Universal Intertia

When I was sixteen I was in a car crash. More like I crashed the car but that’s not the point. I remember the moment when I realized the crash was inevitable, it wasn’t a terrible feeling it was just as if knowledge had been added. Rocks are hard, waters wet and I am about to total this car. I looked down and thought “oh good the airbags are deploying”.

It’s that sort of calm inevitably at high speeds I feel now.

I officially have no idea what’s next as school plans just changed completely,” change” here meaning disappeared, so I have no idea where I am headed. I just know I am headed forward. Or backwards. Maybe sideways? I just know the movement can’t stop.

I thought so many things before I arrived that I unthink now. I don’t disagree with them so much as think them backwards. Try to figure out where the ideas came from and why they are here.

I have lost myself completely. I feel like I’m floating alone with nothing solid. Maybe there is just nothingness. But it’s a special nothingness. It’s the nothingness of possibility. It’s not scary, it’s enticing, it’s comforting, it’s everything. An everything nothingness.

I guess it’s more like emptiness that I’m excited to fill.

I don’t know what the existentialists are bitching about. “Who am I?” and “why am I here?” aren’t depressing they’re electrifying.

Who the hell am I? I’m whoever the fuck I want to be. I’m here because I want to be. I’m doing this because I can.

Look at me, I’m alive. I can run and I can jump and I can scream and I can be whoever and whatever I want.

You surround yourself with your riches but my wealth is in my potential. It’s opposite-tangible because it has to be but I love it this way. The blankness is what allows me to open my arms and spin. I feel bad for those who are caught and choked by their reasons. To those who can’t move because they are too cramped by plans I am sorry. I encourage you to throw them out.

I don’t even know where this writing is going. It’s open ended. Never ended. Ever ended.

I’ve either completely lost my mind or reached enlightenment.



I have no idea what’s next but I’m not afraid. It’s like I’m falling to my back but instead of bracing I’m enjoying the view of the sky.

I love you all for reading my blog and considering my thoughts and paying attentions to my actions. If my blog has ever given you any advice or thoughts about your own life then know this now.

Do not be afraid of the landing.

It can be soft or hard or anything in between but we have no idea. Life becomes much more fun, more enticing, more enjoyable, when you cease to flail your arms and legs and brace for the inevitable. When you just let the free falling sensation wash over you, you are allowed to open your eyes in all directions. The world gets bigger and smaller- bigger in that you can finally see it and smaller in that you can see yourself as a continuation of it rather then a piece of it- and infinitely more beautiful.

If I have learned nothing else in Africa then this is the lesson I will hold dear for the rest of my life.

This acceptance is within everyone here, priests, children, volunteers, and comes in all forms. It is this that allows us to work through what seemed like it would kill us months ago.

I wrote about faith and how it here in places it has no business being because to the people here just being alive, even for minutes, is enough of a gift to celebrate and thank god for. I understood that on an intellectual level but now it has made it’s way into my core being.

I am, we are, so lucky to have the whole world before us.

I know what direction I’m moving. Front-wise. I am just going and going because how in the hell can a person stop when life exists in all it’s wonder?

I hope this manic ecstasy has shaken you up the way it has me. I hope it has made you too big for your own skin so that you have to get up and see what you can do with your new self.

Please don’t be afraid. (and please pay me for this advice. Through donations. Hahaha just kidding. Not really.)

I know this had little to do with Africa and completely lacked the story telling you are used to. Sorry. Had to get it out. If you are unsatisfied here is a quick anecdote-

I was locked in my room for 3 hours a few days ago as the door was broken. I am visiting a new mission and had no one’s phone number so I just had to sit and wait for a solution to present itself. Which it did in two small children I scared the hell out of after I leaned out of a window and yelled for them. One of the kids ran away the toher fought with the door for a few minutes until leaving to find someone else. Once the oor was finally opened I realized I couldn’t find my phone. Once the phone was found the lights wouldn’t turn on. This has caused me to come the the conclusion that problems, much like matter, are never created or destroyed. They simply change shape.

I love you and will be home in four months.
Aliya (or Aliambo if you are in Kisumu.)