CLOSING 28

A DECLARATION OF INTENTIONAL WILDNESS

It is my birthday. March 28th. I am closing 28 on the 28th, which feels cosmically deliberate in ways I cannot quite articulate but feel deeply in my chest.

Quite weird, this alignment of numbers. But then again, my entire relationship with age has been weird for years.

My national ID says I am a year older than I actually am. It says I should be turning 30 today, not 29. I have carried that lie for a while now. Not maliciously. Not even dramatically. Just strategically.

Growing up, I was bullied for having a facial structure that looked older than my body. So when the opportunity presented itself to claim that extra year, to lean into what people already assumed about me, I took it. It felt easier than constantly correcting people’s perceptions. Easier than explaining why I looked different from my age.

But now, realizing that this is my actual last year in my 20s, that I am starting my actual last year before 30, I find myself wanting the truth back.

I did not get to enjoy the lie last year because I knew it was not true. And this year, I am choosing to let it go.

THE GOOD FRIDAY SIGNIFICANCE

One of the main reasons I am releasing this lie, even though my ID will probably stay wrong because the bureaucratic nonsense required to change such a small detail is exhausting, is because I was actually born on a Good Friday.

March 28th, 1996 was Good Friday. And that holds significance for me. But more importantly, it holds significance for my mother.

Taking that away from her, saying I was born a year earlier than I actually was, saying I am a year older than the actual date she remembers, that felt wrong in ways I could not keep ignoring.

I can tell when I introduce myself and mention my age, there is a moment where I catch myself. Where the lie and the truth collide in my mouth and I stumble slightly. My mother notices. She wants to keep me her baby. And I have been denying her even that small truth.

So this year, my last year in my 20s, I want to live it honestly. I want to enjoy it. I want to be wild in it.

THE BOOK THAT ALMOST WAS

I had plans for this birthday. Big plans. I did not want to celebrate in the traditional sense. I did not want friends making a fuss, throwing parties, doing the performative happy birthday rituals that I have never quite known how to receive.

Apart from the usual pleasantries of happy birthday messages and small gestures, I have never expected celebration. Maybe because I have never felt entitled to it. Maybe because attention feels uncomfortable when it is focused directly on me.

So instead, I planned to gift my friends. I had written a book. A poetry collection titled Closing 28, playing on the 28 on 28 coincidence. The plan was to print it and distribute it to the people who matter, the people who have been part of this journey whether they knew it or not.

The book is done. The editing is complete. Everything is ready except the printing.

But a few days before executing, I asked myself: what if I close 29 instead? What if I give myself this entire last year of my 20s to build something even bigger? What if instead of rushing to close a chapter I have not fully lived, I let this year expand into the body of work it wants to become?

So for the next year, I am going to work on something fuller. Not just poetry. Poetry yes, but also the photography I have been creating, the people I have met, the articles that stand out, the documentation of this specific season of becoming.

I want an exhibition at the end of it. A proper closing. A deliberate archive of my 20s before I step into 30.

That is pressure. Good pressure. The kind that pulls you forward rather than crushing you down.

YESTERDAY: EDUCATION AS WILD ACT

Yesterday, March 27th, I was on leave from work. And I attended a creative session anyway.

People asked why I was attending a work thing on my leave. But it was not a work thing. It was a me thing. It was about the kind of career I want to build in my 30s and beyond. The kind of creative I want to become.

Education, for me, is heavy and necessary. I did not have the privilege growing up to access the money required for the kind of education I wanted. I have always wanted to be the person who does their masters, who does their PhD, who finishes it all properly.

And here I am, still navigating what that looks like. Still figuring out the pathways. But I believe I am going to do it. I really want those qualifications. Not for status. For understanding. For the ability to articulate what I already intuitively know.

At this session, Peter from MAAD Agency presented. He is Creative Director. And he broke down creative strategy in ways that made my brain light up. He talked about case studies versus campaigns, about why the former carries more weight when it comes to winning awards. About the architecture underneath the visible work.

And sitting there, I realized: this is where I want to be.

I have held the title Creative Director for a while now. At Brave Kafunda, my baby that I birthed and continue to build. At Poetry Association of Uganda where I took on the role recently.

But what does that title actually mean? Is it just telling people to make things prettier? To make designs more enticing? That feels shallow. Insufficient.

I want to navigate what Creative Director actually looks like at the deepest level. What that excellence requires. What authority over meaning feels like when you understand the strategy underneath the aesthetic.

THE LIFE I LIVED TO GET HERE

I should probably do the whole memory timeline thing. The birthday reflection format where you trace your life chronologically. So here it is, briefly:

I was born on Good Friday, 1996. I grew up. I got sick multiple times. I survived things I probably should not have survived. I started at Nakaseero Primary School. Then Najjera Progressive School. Then Kibuli Secondary Schoo for six years where I was quite a menace. A very big menace actually.

