Growing up this used to be one of my favorite songs. If for nothing else, the line "I don't wanna die, I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all".
Tomorrow is my birthday, I'm spending the first night of my new life in Nairobi and as I was telling Sakhile yesterday, I just feel like my heart is breaking. The lies, pretences, fake glamour, fake everything... It's all weighing too heavily on my spirit.
A year ago today Sakhile took me to a live performance of The Soil, my all time favorite group. I sang along to every single song, but the venue was too loud for Uhuru and we spent the rest of the night trying to get him to calm down and eventually sleep. Was my happiness worth his pain? According to my FB and Instagram updates, it was. It was all for the cameras.
I was meant to get married this past weekend, a small intimate ceremony just before we left for Kenya. But a series of unfortunate events in just 5 days have resulted in me being here in Kenya, alone and not married to the man of my dreams.
One of my closest friends once said to me about me that she admires how a writer can be naked in front of world. I have to be true to my truth, I like putting up "love lives here" Facebook updates, but on a day like today, my heart is breaking and no amount of faking it will change it. I don't want to be naked, but I hate makeup, I hate wigs (although I just spent R1500 on a lace wig) and I hate the amount of work it takes to not be real.
The hardest part of the last week has been how everyone around me decided on my behalf that "we can do this, we can overcome this hurdle". I nodded, said what they wanted to hear and I just kept on walking.
But this (scary) note is about one thing. As a writer, as a feeler, I can never ever fake it. Maybe for a short while, but not for long. I left SA without even saying Goodbye to my son, my mom is also ill but she has the added burden of taking care of him.
I'm here to make money that our family needs, I'm here because I dearly love Africa, I'm here because South Africa is suffocating me. Mandela didn't die for this joke of a democracy, Biko didn't die for this.
Maybe I asked the universe for this. My own personal "get out of jail free" card. No one can blame me for going, but despite all the justifications, my heart right now is breaking. I am glad the house is sold, the furniture has been given away, but I can't lie, whoever admires this perfect life must know that not a single day in my life has ever been perfect. I live with unmedicated ADD, I'm erratic, emotional, and have never quite figured out how to behave like a grown up. I laugh too loudly, I cry, I roll my eyes at Stokvel sessions where we spend 2 hours discussing makeup (Hello, I was born beautiful, it shouldn't take two hours to create something that isn't real).
But how do I end this note? I'm not sad, not suicidal, not ready to give up on life.
I love my job, love being creative and strategic and seeing the glass half full every day.
I love him, I love us, I will honor our family. But I don't think I was born to base my life on lies. #LifeIsAComedy
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