You know it’s bad when I just made it my first ever published blog!

Background: I opened a WordPress account about three months ago. I thought I was going to put my scattered thoughts and philosophies in it, and maybe publish some. But like any other (non)writer, you never get around to doing it. Well, look what just broke the first shell!

Today was a long and emotional day. No, nothing dramatic was going on. It has just been tiny things mounting in my head. And because I was off ‘studying’ today, the overactive mind was at liberty to ponder on my feelings and sources of overwhelm. Let me see if I can break some of them down:

1. It has been five months since I moved 11,000km away from home to this beautiful, gifted island, and I officially miss home :(. I thought I was immune. I wasn’t a busybody or social butterfly back home. Apart from Unplugged, I was very much a homebody, with a small circle of friends (only a couple if I’m being honest). But I could go to Norton to see my dad anytime I wanted. Literally any random time. Or tete Vimbai would pop up on my doorstep on some weekends and we’d hang out and have a sleepover that would sometimes turn out to be for days. Or Fungie would randomly show up at my apartment with a piece of cake, a cinnamon bun she thought I might like, or donuts, or salads, or ingredients for a full blown dinner and pester me about all sorts of things, or delegate herself to a suicide watch on me if I’m upset about something. The homesickness bug has got me in the bag y’all! 😥 😥 I didn’t do myself any favor by watching a couple of military homecoming videos this afternoon, either. (click here for some tear jerkers)
2. My studies for the September exam session have slowed down. Haha. The life of a tired actuarial student, what’s new. Lost the mojo a week and a half ago, it’s still not back. I was supposed to submit two assignments today. Only managed to submit one. And a half-backed one for that (I’m sorry, Acted).
3. Moleen, a woman I have cried with while on our knees numerous times in prayer. The tears she has let me shed in her arms in her house muna Ferguson muye, only God knows that some of them literally saved my life. Something great happened for her yesterday. She was so happy and I was so happy we both stupidly cried throughout the day as we chatted on WhatsApp. And because of this alone, my faith is on its way to restoration.
4. The island fever hit me a few weeks ago ,and even though I took a trip to see my favorite young family in Philly last week, I don’t think it’s all gone just yet.
5. I just feel blah – I don’t have energy, my health feels off. I just retched my guts out on Monday at 5 am, no idea what that was all about. (I am not pregnant, but I appreciate your enthusiasm). I have lots of things on my to-do list and very little has been checked off this week. As I took a walk this evening (a thing I do to feel better. It works most times.), I knew I was going to bawl my eyes out at some point tonight. Just to let some of it out. A release. But here is the hilarious thing that triggered the waterworks:
6. So, along with the intense humidity, Gombeys (looove these! I have put a picture of them at the bottom), pink sand beaches and swizzle and rum, Bermuda comes with a very healthy ecosystem of (mega-sized) bugs. I’m talking rats that look like kittens, cockroaches 5 cm long, and all that. I am NOT kidding. NOOOOW, anyone who knows a little too much about me will know that I can watch and appreciate a lot of flying and crawling organisms, but Lord help me, I cannot handle frogs. Why do they look so squishy?? and sometimes bumpy, and sometimes too smooth. They feel cold. and you can see their pulse through their skin. AND! The have the most unpredictable hops! Aaaarrgh! I cannot tell whether you are gunning for my mouth or just taking a small hop to look the other way. My face is all messed up in disgust as I type this. Turns out the fear is a thing, and it’s called ranidaphobia. I still go back to an incident 13 years ago in high school, and I shudder. Anyhu. So I got to my house, and I spot the hopful amphibian on my outside door mat, and I think oh oh, not what I need today, but it’s fine, I won’t fight. By the way, despite them being so common here, I had never actually encountered one close to my house. I get closer to the door to put my key in, and there is another hopful amphibi on the door! A little smaller. Now, with the hopful amphibis, the smaller they are, the creepier they get. It could just be me. I’m like ‘ey, I am not in the mood to be playing you’re it with y’all right now, I am having a bad hour, day, week, era. And then I spot the third one on the door crack. Even smaller than the second hopful amphibi. The second and third amphibis are so well positioned they could very easily hop into my house the moment I open the door (plus their random hop path advantage. Smh). So I back away from the door, go to my landlord who was sitting on his side of the house minding his own business, and I ask him if he knows anything I can use in the future to make sure these Bermuda gifts are not in my A-zone in the future. Baygon, cayenne+dishwashing liquid mixture, some funny pearls that I can get in a hardware. I think I let the conversation go two minutes longer than it could have because I was hoping the 3 hopful amphibis would be gone by the time I got back to my door. They were still there. AND there was yet another one, the tiniest of them all, the size of my pinky finger nail bed (I swear), on the window seal. I was not going to stand around and discover any more of them.

So I unlocked the door, got inside the house very carefully, closed all the windows, checked for any tiny hopful amphibian home invaders inside the house, then sat on my bed and cried my heart and nerves out.

PS: By the time I finished writing this, it was 11.23 pm, and I am feeling much better 🙂

PS-2: I could do with a win, anyone knows a good idea I can pitch to my company that is centered around education or learning and development? There is this thing I want to apply for, and I could do with a win right now.

Thank you for getting this far! It has been a long rant.