SELF ASSESSMENT 101: MARRIAGE.

 “The very thought of marriage used to frighten me. I wasn't sold on the idea of monogamy. I saw so many examples of divorce and unfaithfulness that the beautiful picture of marriage wasn't an aspiration.I wish I could say that I was content on living a single life, but the truth is that I was going to keep "playing the field.”"  Cornelius Lindsey

Well, there is one part of life that we cannot avoid, and this topic has been one that has been part of most of our discussions lately (a group of friends and I). This is because my peers and I are at that point where we are making life long decisions, we are making life long investment decisions, we making our circle of friends finer because we are making lifelong friendships, we are making life long career choices, and most certainly (at some point) we will have to choose that lifelong companion. Now, as much as we are discussing it and praying about it, we are also reading much about the issue, coz let’s face it…the institution of marriage (from a Christian’s point of view) has been under attack. Cornelius Lindsey’s statement up there in one of posts lately (Speaking of which, The Lindsey’s are goals yaani…) sparked up a debate among us. When are we ever ready for marriage? I mean, we see some get married at 20 others at 40, others at 60 and slay this marriage thing. We have also seen others get married at the same ages and live in tears.

So as part of my self-assessment, this was part of my areas of assessment. Now, I have done a lot of reading from various local and international authors, I have consulted my mentor and sat at the feet of the married, divorced and single at advanced ages, and this article by Judy Karanja (She is the Author) written in 2012 was shared with me. This is what She says:

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DON'T GET MARRIED IF:

If you’re not ready to delay gratification when your are angry. To hold your tongue, lower your voice and sometimes wait till the appropriate time, day or even month before you can deal with an issue thoroughly…. don’t get married. Immaturity is the inability to delay gratification. Marriage is for the mature.

If you’re not ready to leave center stage and allow someone else to become your focus, your study, your muses… don’t get married. Selfish people make very bad spouses. In marriage you don’t lose yourself but your heart has to be big enough to gain someone else. And soon, with God’s blessing: little, crying, diaper soiling, demanding little ones are coming!

If you are not ready, to stand up and calmly deal with meddling in laws as a united front: The opinionated sister, the insensitive uncle, the domineering father, the manner less brother, the nosy aunt….. don’t get married. Boundaries do not exist automatically, they must be created. A good spouse is committed to respectfully stand up for and protect their marriage from meddling relatives. Don’t abandon your spouse to your relatives. It’s betrayal.

If you are not ready to pay bills…. don’t get married. Love does not pay bills. Kenya power will not give a waiver because your love is O so strong and your gazes at each other, O so romantic.

If you are not ready to let go of your opposite sex “best friends” and invest that into your spouse. To like, to laugh, to play, to be silly and to enjoy life with them, above anyone else… don’t get married. Affairs happen because people did not marry their best friends. Someone else holds their heart. Someone else gets them better. Someone else inspires them more. Marry your best friend and cultivate your friendship so that you remain best friends.

If you are not ready to stop competing with the Joneses…. don’t get married. Let the Joneses buy their yatch when you are still walking, and enjoy the walk. Your journeys are different. They may have to cross the oceans but you may be going through the road route. A boat might not do you any good on your journey. You must be ready to pace yourselves: stop competing, stop spending your future before you get there, stop the debt, stop trying to impress people. You must be able to be content. To enjoy your journey without deciding your happiness simply by measuring your progress against other people.

If you are not ready to be an open book. To tell the whole story of your past, deal with the memories, expose the failures and risk rejection…. don’t get married. It is fraud to have someone sign off their life to you without the full details. The past is a touchy and demanding friend. It always shows up in the marriage. It doesn’t enjoy being ignored and the more you snob, the bolder it becomes and the more tantrums it throws. It will mess up the “neat” and “all together lovely” image that you are struggling to maintain.

