somewhere between lovers and friends

I finally get to write a lamentations edition... I think I've met a girl. Actually met isn't the right word, coz I've known her for a while, maybe even five years on and off. We used to talk when I was in high school, then we stopped, then we started again when she was in high school, then stopped, then started again when I was in uni, then stopped, then started again when she was in uni. Then I got complimentaries to Nu Metro about four months ago and out of the blue I asked her to go with me and she said yes and we started hanging out after that ocassionally then her birthday came and went and I didn't know so she told me. That was now two months ago. After that it all seems like a blur, but right now I know she's away and it's the strangest thing - more than anything else I want to see her. I always used to look at my friends when they were here and laugh and think how weak they were, and that that stuff wasn't for me. Little did I know. This is all new to me, but I think I really like this girl, and I can't tell for sure if she feels the same way, but I know for a fact I want her to. She makes my heart race sometimes, I am physically unable to say no when she asks (but I try :), when we're together hours last only 10 minutes, I wanna hold her hand when we're walking (although I don't, dono why, maybe Im scared), and I can't seem to stop thinking about her lately. Why didn't all this happen to me the normal way - when I was still in kindergarten? Then I guess things would have been a lot easier to handle, and I'd now have a lot more experience. But no, it had to go and wait until I was old enough that I know what it is when someone's stomach is turning on the inside (which is what it does when she's not around and I want to see her - it is NOT fun!) I haven't told her yet, coz I keep thinking the feeling will go away somehow if I just leave it alone and my heartbeat will go back to normal, but it does not seem to be cooperating. In fact I think it gets stronger. That guy who said absence maketh the heart grow fonder was definitely onto something. But she hasn't the tiniest inkling what a blog is, let alone that I have one, so Im safe on this front :)

See now I have all these questions. I really don't think my problem with relationships is committment phobia the way the stereotype says. For me it's always been that I didn't feel the need to. I didn't seem to have that void people want to fill with love, and so everything was just peachy. I was single and I loved it. Now I don't know if that void has developed or I've just had a brain aneurism! How do I know it's not just a crush that will die down with time? Why didn't I feel this way the first time we met? She's still the same person I knew back then, I think Im still the same person I was, so what's changed? And why now, when all of us are going away for the holidays and will definitely not meet? Im not very big on phone conversations. For one thing, the other person can never seem to hear what Im saying, ati I speak too fast, mara Im not loud enough, plus I tend to run out of things to say very easily, so I only call to set up meetings or to find out specific things. Juzi when we met we were walking down memory lane, rehashing how we met, and I think it's remarkable that we both still remembered, given how long ago it was and that it wasn't like love at first sight or anything. I did like her even back then, but those were the days when I was like an island, entire unto myself, so going out never even came up. I just used to think it was nice having someone around to hang out with. But now do I want more? And what exactly is this "more"? And now that we've been friends this long won't it just ruin everything if I were to make a move and things went south. She's coming out of a long relationship and so there's that chance that I could just be the rebound guy and that never ends well, so I hear. There's all these things to consider. So much to think about. But then on the other hand there's the chance that it could all work out and I could end up the richest man in Babylon. If I'd been there before then I'd know if that chance was worth risking everything else. Now my problem is I've never been so Im at a loss here. Life would have been so much easier if we could hire people to make these decisions for us, or if we could just take a slight peek into the future to see how stuff turns out first, or maybe if I just had a Beamer(TM) :-D

The best song I've heard all this year I think is Broken by Lifehouse, and it's just now playing and I can't help but think how almost apt those lyrics are. Im not fully there yet, but Im finally starting to get a sense of what it is people mean when they say she's driving me crazy. It's a painful feeling, and beautiful at the same time. You have anxiety on the one hand and anticipation on the other. You can't decide whether to cry or to laugh. So maybe it wasn't meant to be love at first sight everytime. Maybe she just needed to walk by again, a coupla hundred times :), but regardless how I got here, Im here now and I just spent two hours writing this article and listening to Broken and Im really not comfortable on this sappy side. It's always been me empathising with those other people. I didn't ever think the day would come when I'd be in their shoes. Am I ready to do the boyfriend thing? I don't know. I don't even know what this "boyfriend thing" is, but I can already tell that if it means spending time with this girl I might want to give it a spin. I had always imagined I was going to be indomitable forever, and that I was never going to find myself just sitting down thinking about someone and wishing they were here. How wrong I was. But still, in the pain there is healing, and in her name, I find meaning. So Im holding on.

