Happy Holidays!
I am so excited for this Christmas because I get to spend it with family, but most of all, my new born daughter! Her first Christmas!
How times have changed from being a child to now, having children and trying to bring them Christmas cheer!
I am officially Santa Claus!
How very beautiful ❤️
Mental health checks; the body needs rest
A few days ago, I was sick. I was sick because when I got the flu, almost 3 weeks ago, I took it lightly thinking it would pass. Unfortunately, the flu couldn’t come at a worse time. After almost six weeks of serious site work, my fatigued body just couldn’t fight. And down I was.
After COVId 19, flu seems to be the one sickness I detest the most. The running nose, blocked cavities and everything to do with coughing are things I hate the most.
But, it reminded me that I need to rest.
Capitalism was winning.
But, I need to beat capitalism. And rest can do that for me.
So I set about finding rest, which is a hard thing if you are accustomed to being a busy body. And thanks to my loved ones, I did get some forced rest. Which I quite enjoyed.
Long story short, I am instituting a 4 day personal work week. I’ve decided to pick one day within the week where I stay home and rest, and supervise, if necessary from far.
As I cross the boundary between youth and adulthood, it’s also now important to remember the body is aging. Wow. Realizations are truly bummers!
Anyway, I have the privilege of enjoying this rest. And I am going to be intentional about it.
Anyway, are you well rested?
Falling in grace, failing in grace, believing and growth!
I remember my first encounter with being ‘saved’ back when I was in primary school. It was sometime in P.4 and an old boy (OB) of the school would come to preach and convert us, seeing as we were doomed, and the end of the world was around the corner. And we were scared because no one knew what would happen after the year 2000!
I do remember being told to recite a prayer and after saying it, I’d be officially saved.
And this being saved happened every 2-3 business weeks because, well, we fell off the wagon.
I was in a Catholic boarding primary school. The one and renown, St. Savio Junior School, Kisubi. This meant that I’d recite the rosary like a song, went to church twice or thrice a week, and the Easter season was hell for us.
But, because of the situation as school, and the fact that we had night prep starting from P.4, I decided to read the Bible from the beginning till the end. Fascinating. I didn’t read the book of Revelations because they’d scared the Jesus out of us. The Bible to me was that one exciting story book to read. I read it like one would a novel.
Now over 25 years later, I have given my life to Christ. The search started in 2014/15. I’d encountered people with spiritual gifts and who claimed to have a personal relationship with God and Christ. And I wanted that. What would it feel like to have a personal relationship? Would life make sense? The catholic church doesn’t really nurture these relationships. It seemed only the people in Pentecostal churches do.
And looking back then, truly, I was the lamb that was being looked for. Every amazing encounter I can remember has been heavenly. And with it, I understood grace, for we have iniquities, and we fall short but Christ is there to carry that cross.
As we continue this Easter season, my hope is that I can extend that grace to those around me. I mean, they are the only people who can experience it outside of saying that I am finally SAVED.
Enjoy the lent season!
What a Year!
“Daddy,” he calls me, every after five minutes. I’ve been working mostly from home this year since June and that has allowed my son and I to enjoy quality time albeit at the craziest of times. There’s nothing as beautiful as seeing your child grow, and become their own self.
In retrospect, when I look at him, I now understand legacy and heritage, the past and the present. I am now more than excited to see what the future holds for him.
This year has had its ups and downs. Many times I’ve thought to write, and yet words have failed me, pun intended. It seems the older you grow, the fewer your words become such that when you speak, there’s only wisdom that comes out of your mouth. Now I know why our grandparents always had nuggets of knowledge and wisdom, the world ate their words.
Music has been an integral part of my thought process and I have very much enjoyed this year’s playlist. Also, my boy starts school next year!
If there’s lessons to take home this year, then my biggest will be God’s timing! Understanding it and appreciating it. Even better, knowing that if God doesn’t want if for me, then why would I want it for myself. I have summarily touched upon the knowledge and wisdom of the heavens and I am trying to apply them to my life.
I believe my biggest take home this year is spiritual wisdom! And I am grateful for that and the people who’ve mentored me.
Maybe patience too. Well, having children will teach you that. We went from failing to potty train to I want to pupu don’t peep while I am on the toilet in six months and I can’t help but laugh at ourselves. Man, oh man! Children will humble you! And when I look at my parents, I give them all their flowers because wena nimpurira ekiri bakushasha aha bana babo!
