My Poison gave me my Life

I have never been one to retain memories in my head. Never. Even when I was a kid, I needed to be told what to buy around ten times, and asked to repeat it and make a song out of it. My  mum accepted me for who I am a very long time ago. See, having a good memory and being sharp should not be used in one sentence in my opinion. Anyone who is sharp and has a good memory in my opinion bribed someone upstairs or something. It should be a crime, really. Being blessed with so much. What do you need all that for? Unless the fate of the world is in your hands. Or you are Shonda Rhimes.

 So you can understand my anxiety when I got dropped into a class of really sharp engineers-to-be who had good memory retainer heads. And making it worse, they  needed to prove to themselves that they were the best in class. Scholar ego’s and all. Oh the joys of being in the first year of campus. Life was torture for me. I had few friends, who had the same self-discovering issues like I did. Maybe that was what got us going in the first place- the demons in us awakening.

Then came the second year. I did make a few more friends with the insanely intellectual kids I wanted to avoid. Figured well, they are here, I am here. What are they going to do? Kill me with their puns and nerd jokes? And I threw myself in the deep end of the pool. Second year resonates with you. It is the moment that you realize you do have freedom. Remember the strike guys? Yenye watu walicharazwa viboko? You discover the darkest parts of yourself. And discover I did. And these nerdy friends, they saw me all through that. They did not ask questions. They only helped bury the body.

Come the third year. I realized that I was becoming a nerd myself. I tried pulling away, I really did. All through the fourth year.  I tried ‘minding my own business’ and went living the farthest from school. O even went on a journey of self-discovery and all. But anyone who knows me knows I am waay too nosy to mind my own business. I couldn’t keep away. They kept pulling me back into the black hole of friendship and all that mushy stuff. And you know, I did not mind one bit. And as much as they were all sharp kids with a good memory that I hated, I came to realize each one of them thinks differently. It is exhilarating, really. When you sit among a group of really loud (They got over their shyness) nerds arguing over silly things like betting in sportpesa, or to ‘cheat’ the numbers on online jobs , or even what jacket looks better in what color. And you just sit and wonder, with all that brain and that is all you want to argue about? But then, you do not mind. Because when you know that when these minds get to business, they will accomplish what they intend to. You know they are the future of this nation. They are it. It does not get any better than this, and so they are allowed some moments of normal talk.

So now it has been six academic years. And these nerds are still talking about how we are going to raid Nairobi, like it is some sort of mall...so little. Ok, so I might have been involved in that discussion. These guys are my life. Those minds that I thought would suffocate me. Those minds and souls that I once had tried curving (I hear that is what this new generation is calling it…smh). They taught me how to be me. They loved me despite the mud I dragged them through. They helped me discover who I really am beneath the miss goody two shoes, and who I want to be. They let me believe in myself and gave me room to grow. Thank you so much guys. TIE/ EEE class of 2016. Y’all are my poison, but you gave me a brand new life, the true me. And that surpasses any side effects that you gave me like stress…ha! I love you people!!!!