Dear Hellen,

BEFORE YOU READ THIS MANY-PAGED “LOVE LETTER”, PLEASE BE REMINDED THAT I LOVED YOU FROM THE START, I HAVE ALWAYS LOVED YOU AND WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU, BUT… WHAT IS LOVE WITHOUT HEALTH, WEALTH AND HAPPINESS?

Recently, you sent me a very mind-disturbing message- or messages, and they went: “Forget about gf my dia”, “Dont propel me to switch off ma phone please” then “Nolonger interested in our relationship btw” and it affected me at first! It was not the first time to hear those words from you and I have lost count of how many times I have heard them from you.  

To this, I thought you were probably annoyed, deserved to know the truth and the reality even beyond the messages which I had already sent you. So I opened up like a free way, like Kampala’s northern bypass at 3:00am. I tried to give you all the info about my friends and even gave you an opportunity for us to make good. 

I apologized, sent you messages, songs, emogi love icons, chocolate and anything small I could manage but you were still mad at me, abusive and not interested in talking to me, only to responded with messages like “You know for the first time I have decided to keep quiet n am not ready to tell u y am pissed until u do it yo self”. 

So I decided to give you time to think, which also gave me time to not just think but rather think about a number of thing s that seemed to never add up but still seemed very key for either a ‘happily ever after’ or a ‘don’t wana see you ever again in my life’.

The evening of Friday 17^th Sept 2015, as I trekked from Tufnell drive (Office) to home, Kyebando, my head was spinning and boiling with questions and answers that sounded much like a story I wanted to share with everyone but yet with no one.

WAS IT MY PROBLEM THAT SOME GIRLS CAN ADMIRE ME TOO AND ASK ME TO VISIT THEM?

Believing the fact that this was the source of our ‘unhappiness’ which came up at a very nice, expensive date (1^st time experience) at Arcadia Suites, it was the first question in my head that never went well and was followed by ‘What did I exactly do wrong’? 

It is then that I remembered that you used to sleep on my bed and tell me stories of guys who had wanted to sleep with you, those who hit on you, the ones that sent(still send) you messages every day, the ones that have asked to marry you and the ones that bought you items(which you expected me to embrace by the way). 

At that moment I realized that I had no reason to feel bad and or be sorry about your behavior.  Based on my conversations, photos and text messages, girls are begging me to either join them, visit them, meet them and they go ahead and tell me they miss me and or love me. And my responses were/are so politely cold, I never responded things like “miss you too”, “love you too” or any annoying stunts but rather kept postponing their visits to ‘next week’ which was not the first extension FYI.

And to that response I remembered how you have managed to visit all the boys- I mean all of them from the long time rival, Joe to the current rival in Kiboga- who hit on you or asked you to visit. Thus NO REASON TO BE MAD AT ME because am a good man, a likable man and an admirable man and you are worse than me at handling admirers.

WAS THE FIGHT WORTH US BEING UNHAPPY FOR MORE THAN 3 DAYS?

No way it could have been worth it and realistic for a simple admirer to ruin our relationship-happiness for 3 days that resulted in the above quoted text messages. This quickly reminded me of all the other fights, how you always handle your situations when it’s on your side. 

This becomes one sided. If you actually visit your ‘bu’ boyfriends, it turns out that am the one to apologize for being unrealistically annoyed for you just visiting a ‘friend’. It is to this that I realized that I am always the one begging you to be around, to stay and or to try and be happy. 

I remembered that we have never stayed close for more than 3 days without a fight coming up which can spend up to weeks. Which means mathematically, the score of our happiness to our fight is about. 3:7 unless we are not close to each other. 

Let me make it clear for you. If we stay together in 10 days, we shall be happy for 3 days, go out, have fun and do a number of things but we shall spend the next 7 days unhappy just because of a text or whatsapp or anything…. Then in the 7 days we shall fight , abuse, quarrel and or even break things but more still, irrespective of if I was the cause of the fight directly, or indirectly, irrespective of if it was me in the wrong or you or none of us, I will apologize, beg, cry for your forgiveness, I will beg you to try and be happy again… but it always yields nothing until you either go home in the morning annoyed or I just decide to keep quiet about the matter like nothing happened. This always results into days of not speaking to each other for about a week.

THE MAKE UP: After such a fight, I will call or text you for something you really want in life. Like a job offer or job interview or you will text me asking for Money for your hair or shoes… or in most cases, I will call you and say I have a surprise for you, which is never really a surprise but just because I want to put us back together. 

In the end of it all, its me trying to have you not you even trying. Except when I totally give up on you and you act weird when I have fully lost any interest. AT THE END OF IT ALL IT SOUNDS LIKE A ONE SIDED GAME THAT AM SO TIRED OF PLAYING.

WHAT IS LOVE WITHOUT HEALTH, WEALTH AND HAPPINESS?

