ranting......

so i start to write this post and i realise i have no clue whatsoever what i want to write about but the urge is there all the same. and since the wheel is already in motion who am i to stop it? my bag got stolen yesterday, i have absolutely no idea how as i found the car locked but all the same the handbag was missing. i was sad but mostly angry. i felt violated, i imagined someone pawing through my personal stuff and rummaging through my intimate things. to all those who dont know, the handbag is the woman's shrine. it contains the most intimate yet inanimate objects close to one's heart.

i found the bag today, minus all my prized and need i say expensive items. but i suppose i should be thankful that my identification particulars were all there. but the sense of loss was no less profound. i doubt i will ever use that bag again, there is a foul smell to it, it might just be imaginary but its there nonetheless. i am just glad i dont have to take the dreaded trip to home affairs to replace documents.

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shocker!

this will be my most controversial post yet, well at least controversial to me because i have never had the guts to admit this stuff even to myself! what if i had no ambition whatsoever? after all those years of learning and working what if i realise i just want to sit at home and be a mummy? is that so bad? in a world where young women are encouraged to be ambitious and be go-getters and climb the corporate ladder etc etc. i know this post would break my poor mother's heart so i will stop. but then again i sometimes think that the fact that i am in a totally wrong field makes me feel like i am unambitious. maybe its time i moved and did what i really want to do. i wish it was that simple....oh life, i think the worst bit is i absolutely have noone to blame but myself. i am caught in a web of my own making and i need to find a way out soon before i suffocate!

Of SPs, deep thoughts, Respect and embarassment

For most of last week I was at a “Strategic Planning Workshop” (one of those!) the setting was perfect, tranquil and beautiful and not a speck of cell phone reception anywhere in the confines of the hotel, ah brilliant for focussed thinking! Well it was a lot of work though half the time I get annoyed by how things are phrased, “strategic intent, frameworks, blah blah” I think people should just learn to use simple terms! Or maybe I am just too much of a simpleton! Anyway during one of the sessions I couldn’t help drifting off (I promise I was participating and attentively listening the rest of the time!) and here is what I wrote:

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So I got to a point (I am not sure how) where I now check what I say. The reason is because I stop and ask myself what my words will do, whether they will come back empty or whether they will hit a home run. And I think I have already avoided a whole lot of conflict which would have been pointless really. To be precise I ask myself if imparting my opinion will necessarily change someone’s behaviour or thinking. if it doesn't no use wasting my breath. And if it does, whether my motives are good in trying to change that.

I believe I have matured amazingly because I have also come to a realisation that there are just some things I can’t change and that are beyond my power to, and in the same vein, there are things that only my God can deal with. ( yeah i know i should have realised that long back, but hey i am here now thats all that matters!) And I have stopped stressing about those, every time I start to fret, I stop and say, “Dad you got that one right?” I also recall every time I get afraid a sermon by Dr Creflo dollar about fear. He said the Lord says I have not given you a spirit of fear, and that every time we are afraid it means we are not trusting God to do what He said He would do. We do not believe that He can take care of it and that’s some serious stuff right there.

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This is one of the thoughts that crossed my mind as I listened to people speak at the SP; it’s a funny thing, respect, it determines what your ears are willing to listen to, what your mind is willing to absorb and what your heart is willing to believe as someone speaks. Never underestimate respect, and should you find yourself in danger of losing it for someone, try to run as fast as possible. If you are going to remain in the company, employ or influence of someone, rather try to keep RESPECT for them in tact.

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On a sad note, today marks the occurrence of the most embarrassing thing ever to happen to me, and it’s too embarrassing even to write down. I only hope when I look back and read this, I shall remember what it was because I know most certainly, today my ears might be heating up from the shame, but very soon it shall become just another faded memory. I hope it shall be the same with my colleagues! Argh!

my crazy unproductivity (is there such a word???)

After spending the last two days unhealthily obsessing over a single blog and doing NO work at all , my browser finally gave up and I am slightly worried that I shall be disconnected from the internet altogether for spending too much time on it, but at this point who cares?

I have been hungrily going though hundreds of blog posts by one person and I find her writing witty and humorous and totally captivating! It’s a good thing I don’t know who the writer is because such obsession can only be shrouded in anonymity. But I am back to reality now and I am wondering whether I should follow her blog or not? Who am I kidding I probably will but I need at least a week to recover from the obvious overdose that I have inebriated my self with.

Anyway now that I am not stalking the poor blog it doesn’t necessarily mean that I am now working. I mean it’s a Friday anyway and half the office is out gallivanting on one mission on another so why should I pretend I have major deadlines? (thank goodness for closed offices!) So I have taken to reading an online version of one of my favourite books of all times Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. ( those IT guys will surely have my head for this)

whilst on the subject about favourites here is a list of some random things about me:

a) i LURVE Pride and Prejudice- i read the book for my A Levels, i watched the BBC version (all 4 hours of it), i read the book again, i totally fell in love with Mr Darcy ( and Colin Firth in the process) and i still verily believe Helen Fielding based the character of her Mr Darcy on this particular one in her books Bridget Jones Diary!

