There’s this mad little routine I’ve developed where I wake up bright-eyed at 2:30 in the morning. No alarm, just eyes open, brain online. I’ll get dressed, put the kettle on, brew coffee proper, step outside for a small toke, scroll through the digital wasteland, answer a few messages I probably should’ve ignored, and by about 5:00am I’m suddenly exhausted again. Then it’s back to bed until the 7:00am alarm goes off.
Truth is, it doesn’t even bother me. I’ve always been an early riser. As a yute, I was up before Saturday morning cartoons even started, just posted there waiting for the world to switch on.
In Geumho-dong, Seoul, I was up before the neighbourhood rooster had sorted himself out.
In Colombo and Abuja, that first call to prayer always landed like a strange kind of comfort… reminding mandem the world was already moving.
I get things done in the AM. A lot of these posts start in those quiet early hours when the house is technically asleep and the world feels less demanding. Of course, “quiet” is relative. My daughter is in her room, probably dreaming up fresh and innovative ways to address me with disdain, impatience, and that particular brand of casual contempt screenagers master. The cats, naturally, treat peace and focus like personal enemies. I still have no clue what came crashing down in the house a couple hours ago, but judging by the silence after, I assume they handled it internally.
And in those hours, Mandem Dayv thinks.
Today the thinking drifted toward celebration. How humans are obsessed with marking time. Birthdays, New Year’s, anniversaries, harvests, first steps, first teeth, babies’ first hundred days… all these ceremonial check points we build like little roadside shrines to prove the journey means something. Maybe because most of life isn’t fireworks. Most of it is admin. Bills. Repetition. Quiet disappointments. Mundane graft. So when something survives long enough to be noticed, we put candles on it.
Today is my birthday. I am 49 years old.
Beyond the usual “well, at least I’m alive” and “it could be worse, I’m not in a Sudanese IDP camp” perspective checks, I can’t say I’m feeling especially festive. Birthdays, to me, are supposed to celebrate more than biological survival. They’re meant to mark growth. Evolution. Some evidence that the years have been converting into wisdom instead of just receipts and knee pain.
And if I’m being honest, there’s not a whole lot of triumphant character development happening in this suburban bungalow at present.
I am poorer than I was this time last year. Considerably poorer than I was a decade ago. My daughter’s attitude toward me does not exactly scream “father of the year,” and most days I feel less like some wise patriarch and more like a man standing in the kitchen wondering how every decision somehow led back to needing more cat litter.
A lot of the time I’m reminded of “Trapped” by Circle Jerks, that old punk hymn for mandem who suspect they may have architected their own prison.
Not because life is some dramatic Shakespearean downfall ting, but because sometimes adulthood really does feel like slowly, professionally, and respectfully painting yourself into a corner. No windows. No doors. No ladder.
And yet… no regrets.
The song reminds me I’m not the first man to feel cornered, and I definitely won’t be the last. Misery loves company, but maturity learns to call it perspective.
So yeah!
Happy birthday to me.