Needs and desires: we all have them. If there was a competition for longest list of desires, I would take the prize, easy.

Needs. Let’s talk needs. Today, I need to write. Anything. I want to write, I need to write, and so I will write. I get so caught up in life’s business that I often forget the things I love. And it takes an uncontrollable desire, need and craving to write or sing or cook to snap me out of it, and take a breather.

I just came from campus. I chose to skip a tutorial session so that I could catch up on my sleep. I have been functioning on very little sleep, you see. My  stints with coffee are changing to a long term relationship. My concealer is running out faster than normal, and faster than I can afford for it to. I’m always trying to catch up on my sleep. And get this, I  accrue sleep deficit whilst trying to pay up my last deficit. It’s a nasty cycle. A never-ending deficit. Kind of like the Kenyan national budget.

However, I have the urge to write. And so I will write before I do anything else.  It must be my genie. My genie is here. I need to write. I need to write anything. A poem, my thoughts, my feelings, my opinions. I just need to write. It gives me release. It’s like bleeding oneself of an incurable disease. With every penstroke, every key stroke, I bleed out my negativity, bleed out my desperate thoughts, bleed out my fatigue and exasperation. I bleed myself dry and we can start over.

Meet your needs. If you feel the need to write, or sing, or dance, or fix, or create, or talk, or think; if it adds to your general well being, helps you function, and maintains your sanity, then it is in every way a basic human need. Up there with clothing, shelter and food. Meet it.

Now excuse me while I go nap.