November

The week days are the same old, Sunday to Saturday. In Harare, we are having longer days and shorter nights but, they still add up to 24 hours. I mean, it is the same old routine - an eight to five job during the week and two short weekend days to relax, waiting for the next cycle. Being Sagittarius, I am not only bored but deeply agitated. I drove past the golf club at exactly 0743 a week ago and I could see a few guys playing golf already, on a Monday and I was going to work. It dawned on me without much thought that life, inasmuch as it is unfair, is hard.

I have worked as an assistant to a man in his sixties who, in confidence, revealed it to me that he had been doing that very same job for over 29 years. He had gone through a routine for that long and the good stories he used to tell never happened in the office. He had fond memories of what he experienced when he travelled or did anything random. It is my birth month so I think it is my own fears that are making me question a lot of my life choices. As I wait for another Monday I can't stop thinking of what I would be remembered for. I'm coming to terms with the fact that it is very possible to go down in history as just another employee who worked for a living all the days of his life.

Even if I was to get married, as I am badly yearning to, it would also be seen as an accomplishment if I managed to raise English-speaking kids and live to die on pension money with my aging wife. Divorce, failure to send kids to school and using public transport were the only things that would probably relegate any family man to the bracket of the also-rans. I feel so disappointed with our society. How were people living with such narrow perspectives? Had everyone accepted that we are insignificant 

Two years after moving out from her house, I have managed to establish my own way of life. To the old double bed she gave me, the kitchen utensils and her beloved bed cover, I have added more furniture and bedding. It wasn't so long ago when I felt so much pride over buying myself a pair of panties. It always looked virtually impossible to be your own man. From the meagre salaries that were a norm in this life-sucking abyss of a country, I think I am doing okay. Make no mistake, I am not rich but, I am not poor - at least according to the United nations definition of poverty. However, according to my own dreams, I am still very poor.

Over the years, my mother has stuck a lot of initials and literals before and after my name. I was once her pilot, then her engineer, then the torch bearer and now I was her professor. She really makes me think I have to be responsible over my siblings and be the guardian of our small family name. I do not know if it is because she really thinks I am that brilliant and can do anything in the world or if it is because of the story she always tells.

I was born at a rural clinic and I wasn't the healthiest baby. She recalls all the hospital admissions she laboured through with me as clear as day. I do not remember any of it but my father does a good job of corroborating the stories. Being a spiritual person she is, she always tells me my very existence to this point is a miracle. And honestly, I have met some old women now who couldn't believe I had grown to this age. One woman clearly said she thought I was probably gonna die as an infant.

Thinking about it, I could have just died and I don't even think that in my afterlife I would have remembered anything about my short stint on this planet. Was that better? I don't know. What I know is that I will make the most of the time I will have...Now I have grown to recall memories and relive experiences so I owe it to myself to make sure that on the day I go, there can be a nice story told about me. It might not be about the richest man to ever live but, It will definitely be about a man who lived freely to the fullest, loved to the fullest and chose to focus on the positive side of life. I did not hear the words of the prayer my mother made as I lay on a hospital bed, nearly dead, and I do not remember the doctor who told my father that I could not be cold and I could not be in the sun...and that I needed sort of a lab environment to survive but, I do know the joy find in my success. Now that I am surviving normally as everyone else, I will live as if to make up for the times my mother spent next to me in the hospital and I will try to be so successful as if to make up for the hospital bills my father had to pay for.

I have taken risks with my own life. I have done a lot of dangerous things but I am here. Many people did way less and they are no more. I am not that wise...and I am definitely mortal. When I think deeply about how and why I am still breathing, I realise the existence of a superpower that directs my path...and I also cannot help but appreciate the prayers my parents still make on my behalf to this day. My parents are not modern in any way - they are not. I do not even think they know what it is I actually do at work but they have only come to understand that whatever it is I do, I'm quite good at it and I enjoy it. They married in the golden years after Independence and they are still together to this day. They have their happy days and their fights here and there. That is their love life...and they have us to show for it. I generally find their relationship advice so archaic and not relevant but, what I always get whenever they sit me down is the care and concern they have. I did not understand it but now I do. No one really genuinely wants you to do good than your parents.

It would be a dream come true if I indeed live to be the man they want me to be - a protector and provider of our family name and heritage but, in the few years I have been on this earth, I have come to realise that life is not a fairy-tale. it doesn't necessarily have a happy ending. No man can ever truly take all credit for their success and no man can fully be blamed for failing. I'm sure very few people can confidently say their lives are exactly as they planned. The cemetery is full of people who left their homes with plans to return but never got the chance. Prisons are full of people who at one point had different plans. The beggars I see everyday definitely did not choose. Yes, I know the power of choices and decisions but nothing is really ever straight forward. This is my resolution - With every passing second, I will take steps towards my dreams and aspirations. Wherever the ink in this book of my life runs out, at least I will say I wrote in it as much as I could.

My mind is very wild...I want to learn a language. A sexy language like Spanish. I want to travel to all the places I wish. I want to camp in jungles...star gazing in hammocks with the love of my life. I want to relive the ancient experiences today. Make love under the moonlight...Ride on camels with the Arabs, read some hieroglyphics with the Egyptians, have spicy pizza in Italy...See the home of democracy and the cradle of the great philosophers - Plato, Aristotle, Socrates. I want to see how the citizens of the great America live. The wildness of the South Americans exhibited on the carnival in Rio de Janeiro - I want to feel it. I want to see the descendants of Adolf Hitler...their efficiency with engines and their love for beer and sausage. I also want to feel how really cold Moscow is and I would wanna try warm myself with their finest vodka. The Irish and their whiskey. The Brits and their history of conquest and adventure. I want to listen to stories of how the Vikings lived and plundered from one of their own. I want to do all this next to a soul that understands mine at every level...One that protects my need for freedom and that feeds my curiosity. Will I get all of this? I really hope so...and God knows I will try all I can to make this a reality. But, will this 8 to 5 job allow it? Will I have the resources to do that? Even If i do, will I get the time? Okay, assuming I get the money and time plus the angel I so desire, Will I still be the man my parents hope I will become? Or I would be a free spirit too focused on my own life and quests? Will I have time to raise cute and naughty kids - the way I want? Will my angel be okay with this? Are these not so selfish thoughts? I do not know.

I am plagued by these thoughts and expectations. I want to be my mother's professor, a wanderer, a great father, an awesome husband and the protector of my family. All this can only be realised much by money...And my way of earning it needs me to be working every single day of my life. It is a messed up cycle and the more I look at it I realise the makers of the system are f*cking us anally, with no lube. I need an escape plan. A shrewd one...because the more you try to navigate your way up the ladder in the system, the more time it takes from you and when you finally get to the top, you realise you have no time left at all...and many times you lose loved ones during the process.