The Girl Who Does Not Wear Glasses
Five Days, One Bed and a Very Loud Wind
For the first time in my adult life, I have spent five whole days at home, mostly in bed. Not a sick day where you still reply to emails. Five real days, with two more to go before my first review with the doc.
Adulthood, I have discovered, is a simple game. Wake up, leave, come back. Repeat until December, then survive the long January.
Outside, the wind has been howling like it has a personal grudge against our roof. I am not a meteorologist, so I have been doing what every Kenyan does when the weather misbehaves. been blaming El Niño.
It is strong, yet strangely soothing. My only prayer is that it is carrying blessings. And healing. Mostly healing.
A few months ago, It was prescribed, need do a corrective laser eye surgery. Through every test and every booking, I was sure. I have a job that allows me leave days to recover, and a spirit that is a little too fond of risky things.
Ecclesiastes says that to every thing there is a season. Apparently, this was my season to lie down.
The Waiting Room Is the Real Operation
Nobody warns you about the waiting. No phone. Nobody to talk to. Just a green, painfully clean room with three chairs.
One chair was cozy. One was half comfortable. One was so uncomfortable it could be used to extract confessions. Guess which one I sat in.
The room was beautifully organised. My brain was not. My brain had opened forty tabs and every single one was playing music.
That is when I discovered my default setting when anxious. I rub my hands and massage them, over and over, for what felt like ten hours.
The French philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote that "all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone." Blaise, my brother, I have now tested your theory personally. You were right.
When the nurse finally came in with anaesthetic drops, I nearly hugged her. At last, something was happening. Then she vanished again, and my mind used the time to hold a full board meeting.
How will the surgery go? Who do I tell, and who do I not tell? I have worn glasses for the longest time. Who is she without them? I was happy, sad, confused and anxious, all in one sitting.
Then they moved me to a colder room just outside theatre. A kind of purgatory. You are not in the operating room, but you are also not not in it.
Nurses and doctors floated past in blue gowns, blue masks and blue caps, like blue angels carrying laptops. And there I sat, rubbing my hands like someone who has just sent money to the wrong M-Pesa number.
Seventeen Minutes
"Mercy, come in," a nurse called. I never got her name. I stood there, unsure whether to sit or lie down, until she noticed my confusion and kindly steered me to the table.
Dr. Kamau walked in, took me through the instructions and asked if I had any worries. I had exactly one. "You said it would be painless. Didn't you?"
She was honest. The local anaesthesia would handle the procedure, but recovery would need strong pain medication. She was right on both counts.
The whole thing took less than seventeen minutes. Seventeen 😆 I have waited longer for a boda boda rider who said he was two minutes away.
Yet those seventeen minutes were massive. Instructions, eye drops, open, look here, hold still, lasers. Thank God it went well.
Lucy, my assisting nurse, gave me my medication and walked me through the days ahead. She was so kind and so full of faith. Then I strolled out to find my sister at the cafeteria, as if I had just popped out for tea.
The pain of recovery had been explained to me very clearly. I still do not know why I undermined it.
Healing for the Hyper-Independent
I have abandoned my own bedroom and moved into a darker room, A squatter in my own home.
The days are for sleeping, which turns the nights into a whole troublesome project. Most days I lay awake till past midnight. blindfold on, eyes no longer in pain, wind still roaring outside.
In one of the nights, a mosquito decided to sing and dance for me. It has not been seen since. I am so sorry. May it rest in peace.
I also suspect the laser tampered with my sweet dreams, because the nightmares have been something else. Dear Lord, save me.
Then there is my active lifestyle. On a normal weekend, 21KM, the Aberdare traverse hike or the hyrox race would be standard. Now I am negotiating on the integrity of a short evening walk, pending my doctor's blessing at that first review. Our elders said it best. Haraka haraka haina baraka.
Last evening, I stepped outside for the first time. It felt illegal. I genuinely felt guilty, like a teenager sneaking out after curfew.
Here is what healing is teaching this routine-busy, sometimes pretending-busy woman. You surrender control. You surrender busyness. And you let people help you, which for hyper-independent humans is the hardest assignment of all.
Brené Brown writes in The Gifts of Imperfection that "until we can receive with an open heart, we're never really giving with an open heart." And Anne Lamott reminds us that "almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you."
My phone keeps buzzing with 'uko aje' messages that I am not allowed to stare at for long. Maybe that is the lesson too.
Who Has Been Living Beneath My Skin?
All this time in bed has me asking a dangerous question. If I wrote a book today, what would I call it?
Top contenders so far. Let Me Reintroduce Myself. Where Have You Been My Whole Life? And my personal favourite, Who Has Been Living Beneath My Skin?
They say 33 is a year of renewal, had some good people calling it the Jesus Year. I can now confirm it, with medical documents. And no, self-awareness does not happen in the blink of an eye. Trust me, I now know exactly how long a blink lasts, 17 mins last i checked..Lol
It is daily habits. Learning, unlearning and relearning. Experiments and mistakes, many of them. Even with the best parents, siblings, schools and mentors, some things only time can teach you, and whatever it teaches, you are meant to pass on. Not as an obligation, but as a responsibility.
Michel de Montaigne wrote that "the greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself." I am slowly getting acquainted.
One day, I want to publish my journals. So after this quarter of reading about money and money psychology, I will go hunting for journals and biographies of great people. Then, because I clearly have too much time on my hands, the Russians.
Yes. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. Men whose books are thick enough to serve as a pillow, a doorstop and a self-defence weapon. War and Peace runs past a thousand pages, and some of us have not read that much since high school set books. Even then, we read the summaries.
Tolstoy kept a diary for most of his life, so he is basically my mentor already. Dostoevsky opens Notes from Underground with a man announcing, "I am a sick man." Lying in a dark room with a blindfold on, I felt deeply seen.
And in The Brothers Karamazov, the elder Zosima says the line I needed this week. "Above all, don't lie to yourself."
Full Moon, Fresh Eyes
On the 25th of October, I looked up and saw the full moon, clearly, with my own two upgraded eyes. A beautiful time to let go of some things and pick up others.
What am I letting go? Control. Busyness. The belief that I must carry everything alone.
What am I picking up? Three things. Money and resource abundance. Committed, fulfilling relationships. And ease and flow.
This renewal cuts across everything, health, money and the personal. So I have made some calls. Reignite my social life outside work. Keep my learning momentum. Track my spending with intention. Build that other stream of income, take that trip, make that call and yeees, book that appointment
Tolstoy wrote in War and Peace that "the strongest of all warriors are these two, Time and Patience." For once, I am letting them do the fighting.
As for me, allow me to introduce myself. I am the girl who does not wear glasses.
Pleasure to meet you, Mercy.
Until the next trail, the next thought, and the next becoming.
Bold Tracks & Backpacks
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