The Personal Paradox.

It is on a Monday morning. I woke up in high spirits, excited not just for the day but the whole week. In fact the excitement extended to the whole month. I know it sounds funny. You are probably thinking that I won a lottery that would put my problems at bay for a couple of days. Well it is not.

On the flipside, it is a decoy to mask my challenges by giving my mind some positive vibes so that I can get going. I don’t know if it can be equated to the small voice we all have that tells us nothing is wrong with stealing that coveted diamond ring ‘just once’ which is often not the case.

So mine was with me throughout this particular Monday morning telling that if I will manage the high spirits for the day, then probably I will maintain the same even if it were to extend to the whole of 2020 with the promise that “my incognito persona’ will be with me all through this journey.

And with such a promise I was charged up to make it happen for the day. Once ready, I dashed out to the bus stage heading to my first stop for the day. I stood at the stage for a short while and realized there were no vehicles en route my destination. Luckily one came and now that I was after keeping time I boarded and that is where my spirits passed out.

Let me confess that I was going to this route using public transport for the first time in the last about six months. The last time I made this same journey, it was so simple, swift and I looked forward to the next time I would ‘dandia’ one of the minibuses for this route and get going.

This time round, the vehicle I boarded had a story to tell. In fact once I entered it, it looked like a market place. Here were sacks full of vegetables, on the other side was this lady with her little girl carrying live poultry and the chicken were flapping their wings unceremoniously. There were some other women too carrying buckets with raw matumbo inside. This vehicle was so stuffy.

Once I had stepped in, I realized I wouldn’t go to the front of this minibus because the aisle was full to the brim despite some space on the front seat next to the driver. If I was going to sit there, then first I had to device a means to fly and get there and I was not guaranteed landing space despite one or two seats being empty there.

This meant I could only proceed to the rear end of the minibus. I found a space around the back and sat next to this lady who was carrying matumbo, vegetables, mala, and all sorts of stuff. She kept speaking to almost half of the people in the vehicle. Which meant one thing, these people were businesswomen from the same location.

The environment in this place was so awful until I did sweat despite the day being quite cold. About ten minutes into my short journey, the driver did a wrong entry and a traffic policeman flagged us down and boarded the vehicle; there was some tension. This meant lengthening of my misery with all the stuffy environment in there.

The policeman decided to go with the vehicle and I probably think nothing happened. About thirty minutes into the journey, I had arrived at my destination. I can proudly say that about fifteen minutes into the journey, the lady seated next to me had alighted with some other people and I now sat at the window where I could get fresh air. Things eased a bit.

The only thing that didn’t change probably is the fact that the spirits for the day, the week and even month had already died long ago and they probably lay in some grave somewhere. The other thing that didn’t change is the fact that the vehicle was so old and waiting to die any time. This remains a fact supposing the vehicle is still alive now.

I suspect it was one of the reasons the policeman was hard on them. Perhaps in the first place the vehicle is not supposed to be on the road. I thought itself as these old men who go telling young women that I may look sixty on the outside but deep inside, I am just twenty five.

The supplies division I was going to see on this ‘lovely’ morning went ahead to keep me waiting for a whole one hour despite the fact that I had called earlier to notify them of my coming for this short meeting that ended up eating a huge junk of my time for the day.

By noon I was a different person from the one who left the house. All had gone south when I was expected to be at the north. And that is the paradox of our lives. We stay in the ideal zone when ideally we are expected to be in the reality zone.

And mind you my WhatsApp status set at 6 am that morning read, “Lost money can be found. Lost time is lost forever. Don’t waste your precious time waiting in the wrong lines.” And there was a pic with a long queue in the complaints line as opposed to nobody in the gratitude line. And what have I been doing in this article? Complaining or wondering out loud?

Whatever your answer will be to those questions, that is the paradox of our personal lives. It is life.

End.