I’m scared

“Omg, life was getting kinda boring.”

Fear; both my enemy and my biggest fan.

S said “I’m so happy for you” when I told her I lost my job 😂

For months I had been saying I would get serious about finding a real gig in September. The official end of my “BS year”. I finished my masters in 2024 and 2 days after my course end date, caught a flight to Berlin.

I committed myself to a year of jumping off the ledge in every way. For me, that has meant catching the cheapest flight from Stansted, barely within the luggage limit.

Last days at my old job 🥲

Berlin

Eichstatt

Munich

London

Brussels

Ghent

Brugge

Slint

Nairobi

Diani

Vlorë

Tiranë

Belfast

Bangor

Berlin

Leipzig

Dresden

Prague

Vienna

Salzburg

Munich

Eichstatt

Berlin

God has a sense of humour. My BS year ended on the 9th of September 2025 as I caught my flight back to London from Berlin.

Right on schedule. I started to take my job search seriously.

I have been scared before. So many times in my life. The lore is deeper than I can share. Only my family know the depth of my journey. Since I was 13 I have navigated life in ways I cannot recount to just anyone.

Hang on, I wasn’t abused or anything…

I come from a loving home. My parents supported every single dream I had. My dad bought my violin, guitar, recorder, theory books, paid for all my exams and walked me to the exam room in Kampala to make sure I was a qualified musician. He walked me to school every day until I asked him to stop. He sang me and my siblings to sleep every night, except for when my mum did.

My mum bought loads of art supplies. Paint, felt, knitting needles, yarn, thread, crochet hooks, loom bands, beads, my dad took off the training wheels on my bike with pink streamers and now I cycle around the world.

My parents are at the core of everything I am. My mum is my sun. Illuminating everything she touches, she calls me her universe. Ever since I was a girl, she constantly told and tells me that my worth is “far above rubies.” She tells me to go to all 4 corners of the earth and to never settle for a life smaller than the galaxy.

My dad is the bass drum, a quiet metronome. Consistent. Disciplined. On time. He made sure I was ready to navigate the world my mum wanted me to see. He taught me to do the math. To make calculated strides.

Sometimes I throw caution to the wind, spend my last coins on a stranger, and sing in the street like my mum, and sometimes I count all my coins like my dad. It really just depends on the day.

My kukhu, she taught me to love myself. “My child, get your master’s degree… & never let a man…” 💀 My kukhu taught me what it means to be a woman who goes against the grain. She showed me that being nice gets you nowhere. A feminist ahead of her time. Pushed folded bills into my waiting palm every chance she got, because she always had more of it stashed somewhere. Saw me off at the bus stop until she couldn’t. I miss her every day.

Together, they form my trinity: intuition, logic and rebellion.

My kukhu

But life is not without its difficulties.

There will be some things that you have to do alone.

And I have done many things alone.

I walked across a flooded river to get to my violin class, I walked the back routes in langata at 6:00am to school and felt ashamed that no one dropped me off in a big fancy car. I have had to choose between lunch money and bus fare. And if I chose lunch then I would walk.

Many times in my life after hardship I say,

“if I could do that, at 13, 16, 18, 23, then surely I can do this.”

Lloyd and I walked into 2025 all moneyed up but by the 20th, after some light navigation on Gov.UK and an UKVI email, only the shadows of £3,000 echoed through my account. I had £3 to last me till the end of the month. It’s now the 4th of November 2025 and I have been to over 9 cities, have taken up & dropped countless new interests and have started a new career arc.

I can do it. I have done it. I will do it.

I have been petrified. I had never been to Albania. I just woke up one day and thought… Albania is visa free.😏

And then I went to Albania…to see for myself.

I have been so scared. The fear never leaves. The night before a solo trip I can’t sleep, I toss and turn sometimes, other times I don’t sleep at all. But the fear has never been a reason not to go.

Northern Ireland is also visa free…

I don’t care about fear. She’s always going to be there. I do it scared. I love adrenaline! Fear reminds me that I’m alive!! That I need to act!!

My contract ends in less than 60 days. Not a single full time job in the horizon, but don’t be mistaken, opportunity is EVERYWHERE!!! 😂

I am scared. But what about it ? I’ve been scared before and I didn’t die. In Vienna, I wanted to go on an amusement park ride. Just before I got on, I saw the sides shake. 🫨

All the more reason to get on.

The moment just before the drop is everything to me. The free fall just before I am caught sets me on fire! Absurdist euphoria they call it.

As I dangle in the air, hanging on a wire, there can only be two outcomes. Life or death. Therefore life is just that simple.

Either you live or die. The universe is too carefully crafted for anything to be a fluke.

I’ll be okay.

Perhaps I am too reckless. But the problem is, my way of living is always rewarded. It always works out!!

A lot of life has been difficult and I would be a fool to try and conceal that with platitudes. My endurance and capacity to thrive in uncertainty have been earned through hardship.

Perhaps at some point I travelled as a form of escapism, now I travel to meet myself in uncertainty.

Any alternative you might like to offer me is eliminated by my belief system..

…because it works.