This Thing Called Marriage
(ep 01)
Its time to retire to bed, but I have to do this. I am racking my brain on which of the many things that have happened to me today that I should share with you. May be I should just start from the beginning.
For starters I woke up 25 minutes to 12.00pm to be precise………I know! I should be embarrassed with myself. Which 21st century woman wakes up 8 hrs after the rooster has crowed! But I was sleepy, so sleepy that when I woke up my eyes were still red and swollen.
You see the fact is that when that rooster in ref up there crowed, our two daughters Nadia and Damita were on a competition to see who can out do the other speak in tongues. These two share a language that no one else in our family can understand, and considering they came from heaven later than all of us I have quietly decided they can actually communicate with each other, My mother in law actually says Chinese can understand them, is it true?. Right now as I write they are still talking! (They are 19 and 3 months respectively).
At about 12.30pm I had taken a shower, cleaned up both girls and was set to go. The beauty about sleeping is that you rarely remember your worries. But on waking up I remembered that I had to make calls to clients (I run a consulting company), and make follow up to the activities we are undertaking in their businesses. As well as to push for payments. So before even before taking a cup of tea I was on the phone for a while. As usual each call brought another list of to do’ items.
Its not my clients that were bothering me today though, it was something else, it was finances. We had a huge balance to pay to the printers to release my book ‘In the arms of a stranger’ money that we did not have. We had gotten someone to finance the project, both the printing and the upcoming launch, but they needed approvals from their bosses so we didn’t know whether this would be our source or not.
Sometimes I try to imagine if I could translate what they are saying to each other, it would probably be this.
“Why is mom nodding her head in agreement to everything we are saying” Asks Damitta
“Its what adults do when they want to sleep..it baffles me!” replies Nadia
“Why cant she then just lie down and sleep?” The baby sister enquirers
“Beats me”……and I can guess on they go without knowing that sleep is literally killing me then!
So while most of you were turning in your bed enjoying your last deep sleep and in dreamland, I was kept awake by my two angels. Finally they went to sleep continuously for 2 hrs without waking each other or demanding my attention. And just as I was getting accustomed to a good sleep, it was Damitta feeding time again!
I was at a point of panic, God seems to be opening every other way apart from getting the books in my hand.
I wanted to call Agnes the lady dealing with the finances, but I had called her twice this week and I felt I was pushing my luck too far. It could work negatively for me.
I called up all my debtors but none would be releasing payments soon. George (My lovely hubby) asked me to be patient and if she doesn’t call by Saturday we could then call her on Monday.
Now if you know me you know Patience is not my 3rd name. When I was created Patience’ missed out in my AI (active ingredient) For some people like George waiting comes naturally. For me it can only be a fruit of the Spirit. I have to fast and pray to wait…literally for anything
There and then I started feeling even more restless. But agreed with him anyway (Its not like I had a choice!). Being married to George means you have to be rational, else you are on your own. Thats when I picked my phone and saw that my sister had text-ed me about some money I owed her!
She was being very patient because she had lost her job (With my encouragement that we could do business together) and now she was soon going to have a baby. The business proposal had not worked and worst still at the end of it, her and George were not seeing eye to eye. The whole of this year therefore has been spent trying to overcome guilt that I was the one that messed up her life.
I asked George if he had a thousand bob so that I could send to my sister immediately at least to facilitate her movement, we had 1800K sh with us. He suggested we give her the 800 K sh and we remain with 1000 K sh. “No” I was immediately adamant. I want to give her the 1000K sh and we will have to look for the balance for ourselves. I could see he wanted to argue but he let it go. My emotions by then were flaring, but he had no idea. I was thinking that we had easily given the brother 1000 K sh the other day and he hadn’t even as argued with it, Did I feel hesitation in his voice about giving my sister the same?
So today on reading the message I totally got apprehensive. Everyday I have this bad feeling when I think my sister is all on her own (She is one stubborn girl and has decided she will raise the baby on her own!) What if anything went wrong? I have even tried to speak to her to come and stay with me until the baby comes but based from history she wont even think of it! So I imagine all sorts of things based from her message “I cry my self to sleep”
Immediately I started getting angry, angry that my sister could be suffering and there is nothing I could do. My anger automatically got a home, it naturally directed itself to George. After all he was the cause and source of all this, or so I thought
After feeding Damitta and getting her to sleep I slipped away quietly without letting Nadia or George Know. Nadia is a handbag,”If you know what I mean” She just wants to hang on my skirt. But I wanted to think and pray: and I couldn’t do so with a bag of energy in the name of my 3rd daughter running all over the road!
Armed with 1000K sh as a matter of priority so that I could load MPESA and send to my sister, I left the house. I was feeling a build up of negative emotions inside me and I knew where this would land me. I had to talk to someone. Now!. Even to me this was a very small thing but I what I didn’t know then was being an unresolved conflict it had the potential to blow up on my face any time now. It was a volcano waiting to erupt. ………..tbc
Author . Musician . Blogger
Caroline nkirote-Bongo