Love in the Margins

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Some of the most formative love stories of my life didn’t end in relationships. They didn’t even begin in the way stories are supposed to. No grand gestures. No well-lit first dates. Just quiet connections that existed… on the edges.

The guy who always studied with me for our classes and did joint assignments, even though we never once called it a date. The friend who made me playlists but never said the words I needed. In fact, this guy made me laugh because he could never remember when we met and yet for me, it was one of the most significant events – I felt so much for him when we were talking… joke was, for him, it was just another great conversation (!).

So many tender moments and so many left on the way. There was one guy who very quickly, after an equally brief liaison, stopped talking to me. By then, I hadn’t wisened up to college guys and their ways. He just moved on and never looked back—but knowing him sure taught me how to spot guys like him from a mile away. 

There was one with whom we had an instant connection on a flight from North Carolina to New York. We sat there looking at each other. Our shoulders moving ever so much closer. He had these beautiful eyes and it felt like it could be something. He invited me to walk Central Park with him. But before I could answer, we remembered he was engaged.

There is another stereotype I have encountered one too many a time: the almost-lover who said, “Let me get you home,” after a night out but could never quite make a move when we got to my house.

Love in the margins is tricky. It doesn’t ask for much. It thrives on eye contact that lingers half a second too long. On inside jokes. On the careful way someone says your name. It rarely announces – or pronounces – itself. But it leaves shadowy feelings. Most of the time, these comment balloons type of love, just has enough room for longing and not much else.

It took me a while to understand this kind of love. I think it took me far too long to see that some loves are not meant to unfold. They are, instead, meant to reveal. To show you what matters to you. What doesn’t. Where your boundaries are. Where your softness begins. And sometimes just to remind you that you are alive. Breathing.

These “love in the margins” people are never for a chapter in my story. They are present in memories and only ever remembered in nostalgia, or in the demands of every love scene that comes long after they are gone.

I don’t write about them often. Mostly because I don’t want to overinflate what wasn’t. But also because I know that love can be true without being permanent. That not all loves have a destination… sometimes they’re like matching in place. Love in the margins. I think this is possibly where the most human parts of love reside – not so much in declarations, but so clear in the “it could have been.” 

That One Bad Review

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There’s a particular kind of hurt that comes from being misunderstood in public. Not criticized. Misunderstood.

I once got a review for one of my books—buried deep in a blog I hadn’t even known existed until someone sent me the link. And let me just say: I don’t go looking for reviews. But when you hear the words “I found someone talking about your work,” you click. Of course you do.

At first, I was okay. Curious. Even nodding at some of their points. Yes, there were typos. Yes, the structure was a little jagged. I could own that.

But then came the sentence that made my throat tighten:

“1.5 out of 5.”

And suddenly, it didn’t matter that they said I had a strong sense of place. It didn’t matter that they mentioned potential. I could feel my lungs get smaller in my chest. My stomach flipped. It was like someone had looked at the whole of me and said, “pass.”

What hurt wasn’t the rating. It was the finality of it. Like I’d been scored as a person, not just as a writer. Like the sum of years spent collecting ideas, sitting through doubt, pushing past paralysis—could be wrapped up in a number and dismissed.

That review made me question everything.

Why I write.

If I’m any good.

Whether I’m wasting everyone’s time—including my own.

I cried a little. Not dramatically. Just quietly. Like something tender had been poked one too many times.

And then—I don’t know—I remembered that, much like friendships, the relationships a writer has with her readership is deeply personal. I think I needed to embrace the fact that as a writer I may not be for everyone. In fact, it felt like you know creating any form of art is a journey of sorts. Sometimes, even good art shows up before it’s ready. Or before the reader is ready. Or maybe before the writer is ready.

I think I was successful in consoling myself. So, I keep going. With typos. With imperfect plots. With the kind of writing that might earn me another 1.5 somewhere down the road. Because I also know the kind of writing that earns a message like, “I didn’t know anyone else felt this way.” 

And true… now that I am sitting here, remembering someone who asked me how I am able to write this and capture something so relatable to them. And for that kind of connection, I’ll risk another review.

Where I’m From

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Lately, I’ve been thinking about where I’m from.

Not in the way people mean when they ask at a networking event, or in the way passport stamps try to explain you. I mean the places that shaped the inside of me. The places that made me laugh a little differently, sit a little quieter, learn the timing of pauses between stories.

I’m from the smell of ironed uniforms on Monday mornings and shoes polished sparkling and shiny black with Kiwi shoe shine.

From porridge that tastes slightly burnt but still feels like home. And bread spread with blueband and then panfried – like French toast but without the eggs.

From relatives who were my first friends and who are so many that every get together is spent answering the same question like 15 times… and it feels like home to echo a response and be received each time with job. And relatives who can tolerate you telling the same stories every year—always louder, always funnier—with details that change depending on who is listening. 

