The Unending Conversation...

Of lovers that have so much to say…so much to share…of lives yet to be lived…of dreams waiting to be realized. When two hearts decide to give it a try and write a love story without an ending…beyond novel fantasies…the reality of love so epic…greater and stronger than the 'Law of Attraction', no secrets here.

Of text messages send back n forth till its comical…a series of smiley faces just to break the silence…a deliberate need to connect with the other in words…flowing like a river with a source but an unidentified destination…deeper than the depth of one's soul…

Doing away with assumption that the other is 'just okay'…or taking 'have a lovely day' for granted…'I love you becomes a song, a song so sweet that you want to hear it over and over again till the lyrics are embedded so deep that no one can't tell you otherwise…

Of asking the silly questions that you know the answers to but just want a little bit of assurance…just making sure that you never wake up from this amazing dream…just the need to read and reread the words again, hear the voice…

Of walking in forgiveness and being ready to say' I've forgotten'…putting the positive aspects in better light that the negative is drowned to a state of insignificance…

Of moments when there is really nothing much to say but you somehow end up talking about 'something'…in times of pain when one says 'I can live without you'…but what kind of life is that?

Of souls destined to be together, to face the steep mountains and dangerous seas of this life…two people not agreeing to disagree to be apart but to make it work somehow…to take the steps to stay in touch in the gravest of distances…choosing to be loyal,faithful,true at all times.

Purposely choosing to always stay on topic, on the same page or  in the blinkest moments in the same chapter or in the entanglement of hopelessness in the same book…not finding it easy to just try something new because the present is unbearable.

The constant need of the other, to be close and just be.

When love is just another four letter word that bears no meaning and friends go like :'what you guys are still together?'…Pushing through the criticism,however,right,relevant and with a point, a life lesson even…choosing to listen to your heart instead…

Breaking the chains of religion and finding a common ground somehow…love maybe?...a total disregard to contradicting personalities because being 'just in love' is more than enough…

Being part of these dance that is timeless…the beat always getting stronger, more rhythm. More soul, beyond mere musical talk…getting the tune right and changing it when the need arises…even when the steps alludes to the case of polarical tendencies, still moving together hand in hand..

Of holding the other even when you just want to let go and run ,hide somehow to deal with issues in solemnity…refusing to be a loner and just being there…

When speaking requires more than planned words, letters orchestrated to just convey meaning yet the heart is miles away…Of hearts that beat for each other…getting the butterflies to come again…of stolen glances, waiting to draw the other for pecks, kisses maybe…of the heart jumping when the phone rings or a text comes in...hoping its him…her…Oh! The thought that someone is thinking of you!

When being busy doesn’t keep you from the one who has your heart…taking time out to say a simple hello even if a goodbye lurks nearby…

Overcoming the poison of routine n not doing things just because…

The unending conversation is more than just returning the message to just show you are in sync…its nights that don’t end with goodnight or mornings that begin with good morning as with two souls bound together , a day blends into another and the romance continues in an unending cycle that has no beginning or end…

Margaret Tanui

PR Expert,Health Enthusiast,Writer and so much more!

The Thing About Moving On

 It usually seems like an easy thing…friends tell you…you'll find another one…another guy, another job, another bestie but really it’s the hardest thing there is.Waking up every day resolute that that is the last time you'll be stuck in the past, saying :'This is the day! 'Life for a while feels like a limbo, at a state of mere existence or none at all, it's beyond stagnation…you hate yourself for holding on to a sheer fig mentation of what used to be and not reaching out for what is new.

You turn to music and all you hear are sad love songs…my bet is Taylor Swift…and you declare that you hate love songs. You avoid romantic movies or comedies or even Samantha's Bridal Show…in short you want nothing to do with love so you watch Indian movies like I Hate Love Stories only to realize that it has a happy ending! You cry yourself hoarse,uncontrolably…

Your heart aches because you don’t want be the first to call, text or show any signs of concern…making it look like it's all good, the whole shebang of pretense…when friends check up on you, you wear this 'lovely' smile, a smile so optimistic it can cure cancer!(Shelbie,Glee,hehe).

Focus is another thing, sometimes you overate it,underate it or even worse you are unable to put it in any conceivable category so you engross yourself in your career, a new friendship, school…swearing you'll be the next Albert Einstein, Bill Gates or just be the best version of you.

Then the blame games begin…'may I should have fought longer…I should have overlooked the mistakes…just gone with the flow to keep things 'stable'…and on and on. You know things were not great and the relationship should have ended like a gazillion centuries ago but you still have that faint glimmer of hope that 'it wasn't that bad'.

