I need myself back

How had I not seen him before? He got me wondering how men end up with those beautiful big biceps and shoulders and not so muscular legs. But his wasn’t the extreme kind. I couldn’t stop staring at him. But I wasn’t really seeing him. I was seeing Erick or was it John? It must have been Isaac. His carefree nature to trust a foreigner and bare your soul out to them. His muscular chest and how much I wanted to be held there forever. My friend was still speaking.

I had zoned out. Again.

Its been happening a lot of late. Especially this week. I enter into a matatu and the next time I blink I’m in town. How I got there? I don’t remember. Its like a time lapse in my mind. I can’t remember where my mind went to or what memory caught my attention this time round.

I’m becoming a stranger unto my own life. I knew being overwhelmed by life would certainly have more consequences than just sadness. But I just wasn’t prepared for this strangeness.

I can’t necessarily call it being numb. I mean what would make me in a cool restaurant with my favorite group of friends just zone out? I don’t think its numbness.

I’ve been tired of life before. And it didn’t necessarily feel like this. It felt like I needed rest then.

Now I don’t know what I need. Is it a job or is it money? Is it travelling or is it reading books? Is it contentment in life? Is it God?

Or do I need me? The me who is present when with people. The me who isn’t almost taken to a different destination because of not alerting the conductor early enough. The me who’s excited about life.

The me who sleeps. My God don’t I need that!

My head has been aching the whole of this week due to lack of sleep. I don’t even have the energy to worry about my insomnia as I did kitambo.

I’m energy-less. Totally. Like I don’t even have the energy to sleep. And now I don’t even have the energy to be present.

But it isn’t all hopeless. So I walked into a chemist after our meet up. I wasn’t expecting any to be open at night but it seems Nairobi never sleeps.

My aim was to buy a pain reliever for my headache. But my headache is caused by insomnia. And last night I slept at 2am just to be woken at around 4am by Muslim Ramadhan calls to prayer. Who does that? Like the thing was so loud I’m sure all Muslims woke up. Only problem is that it awoke the rest of us. Well, I seem to be the only one awoken in this household.

So I tell the chemist Lady to give me sleeping pills. She starts giving me this stories about how the ones she have will make me get addicted and that I should come tomorrow for the good ones.

I don’t really care about tomorrow. I just want to zone out where it matters most- I want to sleep.

So I start bargaining with her. I was so sure a chemist in the CBD wouldn’t lack some sleeping pill of sorts. On the other hand, she couldn’t get why I couldn’t just come for the good ones kesho. Well, I need to sleep heavily for once at least tonight. She looked at me with this curious eyes as she asked me, “kwani how bad is your insomnia?”, but I could tell she was asking something deeper than that.

She ended up giving me some medicine for something else whose side effect is deep sleep. I obviously doubted it, but she assured me it works.

I’m past negotiating with myself on whether using medicine to induce sleep is a sustainable solution. All I know is that for now Mercy needs to sleep. And that’s what i’ll give her.

I don’t like this space. I need myself back. Before I go start looking for pills for other problems whose solution isn’t found in tablets.