I've been thinking, if there was one person I would like to write about me, it would be Jackson Biko of Bikozulu, Mantalk in the Saturday Nation pull-out, that article on Msafiri which my dad makes a point of picking up even if he already picked up the same issue on an earlier flight. I bet he has more under his belt besides the three I've mentioned, like that short-lived premier East African men's only magazine, Adam, but that's enough to have me swooning over anything he writes.
He is doing this 40s series, hyping himself up for the road ahead, his forties. Some, scratch that, all of the articles have been brilliant; he's had a guy who was comfortable with his wife bringing the bacon home, a lady who would host prayers in her house at three bloody a.m all in the name of praying for a husband, another lady who was living among cannibals for nearly an entire year and lived to tell the tale-there's really no describing it, it was the most heart-wrenching thing I have ever read- the most recent in the 40s series is about a 44 year old man whose trying to figure out this thing called sexuality.
Biko, besides having a way with words, he has this unique ability of figuring out people before they figure themselves out. Just a table between him and his subject and he peels the layers to your very being.
In his most recent article, about the bi-guy? Something struck a cord with me. All his articles strike a cord with me, I am just hella lazy to pen my sentiments on them. The line went something like, when you're a few years old, sitting in your backyard, newspaper in hand the kids have made nests of their own and a stranger for a wife or was it a wife for a stranger...either way, that tore my heart into pieces.
Earlier in the interview, Biko asked the guy whether he was happy in his marriage, whether he loved his wife. I don't remember his answer but there was no straight forward, 'Yes!' there was a lot of she is a good mother, a good woman, how his kids make him happy but none of the 'I love my wife'. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the motions of life; birth, school, graduate, get a good job, get married, have kids and whatever comes next. I am afraid this is where this guy is stuck except of course the road he travels is ridden with far more roadblocks, speed bumps, potholes than yours and mine combined at and this is a road followed by many.
The idea of finding someone you want to spend the rest of your life with, a companion, someone who completes you as whimsical as it sounds, to me, it's a tall order. Yes, I am writing this at the peak of my twenties which Wendy Williams calls your selfish years where you should be "dzipping and dzoing it" but think about it, a question that pops up a lot on reality shows is, "Is this someone you see yourself spending the rest of your life with?". Well is he/she? Will you stick around when the weight piles on for one reason or the other be it carrying your children or letting yourself go, when I have that week before my period when I'm super catty or when I am just going through it. Will you hang in there if I am having trouble wrapping my head around this thing called submission or when my spendthrift ways catch up with me, when menopause hits. Can you keep up with my ever complaining ways for the rest of your life (which I am working on by the by) or my silent treatment because I am unfamiliar with this whole wearing your heart on your sleeve trend. And these are just my current shortcomings, looking from the inside out.
So, imagine dealing with that not for a prescribed time, but your entire life. If that isn't enough, as years go by, things change, people change whose to say that you will like this person and what they have become that far down the line.
It takes two to tango. The stranger dynamic is pretty straight forward, you only cease to be one if you introduce yourself or in the case of couples reintroducing your new found self to your significant other.
But then again, what do I know I am just a naive twenty something who thinks she has life figured out. Food for thought though, sleeping in the same bed back to back, living in the same house, breathing the same air with a person who has been demoted from love of your life to simply having the title of father of your children, husband because the state says so and the guy who you split the bills with. There is no way we will retrogress into housemates.
There was this series, Parenthood, that I was super in to not too long ago. In it's second to last or last season the matriarch of the family was rediscovering herself. I feel like she had taken a turn for the artsy type life, painting and what not. At some point, she wanted to go on a trip to either an exotic or oriental destination. It was just as Biko had painted it; their kids had left the nest and they spent their days being grandparents. She had nothing holding her back from going on this trip but the most fetching thing about it all, is her husband felt some typa way about her going , you want to know why? Well, if you've read this far I guess you do . It was because she didn't ask him if he'd like to go with her.
That's what I want, I want you to want to spend time with me well into our sunset years.
Have a good one!
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