Are You Ever Ready?

‘I am not ready’. ‘You are not ready’. ‘We are not ready’.

I was scrolling through my Facebook feed and landed on a post a friend had commented on. A woman had written in to a radio station saying that her boyfriend of 5 years is soon turning 30 and wants a positive pregnancy 🤰 test as a birthday present. The woman is 2 years shy of 30 and is not ready. 

This made me think, are we ever ready for a situation? Do we know how ready we are until we are in the middle of it? No. 

Before I braced myself and then some to go for studies, I was a bundle of doubts. 

When a friend of mine sent me the application, I fired him so many questions just to dissuade him from encouraging me to apply. He had an answer to all the questions. To get him off my case, I accepted to apply. I went to office, sat on the application for the day and sent it to him. Late in the night, he told me he had issues with sending it and I told him to leave it. But he convinced me to send it myself. I did that the following day. 

I wrote that off until months later when I received an email inviting me for the interview. This interview. Let me first laugh at myself. 😂 I received the date and time while I was busy packing for the African Women’s Leadership Institute program. It was for 7 days and at a hotel deep in Namugongo while the interview was to be in Ntinda at the former offices of National Council for Disability. You should have seen me try to make it work. 

I had already stalled with the AWLI program and to cancel at the last minute was not right. I thought of turning down the interview because I couldn’t see myself flying from Namugongo to Ntinda but my friend and my  mother convinced me otherwise. I had also read for it like my life depended on it. 

Like in all life changing situations of my life, my brother was around and had use of my sister’s car. When mum informed me that he would pick me up, I told him the time he should pick me up and to bring along the dress I had in mind to wear for the interview. At NCD, someone I know (a fellow woman with a disability) walked into the room and she told me she was interviewing for the same. I told her then that I wouldn’t mind losing the interview to her. They could only take one of us. I interviewed with the mind that she will be the one to succeed. 

Months down the road, I received an acceptance email on a really bad day. I braced myself before opening it because I couldn’t take anymore bad news and was shocked. I didn’t know what to do because I wasn’t expecting to be accepted. I didn’t even celebrate. 😢 

In the period of chasing academic and travel documents plus work commitments, my sister was diagnosed with a blood clot & was admitted to the High Dependency Unit. 

This literally put a wrench in everything. I was just returning from a trip to Iganga when my mum explicitly told me to go stay with my nephew for the duration. I worked and looked after my nephew until his mother was discharged. This set my mum and I back severally. I applied for our visas when the visa office was a day to breaking off for the December holiday. 

January 2020 dawned. We were to travel the first week of January but because we had applied late for the visas… I still harboured doubts about leaving the job, all that was familiar to me (family, friends, weather) and having a doctor a phone call away. In the background, there was also someone’s son. He had just hinted at a tea-date and I kept thinking, ‘what if this has the potential to blossom into something and my leaving kills it?’ I was a mess! Chap wasn’t even proposing but I actually considered the repercussions of the trip. That’s how you know it’s not easy being a girl. 😂

I had misgivings. I kept talking to my senior advisor about most of them and he firmly told me that losing the job should not be cause for me to turn down an opportunity to better myself. If I lost it, there would be something else. I tendered in my request for study leave 3 days to the day of travel while my mum did all the running around shopping and packing. 

On the day of, I had to do more shopping, lunch with my sister Anitsha and continue to pack. I’d also wanted to see my nephew one more time before I left because I was so afraid he would forget me. He’d just learnt to say my name, picked up on the fact that I used crutches and was becoming a little connoisseur of tea. 

Yeah, misgivings and doubts did not go away even while I was going through the student experience. Nevertheless, I went. I lived. I loved. I studied. I thrived. I did it all while I was afraid and do not regret it one bit. 

My point is you never know that you are ready for anything until you are either right in the middle of the situation or walking the steps. All you have to do is take that leap of faith but prepare for the consequences. Like leaving someone’s son yet all he had suggested was a tea-date. 😒 

This post was also inspired by a current situation in my life...

A Kindling

They say 'change is always a good thing'. How good is it if all it does is bring you pain and little bursts of happiness one can't forever live on in an uncertain future and world?

