Author: Miss Injairu

I have made peace with my own death.

I’ve been thinking a lot about life and mortality lately. Not in a fearful way, but in a reflective one. I’ve realised I’m strangely at peace with the idea of my own death. What I’m not at peace with and maybe never will be is the thought of losing the people I love. Watching someone you care about walk through grief is one of the sharpest pains life can hand you. A part of you goes with the person you lose, and somehow life reshapes you in ways you never asked for.

This week, those thoughts have sat with me more than usual. Not in a dark way just present. I keep thinking about how heavy grief is for the ones left behind. That part hurts the most.

This year alone, I’ve stood beside people mourning people they loved deeply. I’ve been in cold, quiet hospital corridors. I’ve gone to the mortuary in the middle of the night. I’ve cried over someone I never met simply because I could feel the ache of those who loved them. It reminded me again how fragile and sacred life really is.

As a child, I used to think it would be easier if I were the first one to go. Then life happened. Grief showed me its teeth. I watched each one of us shatter when my sister died, and I realised nothing about loss is ever simple.

And yet still every morning..I wake up and thank God for breath, for life, for one more day.

Love and light.

Cheers

Somewhere in the middle of the year, I read a quote that said, “There are flowers growing in my chest again.” I saved it. Somehow it made sense, but I thought it didn’t make sense in that moment not in the phase I was in.

Then on Saturday, 22nd November at 8:17 a.m., I got out of bed and the first thought that came to mind was, “There are flowers in my chest again.” I can’t tell why that was the very first thought, but I gently got up, headed to the living room to take my pen because I wanted to journal, and as I was walking, another thought struck me….“There are flowers in my chest.”
Not again. Because genuinely, I didn’t have an “again.” It was the first time I was truly feeling flowers growing in my chest.

For the first time, I felt so alive in my last stretch of 28 years of being alive.

I didn’t cry. I sat with the feeling. I felt it. Then I took my pen and I wrote… and I kept writing. And then I prayed.

The last paragraph of that journal entry read…
“28 years could be late. But it is not late for me. It is sacred. It has happened exactly how and when it was supposed to happen. Above everything, I am so grateful it has happened either way. I am so happy to experience flowers growing in my chest. I am so grateful to experience life within me. Love and light.”

Chapter 11 of 12 has been a mix of many things. On the first day of November I said,
“I’m walking into Chapter 11 with gratitude and love.”

And every day of it, I reminded myself to be grateful… even at one point when I almost lost my job, I still sat in the moment with gratitude. And that feeling has taught me just how much beauty there is in contentment.

I wake up every day to chase the life I desire, but layered within those beautiful ambitions, there’s a solid form of contentment that I’m still figuring out how to express. Honestly, I’ve been wanting to write about contentment, but I’m still feeling it.. still enjoying the beauty of it.

Taking every day with so much grace and gratitude. I have appreciated every day in this month of November.

Yesterday on Pinterest, I bumped into a quote by L. M. Montgomery that read…
“It was November, the month of crimson sunsets, parting birds, deep, sad hymns of the sea, passionate wind-songs in the pines.”

Something so simple, easy to ignore and read like it’s nothing… but it left such a profound emotion in my heart. I smiled. And then I thought, honestly, that’s basically been November for me.
I have cried.
I have laughed.
I have gone off on people who tried to cross my boundaries. (I no longer play about my boundaries)
I have grown.
I have mastered contentment.
I have listened to beautiful music.
I have listened to lovely sounds on YouTube.
I have danced so much in my room.
I have been tired.
I have been full of life.
I have made beautiful memories.
I have been met by the most amazing surprises.
I have learnt to pause before responding.
I have learnt not to take other people’s actions personally.
I have lived.
I have fallen in love with myself so hard.
I have found life within me.
This has been November for me.. layered with truly living.

I’ve been excited about Decembers since I was a kid, as far as my memory goes. But I have never been this honestly excited.. with the life inside me, with the flowers growing within me. This one is a different one.

Just like Chapter 11, I am walking into Chapter 12 of 12 with a heart full of gratitude. Praying that God sees us through the end of the year with His protection and grace.

Wishing every soul that will bump into this an amazing month ahead. Live a little. Party hard if that’s your thing, okaaay play haaaard, and take good care of yourself.

Love and light.

Cheers.

It’s raining. I have started writing this at exactly 4:37pm. I’ve been wanting to write all day, but my creativity has felt scattered lately. And I’ve been a bit scared of disappointing myself, because writing is one of the things I enjoy most… well, alongside the sketching habit I’ve recently picked up. (I sketch like a two-year-old, but I love it anyway.)

