Confessional

Romance and Regret

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I’ve been writing two characters lately. And somewhere between their dialogue and missed moments, I realized… I know these two. Not exactly. But I’ve met them. Felt like them. Maybe even been them, once or twice.

Their story isn’t dramatic. It’s not one of those love affairs that ends in broken plates and tearful monologues. It’s quieter than that. More almost than aftermath.

They remind me of all the “almost maybes” and all the loves that had so much potential. The loves that hovered just at the edge of becoming something more. The ones that fizzled without a fight. That slipped through, not because of betrayal or rage, but because no one was brave enough to say what needed saying in time.

And writing them has made me reflect on how many love stories never even begin. They just linger. In a sentence that never got said. A door no one knocked on. A moment you talked yourself out of.

I think one of the reasons I’m drawn to these two characters — the one who looks back too often, and the one who never fully showed up — is because I know what it is to hold regret. Not the loud, cinematic kind. The quiet kind. The kind that hums underneath your skin and makes you think, If only I’d been a little braver.

But the beauty of writing — the real magic — is that I get to explore all the versions of that moment. I get to ask: What if they’d stayed? What if they’d said the thing? What if they’d chosen the mess instead of the silence?

And maybe the best part? I’m not writing from a place of despair. I’m writing from possibility. From understanding. From having lived long enough to know that timing really does matter — but so does tenderness. That some of the best stories come from the tension between what was and what could have been.

So no — this isn’t just about old heartbreaks. It’s about how regret has made me a better writer. How paying attention to the ache has sharpened my ear for truth. How letting a character long for something they just missed teaches me to tell stories that are not always happy, but always honest.

And in that way, these characters are not unfinished business. They’re a new beginning.

Not a mourning. A reimagining.

Breaking the Rules

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Some of the rules I broke were never written down. They didn’t hang on classroom walls or appear in handbooks. They were implied. Inherited. Expected. Like background music or elevator music or Christmas jingles that plays softly and compel you to hum along.

Be polite.

Stay agreeable.

Don’t interrupt.

Make yourself smaller so others don’t feel threatened.

Wait your turn.

Don’t want too much.

Don’t take up too much space.

And for a long time, I followed them. Quietly. Skillfully. I became really good at playing by rules I never agreed to — rules that were passed down with love sometimes, and fear other times. I keep referencing how I got my first lessons in school. But it didn’t help that we were also a military family — more rules on top of the regular ones. And then, bonus rules because we’re Kenyan. And Kikuyu. And women. It was rule on rule on rule. All of it kind of made me feel like I was supposed to be palatable instead of present.

But something shifted. Not all at once. It wasn’t a grand rebellion or a dramatic declaration. It was more like a slow peeling away. A series of quiet “no’s.” A quiet voice in my chest that whispered, “That doesn’t sit right anymore.”

It looked like saying what I meant, even when it wasn’t easy. Writing what felt true, even if it didn’t sound “nice.” Choosing joy even when it didn’t come with credentials. Wearing red when everyone else wore beige. Laughing too loud at the wrong moment — and not apologizing for it. Resting, unapologetically, in a culture that worships burnout. Saying, “This matters to me,” and not waiting for anyone to validate that truth.

At first, it felt like failure. Like I was letting someone down — someone I couldn’t quite name. Maybe a version of myself I was taught to be. Maybe the imagined voice of a teacher, or a mentor, or a silent crowd. But now? It feels like return. A return to myself. To breath. To a voice that was never meant to echo someone else’s comfort.

I don’t break rules for shock value. I’m not trying to cause a scene. I break them to breathe. Because there’s nothing holy about performing palatability. Nothing noble about being invisible.

And sometimes the most radical thing I can do is to write my own script. Even if I have to tear up the old one, line by line, and start again. It is so clearly brave.

The Stories We Inherit

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Some of the stories I tell didn’t start with me. Or rather, the storyteller in me didn’t start with me. This yearning for words woven together — it was passed down. And I’m still trying to find the stories that were passed down… or that should have been. The longing to connect through story didn’t arrive in leather-bound volumes. It came in outside kitchens and family gatherings. In long queues and matatus. In whispers during weddings.

I grew up in a family that loves to talk. They didn’t always call it storytelling. They called it “talking,” or “remembering,” or “just saying.” But they were archiving. Preserving. Making maps out of memory. And the joy of retelling was mine. Our stories weren’t shaped like literature — they were shaped by life. And in that living was all the adventure we ever needed. I’ve come to realize that so much of who I am as a writer was formed by listening.

