Growing up

When I was in primary school I come across a small sized book called “Growing up and liking it”. It gave tips on how to go through adolescence. It explained about deep voices, widening chests, menstrual periods and so on and so forth. I was fascinated by growing up, everything was novelty. What the book did not tell me and others who read it, is that growing up was not only physical (I know several people who grew in size and nowhere else). Growing up is mental, psychological, and physiological among a host of other dimensions.

Then when I grew up aside from being tall and having a bust I started my race in life. I mean, the expectations were just too high. The way I thought, expressed myself, reacted, spoke, how my hair was held or styled (when my mother first saw my dreadlocks she stopped breathing temporarily- she survived the moment though and now actually likes them), the way I walked, spoke and presented myself. I had to wear high heels (truth be told, I love them and the higher they are the better). I was put in a kind of pedestal. Everything is now under a microscope.

When you grow up you also need to work so as to earn a living. Really, the choices are limited. If I didn’t work it would mean I go and live in my father’s Boma. Oh, my Dad is a generous man he would never allow one to suffer. He will accommodate you in his Boma in cold Nyeri (please forget if you thought he would pay for your house rent) and ensure your stomach is always full. Food as expected is in plenty. Pocket money would also be a pipe dream for the disciplinarian old man .He will proudly tell you that if he ensured that you successfully went to school and you have a brain and mastered a skill and then you wouldn’t need his “peanuts”.
 

In growing up you need to make choices and choices have consequences. One must understand that they are not the center of the universe that a higher being exists whether you recognize him as God or Allah or something else.  You need to choose the right friends. To know whether they are in your life for a short, medium or long haul. Know the people who want to get you into shit or out of it. You learn that some choices are irreversible and others take longer to be erased from memory.

Then I become a parent. Being a parent grows you up so fast. All of a sudden another human being depends on you. They love you; they believe you, question you, test you, defy you and then teach you how to be patience and to lie with sketch. My daughter will look at you straight in the eye when asking you a question so that when you flinch when answering she will ask meekly” aiih uko sure?” You also learn parenting is not child’s play. When you have a 3 year old throwing a full tantrum in the supermarket and you feel like calling the police to come and pick them and you know you can’t but calm yourself and the baby you have to grow up.

I am a law abiding citizen. I have to pay taxes (If I didn’t pay them I have a feeling I would be very rich), I need to follow the traffic even when everyone (ok almost) else is overlapping. I need to drive without using my cell phone. I need not to be rude to the pregnant woman who spits everywhere, cart drivers who literally push me off the road. That I can’t just slap all those who ask the stupidest questions “You look so young and slim what happened to you?” Gee, what the hell did they think happened to me? I can’t also write an extremely rude letter to Kenya Power Lightning Corporation for their endless black outs.

You know what? Today I didn’t feel like being a grown up. I went to the supermarket and threw a proper tantrum. After a hour of retail therapy, I made the supermarket cashier give me my 67 bob change in shillings (with the shortage in coins that was a spectacle). Sulked and pouted on my way out. Scrammed my brakes really loudly when I got to the parking lot. I went ahead and ate a kebab that was soaked in about a litre of cooking fat (pity my heart). Lastly,  I called my soul mate (you know yourself) frantically and explained how I couldn’t get company to talk to. More loud screaming.

I drove into my gate quietly, carried my shopping into the house, hugged my daughter and grew up. My luxury of being a child outwardly had ended. It was actually nice. In my moments like this I know that my inner child is still alive and that I have chosen to be a grown up. It hurts me when I see children who have been forced to grow up, I also shudder when I meet adults who have refused to grow up not just in body but in mind and especially those of the male species.

Be a child sometimes but choose to be a grown up all the time.

Sojourner.