Before Next Year…

Everyone has a list. Before I turn 20 something else and start ushering in 2019.

1. I like chappatis and how they just melt in your mouth with githeri, avocado & pili pili. @OvacadoMan, you need to try it out. I make carrot chapattis in all shapes and sizes but they take forever. 
2. I breathe poetry but my story can’t end there so words must come to life all on their own. Watch this space for more details.
3. A story is always born intertwined with another one till it’s tricky remembering where it all started. I’m leaving fewer stories hanging, @Victor K.
4. Roads look chaotic and sometimes I feel like my ma3 is about to turn over whenever we go off-road. Trying to overtake with all the lights merging into one. I see the light & I need to follow it.
5.  Little weird things that you do but can’t exactly put a finger. Somethings can only be understood better in your mother tongue. Once said out loud, people turn around and stare at you.
6. Uppercut. Occasionally, a boy goes from zero to a hundred real quick when you refuse to play nice. Stori ya umejiringa na hata hauja iva vizuri means I need to clutch my bag tighter and move closer to the crowd.
7. Tutorials. Lightroom. Photoshop. Speedlite
8. Loving my natural hair more and nailing this crown braid twist tutorial. One braid is thicker than the other, can’t I pay someone?
9. Knowing how to do a head wrap. It has a regal aura around it. I can use it when my hair goes haywire and am rushing out of the door.
10. Wielding the makeup brush for good lest I end up dating my ex twice hihihihi, not funny yet slightly diabolical. I can also outfox boys that insist on taking ladies for swimming dates (waterproof everything).
11. Disappear on a road trip.
12. Start a business. Fingers get burnt but others find their footing & soar like eagles
13. Make peace with the past better, minimize bridge burning & try to be sweeter.
14. Grow out my curls and kinks. I’m glad that I didn’t do the big chop though maybe later. #TeamNatural, deep conditioning, moisturising, oiling my scalp and trimming my ends like I’m meant to.
15. Leave. It’s time T.
16. I  tasted yoga last year and it’s the sort of pain that’s worth it, you might not feel for the next two days. I can’t always touch my toes. You don’t force a door open instead you ease into it slowly @Abdi.
17. Devour more Africana books by modern writers. My library can’t be filled with blurbs like ” rising from the ashes of Titanic she took over all the runways from Paris, Milan to New York with a deadly secret in her past” or “he hated her with a passion but she awakened something else when she showed up on his doorstep”, eye roll (you know what I mean, Arthur).
18. I don’t float in them & I definitely can’t run in them to save my life. My sister asked me if I really thought things through when I pulled them out of my closet. Black, shiny & pointed. What if I need heels one day?
19. Go upcountry (shaggz) more often.
20. Walk on fire. I dreamt of wearing a long flowing dress and walking on hot coals. Sometimes, I’m running but I never feel the heat beneath me.