I got bullied a lot. I hated myself for a long time because of it. I left my childhood carrying wounds I am still processing.

I failed terribly at Form 6. Spectacularly terrible in ways that redirected my entire trajectory. I went for telecom engineering. I dropped out. I joined multimedia. And here I am, years later, with character development happening through church, through creative work, through uprooting all of this in my blogs.

And honestly, for my birthday, the best gift anyone could give me is to actually read my blogs. Go to my Substack. Read the pieces I have been pouring myself into. Like them. Comment. DM me saying “that blog is too dope” or “this piece hit different” or just engage with the work I have been doing quietly while building everything else.

That is gift enough for me. More people subscribing. More people engaging. Someone saying “hey I will pay for your domain, how much do you need?” Because I need money. Pay for my domain for two years. Let me have twinomugisha.com or bravetwino.com because twinomugisha was already taken by some guy who is definitely not using it as well as I would.

THE WILDNESS I AM CHOOSING

I am excited for my last year in my 20s. I want to be wild. Intentionally, deliberately wild.

I wanted to do the book and I am doing it, just bigger and better and later. Another thing I wanted to do: plait my hair. Maybe get a tattoo. I want to know what it feels like to be a crazy young person.

I have done a lot of crazy things in private because I am an introverted person. Big introvert energy. What does it mean to be an extrovert? I will genuinely never know.

But I want to go out a little bit more this year. I want to explore life outside the safe contained spaces I usually occupy. I want to work on projects I have only dreamed about. I want to show up intentionally to things that scare me.

And I am not saying it is going to be all good. I want to fail as well. I want to get hurt. I have protected myself so much from rejection, from disappointment, from the mess that comes with actually trying things.

I want to try and get rejected this year. I want to enter my 30s with content. With lived texture. With evidence that I was fully present for my last year in my 20s instead of just observing it from a safe distance.

TODAY: WORLD THEATRE DAY

Today, my actual birthday, you will find me at the Uganda National Theatre shooting World Theatre Day. The celebrations happened yesterday on March 27th but the physical events are today, March 28th.

I started this month with the privilege of becoming the official photographer for the International Theatre Institute Uganda. I have been documenting throughout the month what the celebrations looked like, what theatre in Uganda looks like right now, what the community is building.

And the culmination is today. At the Uganda National Culture Centre, formerly Uganda National Theatre.

I am excited. All my plans involved me working somehow. The Saturday I thought I would be partying and wilding out, I am instead documenting culture. Archiving moments. Being part of the ecosystem rather than just adjacent to it.

I think this is my calling. Not in the dramatic spiritual sense, but in the practical sense of: this is the work that feels aligned. This is where I belong. Standing inside cultural moments, documenting them, ensuring they do not disappear.

WHAT THIS YEAR MEANS

So this blog is not a personal reflection in the sentimental sense. If you want personal and vulnerable, go read my other blogs. The ones about friendship betrayal. The ones about almost dying from diabetes. The ones about relationships and commitment and all the heavy things I process through writing.

This blog is a declaration. A manifesto in soft clothes.

I am not closing my 20s quietly. I am opening my last year in them loudly, intentionally, with full awareness that this is a year of deliberate contradictions.

I will be disciplined but exploratory. Visible but not performative. Strategic but still a little reckless. Professional but willing to fail publicly.

I am going to plait my hair if I want to. Get a tattoo if I decide to. Go out more. Risk rejection. Try things I have been too careful to try before. Build the body of work that becomes my 20s archive. Finish strong. Enter 30 with content, with texture, with evidence that I lived this year instead of just surviving it.

And through all of it, I will be documenting. Writing. Photographing. Creating the evidence that this year mattered.

THE INVITATION

So here is what I am asking for my birthday:

Read my blogs. All of them. The heavy ones. The uncomfortable ones. The ones where I am processing things I do not have answers for yet.

Subscribe to my Substack if you have not already. Engage with the work. Tell me what resonates. Tell me what does not. Just show me that the words are landing somewhere.

And if you are feeling generous, pay for my domain. Two years. Let me have the URL that feels like home.

That is the gift. Not attention for attention’s sake. But engagement with the work I am building. Participation in the ecosystem I am trying to create.

Because I am not just turning 29. I am deliberately stepping into my last year of my 20s with full awareness that this is the year I stop performing containment and start practicing presence.

This is the year I get comfortable being uncomfortable. The year I risk more. The year I build the archive that honors what my 20s actually were instead of what I wished they had been.

This is the year I stop carrying lies, even small bureaucratic ones about my age. The year I live honestly, wildly, intentionally.

This is closing 28. And opening 29. And preparing for 30.

And I am doing it on my terms, with my people, through my work.

Happy birthday to me. Now go read my blogs.