Diaries of a twenty-something Shona girl is a bit of a mammoth task, so to begin with, I’ll share what makes up the fundamentals, and the core of the diaries.
Dear readers, my twenties are bridled with fear and panic, and I know it’s not the kind of thing I’m expected to say, but hey, this book of life writes itself… even though it’s in my handwriting, I do not take all the credit for the work in there. It’s got a wicked and wild sense of humour, this thing called life, it forces you to question who’s really at the driver’s seat, and is that the same person in control of the car? Who’s the passenger? And are they playing their part? Don’t even get me started about the traffic!?
This is the kind of panic and anxiety that resides in my mind. Well that amongst many other different kinds and types. What can I say, I have a thing for numbers and I’m fairly fond of the whole shebang of things.
Growing up feels like a robbery, a grand highly-calculated and deeply contemplated heist. It absolutely feels like getting robbed of the ideas and fallacies you had of a certain place or destination, because when you finally get to the end of that seemingly never-ending journey, you are as disappointed as a balloon slowly losing its air. Air slowly deflates out of you as the economy and governance of life close in on you for a “chat” that leaves you bruised and tacky, no jet cruise or happy ever after.
But hey, all things considered your book isn’t done yet, as Natasha Beddingfield blissfully put it in her best-selling feel good song únwritten “today is where your book begins, the rest is still unwritten”. So every chapter presents another possibility of a page-turning plot twist and turn of events that makes you the victor of it all. Either that or any other chance you have is some apocalyptic Stranger things-upside-down-alternate version of things, where maybe you can turn into the villain and have a go at it.
My goal here is not to disparage any fundamental processes of life and living, it simply is to express my ultimate dislike of certain fundamental processes of life and living. I don’t have any problems with the concept of growth, which bears a stark difference to that of growing up. Growing up has a time element attached to it because of the “up”, the progress of growing up is often marked and measured by the passage of time, there’s a certain haste and pressure to growing up as opposed to growth.
Whereas growth will forever be growth no matter what manner of way it’s experienced in or what time intervals it’s experienced, ultimately its definition is not tied to the concept of time as much as the former.
One of the things I absolutely dread as a newly grown-up and refined human being, is how necessary it’s become for me to smile and send warmth in my interactions with the world just because it’s the most appropriate way of being. It probably doesn’t paint me in the best of light but, I don’t want to be chippery and extroverted every single day consecutively simply because nothing is that consistent in life, so why should my demeanor and mood be especially since it’s dictated to by these other external stimuli. I kid, but I kid not.
The real reason I can’t maintain extroversion is because ultimately to the core I’m introverted, however due to the pressures of adult life, I’m sometimes (most times), forced to interact even when no fiber of my being wants to, and I despise that. I despise the discomfort I feel as I follow my heart in my introversion in what seems to be a sea of extroversion. When did it become uncool to be quiet and mysterious? Is this what being grown up is about? Faking kindness and happiness all the time?
Ultimately I’m annoyed by the fact that, no man’s an island, because in all honesty in as much as people and human interaction is necessary for the survival of one holding a fork in a world of soup, it sucks. People suck. And frankly, maybe we’re better off as islands, that way we don’t bequeath all our earthly quirks that the world could do without.
Growing up is realizing that we’re mostly playing charades and commerce is all the way here for it, it’s all just a really big farce really, it’s ridiculous. Lately a lot of my childlike prepubescent philosophies have been challenged and I’m greatly saddened as I watch them lose an uphill battle, because it’s like what the actual fuck?! I find that a lot of my days have been punctuated by plenty of WTF?! Moments, and to be quite frank it’s not as entertaining living it, as it is cathartic just saying it and screaming it at the world, no matter how inappropriate it may seem.
Cursing and swearing, is just another of those things that have become more of a go-to as a way of purging in the life of a modern day adult, it’s just best done after reading a room appropriately, lest you find yourself learning the hard way.
Appropriate. Another interesting element/concept of this adulthood shit. A word I’ve found myself replaying a lot in my head lately, because…adults have to do the right and appropriate thing, a grave responsibility that comes with the free membership. Just…delightful.
Most times I promise I could punch my fist into a brick wall overtaken by the rage of this trap I’ve found myself in, but then the devil in me is ever so quick with the wit to remind, that I wanted this. And I didn’t just want this, I wanted it so bad that most of my days were pegged by daydreams of what life would be once the adults around me viewed me as a “grown-up”. High school O level exam motivators were literally centered around the yearning for the passage of the residual years of my high school career to go on by, so I could go on by as well.
University was the light at the end of the tunnel, little did i know, that the tunnel’s never-ending, and that the light that appeared to be end of it was either just a figment of my imagination or the result of an optical illusion of some sort sent to gobble me whole in a big fat round tummy of delusion.
So what does the adult me feel like to be around? The adult me feels like everything is copacetic, and that most of my worries are a load small enough for my back to carry. I give off an impression of having things under control as if my mind is not constantly in a spiral of overthinking and soaking into the overwhelming trauma bonds of inadequacy and a profound fear and anxiety of the unknown.
I look like I have it all figured out, when in reality, my mind, body and soul feels like its going through gentrification in a state of pandemonium and fiery eruption. But that’s the thing about being grown, you could be going through hell inside and chewing embers, but because of that smile on your face… no one will ever know. Your life is a movie, but you’re not the director, you’re just the person who reads the script someone else wrote for you.
Even though everything else is up to you, from tone to demeanor… it’s still not your movie though, you’re just the producer. And guess what! There’s no dress rehearsal baby, but…break a leg!
