Dear 40+ year old, do we need to drag you to the altar?

Why in the world are people choosing to be ‘single and searching’ for life? Are you searching for gold or you are hoping that God will miraculously create a different species of women? We understand that your first crush got married to your best friend; your second girlfriend was snatched by the rich neighbour and your baby mama chose to raise your child with your cousin. But life goes on.

The belief that you are too good for any woman is deceitful and misleading. You cannot say that for all the women God created, you cannot find just one who is good enough.

Have you for example, noticed that all the women you rejected or dumped are getting married every weekend and living ‘happily’ ever after, while you, Mr ‘single and searching’ keep contributing for their weddings and being the best man or MC?

Don’t you ever get tired? Isn’t there a vein in you that seemingly desires the life that all your buddies have? Are you such a rock that no woman can penetrate to your heart? Or maybe your heart was made of the material Jericho’s walls were made of (although even those eventually fell).

We have heard all your stories and honestly, we are tired. You are not a man until you are able to conquer your fears. No one will ever trust a man who can’t even keep a relationship for a month. You know that quote in the Bible that says, “A poor man’s wisdom is despised, and his words aren’t heard”? Well, a man, however good-looking and accomplished, is to the society, just a boy if he is not married. It’s even not acceptable to give you a front seat in church or at the party.

Cartoon by Chris Ogon

Also as the years go by, we keep finding excuses for your singlehood, many of which will stain your dignity. And then you will blame the society if they say you can’t ‘perform’. Or you will get into a fight with the girls who will run away just because their parents told them you are married to a ghost. You live the society no choice but to fill up the jigsaw puzzle with their own pieces.

Career is not a woman; it will not create you a family. When you pass on, we don’t want to remember the engineer; we want to remember the husband and father. However ambitious you are, getting to the epitome of your career without having a family leaves you as an empty vessel because in the end you lay in your cold bed, alone. It’s people like you who force death to take you before time, just because there’s no one in the house to rush you to the hospital or call an ambulance.

If the government set up a ministry and appointed me the head, I would drag all these so called senior bachelors to the altar.
Girls are here praying to God for husbands and you are there playing hard to get. Let me tell you, at that age, you don’t even have a choice to be picky. You just marry the next girl who passes by or else, we will drag you to the altar.

Christine Nakalungi

An open letter to a stalking ex

Dear ex, which part of ‘it’s over’ don’t you understand? You seem to have smiled and screamed out FREEEE when you finally ended it with me. You never looked back, you never cared whether I was crushed, crying or had hang myself. I kept praying you would come back; I kept around in pretence of giving myself time to heal just to give you a chance to come back. But no, you had ‘moved on.’ She was better than me and no amount of tears could make me feel better.

Thanks to constant self-counselling, I managed to cut off all those loose ends. I never tried to hate you because then, that will mean I am still holding onto you. I never believed that ‘time heals everything’ but yeah as time went on, I realised I had replaced those lonely thoughts with work, reality and other things that never mattered when we were together.
“All things work out for good” the Bible says but to a hurting soul…that is a phrase you don’t use if you are to make them feel better. A heartbreak crushes everyone’s esteem that you don’t even realise you are beautiful anymore or else, he would not have left you for her. You keep blaming yourself, your style and even your tribe.

But, sometimes you need to drop whatever you are holding so that you receive something else from God. Yes, I have you to thank; when you tossed me into the air, I was scared, I said my last prayer and just waited to be registered in the books of bachelorettes for life. But amidst all that, I found comfort in someone else’s arms.
I wished you well but of course it was not genuine then, but now, I could not give a damn how your life turns out to be. If it was another relationship, maybe I would have moved, or changed my line but no, I couldn’t trade my life for you.
Like a strong woman I stayed, and I kept my smile which earned me another planet of love. You quietly slid further from my heart and I even never noticed.

When I bumped into you, my heart did not skip a beat even for a minute. As a matter of fact, my memory deliberately paused and it never gave me time to think of the old times.
Of course, moving on is no big deal, it was bound to happen. Change is a fact of life; one’s ex is someone else’s current. For a month now you are hitting up my phone with random messages and claiming you were sending it to someone else.
You claim someone else told you about how smart I was, or a random Whatsapp group shared a photo of me. Oh please…all those are signs of a stalker.

How do you explain constant bumping into each other? All of a sudden, you are friends with the person I am dating, my workmates? And my neighbour? Denying it proves you weak.
You had your time and chose to use it the way you did. Do not be hurt if I ask you to get your nose out of my business. Do not play Olivia Pope trying to fix my matters.
If he is wrong for me; you were not different. My relationship is my business and I will appreciate if you save yourself the pain of stalking me dear ex, it is over between us.

Christine Nakalungi

cartoon by Atukwasize Chris Ogon