Getting Unstuck from the Past – My Engage Kenya Talk

When the Engage Kenya Talk team reached out to me to get up on their stage and tell my story, I was very nervous and slightly cynical. Was my story worth telling? Did anyone want to hear it? Was I able to tell the story? It was an emotional experience, but I’m glad I said yes and did it. It was amazing being on stage and connecting with the audience. The reception has also been wonderful. Here’s the script I wrote, though obviously my actual story on stage wasn’t exactly the same. Happy reading!

The Dream

Let me begin this Engage Kenya Talk by saying that growing up, I was the quintessential overachiever. And when I say overachiever, I mean overachiever. 

Prize giving day meant a good cardio workout, jogging on and off and then on then off stage because I was best in Maths – get on stage, shake headmistress hand, smile for camera get prize get off stage, get back on stage because I was also best in English, then rinse repeat. Times 5. I was the girl that was mostly top of her class, (mostly because there were 2 classmates that I fought for that honour every term and it was a fight that I relished), I was a prefect, was the lead of the school plays and was well-liked by teachers and fellow students. I genuinely enjoyed school. 

I’m the first of 4 children. Though I have a twin brother, I got here first, so I’m still the first. My childhood was a good one. I spent it learning, reading as many books as I could, enjoying new discoveries and dreaming big dreams. My parents bought me books, though they complained when I read at the table or slept late reading. I got my love for music from them. A huge collection of records and cassette tapes exposed me to music across genres, something that’s apparent in my playlists today.

In true Kenyan fashion, I had already shortlisted my career choice by standard 5 and being a bright student, they consisted of doctor (neurosurgeon of course), engineer (I was thinking computer engineering because I loved computers and The Matrix. and lawyer (because I watched, all these lawyer shows and loved how witty everyone was and how passionate they were about justice.)

By the time I got to standard 8 I had narrowed my choices because it became clear that I wasn’t cut out for some careers. I could not, for the life of me, stand blood – the sight of it, the smell, let alone imagine cutting anyone open. So doctor was dropped from the list.

I was good at Math but I didn’t gravitate towards it. I really tried to get into it and read up on famous mathematicians and scientists hoping that maybe knowing more about them would unlock the sense of wonder they had, but all it did is prove to me that I truly wasn’t passionate about it. So engineering and pretty much anything science and math was out the window. 

Settling on law felt so natural. I enjoyed a good argument, enjoyed research, enjoyed reading for hours, had a really good memory especially when it came to names, places and references, was good with people, had a high level of attention to detail and cared about justice. Everyone also thought I’d make a great lawyer, so I set about directing my life towards law. And because I was good at and enjoyed the arts, I figured those would be great hobbies, and because a woman needs hobbies. I planned to join a choir and take up painting or photography and be a patron to artistes and art initiatives.

I got into one of the best girls’ high schools in the country. It’s really strange how we as a country completely ignore the fact that high school is peak adolescence and look at it as a means to an end, the end being getting good enough grades to go to university. Adolescence is handled at best as a crime where you’re all walking teen pregnancy and delinquency candidates. I hated every single day of high school. 

This reality of being away from home was compounded by the fact that there was trouble at home. My dad’s business had gone under and we were facing financial difficulties. These difficulties ended up being basically permanent and when KCSE results came out and I didn’t score an A, I realized that I would have to move on from my law dream. There was simply no way we could afford parallel fees. I needed to pick something else. The problem was I hadn’t really thought of what else I could do. And it left me feeling lost and that I’d let myself and everyone down. I even contemplated repeating form four because I couldn’t believe I was going to miss out on law. 

The In the Meantime

I spent the next few years juggling gigs to make extra money and going to school to study journalism and eventually film. I used those skills I had from primary school that I thought would have been hobbies to make money. I auditioned for plays and films and TVCs and got a few gigs, and even met people who would later become my friends. I also started taking my writing seriously and got into the Spoken word circuit where I grew as a performer and made money. Eventually I settled into film and worked in the production and writing departments of a couple of TV shows and TVCs.

And as I was doing all this, my dream was still on my mind. I felt that this was just for the meantime. That I would save up and as soon as I could, go back to school and study law. This wasn’t my real life and I would soon be able to get back on track to what my life was meant to be. This was only exacerbated by the comments of people who knew me who said that I was really wasting my mind in media and entertainment. 

Like I said, there are careers that are for smart people and careers that are seen as for everybody else. And these careers tend to fall in the arts. I could literally count on one hand how many girls from my high school had gone to study anything in the arts. There were four of us in my high school friend group and one went on to be an architect, another a doctor, and the other a banker who studied actuarial science. I was meant to be the lawyer in the group, but here I was very far away from that. Everyone was in the smart people’s careers, and I felt even more of a failure. 

In the meantime, I was published in two anthologies. I was part of award-winning productions. I started two companies – one in film and one that focused on women in storytelling and went on to work on great projects and be in rooms with movers and shakers and I was on TV and the newspaper and even had an award-winning blog. Even with all these, I was still in rehearsal mode. That my life had not yet begun. That I was waiting for it to go how I had wanted it to go and this wasn’t it. 

