Okay, so I have totally come to terms with the fact that my dad's family and I have a somewhat feigned relationship that's cool. I don't let what they think of me affect me I have accepted that plus it's not like I spend much time with them anyway with most of them still being in Zambia and rarely seeing my London based uncle. It works out though, I love them because without them there would be no me so I sincerely do love them, what they do with that is their own business. Oh but my mum's family I am well and truly one of them, well considering.
Anyway that's them there, here I have my mum, and a large extend family stretching from north to south there is so much love in my family and it's beautiful and I am so grateful that I am of that.
But being gay having mental health in an African household is so much fucking work.
The last time I had a crisis I was able to heal and deal with that in an affirming space I was sharing an apartment with my cousin and it was very life-affirming especially after what conspired after coming out to my mum. After my internal healing began I went home to Zambia; family hopping. I basked in the heat of the sun and love of my family as I experienced them for who they were and they me, not as sporadic phone calls and WhatsApp messages it was felt beautiful to be part of something you were inherently a part of, you were one of them until they looked a little too close. It was wonderful I laughed, I danced I cried and importantly I got drunk, I enjoyed my time there and on my return moved to London immediately I was off to London I was off to live my queer dream I was going to find my tribe and live gay, free and wild.
And I did I truly did, I spoke, I listened, I created, I loved and was loved in return, I laughed, I danced and Importantly I loved. It was wonderful.
But Corona has left me in a predicament like most of us out there and I am tired.
Came out to my mum a year and a bit ago and what happened there resulted in me moving out, I am grateful I was able to come out while financially stable I moved out of my mum's almost immediately. My cousin and I got a beautiful apartment, we grew plants, we danced, we sang, we ate and importantly we grew, it was beautiful.
Coming back home I realised I had never actually stopped enough to process what happened that summer in that house. And what it means in a time like this what it truly means.
I love my mum truly deeply and I have forgiven her and myself for what happened.
But it's not a space I can go to when I am raw and from the battlefield. There is something about going back to a place with the most joy also comes the most pain. The rawness means I feel everything that bubbles beneath every surface I can feel everything. I find comfort submerged in a bath. I say this because I am submerged in a bath the water almost too cold.
I have not had to be in the house with my family like this in a long time, I spend a night and I bounce because our relationship had changed in such a big way as I went on to live a life in sin, let's not pretend our parents don't all think the same way. I did it anyway and I was happy. I was comfortable loving them from a distance and in short bursts because the things my mum said changed my life and I didn't even know it. I love my family deeply and they mean the world to me they really do, and I to them. We go on wonder holidays away and I feel so much love especially from my little sister she is my world.
But with all this underneath going back to the house feels like being put in a cage after being born in captivity, no idea life outside that was a thing, then being let out to roam wild, only to be caught again back to captivity and all because you were caught limping, after a tough fight. It's hard.
I know my mum loves me deeply I do know that. But during this crisis, everything is so heightened that all I can feel is the judgement that all this is probably happening to me because I am a gay. Having to go back to a place where people believe that being gay is a sin is horrible it eats at your soul because even though they love you their beliefs won't change and when you are healing I think it's better to be in a space can be seen truly and beautifully, or to give you the space to do so internally first, in a space that is physically safe. Because while I have truly forgiven myself my mum and everyone involved in that, I have never been able to see those walls as safe, I feel at any moment they might slip up and remind me of how small I felt in those moments. And everyone will be none the wiser as we watch some Saturday night show, I have never forgiven the house. It was always so good at keeping me before that moment. I always ran back home, until that moment.
I have never been able to run back home since. The house holds shame. Even though the occupants are prepared to say it ain't so.
But its fine I have built a home in me, I serve a living God and sometimes it just has to me and God. The God that I know, the God who has loved me when no one else did, who held me up when everything else wouldn't, a God who has me here today seeing the silver lining. A God who just needs time alone with me. It would be hard to have to trust them again.
And it's not selfish.
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