Her name was
Ebeth. Because getting heartbroken by a bland Whitney, or picayune Mary, or tasteless
WinJoy is just pure carelessness.
Ebeth was
medium, about this high and I still remember the pick up line I used to seal
her firmly in my Balenciaga box:
“Ebeth how tall are you?”
“I’m about 4-foot
11…” she said.
“Oh great! You will fit into my life.”
Then broke into a deep grunt, like a pirate with stage 4 cancer. The kind of
laugh that tell you, you hit the bull’s eye. By the way, men, feel free to use
that pickup line it works.
She had nice
leg too. Grown-ass woman. The take-me-seriously type of a woman. And that chief
defining attribute of a certified Kenyan lady heartbreaker: She had the forehead.
Didn’t matter. Copious episodes of “El Cuerpo del Deseo” made me feel like a Spanish
matador oozing malandro charm. In short, I was in love. On account of her
forehead, our heads would bump into each other- probably the Lord trying to
knock sense into me- but it wouldn’t be romantic if it made sense, would it? We
would get married, have a few babies called Ty and Kly- yes, Ty and Kly- and
settle in the woods. I had my life planned out. Hand to God.
And she did
thet very Kenyan thing that Kenyans ladies like to do. She said:
“I need
space. You don’t fight for me.”
Space? What
do you mean space? Okay fine, we live in a bedsitter but we can move out to
some 2 bedroom? In fact, I was thinking of moving out? Please don’t go? This
writing thing will work out in the due course. Babe? Baby? Please, listen to
yourself. You can’t leave me. I will shave. Everything. Everywhere. This two
bedroom would be empty (okay not so empty) but not as full as without you. Is it the house? Is the
man? Pathetic.
Suffice to say, my pleas were fleas in her ear. Therein lies the first lesson
of heartbreaks: don’t grovel.
I sunk into
my emotional wheelchair, with a nasty weeping gash over my heart. She broke me
real bad. I’m telling you brother. I almost shaved my not-so-there afro. I was this
close. This close.
Take a man
to admit that, I think. And here’s the thing about stories. If you don’t own
yours, someone else will take liberties with it. They will even say you shaved
your head (you didn’t) or you contemplated becoming a priest (okay you did, but
nobody has to know.)
Rejection
man. It does things to you.
And you see,
I am one of those happy-go lucky guys. I traded a full body weight for a
perfect smile. I was pissed. I had never been rejected before. Oi. Heartbreaks
stinks. It means someone has taken along hard look at you and was like , “No
thanks.” I cancelled all women. Hand to God.
Anyone who
has been served a good rejection knows this; in the immediate blast radius,
heartbreaks can cause temporary insanity. So, I went on a quest to find my
tribe of heartbroken men, you know misery lovers company. Voila!
The second lesson: quit the pity party. “Rudi soko like you never left, man!”
My friends would say , while drowning in the embrace of their women. Someone
advised me that the best way to get over someone was to get under someone. But
I had already cancelled women, remember?
Look, there
is a reason Jesus stayed single for life. The son man, knew(knows?) something
we don’t, giving the other gender a wide berth. The son of a carpenter can
handle nails but not a broken heart? But I get it. JC. I get it.
I had a hole
in my house, and one in my soul.
It’s like
broken glass, you know? You can piece it together, but the cracks will always
be there.
It hurt like
a mother -…, brother.
The strangest
part was, that there was no build-up. No signs. The earth did not shake. The
air didn’t crackle. There were no sound of footsteps approaching through the
forest. It hurt like an onrushing bus.
This
heartbreak, methinks, is forever tattooed on my brain and heart. I go with it
everywhere. It is there when I am saying hi to my mother. It pees next to me in
the urinary. It is the elephant in the room when I go into a restaurant and
order my favorite Americano or my favorites poison cold as her heart, and the waiter
asks for my order; before turning to it and taking its order too. It sucks, man.
You live with the kind of hatred only love can understand.
Final lesson:
down the road, it will look frivolous. So put that rope down. Especially, that
revenge you are contemplating. Not worth it. Trust me, holes heal. Cracks fill.
Rejection is the price you pay to be a full human being. That is the stiff
learning curve you go through to get your, well, shit straight. Or perhaps it’s
easy to direct the film once everyone’s watched it.
Eventually,
we all break
The question-
may be the only question that matters- is whether or not you are able to use
the pain and the heartbreak as the fuel. Feel that pain. Feel all of it. This
whole process is why there is an Otile Brown in the first place. Sometimes, the
thing that ties you down set you free. So, treat yourself to some chapati and
mbuzi, that rare 3qm booty call or that long-lost ex.
Rejection is
not for the weak of heart. It’s like KDF boot camp or a top boy for the mob; if
you are not cut for it, if you do not have the essential thing inside, it will
eat you alive. It’s an enclave, a place where it seems no one quite has the
authority to tell the children when it is time for bed, and rejection doesn’t
just require simple cojones, either. It requires devotion of a monk, the
aloofness of a politician, the doggedness of a field general, the patience of a
pine tree. Everything the Buddha says, ultimately ends: time, distance, or
death takes it all away; and if we are not wary, we end up creeping through the
lonely streets with our eyes staring hungrily into others eyes and seeing the
same hunger there. Brother, by all means, follow your heart but take your brains
with you.
Take it from
me, I know all about the emptiness of loss, I know that happiness dwells in the
shadow of pain. Maybe now, you will start ruminating on life as opposed to
fulminating against it.
Now that you
have read my rejection story. I’d love to read yours. Mail me. Tweet me. Even
if you are the dating Ebeth. Especially if you are one dating Ebeth.
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