I opened my eyes today, and I met a woman.

I met a woman doing her best. Her best varies every single day, but it is her best today. She has been dealt with the worst cards ever, but she rises and shows up for herself. She has managed to wake up on time for the first time in days and is proud of herself for it. Her eye bags are showing under her foundation, and she has not had enough sleep for a couple of days. She talks with a sigh and is on the verge of crying, but she manages to hold it together at the last possible second. However, the aroma of omelets one door over assaults her, and she is grateful that she is fighting and hopeful that her days will take a turn for the better soon. After all, where better to have a mental breakdown than a Qwetu hostel?

I also met a broken woman. Her spirit and will are in the pits along with the potholes on Luthuli Avenue. Her mental health has taken a turn for the worst, and she is doing all she can to hold on a little bit longer. She wants to smile, but her lips are cracked, and she doesn’t have something to smile about. Her airpods are playing a sad song, but she is too zoned out in her pain that the music sounds like a drone hovering over a walking carcass. Her nails have taken the hit and have turned black, trying to keep up with the creeping desolation in her heart. Her perfume has a few sniffs in it, and she uses it sparingly, knowing that’s what reminds her of how great she was before her father died.

I met an abused woman. She tried her best to hide the scars with her foundation, but after seeing countless women battered on T.V. and the papers, you can tell when one is trying to hide it. She cried in her car and, when reapplying make-up, missed a spot, but on the busy Ngong Road, who cares? When she licks her wounds, does her pain taste like hurt or hope? Does she continue staying with him because he understands her better, or does she not have a choice? I understand that I can never understand why she went back but she did. Both the driver and the BMW are being driven mad by the different forces in play. She practices forcing a smile every day before 1 a.m. because that’s when he always comes to bed angry, not drunk, not smelling of other women, but angry. He knows she was on last month’s 30 under 30 list but still drives her self-esteem to the pits. Maybe this is a phase he will outgrow; she reassures herself as she stretches her neck to relieve a muscle cramp she got while defending herself last night. Maybe he will get better.

I met an insecure woman. She kept her head down and hugged tight whenever she left the house. She always sat at the furthest booth near the corner of the recently opened Java in Karen because the light would shine on her blemishes, and everyone would judge and be repulsed by her presence. She preferred taking an Uber to work instead of matatus because only one person could look at her instead of millions of eyes that would make her skin crawl. Hoodies and sweatpants are her favorite clothes because no one can judge what they cannot see, and even then, some still do. Promotions passed her by because she “was not open enough” and “not confident enough” at work, but how could they know that ever since her best friend called her “ugly” in the middle of a fight, her inner demons had been promoted to her outside? That the one person who gave her courage and made her feel safe was why she started self-loathing her appearance?

I met a clingy woman. She embraced her man tightly on the busy Tom Mboya street as though the women selling mangoes would take him from her with fruit. Her eyes threw daggers at women across the street and warned them that he was hers and hers alone. The knuckles of her man curled into a fist because there was no kind way he could tell her that she was too clingy for him, literally. She saw it and thought he was in pain. She took his fist in her hand and kissed it. She kissed his hand the way she always did whenever she went out of town for business trips. She looked at him with her puppy eyes like she always did whenever he hinted that he would potentially be staying out late with his friends. Had she not realized she was gripping his arm, she would have called him at that exact moment like she always does at the top of the hour. “What are you doing?” “Can I come and hang out with you?” “Can I come? Can I come?” “Where’s your hand?” “Why are you not here with me?”

I met a bland woman. She finished her Nat Geo documentary of the day and changed her stadium from her couch to her bed. She ate the same French toast at 11 a.m. and drank the same black tea with two sugars for the seventy-sixth day after her doctor told her to cut down on sugar. Her phone was ten percent, and she had not charged it for a week. She found no need to charge it because it would discharge by itself. This time, it lasted a week because there were some urgent Chama messages she had to reply to; otherwise, it would have lasted two weeks. She switched to Netflix on her laptop and doom-scrolled for her next watch, stress free. An email from her boss managed to sneak past her DND, and she ignored it, barely looking up from her romance category. Her one-night stand had left at six to beat the Thika Road traffic and didn’t leave as much as a note. She was content with her life, but the world was not.

I met a cruel woman. She spat at a dog, and I spat on the ground to rebuke her. I immediately returned to Chaka Place, away from her vileness. To hell with meeting her.

I met a lusty woman. She looked at models on the runway at Movenpick like she hadn’t come to the show to appreciate fashion but the bodies underneath. Her shifting uneasily at her seat was more than enough indication that the bodies were doing something to her body, and she liked every bit of it. Were it not for her mask, all could have seen her quivering lips. The two tips on her loose blouse were enough to make heads turn to her, and that was all she needed to reach Monica Geller’s Number Seven. Her raw desire manifested into a musk that amplified her aching for sex all through the room. She knew what she was here for, and she would get it. The only question was, whose body would it be?

I met a vulnerable woman. Her red bottoms were now grey after tarmacking for the last five years. She had been to all high-end Hurlingham offices looking for internships since Uhuru was in office and had had no luck. All the kibandas along that route had known her as a visitor, as a local, and now were knowing her as a debtor. She had used all her savings to pay for fare for countless unfruitful interviews and could not afford to go for more interviews. She sat on a couch, looking at her eviction letter, and searched for avenues to ask for money but found none. Her boyfriend had broken up with her in her third jobless year, and her family had forsaken her because “she always asks for money.” If only they knew that she had been duped and conned by a recruiting agency that promised to find her a job overseas. Her last savior was an old friend she had not talked to since primary school, but she was no longer picking up her calls because she did not repay the six thousand shillings she had borrowed to pay for January’s rent. It was June. She was going to sleep hungry today and was unsure if life was worth living tomorrow.

However, I also met an empowered woman. She is grinning ear to ear after securing a new house. This is a new beginning for her, and she grabs it with both hands. She ordered a macchiato and a milkshake on the side because she can do anything she wants whenever and wherever she wants. She had two orgasms in the morning, which are currently radiating off her skin in the warm 5 p.m. sunset at Baobox. She sent a joke to her crush, and he laughed, which made her feel good about her sense of humor. If only she could bag him like she bagged her new apartment.

I met a woman on her best day. She has been dealt with the best cards, and she walks like she owns the world, which she does. Her hair is done, she has money, her gym efforts have borne fruit, and she is content with life. Her relationships have flourished, and flowers radiate their beauty to her. A ten-year-old girl told her today that she smelt like happiness and smiled. She looks at her nails. The salonist has done a wonderful job, and she knows that her boyfriend will love them and play over their glossiness. She hears a bird chirp and looks at it with contentment. The bird looks at her and moves closer. She smiles and knows that she found a new friend.

Gracie, I open my eyes every day, and I see you.

Love,

Lee.

From me to you

Your experience matters. You matter. You are valid, and you are loved. Even more, you are seen. I know and don’t know at the same time how hard and complex it is to be a woman. I also understand that I can never understand what you experience as a woman. But by experiencing that, I get to see you. I get to have a glimpse of how emotionally, mentally, and physically involved it is to be a woman.

Through you, I see women as they are—unfiltered, unbiased, unscripted—the woman’s condition.

So, thank you for being a woman.