The mind is a funny thing. I have seen people with lives I would kill for (figuratively of course) who are unhappy with their lot because it’s not what they wanted. And it’s easy to judge them and say that they’re ungrateful or selfish for either being unaware of or not caring about how bad other people’s lives are in comparison to theirs. But I’ve come to find that our wants and desires are strong things, that just because life denies us doesn’t make them disappear. My life going in a different direction didn’t  make me want to be a lawyer any less. . 

A New Dream

There’s a flame in all of us. We either fuel or extinguish it with our choices. The disconnect between who I was and “what I was meant to be” constantly and consistently extinguished my flame. The thing with living my life in rehearsal mode, was that I was less deliberate about my choices. The people I let into my life extinguished my flame, the things I did pssssttt (flame extinguishing sound), my lifestyle choices – pssstttt, the way I spoke to myself – pppppsssssstttttttttt! 

I had struggled with depression for years stemming from my feelings of inadequacy. This also led to anxiety and I would frequently get panic attacks. 

By this time, I had moved out of home. It was a small but defiant step at adulting, at gaining control over my life. I worked in the gig economy, work was patchy. This means that when it was there, I was buoyed by the hope that I could save a bit towards my lawyer dream. A great feeling. A high! When there was no work I had to “eat” the little bits I had saved to stay alive. It was a soul sucking yoyo. With time the balance between the highs and lows tilted in favour of really low lows. Feeling inadequate is a self-fulfilling belief.  

I was broke, tired, resentful and full of rage. Then I was broken, hopeless and had given up. I spent most of my time indoors in my tiny apartment. I wanted nothing, I desired nothing, I didn’t eat or shower for days. I laid in bed in the darkness with curtains drawn. My mind and soul were as dark as the room I spent my days in. Sometimes this went on for weeks.

People say, “Reach out for help” and other statements that make it seem like dealing with mental health issues like depression is simple. It really is not. It’s messy. It’s unpredictable. The worst of it can last for years. It messes with how your brain works, how you view yourself and the world. This quintessential overachiever could not achieve basic meals and hygiene. Too much effort. 

I did not reach out. My family had no idea what I was going through. There’s people who I will without question bury a body for. When I didn’t know how to reach out, they reached in. I had friends who would come to my house every single day to cook, clean, make sure I had taken a shower, and then sit, talk and eat with me. I tried to fight it but they were adamant. I had four friends coming to my home every day. This is the only reason I am here today. I think that’s the time I realized that I didn’t have to do things alone and that I could actually not only reach out for help, but also receive help.

Sometimes we can get so fixated on one dream, that we miss out on the many dreams that life can offer us. Let’s examine this dream of mine. I was a pre-teen when I decided I was going to be a lawyer because all the non-lawyer people in my life encouraged me to take that path. I spent my entire teenage years as  a lawyer in-waiting. I missed out on exploring other life and career choices because I knew! I knew at 10! Now that I think about it, how ridiculous is that!! My 20’s were spent pining for a dream that I crystallised at 12/13!

I was to be one thing and one thing only. I was blind to the incredible gift the universe offered me to creatively express and impact though film, poetry and other creative work which I was really good at. Here I was, doing incredible things in incredible spaces, but I was focused on dreams that were no longer mine. I was not that girl anymore. So why was I holding on to her dream?

That question led me to do the work of healing my teenage grief of feeling like I had failed. All this time I had been trying to make things right and though my heart was in the right place, I was going about it the wrong way. My teenage self would be so proud of me. She would be proud of my ingenuity, resourcefulness, resilience, assertiveness, creativity and big heart. 

It was time to stop living for her and live for the Mwende here and today. 

I’d love to tell you that I no longer look back wistfully, that anxiety is only a distant memory. Most times it is and other times it comes frighteningly close. It’s been a tough road to work through feelings, emotions, fears and anxieties. There are still tough days, but I’m proud of how much work I’ve done to lovingly care for myself and I’m thankful to all the people in my life that have held space for me. Shift has happened and is still happening. 

I wanted to be a lawyer because I wanted to help people and enjoyed the work around it. When I looked back at my life, I realized that I’d been doing that all along. A lot of my work has been around justice, visibility, curation, memory work especially for young people and women. Whether I was writing or producing or curating or documenting or researching or using my voice and platforms to speak truth to power, the work I have tended to drift towards has been anchored on my values and passion. 

Today I’m the Founder of Zeda, a platform that works to curate African women’s stories through a podcast, online magazine and women-centric events. I also work as a freelance cultural journalist working to curate and highlight our artistes and culture, as well as consult on feminist projects and digital rights projects.

You are no longer the person we were when you crystallised that dream that is no longer serving you. Life is always offering us new dreams. If we stay open to its ebbs and flows, we can dream new dreams.

You can watch my Engage Kenya Talk here.