Parting is such sweet sorrow

I have a friend who’s always been ahead of the curve. Ever since we were in high school together, she was always two steps ahead.

She got better grades and never got in trouble. When the headmistress handed out merits for the best performers during assembly, her name was always on the list.

Mine was too, except I usually got demerits for jumping out of the lab window during Chemistry period. She was a junior prefect. And then a senior one. And when the O’Level examination results came out she got straight ‘As’.

Belinda was always very serious about life. She always knew what she was going to do next. So predictably, while the rest of us were getting up to no good waiting to be called to campus, she had already enrolled in a pre-university course in the UK. By the time I was joining university, she was in second year.

In her final year of uni, while the rest of us were getting up to no good trying to figure out which electives we were going to take, she was meeting with potential employers, lining up her first job. By the time I graduated, she was already employed, and at a bank no less, making good money. As I say, she was always ahead of the curve. Me? I didn’t even know there was a curve and if I had done, I would have been behind it. So I admired Belinda for her drive and her focus, but I was never tempted to borrow a leaf from her book.

I thought her life was too regimented and I was supposed to be a free spirit. Belinda was all about strategy. “So, what’s your five-year plan?” she would ask over and over again. “Eish! Who thinks that far ahead,” was my response, over and over again. Looking back, I should have taken her more seriously. Now she’s running a multi-million shilling enterprise. Me? I’ve spent two of the most adventurous years of my life writing this column and producing this magazine. There has been sweetness and there has been sorrow, but every day has been an awakening. I came here to work for a living never expecting to learn so much about life itself.

About light and shadow and how they can exist side by side. About weakness. About strength. About good and bad. And how you cannot have one without the other. So, as I write this for the last time, our parting is indeed bittersweet. It feels like saying goodbye to a family you’ve never met.

But it’s been real y’all, even if I don’t come out of it with millions of shillings. And hey, it’s never really goodbye, it’s just see you later…