Upon graduating…the memories

*This I wrote in my notebook the day after graduation, January. 2009.*

PRIMARY: I remember vividly my mother forcing me to have breakfast. She believes it is the most important meal of the day and even when she was sure I was already late, she would hold her kiboko and force me to “take your breakfast this instant!” Because of taking breakfast under that pressure and knowing that I was going to be spanked for being late, I always had nausea in the morning.

P.1: My dad takes a teacher to the headmaster for continuously writing my name wrongly and insisting that maybe my dad meant to write it her way. Her version of my name made me a Muganda girl called Wanyana. It grossly infuriated my dad.

P.2: Read the bible at the school assembly. It was a luganda bible. I think the scripture was from Proverbs. It said: “Atakole n’okulya talyenga.” (He who does not work will not eat.) My mum never stopped to talk about it for the longest time!

P.3: My best friend and I and other kids go to UTV. I keep stretching my hands during story time just to make sure no one misses seeing me.

p.5- p.6: strive so hard to stay in the school choir. It was the most fun in school because it meant lots of trips. Being chased away from the choir was the biggest form of embarrassment at the time.

P.7: Headgirl!

First term: get back from holidays and discover that a classmate, Fridah Arinaitwe had passed away. It was the first time I think I understood death (even though I had lost my sister when I was 5. I didn’t really understand it then.) Even the bu boys in class cried cos Fridah was considered the most beautiful girl in my school.

SECONDARY: Yesterday mommy said these were possibly her worst years. They demanded a lot of time from her and she was so happy when I went to Uni…I had no idea! For some reason, I used to get nerves before the term begun. I would stop eating two days before because I would get nauseous. My mum had at that time given up trying to force me to eat.

S.1:New school-Yay!!!

     Boarding school with all kinds of new stuff with my name neatly written on them: Yay!!!

   School of my dreams (the school a million girls would have killed to be in. Or so we were made to believe. For a very long time). Yay!!

     My first day, I was late. I met an S.3 girl, Hellenah Oketcho. She took me to my dormitory and told everyone we were cousins. She looked after me (even though she was in a different dormitory) and saved me from a lot of people that wanted to bully me.

        Got saved (everyone had to get saved in s.1)

S.2: Embarrassing biscuit moment. There was this thing after visiting days when the people who received (resav, we called it) visitors would take some of their grab to share with those that had not. We called it I think food basket. On my way to class one morning with a kaveera with many packets of biscuits for the food basket, the kaveer tears and they all pour out. There were lots of people. They all saw me and thought I was such a glutton, I ate in class!

        First time in Familie (the top 6 kids in class). Yay!!!

S.3: A blur

S.4: Sosh with NGO- never quite got the point of Sosh and why we were so worked up!

         8 days to Cantab: lose another friend, Phillipa Nabirye to sickle cell anaemia. Phillipa, Stella and I used to call ourselves the three musketeers.

S.5: Responsibility

S.6: most difficult class in my life. Told myself if I went through it, I would go through anything in life!

         Surprised myself with what I was capable of

S.6 Vac: didn’t get my dream course-Mass Comm. The course I would have killed a billion girls to get!

University: I sat back a lot of times and just observed how life played out.

1ST year: Excitement. Fear. Confusion. Trying to test all the theories I had heard and see for myself some of the things I had heard.

1st year 2nd sem: 1st ‘real’ relationship

      1st time I’m published! Not in a school magazine but a nationwide thingamajig! ESB, you are in my Fave People inc. for just giving me the ultimate “yay” moment of my life. Nothing has ever compared to what I felt when I saw my byline that first time! forever indebted!

          Lose a very close friend, Victor Musiime to leukemia.

2nd year: first heartbreak!…and a lot of confusing meaningless relationships thereafter!

3rd year 1st sem: discovering my wild side. I know, late bloomer!

3rd year 2nd sem: Give up my dream for what looked at the time as the bigger picture. My one regret in life!

              My friend since first year becomes the greatest love of my life! June ’08: do my last Uni Exam!