If you are not ready to let go of your philandering and wild oats farming…. don’t get married. Don’t take somebody’s son or daughter and subject them to your germs, your indiscretions and your chips fungaz. It never ends well. It’s romanticized in the movies, it’s being fronted as the only “realistic” way to stay married and keep the fire burning. But truth be told, the only thing that the fire will burn will be you, your spouse and your children. That family will burn for generations in bitterness, disease, fear, failure, hatred, broken hearts, broken dreams and conniving.

Finally, if you are not ready to let go of the adrenalin rush of a risque life and to settle down…. don’t get married. The great Colombus [who we were told “discovered” America, Have you ever wondered if the Native Indians who were in it, knew that it existed :-)] had a diary that was long sought for. People wanted to read about the wild journeys, the sea tempest, the reckless pirates they fought, the death and the danger they must have encountered. When it was found, there was great disappointment. Majority of the pages simply had 5 words: “This day, we sailed on.” 

Marriage, like life in general, has many “we sail on” days. You have to learn to find the thrill in the normal everydayness of it. If you depend on wild romance, all night sex [ha], romantic cruises, wild parties, compulsive moves across continents, tempestuous fights and make up sessions to be happy, you may be disappointed. You have to learn to thrill in gentle smiles, loving hugs, knowing looks, cozy moments, shared chores, cute babies, everyday work, dreaming together, praying together and simply living together. If these things are not thrilling, exciting and satisfying, you will look for a way out. The “boom twaff” moments are still there, but they are normally punctuations to the usualness of living. They cannot be your reason for getting married. They are unsustainable on an everyday basis. The one you choose must be thrilling to you even in the most mundane of moments.

I pray this helps someone. Remember singles, YOU HAVE THE PRIVILEGE OF CHOICE. Never let anyone pressure you into marriage. You are either ready or you’re not: You decide!. But please don’t marry somebody and then punish them to live with your childish ways for the rest of their lives. A childish baby is cute but a childish adult is extremely frustrating.

Marriage is for the mature and in many ways, we the married, are still being confronted with the demand to grow up day by day. If you are not ready for that demand, don’t get married!!

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At the end of the day, when we realize that our lives can change at any moment and change forever, we start making decisions. Serious ones. But nothing can make us that prepared. Nothing can.

Facebook:  Njeri Kareithi

Twitter: @deekareithi

*all pics source: www.pixabay.com

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DEATH WHERE IS YOUR STING?

The news of passing on of a friend or family is something that no one ever wants to hear or even imagine being told. And yet, it is the most heart breaking news one can ever hear. Forget being rejected or dumped by someone you loved (or thought you loved), forget breaking your hand, finger, toe, nail….heck, none of this types of pains can be compared to the pain of losing a loved one. When it keeps hitting you that you shall never see them again, that you will never get to laugh with them, to hold them, to touch them, to play games with them. You go through countless messages and images that you shared with them. You replay the voice messages and video notes. (By the way; those who say sijui we should not take photos of each and everything we do and of everywhere we go; well, I wrote that mantra you live by on a paper, shoved it in a jar, sealed it and put it in NASA’s LunarProspector, and in case you have not checked; it is not coming down any time soon. Not in the near centuries.) Some of these things are the one and at times only way that we hold pieces of those who left us.

“Just as no human being has control over the wind to restrain it, so also no human being has control over the day of his death. Just as no one is discharged during war, so wickedness will not release those who practice it.” Ecclesiastes 8:8 (ISV)

source: www.pixabay.com

And so you walk through places you once trod; you outline the traces of your palms that once held those hands. And each time you feel like they are still there, with no distance between the palms. You look around you and nothing seems to make sense anymore. Nothing makes you want to live; but you do. You wake up every damn morning and say “I will do this. If not for me, for them”. And when it gets to you in that washroom, that office space, that bus seat, that train seat, as you walk through a path, as you sit alone in that hall, as you sleep under that bridge; with countless people walking right past you and no one seems to feel your pain or even see it. When you feel those tears well up in your eyes and say “oh boy, here comes the water falls”. When you feel that stinging pain as your heart breaks one more time, and it feels like someone is trying to stab your heart, leaving you there to bleed, pain oozing out in form of a lacrimal fluid composed of water, mucin, lipids, lysozyme, lactoferrin, lipocalin, lacritin, immunoglobulins,  glucose, urea, sodium, and potassium (commonly known as tears). And you look up to the skies, you feel like cursing God for taking them away and causing this pain that is has become a shawl that you dress in daily, hugging it in a bid to get answers to the many questions you have. Amid sobs and whimpers you utter words that you have wanted to utter all this time. You wish for a session with the grim reaper just to ask them “what exactly is your problem?” 

