CLOAKS OF SANITY

Mental health has never been a part of something I would think about yet the stories around me has made me understand the pain of people faced with mental health. Am at empathy. I don't know if you have ever felt so drained and you feel like your sanity is at stake? Or yours is the kind where you feel like you should stand up in a matatu and start screaming that the music is too loud for your liking or rather you feel God should give you the power to send people to hell especially those ones that think their opinions can change the world yet you are among those people? Yes my type of insanity is killing me.

Let me take you to a trip down memory lane. This one makes me laugh even when writing it. Its embarrassing to even tell my friends. On a particular Tuesday, i was super excited to read biko zulu uploads. I never miss them. The day's story was heart wrenching about a guy who was in the hospital fighting for his life and battling kidney failure. After being done with that one, I went ahead and read "BAD NURSE" still by biko zulu which was uploaded a long time ago. A roller coaster of emotions! And did i forget to mention that stories at bikozulu.co.ke are true stories? I then decided I also have a story that Biko can be interested in and maybe even upload my true story on his blog. I emailed the guy.

I had to give a glimpse of what my story was about of course so that he could consider replying to it. I wrote of how i had fallen for this embian guy. Yes i love embus. Not to be tribalic or anything, embus have a special soft spot in my heart. I was in a terrible state. The story was catchy. Heartbreak stories are always catchy. Being sure that Biko would reply, i checked my emails every single day the first thing in the morning, the last thing before i slept and even as i took my late lunchs. Two days down and he didn't. Day four i check it again and he had replied. I was excited. The email was brief "text me on 0718....." I saved the number quickly.

Checked it up on WhatsApp and the about was "hey there am using WhatsApp" It didn't sit well with me. From the popular writer and an award winner with his book "DRUNK" i expected an about like ""Everything is a story" or just something creative. The profile picture was an old man whose picture looked like the ones i can find in a history book. It was all black and white. I panicked. Was this really Jackson Biko? I had never bothered how he looked like all that mattered was that his stories were a bliss. I then headed to instagram to check out if that was Biko. It wasn't him. All positive i decided to text the number a simple "hello" then he answered almost immediately. 'Hi".

I was so excited. Fantasy filled my head of how he would later interview me face to face. We would arrange a meet up venue to tell my story. Maybe meet up at Java Uniafric near University of Nairobi or Java near MamaNgina street. I would show up in my yellow floral dress that would definitely shout am from kamba origin. I would sit there next to Biko as i explained everything in detail. About how this guy amenikunywa bila straw na ameniacha lol. I probably would rant my soul out as Biko would write down everything in his notebook making my story ready for publish. He probably would say English words that i never have heard someone use in a conversation and i would sit there mesmerized. I had everything in my head figured out.

The part of the story that i had concealed about my love life in the email would come clean. I didn't want to put my embian guy on the spotlight as i wanted to become a good ex. I would just say of how i had fallen hard and how my heart was shaped and reshaped in the process and maybe how i seemed not to be in a good state for a while. Yes!!

Back to the text hanging there on WhatsApp. I lost it. I didn't know what to say. So unlike me. I then introduced myself to Biko as the girl who had sent him an email. I waited for a response. NOTHING. Why would he give me his number and not make the conversation flow? Or was i the problem? Had i not introduced myself properly? Was he so busy? My message stayed there all abandoned and probably forgotten. Fast forward did i mention that I was in Baringo at the moment? July 15th 2021 wanted to wreck havoc in our lives with "landslides". I decided to text Biko Zulu again on that number telling him i have an interesting story. I concluded that maybe heartbreak stories was childish and that was something everyone would go throw.

He replied. I sent him the story because i had it typed out in my diary so i just pasted it there. No reply afterwards till date. I felt betrayed. Or maybe he had more interesting stories to focus on. I don't hate him. I still read his blogs every Tuesday and i refer it to my friends. One day i hope he finds this blog and i still wish i can have a chance of sharing tables with a renown writer like him.

Come to think of the evets that happened, i won't say i was losing my sanity. I just needed to rant and get over with everything and the cloak that supported me was seeing other people going through worse things. This sounds selfish but yes. Love wouldn't be the end of me. It has been there for eons and i would proudly wear cloaks to protect me. I would sense BS from miles and won't tolerate it. It takes courage to stand up for what you believe in. It takes faith to believe that you can be a writer and write your own stories, believing that you will step out of your mediocrity. It takes every human to value their mental state and hold on to what keeps them sane. If its the music, the ranting, writing down diaries, dancing, listening to sad violin music all night, go for what makes you feel okay!! I wouldn't want to loose anyone to suicide.