Sistered

Posted on

I am often impatient with people who talk about women not supporting one another. Mostly because that hasn’t been my story. My experience has been one of unwavering support, deep love, and women showing up — over and over again.

I have been encouraged and held. Sometimes with a timely word. Sometimes with a look. Sometimes just by someone sitting beside me long enough for my breath to slow down.

There are women who have saved me without even realizing it.

My girls are my lifeline. Starting with my wombmates — these women know how to speak life into me. The love they have for me is so deep, so true, that I feel it in my bones. I must be the luckiest girl alive, because I also have sisters by choice. Some walked in and stayed. Some were only here for a short while. But I’ve come to learn that time is not a reliable judge of sisterhood.

When I say that sisterhood isn’t just about time or biology, I mean it. Because I’ve gathered great sisters along the way. And somehow, they all speak the same language. They are fluent in love and steadfastness.

They text, “Did you eat?” or “Have you slept?” and it feels like a prayer. They show up where I am, because over the phone I said “I’m fine” — and didn’t sound it. These sisters are the ones you tell to stay away, but who still find a way to be near, without making you regret it. They’re the cheeky ones who don’t need backstory (because they just get it) and insist that you give them a blow-by-blow account of things anyway — just so you can waste time together.

There’s something holy about being known by people who aren’t trying to fix you. Who let you unravel when you need to. Who allow you to sit with whatever elephant that insists on being inside a room when Tsavo is just a few hours away. Who help you tie yourself back together when you’re ready.

This isn’t just sisterhood. This is love.

And I’m so grateful for it.

Sisterhood isn’t always loud or visible. Shucks! Love isn’t always obvious. Sometimes, it’s a quiet protection of your name in rooms you haven’t entered. A shared look across the room when the men are talking nonsense. Sometimes, it’s telling the hard truth — when it’s VERY hard — because you want each other to grow.

I’ve been held by women who remind me who I am when I forget. Who laugh like medicine. Who show up with balm and jokes and “Let’s play that French song you love on repeat while we drink Jaba juice” energy.

As a love writer, I have not talked enough about how radical it is to be loved platonically, fiercely, and without transaction. How healing it is to be rooted in a community where no one’s competing, no one’s performing, and no one needs to shrink you to feel seen.

So, I am celebrating the women who mothered me, sistered me, midwifed my joy. Who have held space when I couldn’t hold myself. Who remind me — again and again — that I don’t have to do any of this alone.

I carry so much gratitude.

My sisters make the becoming bearable… and the journey joyful.

Why I Still Write

Posted on

There are days I wonder why I keep doing this — writing. Not in a dramatic way, but in that low-simmering kind of doubt that creeps in when nothing is working. When the drafts collect dust (like over four years), the plot stutters, and I can’t seem to land a sentence that sounds like me. When the stories I once held close feel unfamiliar, like a language I haven’t spoken in too long.

I tell myself maybe I’ve said all I needed to say.

Maybe the silence isn’t temporary.

Maybe the writing thing is something I outgrew quietly, without noticing.

And yet… something nudges me back. There’s still something asking to be written.

I don’t write because I’m brimming with ideas. I write because it helps me understand the ones that won’t leave me alone. Because the page doesn’t interrupt. It doesn’t look away. It doesn’t ask me to make it pretty before I tell the truth. Writing is how I make sense of the world.

Writing slows the spin. It lets me stay with a thought longer than I normally would.

It gives shape to feelings that tend to live in corners.

And more and more, I find that I’m not writing to prove anything.

Not to justify the time spent or to present myself as interesting or clever.

But to make room. For myself. For what I’m still trying to figure out. For the parts I haven’t spoken aloud yet.

Sometimes I imagine a reader — someone I don’t know who might find a piece of themselves in something I’ve written. But mostly, I write for the girl I once was. The one who never knew what to do with all that feeling. The one who used to say “sorry” before every sentence. The one who still does sometimes. The one who held her breath when someone asked what she did and she longed for the day she would say, “Writer,” with conviction.

I still write for her.

Not because it’s easy, or even because it’s always healing.

But because it’s the one place I don’t have to perform.

Because even when the words feel slow and uncertain, they’re still mine.

And I think that’s enough.

I Didn’t See That Coming

Posted on

Sometimes life doesn’t whisper. It yanks the rug.

