Part 4 of the Letter…
Now, to boys. Let me start by my own experience. I’ve had like 3 boyfriends so far. I never dated in high school, like I said; my identity wasn’t rooted on having a boy to date. I was busy dreaming of how I could go to the States and find my first boyfriend there.
So, after high school, I dated an older exotic guy, hehe, he was like from Seychelles or something…and yeah it was exciting, like heh, this older guy likes me, what do I have that other girls his age don’t. That lasted a few weeks until I realized it wasn’t normal. What’s wrong with him, that he can’t find girls his own age? Before I realized this, I have to say, those few weeks wrecked the course of my life. I was rude to my mum and dad; I lost contact with my friends because I got this attitude that I’m better than them and all that. I was just a silly love-struck teenager (18) so that didn’t last, maybe a month or less.
After him, I pretty much didn’t care. I didn’t care whether I was single or dating or whatever. In this mindset I ended up in my longest relationship to date, with, the heartbreaker. He made me so happy and took me to the top of the world. He also made me incredibly sad and took me to the deepest holes. I lived in this roller coaster for almost 8 months. Yaani, I hated him and loved him in equal measure, and he loved me too. But this is what happens when you get into stuff that you’re both too young for, our love, which looking back I realize was just insane, I truly hope that’s not what love really is, and that that’s not what I’m waiting for now. Whatever it was died and as much as we “loved” each other we hated each other. For me, he was my whole life and that’s such a bad place for a person to be in. I stopped focusing on me and my own happiness and focused on him and his. I don’t feel guilty for being a nice person, I carry it with pride that I’m not a bitch and I’m generally nice to people. However, when being nice leads to me putting myself in dangerous situations, that’s where I should have drawn the line and I didn’t. That’s my biggest regret. For him, I guess it was growing up, he was turning into a new person and that person and me just didn’t work together. It was probably a mistake that I started to date him the week after my dad died, so emotionally, I just wasn’t ready because my mind wasn’t right. I left that relationship so broken down. Remember my heart was in my hands, now my heart was in his hands and he took it, jumped all over it, took a trailer, ran over it, took a saw and ripped it to bits. In addition to getting cheated on and dumped! Remember I hadn’t dealt with my dad’s death, because I just jumped into this relationship. So I dealt with both a breakup and death simultaneously. It was really bad, I was depressed for so long that my mum had to take me to hospital to see a shrink.
After that, obviously, I didn’t feel like I could love again, or if anyone would even be interested in me. My self-esteem just died, like people tell you, oh you’re so pretty, you’re so bright, wow, your special, but looking at myself all I could see was trash.
I went on with my life and healed little by little. Inevitably, another guy came along and he loved me like immediately, even I was taken by surprise how quickly that happened. I got my internship and 2 weeks later, I’m already someone else’s girlfriend. I know at this point, you’d think, “oh, finally, a happy ending” and yeah, it was, I mean, with this guy, we’d even talked about marriage, after 2 weeks!!! I mean it was crazy! I think I was so eager to be in love and to prove that I was over what had happened with my ex that I wasn’t thinking straight.
Then, on New Years’ Eve, me, silly, silly, Joanne, decides to end it. I’d been feeling in all of December that this wasn’t right. I felt suffocated, like, now if I’ve found my husband, will this be my life for the rest of my life. I haven’t even lived. I don’t want to live this life my whole family has lived, of oh, college, work for 2 years get married. I want to travel, and sing worship in a rock band and teach and work with kids and do all this stuff that I can’t do being tied down right now. I don’t want an ordinary life that all of Nairobi is living. Yaani, it’s my life, my only life and if I don’t live it now, there’s no second chance. So, I left him and he didn’t understand why, and he kept trying to get me back but I refused and finally he gave up.
I’m happy for that experience, because I honestly felt broken and that I could never love again, but I realized God’s been slowly working on my heart and I’m healing slowly by slowly and this year I just need to make room for him to completely move in me.
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