You start to think of maybe giving it a try but then some sane friend fills you in on what you have shared  ,oh so many times…'he doesn't treat me right', 'we hardly talk anymore', 'he always has excuses for not picking my calls;, he takes a decade to reply my texts and even when he replies its things like  'ok…maybe…I see….we'll talk…he he…really? 'This perfect dose of reality hits you once again and you resolve not to think of him again. You are back on the highway of recovery and you banish all thoughts of him…intense feelings of what used to be…Kelly Clarkson's What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger becomes your anthem and you sing it hard, loud even.

For a while all seems okay and then you check his Facebook timeline and a tinge of regret mixed with a dash of 'how can he go by like you were nothing' swells up in you and you almost inbox to say hi but you think against it…you contemplate on befriending him but that's so highschoolish so you just log out and get yourself together, I mean emotionally. Once again you are down memory lane and you wander why he lingers at the fringe of your mind…why he still has so much power over you yet you guys are no longer together….why you are so sentimental and just can't seem to move on…even a tiny baby step not forthcoming

The truth of the matter is that moving on is not like some jet swifting up to the clouds ready to fly, it's an unending cycle…its messy, sometimes you don't understand who you are or if you are changing or not. Things are all fuzzy and you can't seem to get it right…reality is that when you just think you have…oh sorry…when you just think you 'might' have moved on is when you haven't even dipped your little toe in the cold sea of reality…because when you think you are over him or it, whatever it is…loss of a loved one, a bad breakup, failed marriage, broken friendship, unsuccessful career, poor grades, an addiction, strained family ties, whatever it is…when you think you just might be over it the thing is you are not so you start all  over again and just kip trying until one day it doesn’t hurt too much…so allow yourself to fall sometimes…am not saying you let yourself go but at times the past you honestly want to forget will cross your mind, don't loathe yourself for that…moving on takes time…sometimes you'll want to overwrite everything and start from scratch only to realize that that past is indeed part of you…just don’t let it define you…just hope that after all is said and done you will come out a 'a better you…wiser…with substantial clarity of who you are and where you are going…moving on is a lifetime event.

Margaret C Tanui

Blogger, PR Expert,reknowned writer

Whats in a Hairstyle?

Each day you meet people with all kind of different hairstyles imagined,yet others would have never even crossed your mind!Factors like what is vogue at the moment,financial standing,peer pressure and a myriad of other reasons come into play when considering what style to rock.
What really drives a person to prefer to,for example cut their hair as opposed to having it long or braiding it,weaving it,straightening it with chemicals or curl and do all that pertains to that arena.Even considerations in terms of coloring your hair or dyeing is also part of the what in hairstyling.
There is debate that this is common among Africans or African Americans as hair among the white is considered "good hair" which may explain why many black women and men go to extra lengths to straighten it and make it look presentable either with chemical processing or through weaving.
A glance at a number of Facebook pages on hair like 'Black women with short hair and lovein it ,'DarkSkinned women' are all about encouraging African ladies to value their natural beauty and embrace it all the way...skin,hair or otherwise.
Kids as they grow up are bombarded with all the variety of hairstyles that are on the offing and may be a bit confused,especially the black for the world stirred by the media and all its hullabaloo has created the notion that kinky hair is not the way to go.I once watched Tyra Banks show talking about this very topic and even had a mother on set talking of how she perms her daughter's hair despite the fact that the young and very beautiful girl said she doesn't want to do it anymore because it burns her.
I am not one to judge but like they say each one to their own as a hairstyle is all about personal taste and has little to do with what other thinks...but wait...really?Is this all desire to have the 'perfect hairdo' a pointer to underlying issues within a person like say self esteem or the endless need to please someone like a spouse or one just doesn't want to be the odd one out with natural hair when all their friends are donning hot weaves or vice vice versa.
this push and pull of the topic on hair runs both ways as people have an expectation of how you should dress and appear before society so that when you do the opposite you are an 'outcast' per say.Its not just the issue of whether natural or processed,short or long,braided or weaved,the underlying issue is what makes you feel beautiful and comfortable.Some feel most soulful and downright beautiful when they go bald,others feel mpst pretty when they have a nice weave,preferably human hair as they can wash it and style it differently and play with colors for a new look every time.
The whole rush to have dreadlocks or style hair in other natural ways should not be impressed on any one as anything new for the style has been there from time immemorial.One should do what works for them and what is convinient but just making sure that it is not attemted with extremes that bring with it hair loss,scalp irritation,hair thinning and any other misshap that come with the need to look good.
Indi arie says it right in her song 'I Am Not My Hair' so be you and do what you love after all its your hair!haha

Of Embarrassing embarrassments...

