Some nights🛌🏽🌃

Folks, this is the song that most relates with my nights this week. It has been a week of ‘busy’ days and tiring nights, having to juggle between two schools with their examinations, and duties in the house. Oh, and not forgetting that my ol’ friend ‘mental health’🙂.

So this week was the re-opening of my University and also the start of the examinations and CATs period. So everybody is everywhere with people rushing to get past papers and to ‘study’ and revise. Lecturers are also all putting the CATs in fixed times so there is basically no time to catch a breath. But this is what we students wanted right, enjoy the festive times of December and push ALL exams and CATs to the start of the year, which we hoped wouldn’t come, but here it is, biting us all in the a**.

Anyway, so the University has its exams, and the second institution where I’m continuing my complimentary courses is also having a daily (Mon - Sat) timetable of classes. So wake up, go to the University, at evening head over to town to do the courses, making me to arrive early in the night at home; to now start wondering what on earth I’m gonna eat that night.

And trust me, the chunks of free time I had last year I used to wish I had a busy life. I used to consider it a waste not doing anything substantial all day other than attend lectures and finish assignments. I remember when my sister used to work in some appliances store and she used to tell me how her busy days make her so tired, and my unexperienced a** would tell her I crave for a ‘busy’ or ‘pressure-filled’ life. I remember, and I quote myself, “I like to feel pressure in my life”. Remember the interviews you say you can work well under pressure? Yea, well we both know those are lies🚮 now. I now realize I just had nothing going on in my life for the longest!

And so this week as I was getting to convince my mind that this is just the beginning of a very different trajectory of my life, I’ve had sleepless, very tired and nightmare nights. Some nights all three together. Too tired to sleep, yet tired that I should sleep coz tomorrow is another bustle of a day, and when I do get the little shut eye I have the most gut-wrenching nightmare from all the fantasies and realities I had during the day. Basically, I have not had one ‘normal’ night this week.

A friend of mine studying some Medicinal course in my University told me of how since he joined campus, he does not remember the last time he had lunch. This is because ever since they started studying in first year, it has basically been heads down until now that he’s in his third year of medical school. Rarely does he get free time, especially in school days, and even during the holidays he’s caught up in some research or interning at some local hospital to get the hands-on experience of the hospital. Most other people, even my sister, works from 8am to at least 8pm in the night, before she can even start thinking of how to get home and what to eat for the already ending day. Sometimes I even see single mothers who break their backs doing miniature jobs up until late just to get back home to starving children who expect something to eat for the night. And tomorrow they wake up to start it all over again, as if their backs are not already messed up from all the work they do. And never will you hear them complain of their short nights and extremely long days.

And so putting all these into consideration, I realized I am way better off with my little “busy-ness”. In the realest sense, there’s nothing ‘busy’ about it, I just have a fixed schedule from morning to night, 6 days of the week. And I was just not used to it. And it’s definitely nothing compared to what other people might be going through everyday. And so the words of the song above, ‘This is it, boys, this is war…’ I gotta get used to it and adapt before it starts getting real tough.

But the pressing message I perhaps wanted to bring out was how some nights in the week I came back and zoned out for a while thinking myriads of useless things that were mostly never the realistic picture. Some nights I questioned my education, my course, my latest decisions and actions in school. Some nights I would start fantasizing how my life would have been had I not come to this University, or went to my high school, didn’t grow up where I grew up, didn’t have such a body or face. So many thoughts on literally unchangeable things. Some nights I would come back a bit excited though coz of a few friends and moments here and there. But every time I lay my head on my rocky pillow I knew no matter where I’d have grown up, or studied in high school, no matter where I’d have gone for University or whichever course I’d have chosen, whichever friends I’d have met, I would be the same person I was this week. Coz I believe the way I reacted to this small-tasked week is the same way I would have acted having done something more engaging like my friend in Medicine. A friend once told me, everything happens as it should; the universe is the most generous rewarder. And so he told me I should stop this idle talk of, “ooh, it would have been better if I’d done this. It would have been worse if I’d did it like this. My life would have been better had I taken that route instead of this...” Better work with what I have than what I could have had. *This will be a future post all together😁.

Anyways, all I gotta do, is make sure the nights are worth it in the end, by having the best use of my day. And as I said in one of my best performing posts🤩, One Day at a Time, makes it very manageable and a whole lot easier on my mind.

So, how do you deal with long days, and nights that you retire to bed feeling overwhelmed and never wanting to get up again from the bed? Your <reply> would sure help me as I tackle my own battles🙂.

❤️My favorite things this week.

1. 📹Video: a series I’ve been watching since last year is this storytelling company known as Engage Talk. It is a platform where celebrities and personalities tell their stories in 15 minutes or less to a live audience, and it is very eye-opening hearing their stories. It has a live band🎷 too! Stories that have been fun to watch and hear so far are for the infamous TPF judge, Judge Ian Mbugua😎, singer (and crush😜) Sanaipei Tande, and the articulate and very funny Israel Robert Burale. But one that I want to start you guys off with this time is the recent one for the Alliance High alumnus Kasmuel McOure,(people from Alliance never let us rest, I know🙄😅) who has basically struggled with all the major problems affecting the youth today; from childhood trauma and molestation, to porn and masturbation, and eventually suicidal attempts. His story, titled ‘This is My Truth’, tells of how he has struggled to become the gentleman he is now. Oh and the suits this guy wears, aah, a true Luo I tell you. Do check it out👀. *I plan on going to one of the Engage Talks this year, so stay tuned for that too😅.

2. The 🎧song above was sang by a boy band called Fun. You can check out the original, but one that’ll be sure to impress you is this cover sang by the Stellenbosch University Choir. This one is magical; I first heard it from this choir😍.

Have a wonderful week ahead!

✍🏽Reagan.