Did I already say writing is cathartic?
2022 has been a blessed year, for many reasons but most especially finding who I am. I have made many mistakes this year but there’s much to write home about. There’s been many friends, and enemies to. But I am thankful and indeed there’s need for a thanksgiving.
Thankful for family. Thankful for friends. Thankful for work. Thankful to my wife and child(ren). Thankful to God.
This is a toast to 2022, and a happy holidays to everyone this season. A toast to 2023! May this new season bring a renewed vigour and energy in all of us. May we enjoy it and live it and in it. To new challenges in 2023. Let us keep writing our best chapter yet.
Happy New Year to everyone and to a 2023!
Her Kabaaya!
Sundays are usually for Sundaying but today, a phoenix burnt down into ashes, and in heaven they will rise.
Ann Kabaaya I first heard about in 2016 when my wife kept talking about her friend trying to finish her school in Dar. She was completing her law degree and was submitting her final report.
And today, we learnt of her passing in the morning. The phone call came with instructions to sit first before we received the news; and when we sat…
Ann lived her life like the phoenix she was! Full of life and happiness. Her joy, infectious. And I pray my wife can find peace and joy in knowing that Ann truly lived.
We’ve spent the day reminiscing how many plans they’d made and how she was supposed to come drop our son’s birthday gift! Only great memories.
Teezy who also passed in the same accident is a friend I remember mentoring when he was still in architecture school. Forward looking, smart and a go getter. I’d followed his journey since then and I had been impressed by what he was doing and how he was going it!
So, this post is a celebration and a toast to them!
And most of all, to Ann, my wife’s Kabaaya!
Sun El Musician, that’s the post!
Against the Gods just got more interesting!
I call her Suzie, a younger, faster and bigger version of Veronica. Veronica was my older car – a Toyota Cami that I drove for the longest time. Veronica knew the ins and out of this city, chassis high enough to roam most of the dirt roads, a fuel consumption that didn’t care for the price of the drum. The Cami took me North, East, South and home with a music system that blasted for all who cared to listen.
It had its chinks. On some days, if the car was in neutral, it would save me fuel by turning off the engine. On others, the top speed rivaled a good bicycle. The cami was my office, and even bed sometimes. It was tiny enough that most times my passengers likened me to a giant driving a toy car. But today is not about Veronica.
I acquired Suzanna or Suzie through a dream my mum had. True story. Our ancestors had visions – and she saw me driving a red car with a 0 in the number plate. We’d been searching for a car for about two months before I bumped into Suzie. I kept on pushing the budget based on the feedback I was getting. Cars in Kampala are expensive for nothing.
I’d seen Suzie in a post before but then, the budget was not what I had in mind. But when I was making my choice, there she was.
Suzie has an interesting story to tell, and I found out almost after 10 months of driving her.
Turns out, Suzie was found cheating. The previous owner – whom I don’t know, found his now ex in the car messing around with another man. The car had been given to her as a gift and she decided to share it with someone else. I couldn’t believe it when they told me all this.
It was amusing to see the prayers and the blessing of getting the car take a new twist, and now, I hate to think that the previous owner probably sees the car and blames Suzie for what she did. Suzie is not like that. She’s amazing, fast and safe.
I truly feel sorry for the previous owner.
Suzie sends her regards!
I’ve had strange dreams! Dreams that you awake from fearing you might still be in a dream! Then again, COVID feels like a nightmare that we are not about to awake from.
The year is ending, finally, and then we can begin a new year hoping for new things, and changes. Then I think, nah, nothing is going to change really! Maybe we shall be older, or wiser or just the same!
I’ve been watching a lot of anime! Some titles I don’t even remember, but it’s been my fave thing to do this lockdown period!
Why do babies cry when they want to sleep? Why not just sleep?
Exploring the theory of relativity and wondering what life’s paradox is all about. Truly, what are you grateful for?
Humanity and spirituality are two very different ideals and yet, at the core of it all, one precedes the other. Which one is it for you?
I think they call that concept dualism!
Money can buy you happiness but is not happiness! Go figure!
This year has been on turbo. I just want to reflect of how far I’ve come and how far I am going. It has been a good year.
Love!
Just love! In its pure and simplest form, love is all we ever needed.
Happy New Month.
The soul is an interesting thing! Is it even real? Tangible? Or an imagination of the mind?