END

all tomorrow's parties

It's been four years since I joined uni, and the four years have been heaven! What! Ever since I decided to make the switch (I'd originally been called to go do building economics), I've always thought that B.Com is the best course in the world. Never mind that every half decent (and I do mean half decent) college now has their own flavor on offer (including, but not limited to, one Makere satellite college which Makerere insists have no affiliation with them whatsoever), plus really, I was at the best one of them all so that wasn't really a problem for us. When I was still in my old course, I had a classmate who'd actually done and passed those international baccalaureate exams and I used to wonder why would she go here when she could fly out, and her reason was that some friends of hers had told her "You haven't lived till you've been to the university of Nairobi". At the time of course I thought that was a pretty paltry reason for not wanting to go outside (and never come back). I still do, and turns out she does too, she was really just whiling away the time waiting for acceptances, coz once they came Uon was dropped like a hot stone. But having been through the machine myself, I can now say with a certain measure of authority that those friends of hers were onto something.

Life at that place is just out of this world. First by sheer numbers alone, you come to believe there's nothing you all can't do if you just agree on it. People are resourceful, as far as entertainment and events go, and if you know the right guys there's really never not anything to do. Stories abound - about both the students and the lecturers, but I was never a fan of the administration coz it never used to appear like they're doing me any favors. Or even like they even loved their jobs, so there's very few lecturers I even knew by name. I discovered I like gossip. ALOT! And that I don't care when Im gossiped about, although the way the system's been made you'll never know if it's about you, which I like. There was once this one bit about a guy who used to live with his girlfriend (the rooms were like 4 feet by 12 me I don't even know how you live two people inside there!!) and then killed her and hid her body under his bed, and no one discovered till about two weeks later when the body started smelling. Christ! The things we hear. No one ever talks about how he did it, but I think she probably suffocated to death - wasn't enough air for both of them in there. But as to why, stress is cited.

Then there was this band - The Journey. DAMN, I was a fan! They used to do these renditions of pop-rock hits both gospel and otherwise and it used to chuck so realistically. The first time I went as a first year I remember they played Breakfast at Tiffany's and at the time it had been forever since I'd heard it I was just blown away! I even went and looked for it just to relive old memories. Even after I moved to the upcountry campus I still used to find time and come attend their concerts, and they just got better with time. Although after leaving school I find it hard to go, bogged down with work and all. Then we used to do these road trips at the end of a semester where we hire cars and go out of the city for a day then come back late at night, and something always used to go wrong during them culminating in a major accident involving one of our cars and a matatu in which the matatu actually rolled and our car was wrecked. That was a scary one! Mercifully no one died - one matatu passenger just broke a leg, but naturally the idea of a road trip was not floated again following that incident. And then of course, who could forget, SIFE. In third and fourth years I discovered just how big a part of my life both in and out of campus SIFE was when one Sunday we'd decided not to meet coz nothing was happening and I couldn't remember what I used to do on Sundays. By 2PM me I was ready for the next day! I can truthfully say that if ever any single group of people outside of my parents have had an impact on my life it's my SIFE friends. And it doesn't hurt that we got to go to NYC and Paris. Doesn't hurt at all! :)

So the reason Im reminiscing like this is the graduation list recently came out (must say I'm impressed - we usually just graduate on expectations, they publish the list much later when we're all done with the masters!). And Im in it! With honors no less. I wish we also called it cum laude, like those other places, but for now who cares! Im graduating with honors! I love my life. I love the fact that I did not throw away my uni years just studying, and still came out on top. You know, maybe it's a good thing I didn't get taken for that elec engineering that i'd wanted coz it's possible id be speaking a very different story right now. For starters, I'd still be a student! Fate and its master, the Lord, seem to always be on my side when it counts, and that so far has been my saving grace. So on graduation I won't just be celebrating the closing of a chapter and the beginning of another one, I'll also be celebrating a life well lived. I did a lot of things in uni I'd never done before, I got a lot of exposure, I learned a lot of things, apparently I even came out with a degree, but most of all, in uni I met people who changed my life. And that is what all tomorrow's parties are going to be about.

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