Oops! My Thirties.

It is crazy how easily the days blur into each other when your life is at a standstill. You watch, on autopilot, as morning alarms become background noise and routines slip into muscle memory. As I settle into my thirties, I realize that it’s not always the big things that slip away. It is often the little ones. Big things like career leaps, heartbreak, and moving cities have a way of carving themselves into memory. But, trust the little quiet details to get lost. So, how do you cling to the almost invisible threads that stitch your life together when you are coming undone?

You still sort your garbage but what was once a grounding ritual, is now an obligation. When you are in the black hole, routines are tethering but a mire nonetheless. So you rush and muddle through it all. 

What if you paid more attention to the dust that is settling on the kitchen cabinets?

What if folding laundry was a pause and not a chore?

What if dirty dishes were proof of a life in motion?

So many what ifs…

There are mornings when you wake up and you feel like you have borrowed your body from someone else. You peel the duvet off your body with one swipe of your hand. You stumble to the bathroom with the strength of a body at least 5 decades older. You barely recognize the face in the mirror. Who is this stranger with tired eyes, stiff shoulders, and knees that could easily belong in a retirement home?

You complain. You ignore. You push this strange body harder than you should. And yet, this body refuses to give up on you. This body remains relentless even as you starve it of sleep, drown it in stress, and deprive it of meals. This body refuses to give up on you. So, you remain upright through uncertainty, heartbreak, failure, and loss. Much to your chagrin, your body is a fighter and the black hole hates fighters. 

What if you listened to your body though? What if you paid more attention to its desperate cries for rest? What if you moved when it said, “move”? What if you listened when it squirmed in thirst? What if you ate more? Slept more? Lived more? Smiled more? Laughed more? Felt more?

All you think about is bills. You can’t remember the last time you had a proper conversation because you avoid those. Your brain is a carousel of bills, work, and logistics. You vaguely recall the woman at the shop complimenting your shoes the last time you were outside. Just this week, a matatu conductor jokingly pointed out that you had something on your left cheek. Poorly blended sunscreen, it turned out to be. You tried to laugh as you wiped it off but barely managed a smile. A neighbor asked how you were – they probably meant it but you only managed a nod and brief grin. Lately, social exchanges slide past you like a hot knife through butter. 

You make a mental note to pay more attention to these little exchanges, however irritating. These little annoying exchanges should matter. Perhaps you will hold someone’s gaze for a second. You decide that next time someone says hello, you will offer more than a rushed “poa sana” in return. You will store their words somewhere safer than the back of your mind. Somewhere deeper. 

And then there’s the part no one (not even you) like to talk about – the money. Not the aspirational kind or the glossy success stories, but the quiet arithmetic of day-to-day survival. Finances demand your attention in ways that feel both humbling and heavy.

This one cuts deeper. It’s not as poetic as sunsets or as light as birdsong. It’s the weight of watching your money thin out despite your best efforts to be frugal. You deny yourself the little luxuries once taken for granted in employment. Skincare, new clothes, and stable internet are now considered luxuries. Yet the well still runs dry. Survival costs are stacking up faster than you can stack your coins. Family needs are at an all-time high. Each spare coin you scrape together seems to disappear. They flow straight into a business that hasn’t yet learned how to pay you back.

These sacrifices aren’t indulgences; they’re necessities. And still, the math refuses to soften. Between holding yourself together and holding others up, you wonder how much longer the balancing act can last. It’s funny how finances can leak beyond just budgeting. How life’s fragility can be measured in shillings.  

There’s also the way you speak to yourself, as if you were your own worst enemy. The crass tone of your inner voice is only acceptable at one of those ‘roast me’ shows. 

“You’re behind. You should have done more by now,” you think, as you doom scroll on social media. You could self-soothe but you choose to self-scold. Even on good days, you are one rejection email away from harsh self-talk. So you avoid rejection emails by not sending any yourself. The list of saved jobs continues to pile up. You cuss every time LinkedIn dares inform you that a job has expired. Why do you need to know that the job is no longer available?

There are the moments of beauty you rush past. Like the mellow light that hits your bedroom every morning when the sun rises. The sharp cold air at 6 am when you inevitably get up to feed the dog. The excitement with which your canine friend gobbles up every meal as though Gordon Ramsay made it himself. Or how he rushes to the balcony to watch the herds of cows that graze by, his ears perked and his tail wagging the whole time. Sometimes you watch the three construction sites nearby, sympathizing with the men as they labor in the sweltering Nairobi heat. Most times, you listen to the humdrum of their tools from the comfort of your bed. It’s as if you’re too scared to confront the reality that is outside. And in these times; you miss the orange smear of the evening sky, opting instead to catch only a glimpse of the sunset hitting the kitchen counters as it bounces off the top of the fridge. 

Then there’s the people who matter. Names that haven’t been dialed in months. Your phone hardly rings but it doesn’t make any calls either. People who once knew your daily life now only see the highlight reel, if at all. You’re busy, you mutter to yourself, as you try to crawl your way out of the black hole. Perhaps they are busy too, you think. Weeks have become months and “soon” is starting to feel like a lie. 

Finally, your dreams have shrunk to match your mental and physical fatigue. You dare not think about what you want; only what bills need paying. And your dreams have risen to the occasion; violently mirroring your thoughts. You dream only of survival now. You wish you could dream in color again but how could you?