Some months ago I started
noticing some weird things among my age-mates. This may have been noticed by
those older than us much earlier but I think my eyes opened fairly recently.
The concept of value and responsibility seems to be a conversational concept,
and idea or philosophy to be floated around in company just to show how ‘learned’
we are. Many of us however do not seem to actually understand the day to day
applicable meaning of these words.
See, for a long time I did not
believe in the hoola-baloo around weddings and much less the whole marriage
thing. What used to happen is that we go for all these seemingly joyous
meetings and ceremonies that lead to the big day then one month, 5 months, 10
months, 1 year, 3 years max there is silence ice and talk of moving on. I heard
of a marriage that lasted less than a month in this here Kenya, Nairobi even.
And we think it’s only Kim Kardashian and the like who pull such stunts.
We are 28, 29, 30 and I dare say
35 year olds running around town with childish ideas of what life is about. Ho
now does a man with children by more than one women, one possibly being an ex-wife
who couldn’t live with an overgrown child still find that a conversation with
peers about how they romped around Eldoret over the weekend is the highlight of
the week! And if you corner the guy and remind him of his paternal responsibility,
he might just share his strategy to spend everything he can on himself so that
those mean, nasty baby mamas do not see a cent from him. True story.
This is not a man bashing post.
There are women, my riika if you may, who all they aim for is to be married
upper middle class. First the wedding needs to be of the standard, and must
impress all the girls. Then they must live in an apartment in Kilimani, Westy
or if things are hard maybe south C. Once the ring is on it and the child has
been produced, it’s a competition to see who can Instagram their baby the most
in the cutest outfits at all the right places… until you get to the other side
of the lens and hear ‘aki huyu mtoto
husumbuuua.’ As the child is put to a corner in the latest fashion stroller as
the girls have their wine. This lady might hold down a good job and her money
is hers. To spend on looking good and being seen at the ‘right’ places, doing
the ‘right’ things.
So I take a step back and mourn
for all the things these overgrown children are destroying, I mourn for the old
tired and lonely people who just might discover in their 60’s or 70’s that time
cannot undo itself. I mourn for a generation that will never know what they are
missing out on until they can do nothing about it but get lost in their own
sorrow alone.
Real wealth that carries is not
in property and fat accounts but in people, the people around you and the
relationships we nurture. Relationships are hard and not always about smiles
and laughs, there are tears there are fights… but the end goal is worth it.
At the end of the day, parents
will try, and they will tire and their time will pass, friends, should there be
principled people in your circle, will try until your antics will be too embarrassing
for them to associate with you and they will quietly and surely melt away (as
you nurse your drink in Malindi begrudging the haters you thought were friends),
you will have destroyed the relationships you tried to call family and then
what. Like I told someone a few years ago, the cars and the big houses and
rental property will not nurse you when you are ill, will not be your
companions when age slows you down and will definitely not bury you. So, I’m I
talking to you?