I don't like how he treats me...

That is the epiphany I had this week.  I know, doesn’t sound like the most amazing realisation, does it?  Most epiphanies don’t, unfortunately, at least not mine, but life is funny like that, usually the simplest idea is the one that’s hardest to understand. 

Today’s soundtrack is by the always brilliant Anthony Hamilton, a man who, if his bio is to be believed, has tasted both success and hardship in equal measure.  The song is taken from ‘Southern Comfort’, an album that is surprisingly not highly rated, surprising because he sings the hell out of damn near every track, and then some.  Consisting of earlier works, music he did before he found fame, back when he was a struggling artist with nothing to his name but a brilliant voice and very well written music, he only released this album after he finally got his big break, the second after a similar offering a couple of years earlier.  The ‘Comfort’ album is hands down my favourite of all his albums, although given my fondness for peculiar things that statement may not be the ringing endorsement it is intended to be.  This one track in particular, ‘Why’, was love at first listen, the melody got into my head and has refused to leave, and this is three years later.  Thing is, I’d never actually listen too closely to the lyrics, apart from singing along to the chorus the rest was ‘ta dadadada tadada da’, complete with random hip swaying, that is until this week.  I was listening to it one evening, after a spectacularly draining day, and I was in utter shock, and feeling kind of foolish.  Kumbe this man has been singing the bloody soundtrack to my life and I’ve been humming through it, oblivious.  What I need you to do this Sunday morning is listen to the track and then ask yourself, why?     

Day to day the roles we play, walking round with frowns on our face,

When we wanna be happy,

Never being true to self, once you’re gone there’s nothing left

But a breeze, wanting to be free...

My birthday is coming up this month, and because of my impending middle-aged status (I’m about to start checking a different box) I’ve been a bit reflective this week.  Well, more than usual.  Now seeing as how I’m so not religious, the only days of the year I pause to reflect are New Years Day, my birthday and Jamhuri Day, all the other holidays are simply excuses for me to have a bit of a lie in, this after consuming more alcohol than is normally acceptable the night before.  In keeping with this (possibly flawed) theme, at the beginning of the year I reflected on past relationships and how my baggage kept shaping my future, arguing (eloquently I thought, but I’m biased, clearly) that constantly repeating past mistakes was the key to learning from them.  Well, it’s taken me 6 months, but I think I’ve finally figured this shit out, courtesy, in part, of strange conversations with a couple of friends and strangers, and one particularly unhinged young man. 

How many days have I told myself get up again,

And go on with the struggle,

Trying to be someone else, why should I pretend

That I like the mood I’m in?

A man who had been written off reappears, reformed and now a more serious man.  For all of two weeks.  Then he reverted to type and disappeared, again.  He doesn’t want to see you… a faint whisper in the back of my mind, as I realise I haven’t spoken to him in two weeks, and he’s on leave.

A silly boy tried to hit on me, talking about how he needs to pleasure someone, wanting to know if I’d ever been fisted (what the hell?) and such like filthy details, and then stalking my ass when I refused to shag him, finally resorting to amateur blackmail, talking about how I’m his soul mate.  He’s trying to manipulate you… another whisper, as I ignored his third call of the evening.

A man I like, a friend, was picking my brain, in the process forcing me to answer some hard questions about my life and what it is I’m looking for, forcing me to look at my relationship with him and see it for what it really is, forcing me to decide.  But he can be a bit mean sometimes… the voice in my head getting louder, pushing through my confusion, as he’s snapping at me for asking questions, questions not unlike those he’d been asking me himself only a few hours earlier.

Another man I like, but who I considered off limits because he’s with someone else and I have no interest in trespassing, he crossed a line that I thought was not going to be crossed, a line I thought could not be crossed, a line that should not have been crossed.  He’s treating you like a whore… the voice getting angry, frustrated.

A man I’ve only just met, a man I’m considering possibly dating, possibly, but he doesn’t let me talk, always interrupting, talking over me, brushing off my opinions as the mutterings of a fool, mocking me, patronising me.  He’s treating you like an idiot… the voice finally becoming a scream.

How many ways have I tried to be like someone else,

But couldn’t fit the profile,

Dancing a dance, knowing that I’m off beat all the while

But I didn’t believe…

For the longest time I’ve been that irritating chick who’s always analysing her relationship, nitpicking constantly, convinced that something somewhere always need fixing.  What am I doing right, or wrong?  What can I do better?  What should I be doing now?  On and on and on…  Its only now, many years after my last serious relationship that I’m finally at the place where I can sit back and say, with some conviction, that I need to trust myself a bit more, and cut myself some slack dammit.  I’ve learnt the lesson, finally, and it only took four and a half years.  Just so you know, for someone as fucked up as I am, that has to be a new record.  And now, instead of wasting time worrying about my kadha issues, I’m going to be asking myself, what is he bringing to the table?  These days when I meet a man, I’m no longer trying to figure out what I’ll do for him, I want to know what he’ll do for me.  What is this bugger going to add to my life?  Is he going to make me happy?  Is he even going to make me tea?  How do I feel when I’m with him?  Do I like who I am when I’m with him?

Why, why can’t they just let me be?

And why, why can’t I just be free?

Without them telling me where to go, what to say, who to see

And why, why can’t I just be free?

Folks, it would appear that I am back to good, finally.  It seems that in the process of hanging up my fixing boots, I also hung up my baggage.

POSTSCRIPT

Before you start getting all sentimental on my ass, know that the self-pitying, pathetic, woe-is-me cow has being slain and will be roasted over an open flame later this afternoon, so dont bother me with condolences and such like woiyee bullshit.  If you really want to help, buy a drink, or some charcoal for my fire, or a bloody potato peeler…