For long now I’ve heard people talk about soul mates and that life’s true purpose is to find your soul mate – and then someone made a joke. “Make sure your soulmate is not someone’s husband!”
They say the soul is where true emotion resides, living and basking in the heart of man – from where we express and feel, share and link our heart’s true desires.
The gut perhaps!
Human relations truly are interesting.
I don’t know about soul mates but I can understand what one’s heart desires are. If the soul is the centre of man, is there anyone who can truly fill this abyss? Is there anyone out there who can match and meet our every expectation, thought, being and feeling 100%? I don’t know.
I once truly believed in soulmates till the one I thought was is now happily married and living their best lives, and so am I.
I think we are always looking for connections with the belief that the abyss truly can be filled but that means we are broken and incomplete, empty and devouring. Maybe it is a figment of our imagination that the prince or princess charming is out there looking or waiting to be found. Looking for a spark to ignite the fire with in, the sensual pleasure from an eye connection, a smile that tells the entire story, and time that stands still.
Well, good luck with that.
We are complete, with or without people, or soulmates, we are complete. And if the abyss that is human emotion is as diverse as a 1000 suns, then which ONE individual can burn the daylight or moonlight into the fickle human that we are!
Which one individual can complete the 6 senses that you are?
A man is a Spirit with a soul in the body!
Go figure.
Hahahahahaha!
He burst out laughing at how outrageous this notion was! What notion?
Is it really ever a ‘Good morning?’
The actual title of this post is ‘Living on the other side of happy!’
I think we many times take our happiness for granted! My new sole purpose is to do things and feel things that make me happy, and make sure those around me are happy! I mean, I quit getting drunk because the hangover was just un-fucking-happiness overload!
So, what are you doing to protect your happy?
I am keeping it simple! My life recently has been as series of happy actions and thoughts and I intend to make it continue and last that way. These days when I feel something is about to upset me, I just stop and question why it is or why it shouldn’t make me unhappy! It is not an easy formula to follow but it works for me.
What makes you happy should always be at the centre of your existence. Don’t allow entanglements to get in the way of your happiness! Make a list of what makes you happy – daily, and focus on that. I sound like an old beaten drum regurgitating some self help nonsense but these things honestly work if you give it some little bit of attention.
I’ve heard the phrase protect your energy but energy itself is always in motion so how can you protect something that is always moving? I could talk about mindsets all day but that’s another topic for another day – badum tis – if you get what I just said.
I think protecting something means you first keep it from harm, and then create environments where it can thrive and that’s what you can do to have the peace of mind you have always desired. It takes a lot to get me riled up because most times what people bring to the table is what they are manifesting internally and I am not about that crap! I’ll cut it – badum tis – again!
New months, new weeks, and every new day is about hope, faith and light and that’s what you should be chasing this August – I’ll seen ya! Hahahaha!
I am so funny!
Enjoy August! Ya-dig!
I think I can now embark on a new chapter or rather phase in my life!
SO much has been going on lately that it feels like there’s no time to stop and think, reflect, adjust to what’s happening around us!
As I’ve grown older, life has seemed to mellow and slow down. There’s urges I no longer have and mindsets that I am not about to deal with. This morning when I opened the fridge, I stared at the bottle of beer I had been promising myself to drink for the last couple weeks that I am starting to think it has gone stale.
I also want some COVId money. How is it that the government has borrowed over UGX 6,000,000,000,000/- (Don’t even try to convert it) and I have barely tasted a shilling? Even that posho and beans that was promised still hasn’t come through. It’s disingenuous to believe that people still have what to eat 4 months after the lock down! It’s irritating how the government is inconsistent in what they are supposed to do except break their own rules and enjoy corruption.
What’s going to be my life’s story going forward?
I don’t know, I’d love to see another 400 blog posts over the next couple of years as we waddle in these murky waters of survival. Maybe I too will get that government job and start getting allowances for pretty much doing nothing! That UG something alphabet car won’t be bad either! I could build a home on the backs and lives of the people I am supposed to support! Steal a couple of votes – it only costs a few kilos of sugar, salt and soap. Maybe help a few people by getting them jobs, as long as they are my family. I don’t know.
*Takes a pause to reflect*
Maybe some fights are not worth having. Is the world truly fair? How can I create a world that my child can comfortably grow in? To live or not to live is the new question. 401, it’s time to find our happiness!
Happy new month,
And Happy Birthday to my baby brother.
Strength and honour!
Peace!
The thought process! 