All of us if not most of us have at one point or another faced an awkward moment or even worse were embarrassed on behalf of another(if that is even English or grammatically correct) so a case in point today....Am walking minding my own business and as i just make a turn,a guy is peeping(i lack an euphemism for this) just by the road,sees me and wraps it up and walks on like nothing just happened.I pause,petrified for a second ,wondering if i should just turn back and assume I didn't see anything or just whisk by in a frenzy and act all composed,'normal',maybe a smile here,a blank glance there and go on my way
I know you are wondering what exactly transpired this morning,well,I hesitated a bit but in my indecisiveness he walks on so I follow behind and of course reduce my pace so as not to catch up with him.This proves futile as am a fast walker so I end up getting ahead not in anyway to make him shrink but had to be somewhere and am getting late and for a second I wonder why am the one feeling all embarrassed and I didn't do anything,he he.
It beats me how one can act in ways that make us want to crack up the universe and disappear deep into oblivion which begs the question what makes one thing embarrassing and the other totally 'okay'.Is it contextual,age related,a set of norms of dos and donts,protocol maybe,plain common sense,or simply based on the kind of reactions that we get from those around that makes the 'embarrometer'(embarrassment meter) to blink!
Kids,for one,especially toddlers are usually free and do whatever they deem fit and no one sees a problem with it.The have the privilege of undressing in the middle of the living room whilst visitors are very present!They can sit in whatever position they are most in comfortable in,eat in whatever style they find fun and so much more.So am trying to imagine how parents deal with such situations,do they dismiss them as just a joke and carry on with their hospitality.How about the guests in question,what do they do?As we all grew up to be adults and what have you,it is said or rather believed that we begin to get a general sense of right and wrong and we avoid certain behaviors because they are considered 'shameful' and we pursue patterns that are considered ordinary and acceptable.
All these then leads to matters of topic so that we question what issues would we rather shy away from and resign that they are 'sensitive',not exactly embarrassing,for we do not want to raise an alert,an alarm that will flutter a myriad of negative perceptions about who we are,our core values especially those with egocentric tendencies.
Some societies still find it daunting to discuss aspects that pertain to our sexuality,physical defects,and even for some,health concerns.If you are continuing to read this then I salute you for some gave up in the introduction section for the term 'peeping' was just not something they could not stomach,a total turn off,quite embarrassing for their taste.It is understandable in the sense that we have our presuppositions on almost every issue before we dig in to find out facts.I would never advocate for one to share with all and sundry all the aspects of their lives and that's why we have close friends or family for that and for some secret diaries.
In this day and age,where do we draw the line between being explicit or too closed off,being callous or too sensitive,living in ignorance or basking in the extreme light of self awareness?Without us even knowing it,we all have placed certain 'unwritten rules' on people at social events,at home,school,at work and even in the public arena so that we expect and to a great extent demand that they withhold a particular standard of decorum. Embarrassing moments are usually taken to be'isolated incidences' so that one says that it is something that has never happened before so when we break these societal rules that hang about us like a dark cloud are we to be discarded as lacking class.Like when your child is throwing a tantrum at a supermarket when you cant afford to buy something she wants or when you give a rather 'silly' answer to a question in class and even if the lecturer insists that no response is wrong you somehow cave in and batter yourself for even speaking up in the first place.
So where does it end?Embarrassment is part of us,some great thinkers have been quoted in the past saying : 'If you have never been hurt or embarrassed then you are not living life'.In essence it means you are not a risk taker so does this mean we go looking for embarrassing scenarios to prove that we can come out of them with our faces plastered in victorious smiles?
What do you consider embarrassing?lets talk...