Sunsets. Golden hour. Evenings softened by people who make our hearts melt. Witty banter. Shots of good tequila. Then that strange cocktail that started as a joke and somehow worked. I’m surrounded by delightful weirdos…people who take tea right before a bender, people who surprise me every other minute. Some weeks..like this one.. carry these small, unexpected joys. And the “cocktail” that wasn’t really a cocktail? Water. Ice. Tequila. Whiskey. Delmonte. Lemon. Chaos. Magic.

Then the photographer arrives. Anyone who knows me knows I don’t like having my pictures taken but I love taking pictures of other people. He has these interesting dreadlocks. He takes beautiful silhouettes of the sweet souls I am with, then I’m asked to go try one. I stand up (miraculously not staggering) and tell him I want a shot where I’m gently holding the sunset. He says, “Say no more.”

The lake is beautiful. The sunset is breathtaking. 

But I doubt he’ll capture it well.

His battery dies. He assures me he “already got a hot one.” I laugh because.. yeah, right.

He disappears, comes back, shows the picture to the soul beside me. They go, “daaamn, hi ni kali.” I stay unimpressed. I keep staring at the lake. Then he shows me the photo… and I’m like, “daaamn! it’s actually good.”

The evening unfolds. Live band, then the DJ.

The lake shimmering under the night.

And I keep watching people my favorite habit. Quietly, without making it awkward. 

The tiny, strange things you notice about strangers? Fascinating.

Then I get into a conversation, of course I love a good conversation. Then back to silence. Then a lot of trips to the washroom.

My toes feel weird. Wrong shoes. Feels like stepping on sand over and over. Not the grounding I had in mind. Mental note…. wear better shoes next time. And I do want a next time…to feel everything I felt, to listen to the lake more intentionally.

These are the moments I treasure.

The evening disappears quickly, the way all good things do. Darkness wraps around us. I barely touched my phone. I just existed. I took it all in the softness of the moment, the music, the laughter, the lake, the warmth.

To more days of chasing sunsets.

It’s now 4:58pm. The rain stopped without me noticing. I was too lost in this.

Today, I slowed down. I feel calm. Peaceful.

It’s not too late to wish you sweet souls a beautiful weekend.

Cheers.

Today in the morning, I do the curtains, and there’s this shadow cast on my bed. It’s coming through the window because my bed is right there by the window. So in my head I’m like, “Okay, so earth is doing that thing where I notice shadows in very unusual places.”

I raise my curtain slightly to confirm whether it’s just the curtain but no, it’s not.

And I love realizing these insane little things I can’t explain like a normal human, but they happen to me often. Like those late afternoons or early evenings when weird shadows fall on buildings… it’s the usual sunset but in a completely different way, and it happens maybe twice a year. I usually notice this mostly in August. 

According to my findings…which, please, don’t fact-check, because even I don’t fully understand what I’m trying to say…it makes perfect sense in my head though, okay?

But I just know that on my lazy days, I can never actually stay lazy in bed because the sun is usually directed right at me. (I bet God did that intentionally because He knew.)

But today? I can’t feel that sun, and it’s sunny outside. Very sunny.

Okay, let me stop with that.

I’m going back to YouTube Premium specifically because I haaaaaaaaaate this ad….“Do you suspect that you’re being cheated on?”

Come on, please!! I loathe that ad.

And before you even say, “Val, it’s probably your algorithm,” no sir!

I binge on Joyride, countryside content, therapy and wellness videos, workouts, and this doctor I love who teaches self-healing without medication….it’s hard to explain that part. I watch geography stuff too. Like yes, please, I want to understand Madagascar in all its uniqueness.

So I genuinely don’t understand how YouTube thinks I suspect I’m being cheated on (I am yelling). Because first of all…by who??? 🤣

But say, for instance, I ever found myself in a situation where I suspected someone was cheating on me (God forbid…Riswaaaaa)… I don’t think I’d go snooping to find out. Woooooooh!

That’s literally walking myself toward pain. Hapana!

I’d rather have it find me when I’m not looking. I don’t like stress, please.

In better terms, I’d call that detachment not ignorance.

Knowing that either way, I’ll be okay.

I know pain too well, and I’ve learned to embrace it, so…

I wanted to talk about the sketch pad I was gifted and how my sketching is coming along, but my intrusive thoughts won again. So I guess that will be a story for another day.

Sending you love and light from Gimarakwa village.

Cheers🌸