Other times it just taps you lightly on the shoulder, says, “Oh, by the way…” and then casually changes your entire trajectory.

I used to think I was good at anticipating plot twists. I am the type of person that believes in calculated risk, scenario planning. I overthink. I over-plan. I draft mental scripts for conversations that never happen. But real life? Real life has no respect for the outline.

A job I thought would last had so many things happening that I just had to leave. A person I thought would always be there violated my trust and I had to allow the friendship of years to atrophy. A version of myself I had worked hard to become outgrew me and well, it was taking me a while to adjust. A morning conversation with my Dad on wanting to document his life history didn’t happen because he died that evening. For all of this, the only thing that I knew for sure is that I didn’t see any of it coming.

I know I said I anticipate plot twists, but I don’t necessarily cope well with them. So, when these surprise events occur, I always question if I will make it. Thank God, I come out on the other side. Mostly intact. Sometimes even a little lighter. Definitely wiser.

That’s the strange thing about being surprised by life: the first reaction is often fear. Or grief. Or confusion. Or a big WTF to my ancestors. But sometimes, later, when the dust settles, there’s space to see what opened up. My brother always says to never waste a crisis and to gather data about everything including my reactions to how things unfold.

These observations have taught me that every time something ended, I felt it well, well. But it always gave way to something new. When someone left, I met someone new — even if that someone was a softer version of myself. When a plan fell apart, I finally had room to try something I wouldn’t have otherwise dared. 

I’ve stopped expecting life to follow my drafts. I’ve started hearing the call to trust that I will be okay either way. These days, I’m trying to leave space for the unexpected and I don’t mean that in the Pinterest-quote way. I mean it like, really making room, for the unplanned and the spontaneous. I am even seeing how some of the best moments in my life have happened when I was standing in the debris of my best-laid plans.

So, if you’re like me and the last few years have felt like a prolonged season where everything feels off-script, I hope you know: That’s not failure. That’s movement. Sometimes the plot twist is the beginning of the good part – the best parts of you!

Grief Wears Many Faces

Posted on

Grief doesn’t always announce itself with tears.

Sometimes, it just makes you tired.

Forgetful. ANXIOUS!!! Impatient with small talk. Disinterested in things that once made you giddy. IRRITABLE!

Sometimes, grief looks like silence. Other times, it’s laughing too loudly at the wrong time.

It shows up as “I’m fine” in a text. Or that little pause before you say someone’s name, even years after they’re gone. 

Grief doesn’t like attention. It certainly loves solitude and isolation. It wears ordinary clothes (sometimes, with shower optional alternatives like lots of cologne). It shows up to work on time.

It smiles at the neighbor. But really hates surprises. It eats lunch. Then sits in your throat for the rest of the day like something unswallowed. And then it clouds your eyes with tears – making you wait for the other shoe to drop. Did I mention the foreboding of doom. Not knowing that the worst has passed.

I used to think grief was a season. Something you pass through.

But I don’t believe that anymore.

Now I think grief is a shape-shifter. It comes and goes. It makes itself comfortable in strange places — in the song you skipped, the birthday you forgot, the photo you weren’t prepared to see.

And I’ve stopped trying to outgrow it. Instead, I make space for it when it shows up. Like a language, I try to learn its peculiar vocabulary. I let the words roll of my tongue. I let grief sit beside me. Not to be tolerated, per se.  Just to be able to say, “Hi. I see you. Please no wahallah!” (ehehehe…) And really it’s enough.

There’s a quiet power in naming what hurts without expecting it to go away. A permission to redefine happiness and job in the presence of profound sadness. In fact, I am totally convinced that there’s a special ring of glory bestowed by our ancestors for allowing sadness to visit without trying to redecorate it as something else.

Anyway, this week, I’m not writing a solution. I’m just writing a recognition. Grief wears many faces. And it doesn’t make me broken to know them all.

Softness Is Not A Weakness

Posted on

There was a time I thought softness made me fragile and that being tender meant I’d be overlooked, talked over, taken advantage of. I thought softness was something you had to outgrow. Or hide. Or iron out with discipline. Or even sharpen with an edge of grit and hardcore “gangista-ness”.

But over the years, as I have mellowed and settled into myself, I’ve come to see it differently.