b) my other favourite book is "The Scarlet Pimpernell" by Baroness Orzcy ( i hope i got that correct) i cant count the number of times i have read it and who wouldnt fall in love with Sir Percy..ahh

c) i think Brownsugar is the most romantic black movie ever made (of coz the fact that Taye Diggs is the lead has a lot to do with it he he he). maybe its because for a long time i had a crush on my childhood friend and i always fantasized that we would end up together!

d) i am a total sucker for chick-flicks and i dont apologise for it. same as i love chick-lit and i even throw in the occassional Mills and Boon when the mood takes me

e) for almost of my growing years i NEVER danced esp in company i would get paralytic with fear and shyness, (growing up does loosen you up- literally he he he)

f) i have an unhealthy relationship with chocolate, no matter how much i try to stop the stuff keeps sticking to my fingers!

g) i am most terrified of rats and bats, to me a bat is a rat with wings and bigger ears. . those things mortify me!

thats it for today folks!

sisters

Someone said that if someone is not discerning enough to notice your worth or yur value then they are not worthy of it. if a man foolishly refuses to see the promise in your eyes, to feel the quality of your touch and hear the love in your voice then he is not worth it. we sisters spend a lot of time thinking it must be our fault, and grinding our self-esteem down to smitherens simply because of a brother who is way too blessed to notice it. i know walking away is never easy but there are times when we owe it to ourselves. there are times when we need to rescue us from ourselves and walk on ahead and never look back. there are times when we just need to stop and remind ourselves that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, that He took His precious time to mould every little finger every strand of hair and we are not here by accident. there are times when we just have to remember that there is so much goodness and promise in us to let anyone just tear it to pieces.

they say its always easier looking in on the other side of the glass, i am sure it is. but in the midst of all the tears, and the hurt and the pain, its good to just remember to appreciate our own worth even if noone else does.

An Ode

Do you remember exactly what you were wearing that first day right down to the fancy design of your shoes? Do you remember how we stood by the doorway and promised to keep in touch albeit academically? Do you remember orientation week when it was so good to see a familiar face in the abyss of freshers feeling all important because they had finally “made it!”. Do you recall that providence just happened to place our rooms in the same corridor when we could have been in different hostels altogether?

I remember it all very clearly, especially the vision of you dancing on top of your bed the morning of the conveyancing exam. The day I was beaten by the GBs as I was coming from your room at around midnight, oh gosh I have never run so fast in my life. I remember bunking a boring class so we could go chill by the mall. I remember leaving the library at night because we suddenly both had a craving for fried chicken. I remember dancing the night away at my graduation party and then getting crazy at yours.

I remember so many things but the most important thing is I remember you being always there. All the time, my forever constant. The one who knew how I felt even when I wasn’t speaking to you. The one who would talk me out of a bad decision or giggle with me over a silly crush. Its been 8 years but I know you are still there, I don’t even need to think about it. Thank you for putting into practice for me 1 Cor 13 love, even when I did not deserve it. My girl, my partner in crime, my anchor. The one who ALWAYS had my back, ALWAYS. Thank you for taking this journey with me from giggling girlhood into mature womanhood. For being my sister, my confidante and my punching bag. I still don’t think I would have made it without you. I love you babes, I always will.

this is me

I went home last week. Wait a minute I am not sure what I mean by that now. I mean someone will say home is where the heart is, in that case I have several homes coz my heart is in several places. Logic would tell me that home is where I have my husband and my children. But society tells me that home is where my mother and father lives. Again culture tells me that home is where my mother-in-law is since I have married into that family. To confuse the whole absurd situation more, ancestry tells me that home is where my father originated, his roots, where his umbilical cord fell off and was buried like they say. I shall not give myself a headache by considering all these semantics, simply put I went to visit my folks. And oh what a visit. You see my folks live in a rural part of the country, which (thanks to some momentary madness) is electrified, so I will be glad to say I never cooked over an open fire, nor did I have to look for firewood. But I could have and I can actually. In fact this is the person that I am, you can find me one day in my (ok not so fancy) office, wearing killer heels and a sharp suit, arguing a matter with a colleague. Then the next day you find me clad in flatties and a long dress and cooking over an open fire. I am dynamic like that, I am not ashamed of what I can do. No offence to my new-age peers, but I have no qualms about slaughtering a chicken for relish, or cleaning the inside organs (matumbu) of a goat. I don’t like the smell but I can do it, I have embraced my roots and I am not ashamed. I shelled maize while I chatted to my mother and sat in the sun watching my son running away from chickens. Poor thing he just couldn’t get over his fear of those creatures.

I went to see my mother-in-law. She stays in the urban areas but she might as well been in the rural area at the rate at which electricity goes. So I did cook over an open fire. And oh I did do all the cooking, and cleaning up. In other ways I was a traditional daughter-in-law. And I didn’t complain, I have nothing to lose, its only for a few days. I am an African woman after all, so I am not going to pretend that all this education made me any different. I came back to my house, muscles aching in place si didn’t know had muscles, washed off all the dust from the visit and put on my favourite tight pants and curled up in front of the telly and let my maid serve me supper. I was me in a different mode now, whoever I was during the visit was only a passing phase. It comes and goes and I embrace it when it comes.

This is me, and I don’t apologise for it. Neither do I judge anyone who is not like me, because after all everyone is unique. And the sooner we stop measuring ourselves by a certain standard the more we will all recognise how unique and special all of us are.