The way my auntie said someone’s name when she didn’t approve. The way my grandmother used pauses for punctuation and sarcasm for punchline. The way stories were told, and repeated, and told again until they became ritual. The way the grapevine did its thing — ensuring the story passed through every ear at least once, depending on when you jumped into the mix.

I think of those voices often when I write. I feel them behind me, or maybe inside me. As though, in telling these stories and recalling those names, I’m keeping something alive. I hear them in my inner narrator, like I’ve been plugged into the central vestibule of our family’s hopes, regrets, resilience, and song. These stories connect the threads I want to weave together — not just in what was said, but how it was said. The rhythm. The emotion. The silences that held meaning. The jokes. The laughter. The way we cherished the moment. The ache of missing those who left too soon. Or those who just plain left. Of those who we don’t mention but hold important parts of the story.

Lately, I’ve been trying to archive more of these stories while I still can. To sit with my uncles and aunts and even cousins. To ask again. To write it down. Because when I hear about our people, even in fragments, I feel fuller. Richer. I feel connected to a wellspring of love that I didn’t have to earn. My inheritance lives in that love and in the stories that demonstrate this love.

These are the stories I inherited. Not because someone handed them to me formally, but because I was there. Because I heard. Because I listened. And now, I carry them into my own work — not to rewrite, but to respond. Not to preserve the past in glass, but to let it breathe through something new.

I’m always aware of the privilege of telling. Of being given space to shape these stories in my own voice. Of turning memory into meaning and hoping that, in doing so, we don’t lose our people. That we keep mentioning their names. That we keep the thread woven and intact.

I am certainly not the beginning. I’m the continuation. And I think I tell stories because someone once told a story… and then another. And because my ancestors dreamed me into existence with story inside them, the story now lives in me too.

Learning to Ask for Help

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I used to think asking for help was something you did only when you had no other choice. Like a last resort. A white flag. You know how Tom and Jerry would chase each other until they were completely worn out and then one of them would wave a little white cloth in surrender? Yeah. Like that. Somewhere in my mind, there was a ka-small belief that asking for help was a quiet admission of failure. A giving up.

And let’s be honest — the 8-4-4 system didn’t help. Asking questions had to be strategic. If you weren’t careful, asking a teacher a question could rain down public humiliation. The wrong timing or tone could get you dismissed, or worse, embarrassed in front of the whole class. It taught a lot of us that strong meant silent. Silent avoided licks. Capability meant being self-contained. Getting it done without drama was the gold standard. Resilience became synonymous with smiling while exhausted. In fact, smiling while exhausted was just par for the course.

Then came Boss Babe culture. There was no relenting in that world. No room to pause. I became the one who carried it all. The one who figured it out. I knew how to check in on people, offer support, manage the chaos — but rarely answered honestly when someone asked me, “How are you?”

And maybe that worked. For a while. Until it didn’t. Until I quietly burned out and began a long, complicated love affair with anxiety. My first panic attack started this cycle of hypervigilance and self-doubt. I found myself watching for invisible enemies, always preparing, never resting. I had a plan A and B and C for everything. I resented the people who didn’t notice when they were overloading me. Who couldn’t just tell that I was tired. Who expected me to keep going because I looked like I had it together. I felt like I was battling alone. And the loneliness of that nearly took me out.

Eventually, I crashed. And with that crash came a hard truth: no one was coming to save me. Not because they didn’t care — but because I never let them know I needed saving.

Learning to ask for help has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. But it’s also one of the most healing commitments I’ve ever made. I don’t owe anyone my superman cape. I will not suffer alone! 😬😬😬

In the beginning, choosing vulnerability over control meant I overshared everything. I didn’t know how to ease into the ask — I just cracked wide open. But I like to think I have a bit more finesse now. These days, I know who is a safe space and I have learned how to make the ask with softness. I know the people I can let in to witness the mess without needing to clean it up. My inner circle is solid. I trust them. And letting them hold me doesn’t make me less worthy — it just makes me more human.

The miracle of asking for help is that it creates permission. It opens the door for other people to ask, too. And nothing brings me more joy than showing up with the right kind of care for the people I love. My refusal to perform strength has given others the courage to stop performing, too. The depth my relationships have found through this reciprocity. It’s beautiful. We’ve learned to hold each other, in turns. And now, “I can’t do this alone” isn’t an admission to be ashamed of — it’s a sacred little prayer.

