Have you ever received an email that starts with “Hae, Jackson” and you suddenly feel like your stomach is going to run? I was told those are the famous Millennials. They are a unique group of sub-humans who came after the ones who came after us – the Y-generation. They dress weird and talk weird and have the concentration spans of bees and are creative and adaptive and spend their whole lives with earphones stuck in their ears.
The Millennials are sometimes so busy that they are least bothered by commas and sentences that start with capital letters. Full stops are too dull for some of them. Why bother with full stops when you can just start the next sentence without any preamble?
So when I received an email from a 18-year old who started her email with, “Hi, Biko,” I thought it was a miracle. But then again this girl was writing from Precious Blood, Riruta, a fourth former with a crisp adult mind.
She wrote:
This morning, I read your ON THE BRINK OF FORTY article on Man Talk before I went for the compulsory mass. I’m in high school and so we get newspapers kinda late – when someone goes to get it from the library. I had been sad because I felt inadequate and because I felt alone. And your piece heightened some of that. Not because I am on the brink of forty, No, I’m 18 actually.
She continued:
At 18, I am not sure who my friends are because life has not thrown me much curveballs. But I have a good laugh with everybody so it saves me the need to actually have friends friends. Like you mention in that article, being 18 is also like connecting flights in a foreign country – I’m in a temporary transit zone in which I have to sit shortly before I proceed to the world which excites and scares me.
She then went on a paragraph of stuff that are neither here nor there, then came this part:
When I was 8, I used to write Primary as ‘Prymary’. One day when I was sending dad for books, I wrote on the list, “Prymary Maths, Prymary English, Prymary Science….” And He made me write the word correctly ten times and then rewrite the whole list.
And I Never misspelt that word again. Maybe you should try that with your baby girl about ‘sootcase’. And for the boys who will get close to her before she is ready, please get a gun. But she’ll not like that either.
Talking of primary, how come Kuyus pronounce “primary” as “preemary?” Ati, “I went to Kutus Municipality Preemary school.” If I hear one more “preemary” from someone I swear I will sign up for adult education. It’s “Primary! But who am I to make fun of guys from Kutus when I can’t even pronounce “hospital” for crying out loud! I say, “Hostal.” For the life of me, I can’t seem to get the “p” from hospital. The “P” is silent, I guess.
Anyway, she continued:
About your departed mommy, and may her soul rest in Perfect Peace. You know when these people who love us tell us we mean the world to them? I’m getting ahead of myself so let me go for prep. I am in form four by the way…. I have an English Paper tomorrow. Wish me luck!
So I wished her luck. She sounded like a loner. Someone who lived in their heads. She reminded me of my lovely niece ( Hey, Candy Jane, call me!) who also happens to have attended PB, finishing last year. Super smart but strange girl who keeps to herself mostly, says very little, reads tons of books, plays her violin and has the soul of an adult. I always wondered what goes in the head of these people.
I loved how this girl wrote; no typos (something I should learn from her!), or grammatical errors, hell, she even used parentheses in her sentences.
So I asked her to describe to me what being 18 felt like: What her fears are. What does she struggle with and dream of? I asked her to write this because I was curious to know if 18 changed from what it used to be in the 90’s – at least the little I remember of it. “Sit down and just write anything that comes to your head, in whatever format,” I emailed her.
She disappeared for two weeks and just when I thought she had been caught emailing and locked up in a dungeon, I received her story. She asked me not to use her real name but instead use “Stale Bread” as her pseudonym. (These kids are strange, ey?) She asked me, “would you mind if I sent you my thoughts on things that I can’t share with people my age? I don’t trust diaries. They get caught.”
Hehe. I liked that. Diaries, they get caught. But what if I got caught, I wondered? What if these people who “catch” diaries came for me and strapped me to a chair in an abandoned warehouse in Ruiru and passed electric current through my poor nipples and shouted in my ears all night; TELL US WHAT STALE BREAD WROTE TO YOU! WHAT IS YOUR EMAIL PASSWORD? WE WON’T STOP UNTIL WE BREAK YOU, BIKO!
What if, Stale Bread?
Anyway, I’m running this letter from this girl because she has clarity of thought. It’s that simple, really.
*
By Stale Bread
He has not spoken to me the whole year yet we made out the last time we were together. It can’t have been bad because we were cool then. Maybe it was something else I did. I had been smitten then, now I’m sad and angry. Sad because he’s stayed away too long and angry because he is in my mind too often.
