It’s another October and my birthday has come to pass. I recall when I was turning 30, I wrote a blog post about how I am no longer adding things on a “to-be list”, but rather things I want to undo… I didn’t have the concept of ‘unlearning’ in my vocabulary or my mind yet. That blog seems a bit foretelling now. Perhaps we really should be careful with our declarations; since then I have been in a loop of unlearning. This year I officially checked off 34 and started the 35th trip around the sun. All I can think of is what I’d like to re-learn given all the unlearning I have done and continue to do. The truth is, I’ve been doing the bare minimum for the past two years; for the most part, I’ve just been trying to survive my own mind. I can hear someone say “Hmm na your own bare minimum this?” And the answer is yes. I know what I’m capable of, what I can do when I feel driven when I believe it matters, when I believe I matter… I’ve not done close to that in a while. Perhaps it’s the burnout from years of hardcore mode (actually, this is very likely it). But knowing you’re burned out doesn’t make you feel better about being unproductive. The past 2 years have been some of my most unproductive. I’m not saying this as a “humble brag”. I know some people won’t get it, and I know my sister-friends will be like “You’re too hard on yourself Monique” and perhaps they’re right, but I’m also thinking critically 🤷🏾♀️ And if I’m being very honest anything I’ve enjoyed from March 2021 till date is somehow the fruit of the work I did in my 20s. I’ve been saying ‘thank you’ to the version of Monique who did so much in her 20s that this version of Monique can get away with doing so little in her 30s. But it’s a bittersweet thank you because despite all that version did she couldn’t fix some major issues… And now 2 years out of my ‘top form’, I’m wondering: As I consider how much I have to be grateful to younger Monique, I am considering what I should be relearning as much as I unlearn. So that older Monique will be able to say similar “thanks” for the current version of me in future. Here’s my shortlist of things I must re-learn: 1. I must re-learn reading for fun of it. 2. I must re-learn imagination without restrictions; such as how it never bothered me that ever character in my favorite version of Cinderella was a different race. Such as how I loved watching “The Magic School Bus” 3. I must re-learn asking for help and expecting it to come 4. I must re-learn curiosity about who I am and who I want to be, what makes me fun 5. And I must re-learn the novelty of dreaming… asking myself again “who do I want to be when I grow up?” What made me lose these things, growing up? How then do I “grow down”?
A conversation with Fungai Machirori
Last year I shared a great deal about my mental health struggles openly via my blog and this caught the interest of a ‘Digital Native’ and #Afrifem sister Fungai Machirori. She invited me on her podcast for a conversation on what it takes to engage publicly about struggling with mental health issues as an African woman. See our conversation here: https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-3ck7b-14a022a
Musings on Motherhood, Or rather Opting out of it…
Have you ever considered that the reason one may want to have kids is unhealthy? This month’s musings are on my own coming to terms with unhealthy motivations for motherhood and why I take my current position on it. As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts on it. So drop a comment after watching the vlog!
A Year of Self-Love?
