How to 'Ex-Terminate' a looming affair

So you have done the disappearing act perfectly well and think that a relationship you wanted out of is dead and buried. Eons later, you bump into each other. She is still single, ready to mingle and dying to settle down; desperate for a relationship that will lead to marriage. She tried Pastor Chris Ojigbani’s renowned seminar, she once applied to The Daily’s lonely hearts column, and when that failed, she further went out on a limb with facebook’s ‘divas for something-or-the-other’ only for it all to fall flat on her face. But in an uber lucky twist of fate, just when she was about to give up and purchase a clowder of cats to keep her company in old age…Voila!

Like a gift from the high heavens, here you stand! The only problem is, once she was out of the picture you moved on, played the field and even convinced some nice girl to marry you. Your ring is in full view for her to see but she won’t accept that what you had is kaput. She refuses to acknowledge the fact that you married your gentle, down-to-earth sweetheart. Her? She might ask. Of all the people, you married HER? (Picture her sneering and scanning her from head to toe)

With that look, battle lines will be drawn. Her mission - to get ‘her’ man back come hell or high waters. So she will make sure you bump into each other again. And again. And again. She will casually ask to share drinks (or food) with you one evening - for old times’ sake of course. During which time she will endeavor to awaken memories of your dating years. Reminders will pop up on how the two of you were so in love. How everyone expected you to spend the rest of your lives together. How she cooked mouth-watering Chapatis for you (Is it just twitter or are men seriously obsessed with Chapatis?!)

She will dress to kill; her dress will be cut to accentuate her curves with her cleavage peeping at you mockingly and the hem falling just above her knee, and threatening to go further up. When it comes to looking good, gentlemen, EVERY woman can put up a good show. The fact that we all know what men like makes it easy; The voluptuous behind a la J-Lo, the well endowed rack a la Pamela Anderson, the long legs a la Tina Turner, ergo the hip enhancements, the skin lightening creams (and injections), the weaves, the push-up bras…It is laughable how women manage to ‘manipulate’ men.

Suffice to say, she will bring her A game to the table and she will dare you to resist all that, your marriage be damned!

Let’s face it, most men don't have it in them to fight off an overzealous Ex. Granted, fighting temptations is not one of men’s strong points. However, for the few men who know what a ring on their finger means, you will be glad to know that you can actually lose a clingy woman without enrolling in cat and mouse games, or pulling a Harry Houdini. You can thank me later.

1. Talk fondly about your wife (Your kids too if any) She cooks for you, she rocks your world, she is a great mother, etcetera. Even if she burns every meal she cooks and goes to bed in her ‘sengenge ni ng’ombe’ tee. For better or worse, remember?
2. Show off your family's pictures if you carry some in your wallet. And please carry those pictures like you do your ID. Your family is your identity after all, innit?
3. Don’t initiate anything. A hug. A kiss. A meet up. A phone call. ANYTHING. Why do you think a woman gets mad when you call yourself her boyfriend yet you don’t bother to call? It’s because we know that when you don’t call, you are not interested.
4. If you bump into her at your ‘local’, refrain from buying her drinks or any treats whatsoever. If you do so you will inadvertently turn your coincidental meeting into an impromptu date.
5. Suggest hooking her up with some nice guy you know. Then go ahead and do it! Meaning what you say will help to avoid giving her mixed signals.
6. Don’t share your marital problems with her. That is the weak link she is after and as soon as she finds it, She. Will. Milk. It. Dry.
7. Understand your weakness with the female anatomy and keep your distance. If she manages to get you all alone, all confused, all vulnerable and all in her spell, then your goose is cooked.
8. If for some reason you need to call her about something; maybe to pass your heartfelt condolences for the loss of a relative, a cat, dog, job, whatnot (I can’t think of any other valid reasons), then don’t call at night. Calls made at night have a personal tag to it and you don’t want to go personal. This means that Texting, (need I say sexting?), Chatting, are all absolute no-nos!
9. No you can’t be friends! Not if she is still hang up on you, you can’t! You will call it ‘friendship’ for so long until she starts staying up late, staring at the ceiling above her big California King bed, asking herself “What if…”
10. Cut the cord. Sever links with her. A relationship needs care to grow. Neglect it, and it wilts away. You want to let it die.

Try the above and you will irritate the hell out of her. She will be so bored of your marriage-wife-children-commitment-family yada yada that if you are lucky, she might start avoiding you.

Unless of course you don’t really want to lose her entirely. Would you prefer to keep her as a side dish maybe? A scrumptious chips funga for your dry spells? No harm in stringing her along, is there? Her much needed ego-massage comes in handy when the missus gives you grief, ey? Every man sure needs one of those, right? Yeah? Really? SHAME ON YOU for even daring to nod your head! 

High School

The thing about high school is that when you are through with it, you never ever want to go back. This is prolly because high school does not come with many choices; it’s the school rules or the highway! It rules.