And the truth is, I’ve been honored by the vulnerability people have shared with me. I’ve been blessed by those who’ve shown up — with meals, with voice notes, with memes, with practical suggestions and emotional oxygen. I’ve learned how to receive those things. And I’ve offered them back. In that giving and receiving, we’ve created emotionally safe spaces that feel real and sacred.

So here’s what I remind myself now:

Asking for help is love in practice. It’s not weakness. It’s wisdom. It’s a quiet, brave reclaiming of interdependence.

Still the best lesson I’ve learned.

This Body. This Self.

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It’s taken me a long time to come home to my body. Whoosh. Even writing that makes my heart drop.

It’s hard — so hard — to stop treating my body like a project. To stop apologizing for the parts that jiggle, or ache, or change. I just had to close my eyes for a moment to let that sink in. Because I mean it. It’s hard to stop seeing this beautiful, miraculous body as something to be fixed, managed, improved.

But this body has carried me. Through exhaustion and heartbreak and joy and hunger. Through dancing and doubt. It has walked me out of rooms I should never have been in. It has curled in grief and mourned the separation of spirit and form. It has stretched toward light. It has stayed with me for every win — every small and significant triumph. It has survived, even when I wasn’t sure I wanted it to.

And still, for years, I judged myself by how I looked in photos. By how much external validation I received. I compared myself to other, seemingly “perfect” bodies. I’ve had too many conversations in front of mirrors — debating how flat my stomach should be, how tight my clothes were, how I might shrink myself just enough to disappear in the right way. The weighing scale used to terrorize me. And the real shame? I let numbers and mirrors and strangers speak louder than the voice inside me that was simply saying, “Thank you.”

But I’m learning. Oh, the blessed gift of age. I’ve learned how fragile our bodies are, and how easily their gifts can be taken for granted. I’ve learned that this body is not for display. That my existence is not for consumption. As I’ve settled more into my heart, I’ve found myself settling into my skin, too.

I’ve learned to listen when I’m tired, and to rest without guilt. I’ve learned to feed myself like someone I love. I’ve learned to dress with joy, to wear my style with expression — and to say “screw the scrutiny.” I walk with gratitude now. I’ve made peace with movement and stillness alike. And I can never go back to the time when my body felt like a punishment.

What a joy to know now that this body is not an inconvenience. It owes no one — not even me — a before-and-after. I am not a warning sign. Not a billboard. I’m not here to prove anything with inches or numbers.

And this self — this wild, wondering, word-spinning self — she doesn’t need to be edited down to be worthy of love. She doesn’t need to be quieter, or neater, or thinner, or more productive. She just needs to be. To exist, and be seen, exactly as she is.

This body.

This self.

This moment.

All of it is worthy.

Being Enough

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I’ve spent years measuring myself against invisible metrics. How much I got done. How many words I wrote. How available I was. How well I held it all together without asking for help. Even rest had to be earned. Joy had to be justified. Love had to be deserved.

But lately, I’ve been asking myself: what if I’m already enough? Even on the days I don’t perform. Even when I’m not productive or pleasing or proving anything. What if I’m allowed to just… be?

There’s a version of me I used to chase. She was more disciplined. More “together.” More consistent. But she always felt just out of reach — like every time I got close, she’d move the finish line again. And I’ve started to wonder if I’m not meant to catch her at all. Maybe I’m meant to return to myself instead. To the version of me who breathes slower. Who laughs easily. Who doesn’t trim herself down to make others comfortable. Who doesn’t perform wellness or perfection. Who just… exists.

“Enough” used to feel like a verdict I had to earn. Now it feels more like a birthright I forgot how to trust and I really can allow myself to possess.

I’m not always confident. I still spiral. I still compare. I still want gold stars, praise, reassurance. But more and more, I have these moments where I feel still inside my own skin. I’ll notice the way the light filters through the window and think: this is it. This is life. This is being. I’m not asking to be more. I’m not chasing the next version of me. I’m just letting myself exist here, as I am.

So today, this is my reminder — to myself, and maybe to you too:

You’re not behind. You’re not lacking. You don’t need to fix everything before you’re allowed to feel whole.

You are already enough.

Even without the striving. Especially without the striving.