One of my favourite quotes is by Zora Neale Hurston and it goes: There are years that ask questions and there are years that answer. I am praying that 2023 is one of the years that answers… A sister-friend has a small ministry she calls “Jesus Parties”. She, like many of us, grew up in a society that has likened sin to fun and Christ to boring. She felt called to re-create the jubilation and joyful gathering of the saints the book of Revelations said would come. I attended my first “Jesus Party” in December of 2022. I’m going to be honest and say it could have be better but for a young initiative, one that was so needed I did appreciate the effort. I appreciated that this was just a space for healthy fun, we need more of such spaces. Spaces where teens can play games that don’t involve “I dare you to kiss so and so”, spaces with more creative recreation that is not just eating and drinking. But that’s not the point of this blog. At that event, the Holy Spirit seemed to take over a professional acquaintance, we went from fun to prophesy in a quick minute. This acquaintance- a guy who knows very little about me- knelt at my feet, got up and then said: “I keep getting the word self-love for you, I don’t understand it. I wonder if I heard well”. I, an overthinker with an analytical mind, had raised an eyebrow at this guy kneeling at my feet. My first thought was “Why me? Is this necessary?” I recall praying as he knelt that, God better prove his actions sincere. When he later mentioned hearing that word for me, I knew that he didn’t know me well enough to have connived that word that spoke of my inner turmoil. I took the word and put it away. I already knew I needed to love myself. The issue has always been how. Writing the rest of this is going to be difficult so perhaps I’ll make a vlog to compliment this piece… Now that I’ve made the video, with me in good lighting, looking neat, with no make-up but still lip gloss, and my large form not that apparent I can imagine some people will be like “What insecurity does this one even have”. The thing about insecurities is that they aren’t entirely logical. But they like hope are hard to kill. My insecurity is not done away with by dressing up and looking good, because even then, I have enough life experience that affirms that at my best dressed/most conventionally attractive I was not enough for those who I needed to love me. Learning to love myself again, to love myself better goes beyond loving how I look when I dress up, to loving myself in between looks. It means knowing at my worst I’m still worthy, just as worthy as when I am all dolled up. It means deciding to give myself a whole love, or to try to give that to myself each day. **** On Eating Disorders Why do you say you have an eating disorder? Well eating disorders can be understood as psychologically-based abnormal eating behaviours that negatively affect a person’s physical or mental health. Basically, ones eating and overall relationship with food is affected by a mental disorder and that in turn further affects them physically and mentally. I first came across the concept of eating disorders at age 10/11 while I was in the U.S. and watched classmates stick spoons down their throats to throw up what they ate at lunch. Weeks later the school counselor would have a talk with us about bulimia. I recall thinking “oh it’s a bad thing, but it’s an effective thing” and I wished I could try it. I couldn’t. It’s really very hard for me to throw up lol I sure tried. In that setting my knowledge of eating disorders was limited to Bulimia and Anorexia, I didn’t think of my emotional over-eating as an eating disorder. That wasn’t focused on. It’s only as an adult, actually only in 2018 as I lost 25kgs that I realized I have had an eating disorder for most of my life. As I started a fitness journey in the hope of reaching an ideal ‘pre-baby’ weight I realized most of my hunger wasn’t physical but psychological and that my eating habits were abnormal because my appetite was often skewed from depression. And by abnormal eating habits, I don’t mean only over-eating or craving sugar… the abnormality is also evidenced in my penchant for fasting, and feeling like I’m more “worthy” in a state of fasting. As the definition above states eating disorders are mental disorders which further cause physical and mental health issues- physical issues like being overweight and all the complications that come with that, mental issues like body dysmorphia and the increased self-hate that comes with that. What would you say developed it? I don’t know what ‘developed’ it per se. But one of my earliest childhood memories is stealing cubes of sugar and sucking on them in a house where I was being maltreated between the ages of 3-6. The sugar made me feel good, and I would go for more. It wasn’t filling so I know it wasn’t hunger. I’d say that was the beginning of my binge eating/filling up a void with food. How is your eating disorder related to your depression? Well, directly. My binge eating is a coping mechanism for depression gone wrong. It’s the fact that I’m depressed or have unresolved issues which lead to finding comfort in food in the first place. But also it is what I’ve imbibed through socialization, what my mind believes healthy and desirable looks like that contributes to more abnormal eating via prolonged/unnecessary fasts or being hard on myself for simply eating. Do you recall a period when you were not affected by it? Yes. I thought
Belated Birthday Reflections…
