The Madness

Forgive me Father for I know not what I do. At least once a day lately.

You hear about growing pains. And they are so idyllic and romanticized. Deservedly so because change is supposed to be good. Great in fact. A sign from the sun that your light will not be snuffed out. That you are expanding and expounding. Parameters that TED talkers will drill on and on about, how they are crucial yardsticks for success.

What most of these web speakers will not get into excruciating detail about is the constant frustration, anguish and disappointment that goes hand in hand. Speaking for myself, it is the naivety that is unravelling me. Having to navigate new experiences and accepting that I know close to nothing in this new land is something I am grappling with. Hard.

Now, as a fully functioning, tax-paying (and heavily breasted) adult, there are certain expectations bestowed upon me. Self-inflicted or not. Mostly the former. I expect that people expect that I have, in a way, been making do comfortably at worst. At the very least, I do not expect my first impression to scream ‘mad homeless woman.’ Regardless of my tattered jeans, dad.

Recently though, despite myself, streaks of my madness have been fighting to be put on display. It does not help that I have been crashing at a hotel with no residential address to my name. For four gory weeks in a new and predominantly white city.

Like a demented side chick in a telling décolletage at an African funeral, the chickens are coming home to roost, I’m afraid

You see, I had imagined my UK move would be all Bridgerton high tea parties and crisp air. I had pictured myself strolling cobblestone streets in a chic trench coat, sipping artisanal coffee, exchanging witty banter with intellectuals who serve in cool book clubs. I imagined I would move into a cozy apartment, floor to ceiling windows, and minimalistic aesthetic furniture. I was especially excited about making new friends and hosting fabulous dinner parties

I was rudely awakened from my reverie when I arrived. First of all, I thought that British food slander was a joke, an exaggeration. It is not. I spent days wondering why my meals were tasting like sadness. Then I discovered that they think salt and pepper is spicy. Also, why is water carbonated by default? I asked for a drink, not an explosion in my mouth

Also, British people are friendly but only in a customer service way. Nobody tells you that socializing here involves unspoken rules. You don’t just befriend someone, you earn their trust over years. Meanwhile, I’m standing in the rain like, Hi does anyone want to be my pal before I die of loneliness? And the rain! Nobody prepared me for the UK weather. The sun is a rare guest that shows up uninvited and leaves without warning. The sky is permanently in ‘about to rain’ mode. It’s like living inside a moody teenager’s emotional state – always grey, stormy and drizzly.

At the risk of sounding dramatic, house hunting while reporting to a 9-5 job in Manchester is akin to an episode in Australian Survivor. You have to go through animated yet still casual letting agents who will inadvertently respond after 4-5 business days. If by some miracle, the house is still available, you have to set up a physical viewing, again at their leisure. And then comes in the referencing that calls for everything short of retrieving ashes from an ancestral line twice removed. You eventually pass the referencing and expect to move in, right? Wrong. You get an email notifying you that the landlord decided to grant some other (Caucasian) person the lease.

Now imagine going through this futile process a couple times in a week, sometimes showing up at a viewing that gets cancelled after arrival. Dashing back to work in an enraged stupor only to mix up client projects while simultaneously trying to forge client relations, and the cherry on top being having to retire to a snug stuffy hotel room with unpacked luggage and unstable WIFI. (I can’t even check for flights back to Nairobi). Balls are bound to drop, and whatever is left of my sanity I fear might be the first to go.

I have now developed a cliché coping mechanism where I blast Ludacris’ “How Low” in my bass headphones while I reaffirm myself in the mirror before I set out to seize the day (or have the day seize me)

Lord please, if there is anything meant to go low today let it be my panties not my sanity. Amen.

In my debilitated attempt to maintain my lucidity, I realize that the more I try to infuse certainty, the more uncertain and insecure I feel. A Mark Manson quote in The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck reverberates with me now more than ever.

There’s an insidious quirk to your brain that if you let it, can drive you absolutely batty […] you’re worried about doing the right thing all the time that you become worried about how much you’re worrying. Or you feel so guilty for every mistake you make that you begin to feel guilty about how guilty you’re feeling.

I haven’t had my drawers lowered yet, but I also have not been in a fight nor to jail yet, so I am still hopeful. Ish. The madness is still at bay, threatening, but still at bay…

 

 

Read previous chapter here. 

 

 

 

Photo by Ahya Agawis on Unsplash