I, a girl whose mind was always on cartoon shows and animation started falling in love. I was a teenage girl with no idea of what love was. It was that time when I had a crush who I could see every day and had a chance to socialize with. I had moved on from the shy phase of drawing circles on the ground to the phase where I wanted to experience what a relationship was. ‘Whoosh!’ it was the raw feelings for me. There was a boy I had laid my eyes on. A quiet person just as I was and I don’t know……, something about him had me on my feet. Waiting for a’ Hey, How are you my name is X and I really like you’. I hear as poles repel but I beg to differ the theory. I mean love from a person just like me.
In my adolescent years ‘kukatiana’ was so different and exhilarating. You know ‘kitambo’ you didn’t know what you were going expect out of someone The feelings were so exciting to experience. You yearned for the new unexperienced feelings. So I met this boy. He was not Tall Dark and Handsome, but I was practically drooling at this God-made creature. He was a quiet boy just like me and he only said a small ‘Hi’ whenever we met. I wanted to talk to him more but I couldn’t even see well when he was close to me I thought I was having a panic attack. I wouldn’t even try to say hi back. One day I got a chance to chill with him. He was cooler than I always thought. We bonded quite well and exchanged numbers.
So one day he decided to ‘Malisa’ me for real. He shook my hands.’heeeh!’ I had never felt that way and I thought about that handshake non-stop. I was so close to not washing my hands so that his touch could linger for a while. I started fantasizing about how we would look together. ‘WUEH!’ Even thinking about it right now, I can’t help but smile. I was so lovestruck, I could not hide it any longer so I decided that I had to talk to this guy and shoot my shot. Whatever happens, let it happen. I pulled myself together, got out of my comfort zone and we started talking, making some connections, we became friends. We texted a lot and I didn’t have a smartphone so the loud texting would be heard at night when those days the ‘You up?’ text would be, forgive my French:
“Umelala?” Y asks
“Eeeh niko kwa kitanda.” X answers
“Nisongee tulale…” Y texts cheekily
“hihihi!…..nimesonga karibu” X answers while she throws little kicks in the air and hugs her phone. After all this, the wedding bells were ringing in your head, and already be counting how many kids you were going to have. That type of feeling is what I call my old skool love. The feelings were so raw and true and one did not have to cringe because of some text or something you said. The cringe comes later in life when you are reminiscing on the old days when love used to smell like fresh mornings. Unfortunately for me, my love story did not end well because I did not get the boy. The damn timing and external factors. But those are the feelings I would love to relive. Remember how you used to play so hard to get to make us look more attractive ‘ati tusikuwe cheap’ and it really did work because you could see the extra effort and just give in. For those who read The River and The source by Margaret A Ogola, this guy who wrote endless letters to Nyabera after competing with a lot of suitors but he got the girl in the end. After a while, I never got to experience that type of crush again but I am really glad I got to remain with the memories.
’By tomorrow you’re gonna be, just another memory, another memory stuck in my mind’ Plays Nyashinski’s traveler in the background music tab in my mind.
I LOVE YOU, BY THE WAY!
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