Softness has evolved to not be about being passive but about being quietly present. Often asking myself to sit with a bit of the discomfort of wanting to move faster. And then about feeling things fully while still choosing to stay open. When I remain soft, I don’t necessarily become blind to my propensity to lean heavily towards hope, or that there are risks in the loving, listening, hoping — and showing up anyway.

Perhaps the greatest gift that softness has given me is how to hold space and how to pause before reacting. I have become more comfortable with sitting with my own and others’ silence without trying to fix anything. I have even become quite good at writing without rushing to the conclusion and allowing my characters to speak… for the volume of the story to swell into something I could never have anticipated in my planning.

By leaning into softness, I find an opening into a fluency of language that is new and refreshing… and over time, I have found so much that is rich.

I have to admit though, that sometimes the Universe sends me little tests here and there. They’ve been times when people have assumed that my softness means that I won’t say no or that I will always give more or worse, that I will shrink to keep the peace. Let’s just say with softness in hand, I have learned to declare sacred space around it and well, for the sake of softness, I have found boundaries. I don’t abandon myself. I am soft but no less firm.

So. These days, I really protect my peace and instead of saying to myself, “toughen up,” I say, “Pause. Wait. Listen.”

I’m learning to trust that my tenderness is a skill and a tool of moving around the world in a way that serves all of me. I have come to appreciate that I feel so richly and so deeply. I love that I cry at well-written commercials. That I can’t read certain books without hugging them at the end. That I say “I love you” a little too easily sometimes. And for that I have been rewarded with many beautiful relationships, meaningful conversations, and an understanding of our human nature that makes me a better writer.

Softness is not a weakness. It’s one of my sharpest tools.

Writing While Afraid

Posted on

No one tells you how loud fear can be in a quiet room.

You sit down to write and suddenly everything gets noisy.

What if it’s not good enough? What if no one relates?

What if this is the piece that exposes too much?

There are some stories I’ve carried for years. Not because they’re particularly extraordinary, but because they’re… fragile. I know once I say them out loud, they’ll change shape. They’ll become shared. And that scares me.

I’ve written whole essays only to delete them at the last paragraph.

Closed journals mid-sentence. REFUSED TO READ journals because I was afraid of what I would find there. Typed confessions and then backspaced myself out of them.

It’s not that I want to hide. (ok, so maybe yes, I want to run from what I will find there… but let’s focus!). It’s that I don’t always feel ready to be fully seen or even to see myself. Sometimes the truth feels too naked. Too raw. Too soon.

But here’s the thing I keep learning:

Some of the best things I’ve written were written scared. 

Not because I had conquered the fear.

But because I decided that fear wasn’t the final editor. Oh! The joy of meeting myself in that vulnerable space was so so special. There’s a special kind of power in writing through the trembling and putting your finger to the page despite the doubt. When I am able to brave the truth, it resonates so deeply… it is not perfect but it so faithfully speaks about the condition of the heart and soul, of the experience of the moment… and there’s no greater gift!

I don’t always publish those pieces. In fact, many of them stay tucked in my folders, or sit quietly in my handwritten journals. It’s kind of like a waiting room of all my little projects waiting for their number to be called. But even as they wait, there’s something comforting about a storehouse of written stories. And I know that when the time is right and when the stars align and the main something shifts, I will be able to share. 

In any case, the act of writing is a kind of exhale and so, I continue to be convinced that even if I am afraid, I should write. Slowly I am accepting the journey of then taking the next step and sharing it anyway. Especially sharing those that feel the scariest to look at.Ultimately, for a writer and a storyteller, fear doesn’t mean stop. Sometimes, it just means pay attention and speak in the text. 

That First Rejection Letter

Posted on

I still remember the first time I got a rejection letter.

Printed. Formal. Almost polite enough to feel like a compliment—if you didn’t read it too closely.

I had submitted a short story I loved. It was raw, maybe a bit clumsy, but honest. I had stayed up two nights revising it, cutting and rearranging until it breathed right. I believed in it. I had determined that I need to get some awards under my belt. Up until that point, everything I had worked on would sail to the top. I was confident this would be no different. Hard work always paid off. 