I’m writing this in arrears. It took a while to get the words. I still don’t know if I have the right ones. And because I’m writing in arrears the feelings I’m trying to convey are blanched and decolourized, lacking the vivacity of the heaviness I felt in the month this post was to have gone up. But better a weathered recounting than none at all. What feelings am I trying to convey? I’ve been doing the bare minimum for the past two years and that I’m surviving is a miracle. I can hear someone say “hmm na your own bare minimum this?” And the answer is yes. I know what I’m capable of, what I can do when I feel driven when I believe it matters when I believe I matter… I’ve not done close to that in a while. Perhaps it’s the burnout from years of hardcore mode (actually, this is DEFINITELY it).BUT KNOWING THAT YOU’RE BURNED OUT The past 2 years have been some of my most unproductive ☻I’m not saying this as “humble brag”. I know some people won’t get it, I know my sister-friends will be like “you’re too hard on yourself Monique” and perhaps they’re right, but I’m also thinking critically 🤷🏾♀️ And if I’m being very honest anything I’ve enjoyed from March 2021 till date is somehow the fruit of the work I did in my 2020s. But knowing that you’re burned out doesn’t make the self-loathing over your underperformance, go away And the fact that you’re consistently disappointing yourself isn’t helping you get out of the rut of burnout either🤷🏾♀️ I’ve been saying ‘thank you to the version of Monique who did so much in her 20s that this version of Monique can get away with doing so little in her 30s But its a bittersweet thank you because despite all that version did she couldn’t fix some major issues And now 2 years out of my ‘top form, I’m wondering: Will I ever be that Monique again What – if anything- will future me thank the current me for?
On Unlearning: A lesson from A Child
Two weeks ago I came across this short video of @BeleafinFatherhood’s daughter Anaya asking for love. In it you see a little black girl, with a mischievous smile on her face, sticking herself through what was obviously a closed door to make her request. She says: “I’m just standing here, waiting for you to get done, so I can get wuv”. Despite the cute mispronunciation of love as ‘wuv’, the reactions under that video show that many, like me, confronted a very great lacking in themselves when watching that reel. This little girl has what so many adults, especially adult women like myself do not. The confidence and wherewithal needed to ask for love openly. She has something we have lost by growing up, by painful experiences, by never having known it was possible, by lacking the foundations to nurture it. I was, and still am, quite frankly jealous of Anaya. At Anaya’s age, I like many others grew up being told it’s wrong or girl’s to express their desires first. That they should wait to be picked by a guy… that if he doesn’t choose you in the midst of a crowded room he doesn’t love you. In fact, in my culture, we have a traditional wedding practice I always found ‘romantic’. The practice stipulates that your husband to be should be able to recognize you wrapped under sheets of clothing in a line-up of other women wrapped from head to toe as well. Simply playing to our desire to be ‘picked’ first. I like many other girls was taught that men pursue. Human males are ‘hunters’ every relationship guru claims. They should be the ones to propose, to say I love you first (after which you should say I love you more because that fierce hunter seemingly has a fragile ego eh). If there’s one thing Christianity and the secular world seem to agree on it is relationship gender roles. Like many other girls, I grew up with movies telling us to throw pens on the ground to get a guy’s attention (couldn’t we just use the pen to write notes?) or leave secret gifts on our crush’s table and watch from afar, and who to can forget the Bella’s infamous “bend and snap” … we’re to do anything but actually tell the person we need love from that we need it. I recall a particular instance when a classmate took a Polaroid picture of her body in a bikini (nudes before nudes were a thing) and put in an envelope and slipped it in her crush’s locker to ‘get his attention. Her way of saying “I want wuv”; she was barely a teenager with a warped sense of making that request because this was what she’d been told would get her the attention she desired. But it’s not just girls getting tricked. The media will have boy’s like Anaya’s brothers convinced that the way to say “I want love” is to buy a girl the most expensive gifts, drive this car, catch their attention with this sports jacket, and a host of other indirect ways. Because direct is scary for adults. But direct is what Anaya is doing. I wonder how often we have asked for love in the wrong way: by buying a gift anonymously, by giving cash because that is always welcome but the words may not be. By crying. By doing that silly block/unblock dance. By rebelling or lashing out. By lying about who we are and what we want. By sharing memes to… By accepting trash. I know for certain many of us have done everything but knock on a closed door, peek inside, and said plainly “I need wuv”. Why? Because unlike Anaya we no longer believe in fairytales, we no longer have that faith in God (if we ever did), we no longer have the people who we can be sure will respond as Anaya’s daddy did that “I’ll come give you love baby”. And in place of all these things we no longer have we now have dozens of memories of times those who we needed love from said no, or ignored us or mocked us or abused that need. We now have conditioning on how that love should look like and expectations on how it should show up. So I guess what I envy Anaya for is the innocence she has yet to lose. And as I watch that video over and over again, I pray she keeps being able to do this scary beyond-adult thing- confidently ask for love- for a long time.
