Let’s try this again

Truth is, I am scared.

I am scared shitless.

I come on to this site and I am scared about how eerie and abandoned it is. A cemetery where dreams have been eulogized and buried, where the wind blows between the gravestones in a howling whisper that chills me to my marrow.

It smells of impotence.

If I put my tongue to it, it would taste of neglect.

Here are the things I am scared of:

1. I am scared that I will start that thing that I start here, then I will abandon it somewhere along the way: Like you, I admire content creators who are consistent – bloggers, vloggers… (I thought there would be something else to add at the end of that list but I have drawn a blank.)

Anyway, I admire content creators who post every Wednesday at 9a.m and continue to post every Wednesday at 9a.m until the sky turns a neon pink. They say will run a blogmas or vlogmas, post every day at 6p.m for the next 17 days, and they nail that goal.

I admire them.

I enjoy the fresh stuff they put out. I swear.

Being consistent about posting their content says plenty about them. Nah uh, it doesn’t say, it shows.

It shows that they are:
– Committed to their hustle
– Aligned to their personal values
– Aware of the professional value (immediate and delayed) of being consistent
– Trustworthy: they can trust themselves to rise up when the occasion calls for it
– Confident of their work ethic
– Treasuring of their online community
– Generally disciplined folk

I am consistent with gazeti because that’s where my bread is buttered. Every Saturday and Thursday I have a story running. Urban culture and home styling, in that order.

I am not consistent here because I can get joy from other creative pursuits.

But… but, this is an online platform that has more longevity than the newspaper that carry my stories every week. Newspapers that are read once, then discarded, to be sold to Naivas (30 bob a kilo!) or to line kitchen cabinets or light jikos for boiling githeri (yelp!).

(And for the record, I also roll my eyes as hard when inconsistent content creators come online with this rhetoric.)

2. I am scared that this blog will highlight my insecurities as a creative: Let me put that in perspective. We have body insecurities, yes? We all do. Everybody does. There is no one person in the world who doesn’t look in the mirror and doesn’t fix their eyes on a part of their body they would want enhanced, compressed or ridded of altogether. And there are wardrobe items, accessories that we stay away from because they highlight those insecurities.

You don’t wear above-the-knee skirts and dresses because they expose your skinny chicken legs. You don’t wear sleeveless t-shirts because your arms wiggle about, as though they have been churned out of 100 per cent butter fat. Newsboy hats make your head look like a cashew nut. Skinny jeans make you look like Spike, the bulldog from ‘Tom and Jerry’.

You catch my drift, yes?

Writing for this blog will expose my insecurities as a writer. It will show what a lazy creative I truly am.

All those problem areas I have as a writer – which I will not tell you about! Argh, I’d rather die! – will be highlighted with every story I write and post here. They will be glaring at me, they will be the only thing I see.

A solitary red blotch on the sleeve of a heavenly-white dress shirt.

3. I am scared that I will fail. That I will commit to posting at, say, 10a.m every Thursday, then by week three it becomes Friday 3p.m, week four it’s Saturday 7p.m and by week five we have fallen over the edge, tittered off into the edge of oblivion.

Do you know what failure looks like? It looks like a neglected blog, to start with.

Sigh.

Sigh.

Another sigh.

(And one sigh for you too, Kipyegon. Because I know you are reading this. Even though I just made you up, you don’t exist. But now I feel like using that name for something else besides a phantom reader. Kipyegon, my love.)

This failure will underscore that I am not:
– Committed to my hustle
– Aligned to my personal values
– Aware of the professional value (immediate and delayed) of being consistent
– Confident of my work ethic
– Trustworthy: I can’t trust myself to rise up when the occasion calls for it
– Treasuring of my online community. (Of you, dear reader! You!)
– Disciplined folk

But, I must do this.

I must face this demon I am scared shitless of.

(((((((Scream!)))))))

Because we are in January.

(Well, in the middle of January. Fourteen days in.)

And there is a sense of hope drifting about in the air, shifting from hand to hand.

And we are fresh off the excess of the Holidays.

And we are keen to swallow all the sins our old selves committed.

Most importantly, we are more open to forgiving ourselves and trying again. There is no limit to the number of times you can try. And fail.

So I will try again.

I am giving myself another shot to try at this again.

So here is how this will go.

I will lower my standards down to the floor, down to the bottom of my shoe. Actually, there won’t be any standards at all. Open that window so I can fling all standards out the window.

There we go.

Whatever I will write, I will post.

I will post it no matter how shitty it is. How pointless, frivolous, vain, one-dimensional. How dead it is on arrival.

I don’t know when I will post or how frequently but I will figure that out as soon as this fresh-off-the page story is up on the blog.

The purpose isn’t to become a better creative, but to rebuild that trust in myself that I eroded.

And in that wave of self-reflection, I suppose I should reintroduce myself to you:

Hey. I’m Bett. I am a writer and an author of my self-published book, ‘Should I?’. I am nursing an injury of eroded confidence, an injury I obliviously inflicted on myself over the last 12, 14 months, I’m not sure. I am a little girl right now, knocking at your door with my heart in my hand. [Dwele’s ‘Find a way’ is an apt soundtrack to this moment of nakedness.] Do you think we can try this again? Can you give me another chance to find my way?

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