I also painfully paid for many submissions in different short story competitions. Most ranged between ten dollars ($10) and no more than $15. So, yeah, I was confident. I was giddy. I told everyone about razing through this one competition that was quite great (I don’t have the heart to write the name of the competition).

And then the email came.

“We regret to inform you…”

The words that followed didn’t matter. As is my habit, I just closed the door on the nastiness that must have followed. I’ve never reread them.

But I remember the feeling. That slow sink in the chest. That flush of embarrassment, even though no one else saw it but me. I remember putting the letter in a drawer like it might contaminate the rest of the day.

What struck me most was how final it felt.

As if one editorial committee’s “no thanks” meant “never again.”

As if someone I’d never met had quietly shut a door I didn’t know I needed open.

I didn’t write for weeks after that. Maybe longer. I don’t remember. I just remember avoiding blank pages. They felt too loud. Too risky.

But eventually, I wrote something again. Not because I felt brave. But because the stories kept tugging at me. Quietly. Persistently. Like children tapping at the edge of sleep.

And here’s what I’ve learned since then:

Rejection is not a verdict.

It’s not a label.

It’s a moment. A signal. A chance to pause, maybe—but not to stop.

That letter didn’t mean I wasn’t a writer.

It just meant that piece wasn’t the right fit for that place at that time.

Which, by the way, is not a sentence I would have accepted back then. But here we are.

These days, rejection still stings. But it doesn’t define me. Not anymore.

Now, it’s just one line in a very long paragraph.

And I keep writing.

How I Lost My Rhythm

Posted on

There was a time when I wrote like breathing.

Not every day, but often enough to feel like I had a rhythm. A cadence. A pulse.

And then one day — I didn’t.

No dramatic event. It felt like a series of tragedies and a car in a slow-motion skidding off a winding road and into the abyss of a canyon… or maybe since I am in Kenya… picture driving the Mai Mahiu Road just after the View Point and winding off the banking and into the Rift.  

The way my ability to write left me… No grand announcement. Just a quiet grinding to a stop. Like faulty gears whose teeth are stuck.

Suddenly, writing felt like trying to catch a moving train while half-asleep. My ideas came foggy and late. The characters in my head stopped speaking. Sentences no longer danced — they stumbled. Or sometimes sat mute between full stops and elipses.

For a while, I told myself that I was just tired. I’d get back into it “soon.” You know, after I finished that thing, solved that crisis, bought that lamp, reorganized that drawer. Maybe if I got an Apple Pencil so that I could scribble like in a notepad but the words could be transcribed to text. Or maybe I could dictate my thoughts and then transcribe the records. OR I could actually commit to NaNoWriMo.

But “soon” left me by myself in the deep Rift of nothingness.

And then the guilt started stacking.

I’d open my laptop, scroll through old drafts, wince. Start a sentence. Delete it. Close the tab. Repeat. 

I even got an expensive Writing Coach… who I ghosted! At least we got to Chapter 3. I still haven’t opened the emails with the notes on Chapter 1 and 2.

People kept asking about my next book. Friends I hadn’t seen in a while asked, “Are you still writing?”

The answer was always a tentative “Yes!” 

To which my conscience would scream “LIAR!!!”

Other times, I would narrate my plot story line.

Other still would be met with a near honest, “Sort of.”

What I meant was, “I don’t know how to explain that I’ve lost the rhythm of myself.”

That the comfort of writing was no longer soothing. And the sadness inside me was all wastelands. No words.

So. Here’s what I’ve come to understand:

I didn’t stop writing because I became lazy. I stopped because I was surviving. Because I was tired in the kind of way sleep couldn’t fix. And the feelings I had were like mud or black, tarry, gooey melted asphalt. 

I have come to understand that somewhere in all the striving, I stopped listening to myself.

And rhythm — real rhythm — requires listening.

It requires stillness. It requires a lot of honesty. 

Presence. And reckoning. The ability to say “Whoosh! I am in a difficult space.” And then to quiet and just allow the soul the attention. I mean the kind of soft attention that’s hard to access when you’re just trying to make it to next week without collapsing. Or wake up without the heaviness of being alive.