Unlearning Episode 2: Unlearning Superwoman ideals, Suffering mentality and Normalizing luxury
This past Friday, my Ph.D. was officially conferred. I am officially Dr. Monique Kwachou. A holder of a doctor of philosophy in development studies with a specialization in feminist studies and education. I’m not at the apex of my career, but with this terminal degree I’m assumed to have achieved a great deal, assumed to have ‘succeeded’. I’m here to tell you that such assumptions are faulty at best and outright lies on several days a month. Not because I am ambitious and want more, but because the definition of a successful woman in our society makes it impossible for that to be achieved merely by education or professional achievement. My doctoral research focused on the fear of overeducated women in our society, women assumed to be empowered and portrayed as being ‘too much’ within our patriarchal contexts. I asked of the women I interviewed: how empowered are you really? How much power did their higher education afford them in the face of the gender inequalities all women experience? In sum, the answer is not that much. Why? Well there are many reasons (read the book when it’s out), but the one that is relevant to this post is this: Our educational/professional achievement is not enough to undo collective conditioning. Like Eminem and Rihanna sang: we have made friends with the ‘monster’ inside of our heads- the monster being internalized sexism apparent in notions that our value as women lies in what we can endure, or that we must be superwomen to be deserving of fair treatment/appreciation. So many of us women are ‘friends’ with such notions serve to oppress us and it is hard to fight the lie you have been raised to believe as truth… Last year a friend and I discussed a tweet that raised the issue of African women being tested based on their ability to endure. I cannot find the tweet, but in it, a guy suggested ‘testing’ women with a very small amount of money or by inviting them over to a dirty apartment to see if they would be able to do much with little/take the initiative to clean up after him and therefore display their ‘marriageability’. Well, that tweet gained traction and thankfully a lot more men and women are recognizing how idiotic such a ‘test’ is. Still, the idiotic notion behind that tweet isn’t always as obvious and it remains deeply imbibed in my (and many other women) subconscious that we must do the most/do it all is a sign of being a good/worthy woman. Worthy of what? Worthy of equality, worthy of love, worthy of being chosen. When I was 16 and suggested my cousin and I be registered at British Council for the holidays to go spend time reading there during our long vacation. I was told that it would be better for us to go be apprentices at a salon to learn how to braid because as future mothers we should know how to do our daughter’s hair without needing someone else. When I got into the university, an older friend mocked my desire for wanting to buy a blender because an African woman should know how to use the grinding stone. And don’t get me started on how I often baked cakes and gifted people but hid the fact that I had baked the cakes using cake mix rather than from scratch… because we are in a society that looks down on gifts/love if you didn’t suffer for it. We are in a society that belittles women who have C-sections saying “is that even real labor”. Don’t get me wrong, knowing how braid, use the grinding stone, bake from scratch…none of these things are wrong. Honestly, I appreciate being able to use a grinding stone because our power company is so useless- but I wish we called it what it was: a necessity brought about by our collective poverty and underdevelopment as a nation rather than make it look like some talent that should add points to womanhood. Knowing how to braid hair is a great skill, but that too should not be expected of me if it is something I can afford to delegate. Yet, women are expected to know how to do it all, to bake and ice the cake, to cook all the traditional dishes, to be able to be a home tutor to the kids, do the laundry till it shines, the worship leader in the home… oh and be a veritable seductress in the bedroom. These expectations are not laid out directly, they are built over time. We don’t even realize we have imbibed them. Socialization is a sneaky thing, we build our value system based on what reactions we get from the least things. For