What good is change if not permanent? Why must we implicitly follow its tide against better judgement only to discover  there is nothing much to hold on to at its destination, except scattered pieces of promises that will never come true?

Who needs promises they can't cash at the bank? And why bring someone along to show them the person they would hate to be? A person they in fact loathe to ever be? 

To avoid further occurrences of this and the disappointments that are never far from empty promises: it is both imperative and important to take a step back or a moment forward and work towards getting back the person you were before 'change' ever came along to show you a 'you' you'd detest ever being for the next era of your life.

Let go of all the tangible reminders and memories of that which will never be and rekindle the unfulfilled dreams with a slight shift in perspective geared towards getting the 'you' you know to the place you desired to be before 'change' came along and took you downhill.

Take a minute to remind yourself of what it is you really want out of life and the person you are trying to be in that life then work towards becoming the person you'd be proud of no matter the 'changes' you go through as long as you see a better you at the tide's destination.

Birthday Month!

Another year older. Alhamdulilah. I have the propensity to get afflicted with poor health right around birthday week. Could it be out of fear of getting old? I do not know.
I am usually excited when May rolls around but this time round I have been lackluster for lack of a better word. Not as excited, not as energized and most of all fatigued which I guess were symptoms to pending poor health.
AS the years go by; they leave us with something new. And this is no different. The last year was my most definitive year. Everything came together and dreams I had long forgot to dream finally came true. I learnt so much in the previous year than I probably will in another life but then again life in itself is a learning experience.
I once told my brother that my entire life is a study on patience and it couldn’t be an truer. Everything I want out of life happens through patience. Patience with myself, the people I am surrounded by and life. There is no better teacher on patience than God.
We all have that mental picture on how our lives should be wherein we are not willing to adapt ourselves to reality. Oftentimes, the picture in our minds never comes to pass because of our failure to change mindsets. I have learned that for one to have the life they picture themselves in, they have to be willing to change. Try to fit that mental image to reality and it will get you where you want to be.
That little thing called family/sibling loyalty no longer exists in this millennial generation of ours. Nope. Today’s siblings are as divided as the breasts they suckled on. This took hold after I watched the six season of Beverly Hills Housewives. Throughout the season, Kyle was trying to mend fences with Kim and her efforts went by unappreciated. It taught me that however much you may want to improve some relationships, it is better to leave things as they are.
What the heck am I sipping on to be in the reflective doldrums? Is this what it feels like to get old? Sitting on your porch with a cup of tea and looking back on your life like an old biddy in her senior years? If this is what I have to look forward to then I want none of it.
However, it is good to reflect on your life each passing year. Note your key achievements and the lessons that came with it. If you are a planner, go ahead. Plan. Although I would not encourage you putting much stock in the plans. Life never goes according to plan. It is full of sharp corners to cut across and intricate hairpins no one ever sees coming. Let everything happen as is or was meant to then you won’t be disappointed.
Happy birthday to me and all the May Babies that share this month with me. !!!!!!! :)


 Photo Credits: google

The Winds Of Change.

What would you expect to hear when you are in a funk of a mood? Certainly not the possibility of a pending relocation!
When this piece of news came to my attention, my heart plummeted to the floor! I was so floored and disconcerted by it that I hardly knew what to say! I actually sat down and took a hard look at all that is familiar as I wondered about the unknown.
I pride myself on a lot of things and one of them is being able to go with the flow but dang! This is something I never anticipated until my gainful employment – of course, which is yet to happen. From a business perspective, it is a sound idea but I can’t say the same from a personal one. I think it is going to suck major balls when my current office relocates!
The comfort of the familiar is oh so sweet and I don’t want to let go of it. The friends I’ve made, people I have come to know and well the camaraderie which takes ages to develop. I’m the type of person who takes long to make friends and with that in mind, being uprooted is not looking so hot from where I’m standing.
I’d like to say this is a good opportunity as far as my mood is concerned but I wouldn’t bet on it. Part of me wants to remain in the safety bubble so much so that I told my mum I wanted to stay where we were while the other part is trying to get used to the idea of change however tentative it might be at the moment.