An American B-29 bomber drops a deadly atomic payload on a Japanese port city dotted with military installations, ultimately killing 140,000 people(August 6, 1945: Hiroshima), Kenya loses one of its founding fathers (August 22, 1978: Jomo Kenyatta), terrorists detonate a bomb in the US Embassy in Nairobi causing the deaths of 218 innocent people and injuring thousands of others (August 7th 1998).
August is regarded by many as a dark month shrouded by death, misery and tragedy but it is also a cool month, an interesting month with some especially hip holidays, personal favorites being Grab Some Nuts Day(pun intended), International Beer Day – First Friday in August and International Hangover Day (click here for more on august holidays). Most importantly it is also the month the first black leader of the free world was born, Barrack Hussein Obama, 44th President of the United States of America.
It’s been a while since I posted anything, I have been trying to put something down for a while now, but I always get distracted, something important is always in the way or I always end up feeling sleepy, ok, maybe both. So I decided to set a milestone, a post for my birthday, a gift of sorts to self, a commemorative article, a marker for the beginning of a New Year.
See, writing as a hobby is hard, it requires so much to sit and pen down something substantive, fun, something readable. It requires patience, the ability of the mind to bear the stillness of the body, it requires the right mood, the right attire –(sigh) I can never do any writing in jeans or tight socks- I can also never do any writing after lunch, there’s something uninspiring about a full stomach, ooh, also the right music goes a long way in setting the right mood- I write this while listening to South Africa’s Nasty C, Strings and Bling Album.
August 9th, I just turned 22, forever a Leo. There was no party for my birthday, it was a normal working day, only afterwards I passed through my favorite bar and ordered a double from the top whiskey shelf served neat, raised my glass to a stranger at the end of the counter, closed my eyes, and as the alcohol burnt down my throat, a rich taste remained at the back of my tongue and with that I opened my eyes and noted that the hand on my age clock had turned, my first drink as a 22 year old.
21 has generally been a good year for me, a lot of lessons learnt, a lot of experiences gained, met some really awesome people and made a few positive strides in my life. I have learnt that above all mental health supersedes physical health, I have learnt to walk away from situation that do not make me happy anymore, I have learnt that I need to be more selfish with my me time.
I have also gained a lot of weight (not and an achievement, haha all I had to do was sit and eat.) 21 taught me that whenever life hand me lemons, I can always make lemonade (literally bought lemons and made lemonade ).
21 might not seem like such a life defining age(it actually isn’t) but it was the year I left school, a ‘fully-fledged light-weight adult’ equipped with nothing else but a university degree and an ambition the size of Mount Everest- ready to face the world, ready to make my first mark in the world, ready to challenge the notion that millennial are a lazy bunch of entitled degenerates.
It was a challenging year with both highs and lows.
The best part of the past year is that I realized I could write, rather someone told me I could and that I should believe that I can, of which I did. Writing is about insecurity, finding them, getting to know them, overcoming them. Writing helps one discover how huge their ego is- I once sent an article to a friend and they sent it back to me with highlighted sections, cancelled out words and side notes and the subject on the email read ‘you can do better’, I proceeded to read the recommendations with such disdain, anyway, what do they know?,, I mean, I can take grammatical and punctuation errors but suggesting I should have said more, that just ain’t right . But it’s only a fool who doesn’t accept corrections, so I replied the email with noted and a meager ‘thank you and God Bless You’. I have come to realize that I have this huge need for validation which isn’t healthy at all, but don’t we all? Is it not satisfying to hear someone praise your work? Whoever says otherwise is a liar.I hear it comes with the age.
21 helped me realize that there is a lot that goes into making a man and I am still molding, the shoes still don’t fit right but the feet are still growing. It is said that manhood is about what breaks us and that we are all broken. It is about realizing ones faults and working towards becoming a better person, a better man.
On the issue of gifts, all I got this birthday was the gift of life, a mini Bluetooth speaker I ordered from Jumia and a hearty birthday wishes message from my mom.
22, I’m Not hanging around people who call me Kennedy anymore.
22, I crave change, I crave betterment of self, and life’s too short to be slacking off.
Note to self: Go back to school and Graduate
22 is going to be good year.
I wish to stop here, the article has started becoming lethargic, there’s only so much one can say about a 22nd birthday.
To all my acquaintances and friends who maybe thought I was younger or older, well I am not going to apologize for your ignorance, all you had to do was ask .
Time is wind guys
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