I joined high school. Limuru is cold. I always suspected that if it wasn't so close to the equator, it probably would be snowing. It is where my crazy obsession with scarfs begun. Crazy I call it because I will scarf everything I wear.

As right as rain, this month has started with depression. Sadness. Emptiness. That word. That last word. It's such a beautiful world for such an ugly feeling. Empty. The caress of the E, the sweet moan of the M, the pure silence of the the P, the majestic T, the defiant Y. I have been that for a while. Then came the hint of a fill. A delicious feeling of being. That will probably end today. That started the fateful decline yesterday night. Oh how I was getting full. How deliriously happy I was about to be! Then July.

It has been 7 months since my last post. And it hasn't been due to lack of content. If anything, what's happened in those 7 months could probably be a new blog. It has been chaos. Work, family, health, life, love life, social life. Everything. There has been so much going on, so much that have brought me to that point of defeat. There has been good news. I have been acknowledged for the work I do. I have been celebrated by the people I work with. I have opened this blog so many times, stared at it, willing my fingers to click ' New Post' and I have lost that battle. A seven month long battle is not an easy fete. And when you have been beaten for that long, the scars do begin to be part of you. And you loose that identity you so embraced.

A couple of weeks ago, a friend invited me to join them on a trip that required bloggers. I had been recommended, he said. I laughed. You see, I believe you give yourself a title that you are true to what it entails. That was no my identity anymore. Given my non activity, I felt like piece of trash compared to the real bloggers out there.

I was driving to a meeting last week. I was driving to a meeting. I saw this truck ahead. Very slow it was. And I wanted to overtake it. Because I am such an impatient human being. There was another car approaching on the 2-way road. My impatience insisted that I could overtake and get back on my lane before the other car got close. So I stepped on the gas. Just when I reached the truck, the oncoming car decided it was time to accelerate too. Common sense and that instinct to survive made me slow down. So I did. The car drove by. Then another one. And another one. And another one. I was now stuck behind this truck. I drive with my windows rolled down, music loud. It hit me like a bitch-slap.

This stench. Strong, heavy, like a blanket dipped in shit had just been thrown over my face. I looked keenly. I was behind trash truck! And I was not going anywhere soon. I was stuck behind it. For a good 10 minutes. I started thinking. This is my life. I end up getting stuck behind trash trucks a lot. Why? Because I am impatient. Because I cannot just hang back and let it drive away. My first instinct is to overtake it. Well, sometimes, trash trucks just can't be overtaken. I am learning to hang back. To wait.

A friend is killing himself in Zambia. Looking for money, he says. He describes deplorable work condition. A few days ago he sent me a text that said he thought he was loosing it. But that's not the story I want to tell. The story is about a post he did on his facebook.

He was talking about shitting. How he had picked a spot to shit everyday. And since he is a very private person, he wanted to keep his shitting place secret. So he checked his excrement every time. He learnt his shit. He knew its colour. It's texture. Then one day, he comes to relieve himself. And there is unfamiliar shit next to his. And he is angry. Why? because he knows his shit. And that got me thinking. How many of us know our shit? How many times do we have to deal with shit that is not our, simply because someone else dumped it next to ours and we couldn't tell the difference?

To know my shit. To hang back until the trash truck disappears. That is what brought me back from Bedlam.