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Who's to say part 5: The pause I needed

 

Yikes 2!

So, my acne treatment from my mwitu Doctor seemed to be working but l unfortunately didn’t notice something until it was too late. To understand how this happened, l may have to tell you about my routine during that time. It was more of work, sleep, remember to eat and repeat. To be honest l used to be consumed with my work that I forgot to eat at times, i had a job that consumed me and l liked it. I was a workaholic and worked till odd hours and more often than not, ended up consuming one meal a day or just a snack. Funnily enough l always remembered to sleep or it was more of my body giving in to its physiological need. I lost 10kg within a month!

 

‘My child you haven’t been eating!’

 

These were among the first words my mum said to me when l went to visit them at home. Dad’s reaction was more of, ‘He! Kwani there was no food in Nairobi?’ Mum then told me to ask my boss to work from outside Nairobi so l can regain a healthy weight. After talking to my boss on working outside Nairobi and taking one week leave of absence, I then suddenly felt the weight.  It seemed l was hiding behind work, i was depressed and work had become my escape route. I was to use my one week at home to heal and regain my whole me.

 

Orusungu, my parents’ Ugandan househelp, made sure she called me for meals and whenever I didn't turn up after everyone had eaten, she brought it up to my room. ‘Orusungu is coiled from luyha word to mean one who just speaks English.’ I never actually felt like eating but had to as mum would call from her workplace to ensure l ate or dad would drop by at lunch hour so he can eat with me.  After a while, being at home healed me inside out; l talked, laughed, prayed, played and jumped. I even added 5kgs. This was the pause that l needed.  I was able to resume back to work and had reminders for breaks, this how my workdays looked like:

 

Time

Tasks

8.00am - 9.00am

-Breakfast

-Respond to emails

9.00am - 1.00pm:  

-Work on urgent tasks1

-Have a snack

 

1.00pm - 2.00pm

-Lunch break

-Respond to emails

 

2.00pm - 4.30pm

-Work on other tasks

-Have a snack

 

4.30pm - 5.00pm

-Plan for the next day tasks

-Respond to any pending emails

-End of work hours

5.00pm - 6.00pm

-Exercise

-Prepare dinner

 

6.00pm-11.00pm

-Eat dinner

-Snack(healthy)

-Read a novel

-Watch NEWS

-Sleep


To be continued

Writing about this was so hard and i took many breaks from writing. I wanted to throw in humor as l always do but couldn’t bring myself to. That moment in my life was hard, I didn’t know something was eating me alive until I gave my life a pause. Remember to take pauses but never stop. 

 

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