An Open Letter to the man that was supposed to love me
A few weeks ago, I walked past a man that looked just like you. Yes, I still remember what you look like after all these years. You looked dirty and hungry, homeless is the right word. My friends and I tried to find you. We went around the homeless people with an old picture my mother still has. No one knew who you were, possibly because you don’t look like that anymore or possibly because I wasn’t seeing you, I was seeing a figment of my imagination, the man I’ve spent all my life longing for. I long for you like the skies need stars to look real. Daddy, I am lost. My mental health struggles have won in making me feel like a 20 ton truck constantly drives over my head daily. I’ve learned to live with them though, enough to be a respectable member of society. I have been seeing a therapist twice a week since 2018, I’m on and off anti-depressants and drink whiskey on some days to keep the demons at bay.
I need you, now like I needed you when I was a little girl. All the anger I had about you leaving has left my body and what is left is a deep longing. Just to see which part of my face resembles you so much that my grandmother always says I remind her of you,just to hear your voice cracking at a dry joke I just made and maybe, just maybe to feel you embrace me.
I’m an engineer, can you believe it? The reason behind it is actually so funny. In matric, a teacher Iconsulted about careers said I shouldn’t apply for engineering because I wouldn’t pass. I applied, got in, passed and now I have the last ‘haha’. Everything else hasn’t been so haha-like. Love hasn’t been that kind to me. My first love and I dated for 5 beautiful years then seperated. After that it was a myriad of failed relationships and situationships. I’ve met someone now though. We’re not together-together yet but I hope one day we will be, in our own little boy-meets-girl story. He has a soft voice, that’s my ultimate favourite thing about him. He is the kindest man I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. He is soft and fragile, he is funny and naughty. He has a beautiful smile and has brown eyes that light up under the sun. He is what gods make when they want to send someone to save the earth. You know when great writers write poems about a perfect being, he is what you find at the end of the poem, an undeniable scope of perfection. He is gentle and patient. He is loving, no doubt. If I’m being honest, I’m obsessed with him. There is a lot of pain in him though, nothing I am a stranger to and sometimes I think the pain was our orion’s belt to one another.
It pains me that you should have been my first love. It pains me more that you might miss my last love because you have not found your way back to me. I am old enough now to understand the complexity of life. I stopped wanting to stone you to death for missing all my birthdays, prize givings and graduations. To be honest, I always kept the hope that one day you’d hear from someone that I am having a celebration and you’d show up, even if for a split-second. I’ve slept with my bedroom door slightly open hoping that you’d come visit for years, and even now I find myself subconciously doing it.
I do not have a lot of memories of you to go by, just the stories of your attempts at kidnapping me. Sometimes i wish you had succeeded, maybe my life would have been different. My mother has decided to be my number 1 enemy. If I would tell you the things she has said to me, you wouldn’t believe me. I am terribly unhappy in her house, which she makes sure I know every waking day and God is taking too long to respond to my requests of leaving this house. But all in good timing, right? I have managed to build myself a family of friends that adore me and I them. They’ve become my safe space and I love it. The rest of my life is just that, life. It has it’s ups and downs and the unnecessary sideways. I think you’d be proud of the women I am becoming.
I have been taking driving lessons, what a tedious thing that is. I have a problem with letting go of control and driving has me putting my trust in a machine. I want to vote for whoever is going to promise me to allow quadbikes on the main roads, they are much easier to drive. Well, this is all I have to say, but mostly that I forgive you.
I love you dad. Ngik’thumel umoya omuhle whereever you are and hope you make your way to me soon.