I remember us sometime back coming to an understanding that we all have love, we both love each other and we kind of are inseparable because the odds always played us back in love no matter how we tried to run away. 

We have all been told by the people we run to-when we fight that we are inseparable and we can’t do without each other. They have always said ‘this is just for a while’, ‘you are wasting your time’. In fact, I could also be wasting my time writing all this.

But then, what is with just love, only achieved by two distant people? What is with love that is stronger when apart? We are not wealthy and I have always burnt my ass off with work just to acquire more for the future, in fact I was starting to observe you appreciate the late office works and sleepless nights I always have. But we have none of the above. No Health, no wealth, no happiness. 

I could do anything, I could hold onto anything if we had a single bit of supporting element to love but in vain. I stay blank, I become a vacuum. We have always floated in space, a next to each other, not knowing when to break the thread that holds us together yet always fighting to break it. Not knowing where we shall land if and when the thread is gone, yet both of us scared of breaking it. 

May be we don’t want to break it, but then why fight for it, why keep pulling and kicking ourselves together and apart. Only if we could take a firm ground on happiness (which we have failed to control). Shall we handle health? How about Wealth? Because the journey seems longer than I though.

WHAT BENEFIT DO I HAVE IN THIS RELATION SHIP?

Can you believe I had only two answers to this question that were feasible? I was surprised by the answers I got to this Question because it made me fill USED. Like you have always used me. Forget all the emotional attachments because emotions don’t make sense any more (except for the good feeling you get when you have good sex).

a)    Inspiration: When you were still in Bushenyi, staying with your Untie, I was talking to you on phone and she called you asking about someone. You said, ‘he is upstairs’ from that day, I told myself that before I die, I will build myself a home which will have Upstairs. This has been my dream ever since and I will make it.

b)    Looking, Smelling, dressing good. You have always wanted me to dress good, look good and or always have something nice. You introduced me to things like use of deos and perfumes which technically was not my life.-Appreciated but it’s not something that can give me a future, a memory. You have always wanted me to buy good staff for my house like good seats, good curtains, carpet, music, TV. All these are good but if my house caught fire, or thieves attacked, I would end up with ZERO. Thus I will stick to the first point as the biggest achievement to this relationship. The rest are just blurred images of good times and moments that have always been washed away by the long fights.

Then after I thought about the contributions that I could have made in your life that I would be proud of even in my grave

a)    When you had just given up and was going to the hostel to sleep and wait to fail (Because you had given up on your course and had accepted to be a failure), I called you, facilitated you and helped you print and deliver your Academic report. It reminds me of how you can easily give up in issues to do with life. I remember that night you came back to my place to thank me-That’s the moment of a lifetime.

b)    I spent sleepless night working on your reports, CVs application letters and well… I know it is nothing to you but it is everything to me. This was an impact in your future not just a few moments.

c)    I helped you get your first Job while still at campus, and your First Job after Campus(Of course if you exclude the bar-attending bit)

…I could have added that I was your first BF, but honestly, I am not happy about it and I wish you had kissed a few frogs before you met there. Probably then you would have known what it is like to love and be in love without using your partner. Kissing a few frogs would have helped you reason out why your father wondered if you were talking to "your husband" on phone that night when you were all rude. 

…I could have added that I introduced to a few more things, bought you a few more things, took you to a few more places, took care of your few more medical conditions, introduced you to a few more connections, friends, experiences, a few more technologies… All those are minor!

It is at this moment that I realized I was being used. It was always me who wanted something from you. It was always me who cared about us staying together, making sure this worked, hunting for all sorts of happiness. 

You only cared about one thing-How do people around us see us. And that is why you only tried to protect whoever sees us. That is why you only made sure people around see us happy yet you always kept drumming the war drums in the house. That is when I realized that while all along when ALL I WANTED WA YOU, ON YOUR SIDE, ALL YOU WANTED WAS PDA. While all I wanted was happiness, all you wanted was public display of affection. You did all this for the public, for your family, for your friends, for your classmates and kinda did nothing for yourself.

I wonder if you ever knew what you wanted. Last time when I told you I could not handle you and asked you to leave, I thought for the first time you had shown signs that you know what you wanted because you stood up to yourself. Swallowed all pride and told me you wanted to “Carry me as part of your property” but then…

Hellen, I am tired of trying to be good, trying to make you happy, trying to impress you and I want to just stop trying but rather BE GOOD, MAKE SOMEONE HAPPY, and IMPRESS SOMEONE.It seems you are not that person.

If you wana stay, stay for good and if you wana,  go, never turn back, never look over your shoulders and stay focused ahead just like LOTI and family “But Lot was hesitant to leave because he and his family loved the town of Sodom.  Then angels even had to pull at their arms and drag them out of the city. They were told to run for their lives and to 'not look back'. But Lot's wife did not obey God.  She turned and looked at Sodom burning, sorrowfully.  She turned into a pillar of salt”.

Yours truly (My 1 & Only)

Barly