Graduation day: Never seen my mother cry so much! Ok, I have but to see her sooo happy and crying so much about it! For me really graduating isn’t such a big deal. I feel I’m not even where I want to be yet so I can’t really say yay! I have achieved. Suddenly it hits me that it was all about her. That when I fail, she fails and when I excel, she excels. And that by graduating, it is a testimony of the good mother that she is. That all this time society judges her as a mother by how I turn out. I thought she would be just happy that she didn’t have to pay school fees anymore but she was happy in an “I have so done well in my life” sorta way! Feels so good to be my mother’s daughter right now!

To my friends with whom I graduated:

“Together we made it. We made it even though we had our backs up against the wall.”- Busta Rhymes Ft. Linkin Park

And the one I took to heart:

“Now is the time for us to shine. The time when our dreams are within reach and possibilities vast. Now is the time for all of us to become the people we’ve always dreamed of being. This is our world. You are here. You matter. And the world is waiting.” -One tree hill

The one my mother told me at 01:00am on the day i graduated cos she was too excited to sleep:

“Ebenezer! Thus far the Lord has brought us! Great is thy faithfulness!”

and to those of you that have made it to the bottom of this very long tale: enjoy your Easter break! “Even death could NOT hold Him captive!”

OF FINDING HOPE IN A GOOD LUCK BAMBOO

Of course we are not the people we thought we would be. Either we set the bar too high in our naivety or the world has corrupted us. Or maybe we had it all underneath waiting to be scratched.

So here we are. Thwarted dreams. Beautiful surprises. Broken Promises. Unveiled talents. Poor judgement and down right stupidity. New opportunities. New friends: seasonal and permanent. New chapters. New stories.

How did we get like this? When did we get like this? Never calling each other for days even though we had promised to. Stashing away the scrabble board into the dusty closet and forgetting the Wednesday game night that was a ritual that we lived for. Promising each other ice cream and coffee dates that have never happened and instead sending each other bottles of Guinness on Face book. You don’t even know what Guinness tastes like!…Or do you now?

Today, I am not going to hesitate to call you and instead ask myself, “What shall we talk about?” I won’t even mask the loneliness behind the you-threw-me-out-texts. I am going to call and I will tell you about those failed relationships I have had and the amazing man that I have found after all the mistakes. I will tell you about the one night stand that I almost had. I will tell you about the job that excited me and yet almost killed my dreams. I will tell you about my confusion right now and surprisingly the ways that have found who I truly am. I might cry while I’m at it but I am going to call you today and ask that we meet.

And hey, I will listen. To the success story at University. To you berating yourself for not being what you know you should be. To the story of how you got deflowered even though we signed those yellow “True Love Waits” cards together. I will listen.

I will call you today because I know you have never judged me. Of course I might chasten you at some point-and I know you will too but I will tell you my story because you know me and won’t judge me.

Remind me to tell you about the brother whose childhood I did not share but who has brought me happiness since he became a part of my life.

I will remind you of the prayers we made and show you how God has answered each one of them in ways that we never imagined.

And I will ask again that you become my good luck bamboo. The one that I will water everyday and put out in the sun instead of the forgotten backyard garden that I had let you become. Today, I am not going to hesitate to call you and ask that we meet.

********************************************************************************

 “Friendships are like backyard gardens. We plan to tend to them but always push them to next week.” -Boston Legal

15.09.08

      There is that song that you listen to or that poem that you read or that line that stands out from a whole page sentences and paragraphs. Or that hue that stands out of a tapestry…beauty that stands out in ways that only you can understand. Beauty that makes you wish there was someone you could share it with. Someone who can see the light in your eyes as you describe it and seeing that light understands it in the exact way that you do.

…I don’t wish for that person anymore. I have found you. I will sing you that song. I will read you that poem. I will quote you that line…and together we shall make our own hue in this human tapestry!

**************************************************************

Well I’m not paralyzed
But, I seem to be struck by you
I want to make you move
Because you’re standing still
If your body matches
What your eyes can do
You’ll probably move right through
Me on my way to you.

-Finger Eleven