24 Years

That you should celebrate your 24th birthday on an empty pocket is not the best thing. No, it is not. The pocket hurts. And it spreads its ravages to the stomach.  When the hurt gets to the stomach, things go pretty bad. The stomach is a kid. It will never hold. It  can never stomach pain or lack. And so it cries, wails and most disturbingly- torments your conscience. You know the way a mother gets tormented when she sees her kids cry. Yes, that is what happens on your 24^th birthday. 

Flashback

21^st October 1990. My mother had planned to deliver me on the 20^th- Mashujaa day. Infact, I am informed that when I started clowning two weeks to  20^th, she slapped my head and told me to go back. Yes, she wanted her son to be a hero, a shujaa. However on the 20^th, things went haywire. She wanted to deliver me  at 6.00 pm and had even invited midwives to witness the parturition of the next national icon. A kid fully developed, superbly mature and perfectly distilled.  The 6.00 pm timing was perfect. It was the hallmark of shujaaism that the kid she was to bear had. I would be the symbol of Freedom fights and my name would have been Field Marshall Jaymoh.  But as they say, man proposes God disposes. My mother took a nap one hour to prepare herself for the great, historic birth. 

She overslept.

She woke up on 21^st 12.01 am. I was one minute late. Just a minute late. Yes, just one.

 Flashforward

It is the 21^st. The month is in a corner and you do not know whether it will ever dislodge itself from this corner. Endmonth looks so far. It is like two years from reaching. When will it ever come? Ok, no one knows the hour nor the time when endmonth will come. But we all hope soon.

24 is a reflective year. At this time, you are trying everything . You are yet to get to your area of specialty. 24 is also the peak of the isolation/ intimacy stage in  life and as such you are busy looking for bonding. You want to bond with your landlord, Baba Kiarie in Kiganjo. You want to sweet-talk him such that any month you lack house rent, he shall not throw tantrums threatening to kick you out of his plot. You want to become close to your neighbours though most can never be in your clique. You do not speak the same language. I mean the same language as far as your social statuses are concerned. They are not on Whatsapp; backward niggas. They do not tweet;  stone age fellas. They do not know how Facebook looks like but know how their faces are.  They are thinking of how to add three more kids to the already seven in the Bedsitter   room while you are busy trying to get a hold on life. So you always feel that you are incompatible. 

But what the heck, when you live in Rome, do as the Romans do. So, to look and behave like my neighbours, I talk their language.  I tell them that I have a wife back in the shagz and we have three kids. Five to go. I tell them that Facebook and Whatsapp are used by the guys in CID to detect faces of thieves.

24 is the year that you realize that life is not kiddish. It requires one to be a little bit mindful of what they say and how they  what is understood. 24 is the time you  think of how well to spend money. You see, for the better part of my life, I have waited on the providence of others. I have looked out to ask for and not to be asked for. 24 is life- changing. Everyone will ask you utahama lini?

At 24, you sit down and stock-take. You know the way you sit down and start counting your assets. Well, yesterday as Kenya celebrated Mashujaa day, I took the opportunity to sit down and count what I have. And you will be amazed at how rich I am. One, I have two brown teeth. That is thanks to Kanyayo water. Stop shaking your head; brown teeth is an asset. It shows affluence, wealth and prosperity. It shows that I have a flair for elegance and finesse. Don’t you know of people who spend exorbitantly just to get golden studs fixed in their dentines? Well, I do not have to do that. The fluorine in Kanyayo water did that for me a looong time ago. So anytime I smile, ladies will be awed at the golden, charming smiles  I throw at them. 

They will get goose bumps when I laugh.

Another asset that I have is a bank account. Okay, do not count for now  because it has nothing currently but you can count that I have an ATM card. Now that is something. Do you guys have it? I have a blog. A one year old blog. It is still crawling but what the heck,…I am its father!