I feel like the future holds happy stuff. A much needed gush of fresh air. But I worry that I may not be able to do everything I would want to do –maybe because I’ll lose focus or lack opportunity or maybe I’ll just chicken out. And when I worry, a dark cloud of gloom comes upon me, and after a while, it passes. Just like a wave of nausea.
I have learnt that not everything works out. All thanks to David Nicholls and his book ‘One Day’ -which is beautiful by the way- and life, which has shown me this firsthand. I’ve also learnt that nothing is ‘very important’. The things that we deem very important (Including your children) screw us over in one way or the other and ditch us –leaving us bare. Bare because, for them, we killed most or all other aspects of our life.
The society’s expectations of me suck. Society expects that on the eve of my eighteenth birthday I’ll sleep and when I wake up the next day, I will be a grown, mature woman. I was telling my friend Sandy the other day that to mature is a choice. She laughed. Surely the physical aspect of maturity is uncontrollable but the mental and emotional aspect is a choice. So, dear society, shove it. Furthermore, so long as I have the word ‘teen’ in my age, I’m still trouble.
Preferences are realized. Some of them not ‘usual’. Take for example the males. Some of my friends like them younger. However, they don’t want this said out loud because it’s embarrassing and it will also get them judged. Some like them old though, the refine that age accords the older males appeals to them. It’s a bonus if they’re fun and dangerous.
The appreciative glances and the envious glances I elicit from the males and the females (I am very tempted to say “respectively”). A triumph. Those appreciative glances you like but cannot relish at fourteen because your mother is around somewhere. The ones you almost stop getting when you get to that age they term as ‘respectable’. So I bask in this age of now and catch me some of its sun –hoping the sun won’t age me prematurely like the internet says.
The mirror goads me. “Your forehead is too out there.” –It says- and “your acne will never end, at least until you’re thirty years old!” also “Look! Your legs are darker than the rest of your body. Your knees, they’re fifty shades darker!” I leave that critic called the mirror and turn the radio up a little. The song that’s playing tells me to accept. Accept and move on. I ignore this advice though. I turn to my high school principles – the one about the 3As. Acknowledge, Accept, Act. But since I’m past the first two, I move on to stage 3. Action. I play some real loud hyped up music and start working out. When I get tired, I call my mom.
“Mom, get me acne cream and a tub of body scrub. Yes. Just buy I’ll explain later”
But I know -like all the other things I’ve tried- it won’t work. Futility.
Don’t make fun of my somatic flaws though. Or at night, when I’m tired of texting, I’ll research on the amount of money I’ll need to get them plastically corrected and since I won’t be able to afford it, I’ll dream about it. And maybe one day I’ll make my dreams come true. You don’t want that. Do you?
I can’t throw a tantrum and tell the people that hold me dear that they don’t love me –like I would have as a clueless child. Now I know who loves me –and who doesn’t. Not with men though –troublesome creatures those ones- I prefer not to know.
But I know Franklin loves me. And so does Evans. Irrevocably. This is irrefutable- I have proof. I also know my parents love me too. I have proof –they brought Evans and Franklin forth. No I’m just kidding. Though Franklin is part of the reason, they do a lot for me and they are here. The other things they do for me I don’t care to say, because you’ll think, “they’re supposed to do that” and that’s taking my parents for granted. Yet they’re awesome.
Frankly though, I feel old. Eighteen is a ton of numbers! But not to your big brother’s longtime friend –the one you’ve always had a crush on- because every time he sees you –he doesn’t hear symphonies in his head. No- he exclaims, “Si you’re Steve’s small sister? You’ve grown up so fast! I remember when you were small….”
And you stop listening because in your head you’re thinking, “No handsome, my name is not ‘Steve’s small sister’ it’s Karen.”
Eighteen is also not a ton of numbers to your parents. You’re still a child to them. You still can’t do the things you couldn’t do when you were seventeen. But I’m legal, an adult. I’ll go apply for my ID now. But I’ve got to do my hair first and look flawless for the ID photo. At the salon, I’ll think of who to vote for in 2017.
*
P.S: The final Writing Masterclass is here from 2nd to 4th December. Next month, actually. We have only 15 slots left so far, so kindly send an email to [email protected] to reserve a slot.