From cousins who know what it is to play in an Ikumbi and come out covered in the white residue of shackled maize that has been stored to cook Githeri later in the year. 

I’m from long silences during car rides.

From knowing how to read moods by how people stirred their tea. Or gave you a side eye. Or held one orange colored Bata slipper. Heck even a mwiko.

I’m from shared worn out shoes, and dresses, and shirts, and hair clips… and the quiet dignity of reuse. From generosity without ceremony. From people who shared and showed up. From afternoons where the electricity went out, and someone started singing in the dark.

There are parts of me that were shaped not by big events, but by small repetitions. The way a plastic chair creaks under your weight during a long story. The rhythm of a name answered three different ways depending on who’s calling it. The softness of my mother’s voice when she prays for us—not performatively, but from somewhere deep inside her chest. And loudly on Saturday morning which was so annoying when you’re trying to sleep!

I’m also from people who often said things that made me cry at night because their honesty was sometimes cruel. From whispered tales shared in phone calls and catchups and today, from WhatsApp messages. From family gatherings that always wanted to ask if I should join the gym and I fought the urge to punch people in the face. From questions about love and marriage – and having no answer to give over and over again. From women who never said I love you but insisted on singing a chorus after a family gathering and saying a prayer of protection and journey mercies. 

I’m still from those things. Even when I live elsewhere. Even when I sound different. Even when I write in a voice that someone might call “neutral.” Even when I silently withdraw from gatherings that seem a bit more hostile than I would like but still strike a chord of longing inside me.

I carry these people, moments, conversations, tears, and everything else in my silences. In the way I pace a paragraph. In the way I don’t always finish a thought.

Where I’m from isn’t just a location. It’s a cadence. A palette. A way of remembering.

What they don’t see

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There’s something no one tells you about being perceived as “strong”: it’s exhausting.

People see what you offer them. The output. The curated energy. The smiles, the wit, the competence. And if you’re really good at performing the role, they rarely ask how you’re doing. They just assume you’re doing fine. Thriving, even.

What they don’t see is the fight beneath the stillness.

The pep talks before you show up.

The tears that come after the phone call ends.

The way your chest tightens before you click “send.”

The mornings you sit at the edge of your bed, willing yourself to just… start.

They don’t see the rituals that keep you upright.

The playlist that summons your voice back.

The coffee you reheat three times before it ever reaches your mouth.

The voice notes you record and delete. Then record again.

I’m learning that part of the ache comes from being invisible in plain sight. And it’s not because people are careless. Sometimes, we become very good at hiding—at being functional, charismatic, articulate—while slowly eroding from the inside out.

There have been days I’ve performed confidence while feeling like a fogged mirror. Present but unclear.

There have been seasons I’ve ghosted people, not because I didn’t love them, but because I was afraid they’d ask questions I didn’t have answers for.

And there have been long stretches when I’ve written nothing, not because I had no ideas, but because I couldn’t face what those ideas might reveal about me.

So if you’re someone who seems “fine” to others but feels like you’re barely holding the seams together—this is for you.

I see you.

And I’m trying to see myself too.

The Day I Almost Quit Writing

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So, there was a day—not too long ago—when I genuinely considered quitting writing. Like, for real. Not the dramatic “I’ll never do this again!” kind of moment, but the quiet, heavy kind. The kind that settles into your bones. The kind you don’t say out loud, because saying it would make it true.

I had opened my laptop and stared at the screen for a solid hour. Typed a few words. Deleted them. Typed something else. Deleted that too. Then I just sat there, arms crossed, blinking into the void of the blinking cursor. That thing is a menace, by the way. Judgy little stick flashing at you like, “You good, sis?”

I wasn’t.

That day, I felt like I had nothing left to say. Or rather, I had things to say but didn’t trust myself to say them well. That’s the difference. It’s not the blank page that scares me—it’s the fear of not doing justice to the thing I care about. The story I want to tell. The person I want to honour. The truth I’m not sure I can shape without softening it too much… or slicing too deep.

So yeah. I almost quit. Not in a meltdown way. Just… quietly. Neatly. I thought maybe I could bow out gracefully, stop trying, and redirect all that creative energy into something else. Something less… exposing.

But then, something unexpected happened.

I got a voice note from a friend. She was laughing about a line I’d written in something ages ago. It was a throwaway line—nothing special. But it stayed with her. And in that moment, I remembered what writing can do. Not in the grand, earth-shifting sense. But in the small ways. A sentence that stays. A line that lets someone exhale. A story that makes someone feel a little less weird, a little more seen.

That was enough to keep me from quitting.

Barely, but still.

So I didn’t write anything amazing that day. I didn’t suddenly get a brilliant idea or complete a half-done draft. I just showed up again the next morning. And the one after that. And I started learning that the practice of writing—especially on the days when it feels pointless—is what makes you a writer.

