I received an email to pitch an idea about love since the following month was the month of love, February. The brief was to write a 1000-1500 essay about how to love, love yourself, get the glow-up from being in love or how love helped discover yourself.
Where to begin, I thought. Then my son came to mind and the sound of the quietness in my house that I came to mind. The sound of a clicking keyboard sounded upstairs, and that’s when it clicked. This topic is not difficult, Today, I have everything I prayed for and more.
Thirteen years ago, I was at my best friend’s house to usher in the New Year. Just after we made the toasts and the hugs and kisses I walked out with a clear intention. And that was making drastic changes in my life.
At that time, I was exhausted by how my life had become redundant. I had had enough of how things were happening in and around me. Worst of it all was recycling broken relationships knowing very well that they would never work. Yet you go back to them with the hope that it’ll get better, but it never does; that is, get better.
The thing is, for the longest time I had no idea I was in deep depression. They call it functional depression. I went out with friends and family, managed to break a smile, and still managed to laugh despite feeling bad inside. But when it’s dark, coming home from a drunken night, the little minions in my head wrestle for my mind’s attention. “You’re still nothing, Ange…”
At that point, I was about 43kg hardly eating. I kept losing a lot of weight. I had not noticed the amount of weight I had lost. The mirror told me I looked healthy and pretty. It was not until I met a guy in a club who asked me if I had AIDS. That’s how I must’ve looked. The mirror lied to me. I never noticed how thin was or how anorexic I looked.
At that point I was about 43kg hardly eating. I had no idea I was in deep depression, they call it functional depression I guess, where you out and about but still manage to break a smile, still manage to laugh. But when it’s dark, coming home from a drunken night, the little minions in my head wrestle for my minds attention. “You’re still nothing, Ange…”
I kept losing a lot of weight. I had not noticed the amount of weight I had lost. The mirror told me I looked healthy and pretty. It was not until I met a guy in a club who asked me if I had AIDS. That’s how I must’ve looked. The mirror lied to me. I never noticed how thin was or how anorexic I looked.
But then, after that night at my friend’s house, after downing my last glass of wine, I said Enough! I went celibate for the year, found my way back to church and hardly went out with friends. And it would be those months, that year, that I unintentionally or unknowingly created the life I’m living now.
Throughout the year, I literally had a vision board in my head, in my thoughts about all the things I wanted for myself. Going to church and affirming my lifetime dream to move to Cape Town, and live in the big city life. I would project what type of place I’d live in, and the kind of life I’d live. It’s not like I repeated it every day, but I lived it or pretended to. Spoke about it as if it had happened or it was about to happen.
In that year of self love and discovery, I found myself. I became content with…I was ok filled up with joy
I got my first ongoing freelance gig that would help me support myself and…saved up money that at the end of the year to applaud me I decided to take a solo safari trip to Botswana, in Kasane.
Then two years later, a friend roped me into going on a girls trip to Cape Town City. Little did I know that that would be the beginning of my story that I had so longed for
I met my husband who happens to be white when we both had no idea we’d end up marrying and having a little baby
Here’s the thing. Never ever had I wanted to get married. Marriage was never going to be an achievement in my life. It’s not something I wished for myself. I remember once at my church the pastor said single girls my stand up for he can pray for us to get married. What? Seriously. I didn’t stand up, dad had to drag me up. I’ll never know if his prayer did actually contribute towards me being married today.
I didn’t want to have kids, my affirmation included living with cats and a big house with cars not a husband or least of all kids
Basically, what I affirmed and prayed for became reality but got even more than I bargained. My husband met me when I was whole, he didn’t come into my life to fill a void. He found me happy, high-spirited and happy. I had finally found myself and being completely confident and content with me, both inside and outside.
What he does is continually compliment the joy I have, the wholeness I found. Make sense? In my vows I told that I loved him that day, but I cannot say for sure about tomorrow. I will however work on my love for him, those days I dislike him, I’ll remember why I love him.
And that’s what I do, nine years later. Being married to someone who is not from my culture, who isn’t my race, I possibly chose the wrong race considering where we stay…I was in an unfamiliar territory, shacking up with a white boy in a different city. I had to be ok with hanging out with his friends, my world was lily white for the longest time.
At some point I felt an inferiority complex. As if these white peoples were somehow better than me. I would refuse to go out to parties or event a with him as I knew I’d always be the only black girl.
But then it dawned to me that if roles where reversed/changed and he was in my hometown, he’d also the only white person at the party. He’d be lonely except my husband is made different, he’d totally fit in the crowd. And so I thought like him, and because I loved him enough that I had to let go of my insecurities because it hurt him that I never wanted to go out with him and his friends. I decided I loved him more than my fears. I consciously made an effort to understand his friends, look beyond their colour, ans let my guard down. That when I gained friends. His friends were now and are still very close friends of ours. Imagine if I was stubborn enough I’d be a very lonely person in a room full of lovely people.
But I’d choose him over and over again. He didn’t teach me to love again. He didn’t teach me to love myself. Nope what he did though was him being an extension of the love I had for myself. I see myself in him. How he treats me, would totally be how I would treat myself. And he adds in more of that love I need when I’m feeling empty.
Lesson learned and I’ll teach my son is loving yourself first no matter what. When you love yourself, you become completely whole and would be bothered by frivolous things like begging someone son or daughter to love you. And love will find you when you least expect because you weren’t expecting it or thinking about it.