“But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, "DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory."O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?" 1 Corinthians 15: 54-55(ISV)

So you go to an open field, at the top of your lungs you ask “DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?” And them, just then, you ask God to take the pain away, to make it stop hurting. And you rise, you dust yourself and take a walk outside and say to yourself; “I will not let this stop me. I will make them proud. I will live”

For you know too well what Isaiah 57:1-2 (NIV) says:

The Blessed Death of the Righteous
 The righteous man perishes, and no man takes it to heart; And devout men are taken away, while no one understands. For the righteous man is taken away from evil, He enters into peace; They rest in their beds, Each one who walked in his upright way.

And then you know that it is well. It may take long to get to that point, it might take ages, maybe years; but you do get there. For they are forever in your heart. 

source: www.pixabay.com

'To live in the hearts of others is never to die. ' - Thomas Campbell

This post is in memory of all the friends and family we have lost over the year (this year starting on a very sad note of losing several friends). This is to them that left before us. Fare thee well. Fare thee well. Till we meet again. May their souls rest in eternal peace. Amen

Facebook:  Njeri Kareithi

Twitter: @deekareithi

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SO LOVE by Gufy Dox

The things we do
The things we say
The smiles we make
The bills we pay
This is us.
This is me
This is you.
Believing that
Love is in the air-
at least that’s what we say
But is it true where you come from
Beauty is determined by curves and size of ass
That
Emotions and love are measured by short flings,
short dresses,
short conversations,
and short relations
Circling around custom made likings
that short women are more beautiful-
and tall women are hard to curve

We have reduced the power of feel
to
Fights between light skins and dark skins
Not knowing that’s definitely and intimately-
21st Century racism

Is it true that
We have boxed love the same way
the opposite sex has?
Emotions sent in chocolate bars-
boxed
Feelings travelling in electronic phones-
and buzz-
boxed
Have you ever stopped and wondered?

Maybe in the world of emojis
They laugh at our ignorance
every time we send smiley faces
with sad intentions.
We no longer laugh like humans, we
just imagine laughters.

So next time you meet your loved one
Smile a second longer than
The recycled smiles on your phone.
Hug an inch tighter to trigger warmth
that will walk you through the cold times
Because these boxes can’t store
the shapes of love our heart makes

Because…

We are big
I am big
you are big

So stretch, close your hands
to the things we do
And open your hearts to the things
ought to be done since
Beauty and killer looks shouldn’t be boxed
In aspect ratios
That rely on another user to ascertain
our real worth, but
That’s how low we are
In a world where self opinion
should be the bench mark of who we are
But who are we
To find love when we are lost
Who are we to hold love
When we let go too soon?

I haven’t been kissed with lips that lack lies
And for every hand that held me
spoke of how loose I am
I have swam in oceans of ‘it’s not you,
it’s me’
‘You’re too good to be true’ and
I have tasted the excuse of ‘I need more-
time to know you’

My heart has had more breaks than school gives
My eyes have seen more beauty in
phone screens, but
Average people when met in reality

I have learned that tears cry too
that hearts fade away
with every rejection
And souls bend to breaking points
with every assumption

So dear lady,
If a man takes long to show his emotions
Go grab his hand,
Steal a kiss
And when he is breathless
Let him know how you feel

To everyone who is hurt,
this is how we heal,
this is how we rise
Schedule your pleasure everyday
for your pain has already scheduled itself

So today, put people first
And tomorrow, when they’re difficult,
Put people first
And when you get to itch for something new,
Put people first
And when you think your pain
Necessitates giving up everyone you love,
Put people first,
and,
Open your world to other worlds
Gift your hands the textures of different people
Feast your eyes to shades of
different colours and fly your minds to
clouds of
How other people make it rain
in their own world

So today,
Learn that we are big
I am big, and you are big
So love
Love like hate has powered you
So love
Love like a heartbreak is chasing you

So love.