A Love I Didn’t Keep

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Some loves don’t end with drama. No betrayal. No big fight. No final goodbye yelled into a rainy night. Just slow unspooling. You find yourself thinking of them less and less. The texts become fewer. Then the pauses between replies stretch longer — before being ignored even becomes a thing. And then… there’s just no feeling. The phone calls are shorter, the silences longer. There’s awkwardness. And that strange moment when you realize the laughter isn’t quite the same, and neither of you knows how to ask why.

I used to think love had to last to be real — that if the feelings faded, then maybe it wasn’t love to begin with. But life, ha! I think now, more and more, that some of the deepest loves don’t stay. They arrive to teach you something. To stretch your heart. To open a door. And then they leave.

This is about one of those loves.

We didn’t end in anger. In fact, I feel guilt sometimes — because I ended up feeling nothing. Well, not nothing exactly… maybe a kind of passive-aggressive bitterness. A resentment that came not from betrayal but from boredom. From realizing that we were growing in different directions — slowly enough for us both to notice. It became clear that he wasn’t as motivated to stop the disintegration of us, and I was a little too tired to keep denying that the shape of us had changed. And the truth? I didn’t quite feel the loss.

Still, I remember the mornings that felt sacred. The inside jokes that made no sense to anyone else. The ways we tried. The moments we got it right. The warmth and joy and spark of it. The fire. The chemistry. The romance. The tenderness. The urgency. I remember all of it, and I (mostly) don’t regret it.

I think this might have been the first time I could look back at a relationship and feel that I was actually ready for a love to end. That loving someone and not wanting to keep them wasn’t a betrayal of my romantic ideals. And that I didn’t need to vilify him to make sense of the ending. I could simply say: he loved me — maybe not in the way I needed forever, but in the way he could, then. And that was how it was meant to be.

I still find myself wondering whether it’s okay to file this under loved and gladly shelved. I mean, I don’t think I get to decide the categories of love. Maybe they were set by the gods or the ancestors long ago — that not every love is meant to be permanent, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t valid. There’s comfort in that, I think.

Not every ending is a failure. Sometimes it’s just a quiet closing of a chapter.

So aside from the small-small sadness, the soft ache of parting, I carry a kind of gratitude. A softness around the memory of a love that was real, even if it didn’t last. A love that mattered — for as long as it did.

I wonder if this is how it is with some friendships too.

sigh

What I Meant to Say (Do)

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There are things I wish I’d said when it mattered. Not big, sweeping declarations. Just simple truths that I held back — out of fear, timing, pride, or that awful belief that I’d have another chance.

What I meant to say was: “I didn’t know how to love you right then, but I wanted to.” Or maybe: “You hurt me more than I admitted — but I still think of you kindly.” Or: “I’m sorry I didn’t show up when we agreed, because I feared you were more important to me than I was to you. I didn’t want to lose.”

I just wish those moments hadn’t been so full of fear. Or competition. Or pride. I wish my heart could have recognized when it was important to be transparent — to be bold. I wonder if people become wiser with age and can identify a pivotal moment that has the potential to change the shape of a relationship. And if that kind of wisdom exists, how can I tap into it faster?

Sometimes, the loss of the moment isn’t only about what I didn’t say — but what I didn’t do, because I thought I had more time. Lately, I’ve been remembering a conversation I wanted to have with my father before he died. I wanted to know more about him — how he grew up, how he lived, how he saw the world. I wanted an oral history. But I waited too long. I thought we had more time.

Or that man I loved so deeply. I wish I had pushed us to take the leap. But the moment passed. He was also gone. And there’s no going back.

But not everything I didn’t say was profound. Sometimes, I just wish I had expanded the moment a little. Said something like “Don’t go.” Or, “I hear you.” Or even, “Tell me more about that.” But the moment passed, and the pause was too long to say more. Or the person passed — and now I carry the words like little pebbles in my pocket. Not heavy enough to stop me, but impossible to ignore. And my heart keeps saying: I wish I had said it. Can I go back and say it? The regret lives at the base of my brain, and I rest my neck on it.

I suppose the lesson is that not every truth arrives on time. But how can I accept that there’s beauty or purpose in the delay? How do I make peace with the distance that silence — or death — creates? Accepting that the moment is gone doesn’t mean I don’t still wish I had said the words, or done the thing.

