Mkholo. I am typing this using the Helvetica font. It feels fancy a bit! I've been writing and re-writing this letter for a while and things come and go in and out of my mind.
We are a year old! Yay! And you are 25 years old! Yay yay! It brings such joy that you have made it this far from where you have come from and that is one the most pleasurable feelings I am going through right now. Kunzima ngiyazi.
When we first got together, there was a lot of yourself which you never showed me. It was great how our love and relationship was amazing idealistically. Hey, I had just left a huge emotional breakdown and you had came out of a solitude. We were fresh out of the box hahaha! I honestly did not even know how far we'd make it, I didn't even think you'd ever be my girlfriend!
Our growth in the relationship shifted as times went by. A whole lot of un-easiness came about, right in the beginning stages and that showed a side of you that you lived with internally, I'd say the depths of your solitude belonged to you and you only and I being an open vessel had tried to make your way into that. It never ended well.
Coming from the traumas of the passing of your mother, the fire, lethargic relationships which were unconsciously abusive/violent and then to top off with you father's passing, who was I in this picture as a newcomer? Who were you in this picture as the receiver and bearer of such heavy burdens? Who were we then? It tumbled.
We both come across as total opposites. In my annoyingly calm, overly-thinking state and in your passionate, prim and direct approach. We don't deal the same way with ideals and occurrences and for the larger part, we do not process situations on the same gist. We have huge misunderstandings between us and things flow easily when put across words, wrong words and mistaken ideals. I talk and engage, you keep quiet and digest, I over-explain due to emotions, you ignore due to being misunderstood. There is a whole lot to it and to us which we deal with every single minute of every day.
We are growing.
At some initial point I thought I was going to lose you. At some point I probably had lost you. And at that point I realised that I had added whichever value I had in me and served my purpose in your life thus it was time for me to be erased from you. I remember thinking how I would help when your dad passed away which was literally a month of our relationship. I for a new person didn't know how to deal with that and it broke me but I had to be strong to keep you afloat. You kept afloat… until you broke down and broke off.
I honestly saw no recovery from you at that point. You did not recover for a very long time. How you coped, I do not know and I certainly wish not to because only a few survive, which you did.
Your strength is a wild one! It requires no external support. It builds itself up. It has seen and lived through the most shattering moments. It is amazing. It confused and still confuses me but it is amazing. I truly wish you can never ever dwell in it though because with its power comes its toxicity and with that comes a dark cloud of solitude.
You are here now. You have me in all of this. I can not guarantee to give all that you want but I know that I give all that I can. Your recovery changed me so much. You are the biggest person I know and I respect that so much.
There are so many things I want for us but there are even more things I want for you. We had Milani after our rain. He is amazing! We had Milani when we had nothing. Hahaha, I remember on days where I'd go get small "loans" from about four different people in one day for us to get our homemade burgers and a bit of electricity to keep the lights and heater on then I'd return and say nothing about it, then we rejoice in food and binge on episodes I had downloaded that day. We had great days in that darkness which eventually became worse for a shorter while to follow.
You have stood by my side when I thought you'd leave. On days where you crave things that weren't affordable, times when I wished I could come see you but my arrangements failed, days where we should've been resting together peacefully but I had to go out and see where our next paycheck would come. It has been the hardest but I don't think I would have done it with anyone else in the world.
With Milani's arrival, I hope you do not feel alone. I hope you do not dwell into solitude. I hope you never see yourself as any less of the greatness that you are. I hope you are always your own person first before you are my lover, Milani's mother and my future wife whom I'm doing the most for in silence. I hope you do not feel that your youth has not been taken away from you and your goals are valid and intact until the day you leave tho earth.
I can't make you do anything, I can't even force you nor convince you in any case but it is my duty to stand besides you and keep you afloat when you sink.
There is nobody I will do this life thing with except for you and Milani and saying that I love you is an understatement because I live you now (at work they knew about and Milani in the first hour I got there because you're my people and I flaunt you, yikes!)
Happy birthday Mkholo. I'm going to make our lifetime worthwhile.
P.S: The big surprise I was going to do for you was to get both of us new iPhones (because I do MTN work now) but I can't because my credit rating from my old account has not updated yet and I need another month of work to secure us and Milani plus our new spot we want to move into. BUT, I have three other surprises lined up :)