You don’t get to select your own wardrobe every morning; it’s the full (mostly ugly – ask Hon. Mutula) school uniform or the highway! You don’t get to wear your hair any way you’d wish to; its cornrows, pushbacks, ponytails on blow-dried (not chemically treated) hair or the highway! If you are in a boarding school, like I was, you don’t get the privilege of selecting a meal from a menu (unless you go to those schools whose names end with “….Group of Schools”). In my case for example, it was sugarless porridge, tea and a measly slice of bread, rice and beans, maize and beans aka Githeri or Makhayo- depending on which part of Kenya you come from, Ugali and barely shredded boiled Sukuma Wiki or Cabbage with a, as in ONE, piece of meat. That, or (wait for it) the highway!

Just in case you are having trouble following, all I’m saying is: High School sucked like a vacuum cleaner!

When one is done with such life in high school, you would understand when they are tempted to take the damn stinking piece of garbage that gave them grief for four solid years, lock it up somewhere in a dingy basement called ‘the past’ preferably in the middle of a desert in an unidentifiable location, throw the keys in the deep waters of a vast ocean hoping that it gets carried far far away with the tide and move on like that part of their life never really happened. Who can blame them for that? Who would ever want to go back to that food? The life full of restrictions? The unsightly uniform? The bullying? The cliques? The punishments? The hormones? The peer pressure? The struggle to fit in? The whole kit and caboodle?

But being the grown up that I am today, if I was to be given a do over, to do things my way, I wonder what exactly I would like to change. Would I ask for a better hairdo? A shorter figure-hugging uniform, a carte blanche to run my life as I wish? Why don't I have a resounding YES!

Forget the fact that I would need a bigger size uniform because I have added a pound or two since the last time I was there – that is irrelevant thankyouverymuch!  

It’s true that when a student sets foot in high school, it more often than not, boils down to perception; cliques, what’s in, what’s not, who’s cool, who’s not, who’s with it, who’s not, what’s poppin’, what’s not, who is your father, who knows your mother…You get the drift.

Yet in reality high school should merely hold a bunch of youngins who happen to be around the same age, seeking the same thing at the time of their life? No biggie right?

When I joined my former schoolmates for a reunion a few weeks ago, ‘no biggie’ is not exactly the phrase that came to mind. There is something to be said when a group of girls, now all grown up, who in the quest for knowledge, had once shared the same horrible pot of Makhayo, wore the same ugly uniform, studied in the same class at the wee hours of the morning, read till midnight with feet soaked in cold water, converge after high school.

No biggie? I don’t think so! ‘We survived!’ is more like it.

After high school, your die is spent. How your life pans out after that is entirely up to you. The end of high school signifies the beginning of life choices. Real life decisions. Not just ‘mini-skirt-or-long-skirt’ kind of decisions.

This is what I realize; that though the ‘high school’ part of my life was not the best, or the most comfortable, like any past, it helped get me to where I am today. I therefore won’t be too quick to throw away those keys.

After all is said and done, isn't it amazing what we know now, and how little we knew back then? Isn’t it amazing what’s really important and what was mere hogwash?

Since you've been gone...

It’s been an uphill task coming to terms with your demise-especially for your mother. That Friday afternoon years ago, when you took your last breath, we were left in heart-wrenching confusion, unable to comprehend what had happened.

For a while, I thought that it was a bad dream and that I would wake up and it would all be over. We all did. Only for the nightmare to drag on and on and as your small body was lowered to the earth, the nightmare turned into inevitable reality; that you had left us, never to come back again.

How were we supposed to move on? How were we to accept that we wouldn’t see you grow, play, teeth, blossom into a young woman, rebel, talk back at your parents, finish school nonetheless, get married and have your own children? Grandchildren even?  I wanted to see all that. Imagine the things we would have done together. Maybe I would have taken you to have your ears pierced, held your hair in a ponytail, allowed you to borrow my lip gloss, taken you shopping for your first bra... you know, things aunts do with their nieces. It would have been something to watch you take your first steps. Watch you fall in love. I would have scolded you though when you faltered, kept bad company, or talked back to your mother in your adolescent years. I would have loved to dish out unwarranted advice even if you would roll your eyes at me like teenagers are wont to do. 

I would have loved to watch you grow, but you left us too soon. You broke our hearts baby girl. You left us crashed. 

Plus, you broke the all-important rule. Yes you did, the unwritten rule that states that no child should ever precede their parents out of this world. But eight years is a long time to hold a grudge neh? I therefore forgive you for that sweetheart!

You would have been turning nine years old today and so I know that today must be a very difficult day for your mother. See, she has tried in the years after you left us to bear the pain though you can tell it has never left her. It never does. 

What she has been doing is coping. Because really, what else is there to do but cope and hope that when one day is done, you will find it within you to wake up the next day with just enough strength to take you to the next couple of minutes...hours...days? Praying each day for a resuscitation with the rising of the sun?

Not to worry though. Through God’s grace, she has borne the pain. One day has turned into a week, a month has turned into a year, one year to eight and a half years. She soldiers on. And when it all seems unbearable, I know she knows in her heart of hearts that we are here.

After all, what is family for?


Happy Birthday Hazel.