26 (Twenty six)

Chapter 1: The Promise of Sixteen

At sixteen, I believed in the future the way others believed in miracles. I told myself that by twenty‑six, my life would be shining, organized, and full of the things I thought happiness was made of. I imagined walking through life with certainty, a good job, confidence, direction, maybe even love that felt safe. I didn’t know then that the world had its own plans for me, plans that didn’t care about the promises I whispered into the night.

I remember standing outside our house in Kenya, staring at the wide sky and thinking that I was meant for more. That the life we were living wouldn’t trap me forever. That I would grow into the woman everyone expected me to become: strong, successful, dependable. I carried the weight of being the firstborn like a badge and a burden. I thought I could outrun every limitation, every fear, every expectation.

Back then, I still believed that hard work always paid off. I trusted that good intentions protected you. I believed people saw your heart, not your flaws. I didn’t know life could be so sharp. I didn’t know dreams could bleed.

But at sixteen, hope was enough. It was the only thing I owned that felt powerful.

Chapter 2: The Weight of Twenty-Six

Twenty‑six did not come gently. It didn’t come with celebration or a sense of accomplishment. It came like a storm, quiet at first, then suddenly heavy, drowning me in questions I didn’t know how to answer.

Now I live in Zurrieq, far from home, far from familiarity, far from the girl who once believed everything would fall into place by now. Malta is beautiful, but beauty doesn’t fill loneliness. The stone walls here don’t hold warmth. Sometimes I feel like the buildings themselves watch me silently, reminding me I don’t belong.

I wake up, and the first thing I feel is the weight of disappointment. A whole graduate, working like i shouldn't be. My hands, once busy holding pens, books, and ambition, are now submerged in water and soap, scrubbing away stains that aren’t mine. I tell myself it’s honest work, and it is, but the truth is bitter. I expected more from life. Life expected nothing from me.

People look at me in ways I can’t explain. Sometimes like I’m invisible. Sometimes like I’m the villain in stories they make up behind my back. I don’t know what energy I carry that makes people assume I’m cold or unkind. Maybe it’s my silence. Maybe it’s the weight I carry that they mistake for attitude. Maybe it’s just easier for them to hate me than to understand me. Either way, I feel it. Every day. And sometimes, I start to believe them.

Friendships slipped away from me like smoke. People leave. People replace. People forget. I tell myself I don’t care, but at night, when my room is too quiet, I feel the emptiness claw its way up my chest. The truth is simple and painful: I have no friends. No one checks on me. No one wonders how my day was. No one thinks of me at all.

And then there is the person I love, or rather, the person I loved myself into hurting for. Loving someone who doesn’t love you back feels like willingly walking into a fire. I tell myself I should stop. I tell myself I deserve better. But my heart? It doesn’t listen. It still reaches out in ways my pride hates. I keep hoping for a message that never comes, a kindness that never arrives.

Money is its own type of heartbreak. I work hard. I earn little. My savings are a joke, my worries endless. Some days it feels like I’m drowning financially and emotionally at the same time, and no one can see it. No one even asks.

My family believes in me, or at least they try to. And I carry their hope like a responsibility carved into my bones. They sacrificed for me. They trusted me to change things. And here I am, twenty‑six, struggling, exhausted, trying to convince myself I haven’t failed them.