All rights Reserved to Gufy Dox. See more of his works here

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NEVER DATE A POET DEE

“Never date a poet Dee” he said amidst bites of some chicken barbecue flavored crisps I had shared with him (I have special attachment to this flavour). We were waiting for a mutual friend at a bus stage. I was to give her a novel in exchange for another; they were headed for a date. I assumed I had not heard him.

“Dee”, he paused to make sure I was listening to him, “never date a poet”. He repeated. I didn’t know how to take it. I mean; did he know that I subscribed to the religion that is poetry? That once in a while, I became a Levite and would step up to the altar with incense and offer a sacrifice of literary works written in verse, in particular, verses of high worth, great beauty, emotional sincerity, intensity and profound insight (Isn’t that what poetry is?); and at times words with rhythmic grace and imaginative proses?  Did he? Did he know that our mutual friend sat in the council of elders in this so called religion? Did he know that I frequented the likes of Fatuma's Voice, Upgrade Poetry, Slam Africa and Poetry Spot among other poetry forums?  Maybe. Maybe not.

Poets are a heartless lot. He said. Make a blunder and you will testify to this with a bible on your right hand. Make them doubt what you have and they will never make you forget. They will write pieces about you. They will paint their words with the pain, in a way that you will hear and read the words and know they were directed to you. Poets will stab your soul while reciting a love poem to you. They will hurl your heart into the depths, like a stone into mighty waters, and hug you like nothing happened.

Photo Credit: www.cdfstlucia.org

 They will stitch together parts of their verses with blood from the heart of a love that you once shared; and do it wearing a smile. They will make you think twice about anything you ever did without even saying it. They will perform these pieces to audiences that you are part of; people will praise their prowess with words. They will make you sit through the agony of listening to words that you once said; only this time they will sound so different because they are meant to crucify you. They will make you wonder out loud “was that about us?” and instinctively they will say “that was not about us by the way”. And you will know it was.

Photo Credit: www.p4cm.com

They will make you regret ever meeting them; ever falling in love with their hearts and souls. They will speak in parables that mock you and your mere existence. They will make you be cautious about love at first sight; you will always want to have a second and third look. They will make you read through their pieces first before they show them to the world. As if to make sure that the impressions of the words are engraved in your mind. And every time they are up there performing the piece, the words will hurt you one more time. And you will have to smile; because you are dating a poet.

Unless you are a poet as well. He added. Then you will be able to read between the sweet words and see the emptiness they carry. You will be able to see through the irony of the praises in proses. You will understand the meaning of the adjectives they use. You will see that one black sheep in the white sheep lines of a romantic poem. That masked truth that was not supposed to be there. That line that makes the whole piece a lie. And you will smile about it and say “great piece”. You will know the depth of the sting in that offensive line; because you would write the same to them.

Photo Credit: www.p4cm.com

He didn’t say more; he didn’t have to. The expression on his face, the way his face distorted with a foreign emotion as he talked; the emptiness in his eyes and the smile he gave her when she arrived said it all.

“Never Dee,” he said as he hugged her. 

“Not all” I whispered back.

Facebook:  Njeri Kareithi

Twitter: @deekareithi

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UNCONDITIONAL LOVE

A few weeks ago, a discussion ensued in a forum I am a member of. The topic was of loving and getting hurt. One of us said “It reminds me of my cat, I could throw it to the ceiling but it would come back when I call it and hug me”. Well, as you have done…I burst out in laughter at the thought of that and how it played on my mind.