instance, upon returning home with my master’s degree I offered to prepare the pounded yams at my uncle’s home where I was visiting- he comes in and sees me doing this and puts on an exaggerated show of relief saying I’ve restored his faith in me, that he had feared I was a lost case because I was furthering my studies, but given that I could make pounded yam I was obviously still an ‘African woman’… I scoffed at him then, but it stayed with me, that to too many people I would be ultimately valued based on whether I fit what they perceived a good woman is. Not on my own values. So it just comes to you one day that you feel shame/inadequate/like you’re failing for not being able to do something. The voice in your head, the product of years of conditioning shames you for not having cooked pepper-soup to visit an uncle or for paying someone to fix the njama-njama at the market. One day, you wonder “why do I feel this odd shame at not knowing how to make Achu soup? It’s not even something I would like to eat on the regular”? Or perhaps you will realize just how
Unlearning Episode 1
I am jealous of the love black women, African women reserve for men. Their men, the men yet to be theirs, the men who we are not sure exist yet, or who exist but just don’t show up. The sort of love that has us ready and willing to edit ourselves to be what you desire. The love that has us buying fabric and thinking of how we’ll make two outfits instead of one. The love that has us learning skills we wouldn’t need otherwise, just to please/impress you. The love that forgives without neither complete apologies nor changed behavior. The love that hopes in things that are not seen and builds futures on potential I am jealous of that love which has been so normalized evidence of it is no longer considered extraordinary… Like the fact that The Power of a Praying Wife sells out every Sunday outside of church and yet the bookseller hasn’t bothered to restock The Power of a Prayer Husband since he barely managed to sell the last one. Or the fact that you can enter a shop and tell the salesperson “I di find “Papa e Dish’” and they will know what you refer to. A dish reserved for your gender, a status symbol you are eligible for even if you are not sure you want to be ‘Papa’. I am jealous of the love women like me have earmarked as just for men like you; the way we save everything from the best piece of meat to the best seat at the table, to ourselves… just for you. And I am jealous of how easy it is for you to find a place to belong because of this; Jealous of the advantage you have because we believe that we can/should/must earn the love we so eagerly want to give you, because so many of us are convinced you are the ones to fill the reserved spaces we kept… I am jealous of the prayers my kind pray for men. How does it feel? To have all the women in your life praying for you, when you forget to pray for yourself? I am jealous of the kind of love that makes us aspire to be superwomen; that makes us desire to be everything a much less than “super” man desires. I am jealous of the love that makes us plan our aspirations around men who never asked us to. I am jealous of how ready we are to offer what these men are not ready to take. Of how well we have been shaped for a time such as this – years of grooming on how to give love unasked, to accept less than we offer… decades of conditioning that leaves you wondering if what you do is what you want to, or what you know is expected of you… I am jealous of men like you, for being offered such love on the regular. Jealous of the position of power you don’t recognize you have because you think this love is merely an individual choice… blissfully unaware of how that choice in itself is externally orchestrated. I am jealous of your confidence and the corresponding nonchalance that the love we offer you breeds; because our love sees us as the author and finisher of the family, and makes us responsible for all that goes wrong or never goes at all. We are the neck, the rib, the backbone. Anything but the head. I thought I was angry at you, you probably thought so too. But no, what I am is jealous. I envy you for being offered the kind love I wish someone would give me. And if I am angry, I am angry at myself. Because I continue to reserve for you what I wish I could give myself. Because despite love being a good thing, this brand of love is yet another thing I have found that I must unlearn.