These days, I pray for the courage to speak when the urge is kind and clean. I pray I can recognize the moment when choosing now over maybe could change the shape of everything. I hope I’ve learned how to say the thing when it’s warm — not when it’s stale. To risk the awkward moment over the lingering ache of “too late.”

I wonder if it’s a skill I can master… this bravery to act in time.

Unsent Letters

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I’m a romantic. So yeah… I’ve written more letters than I’ve sent.

Long, spiraling ones with no punctuation. Short ones with just one sentence I couldn’t say out loud. On napkins. On the backs of receipts. In my Notes app at 2:43 AM. In my journal — which, honestly, I dread thinking about anyone reading in the future. What will my relatives make of my late-night musings? Hehehe…

These unsent letters — some start with “I miss you,” and others begin with choice expletives. A few open with “This hurt.” Some never make it past “Dear…” before my mind takes over and rewrites the page before I can finish the thought.

I usually write them when my chest feels tight with unspoken things. When I’m not sure a conversation would fix anything, but I still need to clear the static building in my heart and head. Sometimes I write them because I fear that saying something out loud would make forgiveness feel too fragile — or worse, that naming a thing would make it impossible to ignore, and then we’d have to deal with the truth. And then… the impasse.

Most of these letters stay hidden. Tucked into drawers. Folded into ziplocks like sterilized prayers. Deleted from drafts. Forgotten altogether. A few times, I’ve burned them in the kitchen sink — not out of anger, but as a kind of quiet ritual. A release.

The truth is: some letters aren’t meant to be sent. They’re meant to be written — to make space. To say what needs to be said, not to someone else, but to yourself. That’s the real magic of being a writer. Words spoken in silence have a strange kind of power. They remind me that I haven’t abandoned myself. That I can give my feelings shape without giving them away. That I can honor my voice without needing a response. That I can choose peace over performance.

And sometimes — not often, but sometimes — the letter is a rehearsal. A first draft of the thing I’ll one day have the courage to say out loud. A soft landing before the truth is spoken with full voice.

Maybe that’s what the hidden words are for. Not drama, not even clarity — just honesty. A mirror. A rescue. A reminder of what I needed to hear all along.

So yes, I’ll keep writing them. Not for closure. Not to provoke. But because even when no one else hears it, the act of writing it down means I did. And sometimes, that’s enough.

Healing is Less Ruler and More Slinky

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I used to think healing was a straight line.

I think when your heart is broken, action feels like the answer. And there was a time when I believed that if I journaled enough, prayed enough, forgave enough, read enough, I’d cross some invisible finish line and finally feel… whole. There were many nights when I’d lie awake imagining that one day I’d wake up and not flinch when certain memories tapped me on the shoulder. That I’d reach a place called healed and never have to feel the ache again — or wince at the memory that still stings.

Oh! But how life has humbled my youthful angst for perfection and destination highs. How it’s softened my obsession with tidy arcs and destination highs. I know better now. I think I have spent the last few reckoning with the great revelation of being a beautifully flawed human: healing is not a finish line. It is less ruler and more slinky.

My experience has shown me that healing circles back far more often than you’d like. It is not unusual to revisit old wounds from new angles. Like an obsessive detective in a crime procedural, you return to the scene again and again — only this time with new tools, a bit more breath in your body, and the faint hope that maybe, this time, you’ll be able to put something to rest.

I think healing is a quiet hope that we’ll survive these re-visits. At first, setbacks feel like monumental failure. I have started therapy sessions with a sigh and a frustrated, “I thought I was past this.” But these days, I’m convinced Shrek was right all along. We really are onion people, layered and tender in places we didn’t know were still sore.

To be patient with the spiral nature of healing is to celebrate the difference between surviving something… and beginning to understand it. So now, instead of panicking when I find myself back inside a familiar ache, I pause. I try — gently — to hush the self-blame and ask my inner critic, “Why is this memory asking for attention right now?” And I have to say, that alone feels like progress. Sometimes, making that small pause meaningful feels like a kind of healing.

I’ve come to understand that healing doesn’t mean the pain is gone. It means that I tend to the places that still call out when touched. I sit with the memory that hurts. I spend time reframing the story. Sometimes, I even rewrite it.

As I’ve matured, I’ve learned to humbly ask for softness around the spaces within that still echo. I’ve stopped asking for permanent freedom. Instead, I ask to return — next time — without shame.

I ask for light to meet me again at the next appointed spiral point.