Sir. Vince

I have been going to Quiver, trying to convince myself that I am still a child worthy of a Gen Z nyash, but reality bites harder every day. I am an old, middle-aged man who should know my place. Old age kinda corners you. You don't see it coming. One moment, you are a swashbuckling young man, drinking tons of vodka shots until 5 a.m. and still managing to wake up at 6.30 a.m. and being able to function the whole day, though milking cold water out of the dispenser every 20 minutes. And then, you are old. Because, tell me, what in the name of morbid coincidence is happening to me? In the last two weeks, all the random conversations I have had with fellow men in my age bracket have revolved around retirement. Just the other day, I was talking about the beauty of female jeans, pants, and good thighs, but in the last week, everywhere I turn up, my fellow men are talking about happy retirement. Like, why, in the name of Adani, was I discussing mortality with Tony Ontita, whose uncle is fighting for his life in a city hospital, and he (the uncle) is not quite 60? And did that send us on a contemplative spin, boy? Old age is a massacre. Because adulthood and adulting are curiously nonsensical exercises. One day, you are 25, graduating from university, happy as a 25-year-old can be, surrounded by family and friends, getting wasted in your bash in some club on the outskirts of town. You blink, you are 30, happily in love, wearing a matching kitenge with the love of your life, holding a first-born son, got that promotion, maybe getting stationed in the London headquarters of your auditing firm. Life is good. You blink; you are 38, divorced, bitter, with nothing. Or a single mom of two, a deadbeat who gave up on life. Or an ex-husband who refuses to heal. Who can't move on. Hata hajui jokes, like, are you not supposed to move on with your mzungu loverboy. Or you are 47, relocating to North America after realizing by the time Ruto is done stopping our cows from farting, there will be no country left for older men. In that discussion with Tony, we reviewed our lives. Tony said he feels fresh as mint. I told him, "miaka imenipeleka mbio maze". There was a mutual and private fear on our faces about what life is for a man as he approached 40. And nothing prepares you for these things. Parents are dying. Friends catching fatal lifestyle diseases. Divorces. Relocations. Displacements. Like your best friend's teenage son or daughter doing the unthinkable. You know, the big stuff that adults used to handle: death, weddings, children, truancy, teenage pregnancies, questionable sexual practices in kids. How do we process this when we are not finished growing ourselves? And then, retirement and death are upon us. Not too long ago, Bishop Chomba told us at a gathering that if we think living is harder, try dying. And thus, for men, millennial men, we have to think about retirement, with three possibilities in mind. Your loving wife and children will either surround you, and you will grow old together, bringing the grandchildren home and enjoying time with your naughty grandson or admiring the sheer confidence of your granddaughter. Or, you will be painfully separated from your wife, weirdly estranged from your children, who you gave everything to, but they still chose their own lives. Or you will be alone, maybe never married or remarried, and you may even die in your house only to be discovered a few days later. We talk about these things and how to mitigate them. Some say it doesn’t matter how you die; we all die. But I imagine a feverish attack, such as one I had not too long ago at 3 a.m. I was sweating like a boxer on the 20th round, fighting for my life, and I couldn’t even reach my phone, and neither did I have anyone to call, seeing as my nearest relative lives 69 kilometers from Kitengela, and I don’t know my neighbors. As men, we have talked about communities, about building homes near each other, and about investing in nursing and care homes suitable for our tall limbs. We have talked about investing in our families, wives, and kids, but the common rider is that we shouldn't expect much from our wives or kids; we just do our fatherly duties and carry on with life. Also, as you may have seen with your city-born cuzos, children raised in cities are cold. They are not overly sentimental about life and kinship. And thus, as we get displaced, as we move further away from our ancestral homes, as we make peace with death and where to be buried, more and more men are realizing you were born alone and you will die alone. It is OK to plan for retirement. You may be lucky, and the seeds you plant, you will reap off well. Sometimes, life laughs at our hollow laid-out plans. But whatever you do, never stop thinking about the kind of retirement you want, where and when. And for a man, from that famous letter I wrote to you, we will be mostly alone in our 50s going to the 60s, regardless of the circumstances. There should be no one to blame for how we end up. Just think about it. It has been 13 years since I graduated from undergrad and 8 years since graduate school. If I live long enough, Alhamdulillah, I will be in the retirement zone in another 13 years. It is not really scary. It is just anticlimactic. But as we cheat ourselves, young is as young feels. Happy Jamhuri Day.