Fast forward to a week ago, at work, a delivery man stood at our department’s reception with a bouquet of roses and a box of chocolates…you can imagine how we enviously walked past, just wishing they were ours. Then I saw this video that went viral on social media sites of a young girl taking care of her siblings suffering from malnutrition. She was just a year or two older than them, and with no parents, she took up the responsibility of showering the siblings with love and raising them. She walked several kilometers to fetch water (the barrel looked like it weighed heavier than her) to wash the siblings who can do nothing but lay on the soil all day. 

She knew she did not have much to offer, she could not provide food for her brother and sister, but she saw they were unclean and she knew that she would help in that area. Now, what amused me most and touched my heart, is this. The volunteers who had gone to visit this family gave her a packet of cookies (I can’t remember well if they were cookies or biscuits; but it was in a packet). The young girl chose to first feed her siblings then took whatever had remained.

Credit: www.allposters.com

“That is normal”, I hear you say, but put yourself in this situation, you have not had something to eat in maybe a month, then someone gives you even a tiny cup of flavored water. What would you do; gobble it down quickly or feed your siblings first then take some of whatever remains? Well, I saw a immeasurable love that this young girl had for her siblings; a love that puts others first, a love willing to give and give, a love that wants to make the other better and happy, and I really thought about the image of love that has been painted on our minds.

I have heard friends severally say how they are punishing their loved ones for not doing this or that, to them, the misery that their loved one goes through makes them happy, soothes their ego. Often times I have heard people say they can only love people when they are loved back, or can only do this or that for someone after something has been done for/to them. We are loving, but there is always a condition in this love; like there are conditions that have to be met for one to give love...Have you ever seen how a pet loves their owner (as in the story I mentioned first)? Have you ever seen how an old grandmother takes care of her old and sickly husband? Have you ever seen how a child hugs a teddy bear and says how much they love it? Have you ever seen a person love you so much they would die for you every time you make a mistake just so that you may live?

With the Easter season just around the corner, I have been thinking of this kind of love a lot lately. So much that I have been giving more, loving others more, listening to what people say more, being there for my friends more, buying random people who live on the street some milk and mandazis once a week, just to see the smile on their face. Sharing the love of Christ. I do it because I think of what Christ did for me, and as a Christian, what I believe in. I am alive, I am made new, just because the son of God chose to come down to my level and give His life in exchange of mine. Why them, would I not share this love with others? Even your significant other; Loving them, bearing with hem, understanding them, and making them happy, sharing happiness, sacrificing for them, reciprocating and appreciating what they do.

 

As we remember the death and resurrection of Christ for us, the author and finisher of our faith as Christians, share some love, and strive for unconditional love.

Happy Easter from Njeri Kareithi’s Desk.

Facebook:  Njeri Kareithi

Twitter: @deekareithi

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IT DOESN’T HURT by Ashe Vernon

When he says
He doesn’t love you anymore,
Roll your shoulders back
And look him in the eye
Even when it feels like your ribs
Are breaking inward, like spider legs.
When he digs up old aches
That he swore he forgave you for,
Smile
And ask him why he didn’t leave you sooner.
Ignore the way the words feel like sandpaper
Running all the way up your throat to your mouth.
When he blames you
For mistakes that wear his face,
Do not scream.
Do not cry.
Tell him that there are boys
Who would be proud to say they’d loved you.
Tell him that in two years
You won’t even remember his name
And don’t let him see the way you can taste your own lie.
When he leaves
Ignore the howling in your blood
And do not get up after him.
Not even to lock the door.
Do not, do not
Do not.
Smell his shirts when you box them up
To give them back.
Not one.
Swear off dating when you realize
You’re chasing ghosts that wear his smile.
It’s okay to cry over him.
It’s even okay to forgive him.
But do not go back to him.
If he did not know how to love you the first time,
He won’t know how to do it the next.

 All rights reserved to Ashe Vernon. See more of her works here

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