The Language Twist during Hard Financial Times

THE LANGUAGE TWIST DURING HARD FINANCIAL TIMES
Most of us, if not all have at one point or another gone through financial crisis and meltdowns. Times when budgeting proved daunting and you just couldn't buy every ‘necessary’ thing no matter how you strived to prioritize the language automatically changes without us even being in the know.
All of a sudden food is not really a major necessity. You  hear comments like whoever said ‘breakfast is the most important meal of the day’ was not a 21st century trained and licensed nutritionist.Breakfast,lunch and supper no longer go by their distinct names but become ‘meals’ so that if one is missed it’s not really a big deal. One discovers that pishori tastes better even without stew just a dash of salt as amazingly that is the last item to go.Royco  become a luxury with statements like : ‘I like my food natural’. The nutritional fact that sugar feeds cancer becomes a reality thus plain tea becomes fashionable.
For ladies, salons are avoided like the plague and wigs are the ‘in thing’ or simply we go back to our African roots and prefer our kinky hair and say we love being authentic.
Credit of course becomes scarce thus our personalities become introverted and we say we like our ‘peace and quiet’ or due to lack of internet bundles we assert that we are not that into Facebook or Twitter ('twira') and that social networking and more so technology is a drag and hinders us from the beautiful moments of just living life and enjoying every second of it. We prefer to call once in a blue moon than text every other day when we cannot consistently subscribe to free texts.
We decide that walking is the healthiest and easiest exercise known to man when there is no fare to move around town. Visiting friends becomes a deliberative task so that we categorize them into groups so that we weigh if it is worth going through all the trouble of seeing them. ‘Chilling at home’ becomes the latest hobby additions so that we wage war against outdoor activities with excuses like the weather is risky or the sun is not good for our skin. We say that we have ‘specific events’ that we attend so no need to attend every other event listed on the social calendar.
In matters wardrobe, we say that with fewer clothes it is easier to maintain our closets thus no need for that extra pair of jeans or wedges. We flip through fashion magazines and we wonder how one can spend that much money on a single dress, a dress that is worn once and never to be touched again. We go on pointing fingers at celebrities, the rich and famous and wonder how they have all that money despite their global philanthropic tendencies.
In religious circles, it is a hard debate with our maker of how you have been a diligent giver in the past and that He should understand where you are coming from when you offerings become minimal or to extreme cases non existence. Women talk of how 'chamas' are not for everyone especially if it is their turn to give their dues.
Financial hardships to a great extent shed light on what is beneficial in our lives and what is simply a waste.However,no sooner are we loaded again that we go back to the same habits and lose the critical eye and we realize it is just a cycle. Let’s hope it is not vicious...LOL.

A 'Phone-less' Society'?

‘Without my phone I feel so lost…like a part of me is missing’. A statement we so often blurt out when we lose our phones, either at an event or due to our precarious tendencies. I am careful not to call it carelessness for I am one of ‘those people so I will tread extra carefully, tiptoe delicately.
Our society has been called a number of things…a paperless society thanks to the beauty of technology. We are referred to as a heartless bunch with capitalism being the engine of our advancements in economy. Shameless is another with the extent we use the internet to share every aspect of our lives to the world even when they would care less and with that another descriptive nature comes out. Being 'phone-less' is a term yet to be official with phones being part and parcel of our everyday living, the very intricate part of our personalities, communication needs, business transactions and so much more. Our phones are our banks, dating hot spots…blog spot and every ‘spot’ imaginable. Some of us sleep with our phones at our bedsides, a little bit like having a pet and some never turn it off even for a micro second. For those of us who love communication sometimes we are petrified when we are away from our phones especially when we want to know everything about everything…news,weather,sports,entertainment…you name it. With citizen journalism on the rise, anyone can be a journalist and inform the world on any topic.
A research done by Pew Internet Project in America and which applies to any nation reveals that 67% of cell owners keep checking their phone even when it’s not buzzing,44% sleep with their phones in case of messages while 29% were quoted as literally saying that they can’t imagine living without their phones. This then begs the question: what is in a phone that makes it so valuable? I, for one felt like my world was on a stand still when I lost my phone. It was as if breathing became more difficult by each passing day like I was in a bad dream and I would eventually wake up and my phone will still be there. You might think I am referring to a lost love but am talking about a Nokia 2600-c, not even an android. Later I got an android phone and I thought that maybe that was a blessing in disguise as they say. One wonders is the sense of loss so real because the phone was cool and highly expensive or it is just the many things one is unable to do when the phone is gone. If you are a researcher out there and you are definitely reading this then that might be a niche to consider in your prestigious field, he he.
The funny thing is we complain of how we are so empty without our phones and as soon as we get a new one a sense of normalcy is restored and overtime we don’t think about it anymore and we chase after other things until we lose our phones again and the cycle goes on and on. I have been unable to understand how people have been surviving without phones before, how did they manage for real?!Before I got my first phone all I ever dreamed of was owning one and once I did I hoped to have a laptop then…once I get that I have no idea what is next, he he.
Who am I without my phone? Am I just a boring chic who is not into texting, Whatsap and Facebook and what have you…’analog’ as most would say. With most people fond of strutting around town with phones in hand, it is definitely something that is here to stay….Who are you without your phone?