Fast forward to this year, something’s shifted. I feel lighter. I feel buoyed (you know like that bobbing orange ball that they keep near boats and things). I’ve started humming again while brushing my teeth. I’ve caught myself narrating random scenes in my head. Started seeing the imaginary spaces where stories form come alive with color again. I’ve started writing things in the margins of my journal and even randomly between meetings on open Word documents… hehehe…

The rhythm is not back in full. But I can hear it again. Faint. Familiar. Like music playing softly in another room.

I feel compelled to follow the sound. Slowly. Steadily. No rush.

Because the thing about rhythm is: it always leaves room for return.

Notes to my Younger Self

Posted on

Dear girl,

Oh dear, little girl. I wish we had had this conversation earlier.

You don’t have to prove your worth by how much you can endure.

You don’t have to fix everything before you allow yourself to rest.

You don’t need to explain why your joy matters. Or why your tears are valid.

Someone, some time, convinced you that love is earned through effort. That you have to be useful to be kept. That you have to keep working harder and faster than anyone to stay ahead of crises unknown. That you have to anticipate needs before anyone speaks them. And honestly? You’ve gotten really good at that.

But I want you to know — you were never supposed to disappear in order to belong.

You think you’re being “easy” when you wait just a little too long to ask for help.

You think you’re being mature when you withdraw tactfully when you’re pain to yourself.

You think you’re being strong when you say “it’s fine” even when it’s not.

But baby girl — I see you.

And I know you’re tired.

Let me tell you a few things I wish you had heard sooner:

You are not dramatic. You are expressive.

You are not weak. You are emotionally attuned.

You are not too much. You are in full color. You just have a not-so-quiet stubbornness to be just you. You are not unstable. You are just full of life and committed to living truthfully (at least by not lying to yourself, no matter what).

Oh, sweet girl. Life has taught us that there always will be people who won’t understand you. Some even in the circle of those who love you the most. That’s okay. Don’t twist yourself trying to understand why this is the way it is. Don’t even try to analyze why they don’t get it. You’ll learn, eventually, and be okay with not always being the Belle of the Ball. And the world will not end.

And here’s something else: one day, you’ll learn the joy of finding your tribe. And people who make you feel compelled to keep your softness. Keep your curiosity. People who amplify your voice, even when it trembles, and who hold your hand through everything. It is a wonderful joy to be loved by other people than those who first loved you and have been so steadfast (that huge family and those crazy siblings of yours, of course).

Most of all, you will discover that you can say with as much honesty as the sun rising in the east that you truly love yourself. I really and truly love you.

We’re still becoming.

Love,

Me.

The Worst Advice I ever Took

Posted on

There’s something especially frustrating about realizing you followed bad advice—not because it was malicious, but because it was normal. The kind of advice everyone nods at and that you are almost always required to take. Simply because it is such good advice that you can’t possibly have anything against it.  I mean this is the kind of advice that fits in polite conversation and LinkedIn posts.

Some of the most destructive advice for creative people often takes this VERY SENSIBLE form. I mean one of my favorite terrible pieces of advice is: “Be realistic.”

It sounds harmless, right? Grounded. Wise. A call to humility. But what it really did—at least for me—was shrink possibility. It taught me to dream within frameworks other people had already tested. It taught me to ask smaller questions. To choose paths that felt “proven.”

I remember being told not to focus so much on writing.

To “keep it as a hobby.”

To find something more practical to pursue. A 

And for a while, I listened. I let the voice of “realism” override the voice of wonder. I made safe choices. Applied for the sensible jobs. Stopped calling myself a writer unless I had something published to prove it.

I don’t blame anyone. They meant well. They just didn’t see the version of me that lights up when I build a world from scratch, or spend five pages on one conversation between imagined people who feel so, so real.

But still—that advice cost me something. Time. Courage. Maybe a few stories that never made it to the page.

The thing about “realistic” is that it often centers other people’s fears, not your vision. It wants you to be legible. Predictable. A good fit for the systems that already exist.

But I’ve since learned: some of the best things in my life happened because I ignored that advice. Because I bet on something that didn’t make sense to anyone but me.

So now, I keep a little internal filter. When advice comes my way, I ask: Is this protecting me, or limiting me? Is this helping me build something, or just keeping me from falling?

I still don’t have it all figured out. I’m still learning how to trust my own rhythm. But I’m done trying to be realistic.

I’d rather be faithful to the wild, slightly irrational parts of me that still believe the impossible is worth chasing.