The lives of men are like spiders’ webs; they are studded with minute skeletons of greatness. In my dimly lit room, a simple space with just a kitchen sink, a bed, and a study table - much like many of yours - one such thread stands out. It is not a literal skeleton of course, but rather, the remains of my once trusted companion: my HP laptop. Today, I want to share with you the journey that brought my friend and me to this point and the lesson I learnt about overcoming adversity.
It’s 5:47 PM in Juja. A drink is dancing in hand – I’m having tea with Rosemary, the herb not the lady, when my friend Brian texts me. We’ve been living in the same building for months now but the friendship dates back to the dark corridors of our teenage years in Vegas– Nakuru. They say people from here all know each other but the thing they don’t tell you is all funny men are made in Nakuru. Guess we just have the knack-uru for it! See?
I hesitate to check for my phone for two reasons: a, I’m subconsciously trying to beat the allegations by my mother that I’m addicted to the attention-starved device, b, I’m dancing my fingers across my laptop keyboard in the ring with a project deadline and one of us must be beaten. When I finally take a breather and check the message, it reads, “Kuja ucheki hizi cracks.” – “Come see these cracks.” Brian and I have lived in this building for a year, and lately, he has been going on like a referee, pointing out every little crack in the walls. Honestly, I thought he just wanted to throw in the towel and move. His text lacked a sense of urgency, so I figured I could brush it off until later. Besides, he probably thought that I was still in class, training for the next academic bout.
It's mid-March 2022, COVID is slipping off like the aftermath of a teargas heavy protest – dissipating but heavily present. As I sit in my room, on the fourth floor, I hear someone hammering into the walls like they are auditioning for a demolition derby– cracks. But I am too preoccupied to put two and two together. Eventually, I leave, headed to Brian’s to see his newly discovered wonders of the world but as I exit the room, I’m stopped in my tracks.
“Toka! Toka! Nyumba inaanguka.” The teeming crowd of onlookers erupts. I almost vomited in my mouth. At that moment, I wished I had a RedBull – because if I ever needed wings, it was now. If only I’d been patient enough to finish reading The Alchemist, maybe I’d stand a chance, maybe I would have had a shot at figuring out how to transform into the wind and blow out of there. Someone in the building must have desperately made the infamous wish for the ground to open and swallow them and now the building was inches deep in the ground. I don’t remember going down the stairs, but I found myself outside in the crowd, everyone breaking it to me how lucky I was. I tipped my hat to death, one legend to another.
I hadn’t yet seen the writing on the wall. This calligraphy of cracks, like a neon billboard in Times Square, was sending a message. “Change!” But there I stood, frozen like a deer in headlights, sporting nothing but sweats and crocs, watching as my life came crumbling down around me. A week to the start of exams, hours to the submission of the group project on my laptop. Dang! The caterpillars roared in hours later and the building, along with our lives, were brought down. The only thing salvaged? My laptop. So, what do you do when your life literally hits rock bottom?
There’s a phenomenon among bikers known as the “death wobble”. It is when the bike suddenly starts shaking uncontrollably from side to side and at a glance you think, “Well, this is going to hurt”. To counter this, weirdly enough, it is advised to ease off the accelerator and coast to a stop. No sudden braking, no white-knuckle grip on the handlebars. So I did the mental equivalent: I eased off on the overwhelming thoughts and the pressure and in that found a way to navigate the chaos. Turns out, sometimes you just have to ride the wobble and hope it does not wipe you out.
Like my shero, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie said, “The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue but that they are incomplete.” Mine was not a story of an ending but one of a rebirth. Not a story of gloom and doom but one of bloom and boom. The lessons I’ve learned are invaluable. I’ve learned to pick myself up in the face of adversity. My smile has since floated back onto my face. I have learnt that there’s more to life than our material possessions. I invite you all to look at life through these lenses. To appreciate the tear as much as you do the smile. This laptop here represents tears, tears to purify my heart and unite me with those of broken heart. It also represents a smile, the sign of my joy in existence.
–
To Brian, here’s a track!