Journey of Becoming || Myra Trudea Okumu

 

By Myra Trudea Okumu

"For me, becoming isn't about arriving somewhere or achieving a certain aim. I see it instead as forward motion, a means of evolving, a way to reach continuously toward a better self. The journey doesn't end." - Michelle Obama

A question that I  get asked frequently is why I write followed by how long I have kept my Dreadlocks but that’s besides the point. 

It may seem like an easy question with an even easier answer but it’s more complicated than that because my love (and passion) for writing goes beyond trying to make money out of something that, quite frankly, comes easily to me.

The first book (not novel) I ever read was called ‘habitats’ and the title itself is quite telling. I was 6 and I could barely read 10 sentences without getting a headache but I loved it. My dad loved books, probably still loves them and he loved reading them so much. 

I found it fascinating how he could get lost in the book he was reading, glued to the pages with sheer concentration alone. He would read for days nonstop: when he woke up, before, during and after meal, before and after anything at all.

I always thought to myself “why?” why be so in love with worded characters and stories? How did one get so lost in pages of tale gripping suspense they ignored the reality around them?

I took my “habitats” book to my dad and we sat there for hours as he tried to get me to the end, the whole time explaining the big words such as “wilderness”. He was a patient with my slow progress and  when we were done, a sunset later, he dared me to read a book a week  and at the end of every week, I’d have to tell him everything I had read and a new word I had come across. My reading picked up considerably, as did my vocabulary.

By the time I was eight, my dad will drop me at the school library on Saturdays at eight, bring me a hotdog at twelve and pick me up at three. Every Saturday and he never missed a day. It became a ritual, a routine.

Fast forward to 12, I had read hundreds of book and this is no exaggeration (my secondary school friends can testify). I got in so much trouble from reading novels during lessons, I can’t count how many books were confiscated from me. I also lost count of the punishments that followed, I was living in my fairytale worlds from Harry Potter to Queen of Babble.

It was (is) because of my dad that I fell in love with words, utter and hopeless love. Maybe I am a writer because of him. Because of that Sunday Afternoon he sat down and ignored the world to teach me a few words.

Why do I write? 

I write because I love how words blend together to tell a story. 

I write because my thoughts are best expressed as stains of ink blackening paper.

I write because I feel more alive when letters become words that become sentences that keep people glued like my dad when he grabbed a remarkable book.

I write because a writer is the only thing I truly dream of being, of becoming.  It’s something I do with a burning passion and something that keeps me grounded in the person that I am.

Why do you do the things that you love?

Let me know in the comments.🤍