Not the accolades. Not the perfect sentence. Not even the finished work.

Just the showing up.

And so here I am, still showing up. Still not always knowing what I’m doing. Still hoping that something I write—maybe even this—will land where it needs to.

Returning to the Page

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Yesterday night, I couldn’t sleep. That’s nothing new—middle age things. That’s right. I am now officially middle-aged. Or at least somewhat close. I keep thinking maybe, because of human advancement, we’ll be living until at least 120 years. In which case, I am nowhere near a midlife anything. But still.

Lately, I’ve been feeling a restlessness that no scroll, no conversation, no Netflix binge can still. Even during the day. And when I’m really quiet, I can hear the itch to pick up my journal and write. At night, the urge is stronger. During the day, some voices are louder…

“What if you wrote again, Ema?”

I usually shake my head in dismal response. Because… FEAR. I don’t know how to answer that question.

Whereas the romantic in me thinks writing again would feel like returning to a friend I once loved, my inner child remains unsure if that friend even wants to speak to me. And so… I’m paralyzed.

(Ok. Pause. Now that I think of it, there’s a friend of mine who isn’t speaking to me and—well—this is exactly how I feel about that too. I’ll double-click on that later.)

I’ve written before about writer’s block, but I recently unlocked a new layer of hell: creative paralysis.

For a long time—say, about four years—I haven’t really been writing. At least not in the way a serious writer should. Part of it was life doing what it does. The other part? Just a lot of noise. The kind of noise that drowns out any flicker of humor, tragedy, or inspiration that could drive a story.

I think I lost touch with my inner narrator—the one who connects to the characters and listens to their stories, then reaches out to me so I can spin moments into metaphor and silence into sensation. Losing her was terrifying. Life got so loud in my head that I couldn’t hear myself. And losing that connection to story made me imagine a dead muse in a castle somewhere—or at the very least, passed out.

As I write this now, I think the reason I couldn’t write wasn’t that I had nothing to say. I stopped because I didn’t know how to say what I needed to say without breaking.

Man, I really admire people who can channel sadness into writing. For me, grief choked out every bit of light. I felt like there was nothing left to connect me to my creative core.

But in the last few months, I’ve kind of started returning to myself. I think the insomnia and the urge to write are some forms of muscle memory. The words have started to return—not in a rush, but in fragments. What excites me is that these half-formed thoughts come while I’m showering or doing life things. When I’m driving. When I take slow walks on the beach.

It feels like I’m reconciling with my inner story concierge. Maybe I can start trusting that the world of story can hold me again.

I know this isn’t a triumphant return. It’s not a grand announcement either. I left so many projects hanging when I went on freeze, so there’s no shiny new thing to plug. But I do feel like there’s plenty inside me that’s aching to be heard.

So, I’m here. Once a week. For the rest of the year.

Not to impress.

Not to perform.

Just to tell the truth, as best I can, in the moment I’m in.

I’m back.

And I’m beginning again.

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We don’t really talk anymore

But every time I see you

I am reminded of talks and sighs and shares

Where connections settled into calm knowing

and understanding was felt and reflected

and I wonder how we walked so far out without each other

you are so within my reach but my heart feels singed when I think to touch you again

we can’t really talk anymore

Nefelibata

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A friend sent me a really beautiful picture with a word that I am not even sure I can pronounce. The word – Nefelibata – describes a dreamy individual who dances to their own tune. I jokingly asked my friend if that was me. She surprised me when she said yes. I giggled, actually. Mostly because on my best day I would honestly wish I was this person.

I have written before that I think the writer version of me is my best self. I feel that I was built to be a writer but I just didn’t know. And so, my life has taken me down roads that leave me writer-adjacent with deep longing to truly live a writer’s life. I honestly think that if I had chosen the writing track, my life would have been totally different. In some ways, I hold a belief that there is a whole life that awaits me on the other side of embracing my Nefelibata-ness.

What remains astonishing to me is that even after all this time and after all those affirmations from the interwebs, the novelty of walking the road less traveled is more a marvel rather than a lived experience. What is this courage that I (maybe you, we?) need to really live? Maybe it’s not too late to try and be Nefelibata?

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By far, my funniest organ is this delicate heart

that remembers crazy and lovely moments

that exalts and condemns with breaths in between

that longs and connects with as much fervor as it disconnects

humor me.

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I see you lately and wonder if you remember even faintly

that we were naked and held together

by whispers and feelings and joining

and sighs and moans and secrets

and gazes shared in sacred and tight spaces.

I see you lately and wonder if we were worth

the tender longing for intimacies past

and wished for knowing, bared only in shared paces and

ambles in singular nearness.

I see you lately and wonder if we are worth remembering at all.