The 42nd

I’m evolving.
I didn’t notice it at first. It crept slowly on me like the slow song of a relationship. You meet a girl accidentally at breakfast, you talk to her, you laugh at her jokes, you buy her dinner and then you wake the next morning to find out she has been your girlfriend for the last 3 years.
Well I woke up yesterday and realized that I have become a different kind of blogger.

I have no idea exactly what type of blogger I am becoming. I am unsure if this lethargy of mine is some seasonal hiccup which will change with the eventual passage of time or if It will remain, grow and eventually claim a full hold on me forcing me into the graveyard of bloggers where the once mighty—Ozaveshe, Littlemissme and lately ( dear God no) Afrobabe—now rest in undefined hibernation. I am full of hope that it is the former but caution prevents me from completely ignoring the later. Doing so would be a dangerous thing. A complete disregard for an unwelcome possibility.
Like a girlfriend who comes back home to find lingerie in her boyfriend’s bed.
Well in line with her wardrobe colors and designer but unsettling in that it happens to be two sizes too large.

I have been a blogger for over a year now.
When I joined Blogville it was for two reasons. I sought a medium in which I could share some of my insanity without the recriminating snorts of disgust or looks of perplexity that normally followed my voiced opinion. My year long sojourn has made me realize the flaw in my plan. It seems everyone else on Blogville joined for the same reasons. Now I wonder what I was thinking. A community comprised of bookworms, nerds and intellectual socialites—where did I get off thinking that I would be the lone alien in their written world. Back then it certainly left me shocked.
The discovery of a world where aesthetics was accepted and insanity condoned as Talent.
A world which I delightfully explored.
The second reason was just as important. I sought to become a better writer. I had at the time just finished writing a 60 paged short story that I was half satisfied with(I read it once and thrashed the story into some nameless folder on my hard drive). There are two things vital to writing a good book. Talent and Discipline. The way I saw it, if I could manage a year of regular blog writing then I could consider myself firmly on the path of the later. As far as talent was concerned I figured showcasing my writing would give me an idea of how good or terrible I really was.

A year has gone by and I have formed some idea on the subjects.
It has been an entertaining, if indeed slightly alarming, ride. I honestly do not think this fun ride of mine will come to an end. But that will depend a lot on my determination, resilience and creativity. Factors you would expect a boyfriend to have when he returns home one evening to meet his girlfriend of two years with her bag all packed up and the dining table all set out.
Served on his plate is the flaming red Bra.
Two sizes too large.

And so I write this fully determined to ensure that this is not my last post.
In truth there is very little to suggest that I have become a slow blogger. Looking over my archive I seem to have maintained a steady average of posts over the months. But blogging, as I have come to know it is not just about the posts. It is about the play behind the posts. The little comments we live from page to page, tiny notes that say we are here. We read you. We care about you. Notes that I have failed to deliver in quite a while.
I suppose this is what work does to you. A year ago I was a complaining student. Now I am an annoyed African struggling to fan his tiny life into a roaring start. My days seem more taken with work related matters and when I think of blogging, it is with the fond air of a period when I was able to find an hour in a week to type out the story of my last 7 days. An hour in which to go visiting dear friends. An hour to read the running debate for the week whilst laughing at the undefined flirting. An hour which, my watch now warns me is almost up.
This is my 42nd post. I write this fully confident that I shall return to write a 43rd. I am only uncertain as to when this will happen. It might be next week or next month. I do not know. What I do know is that I have deeply enjoyed the time I have spent with you and plead that you forgive my silence. My slip is not because I love you any less but because I love you more and wish to fulfill the high standards we have all, inaudibly, set for ourselves.
A line of defense that might have better served the philandering boyfriend had he decided to use it, instead of his blasé retort that the Flaming Red Bra belonged to his favorite Aunt who had visited him.
An argument whose shaky foundation was even further weakened by the fact that the last time his Aunt visited him, she was recovering from a Mastectomy.
A recovery which sadly resulted in complications and her death.
6 years ago.