AN UNFINISHED WOMAN

Only she, knew the rampage that could be caused in her mind by her anger. You see,when someone made her angry, she was not just angry at the person, she was also angry at herself. For allowing herself to get angry, for being late that morning, for being too nice, for texting Oliver last week, Oliver whom she thought was different from the others. She can't remember how she became so angry. For allowing things to happen to her, for being the victim, the one who needs pity, attention, love, and Oliver to text her back. This anger, it caused torrents of tears down her cheeks, it caused a whirlwind of chaos that her little troubled head that was too small to contain it.Anger....it had now become a familiar feeling. One that took root and never left.

They called her auntie Zola. Such a befitting name for an auntie. Only she didn't feel like one because she didn't think she matched up to the standards of an auntie yet.Aunts are for birthdays, for good time stories and sometimes a little mischief they could laugh about at the dining table with secret winks.She liked her nieces and nephews but  she also wondered whether she has done enough to show that.A few times she has bought them toys and little treats but the excitement of toys and chocolate bars only lasted as long as it took for the kids to get distracted,which was not very long...then she had the responsibility of being 'nice with the kids' something she considered very daunting.You see, there are two types of people. Those that have fun with kids,...and her. not because she doesn't like them, but because you need to be genuinely happy to play with kids. And she wasn't. She couldn't even pretend to be.

She went back to the beginning. She was in the middle of a circle. 360 degrees. The way she pictured it, is that everyone's life starts out in a circle. At the moment of birth, you start out at a full full 360 degrees, then with each passing second, and with every decision, just as with the tick of a clock, your circle starts ticking down...359, 358,...your life nears the end, your options become lesser and lesser.

If the circumstances we are born into  determined the size of the circle,  her circle was small. Because she was born to a single,  jobless mother. In a tiny single roomed mud house in the middle of Sirisia. A small village in Bungoma . Her mother attended Namang'ofulo secondary school where she met her father. They were classmates. Her mother's mother, her grandmother, sold chicken in Tulienge market while the father tended to their small farm. Her grandfather had saved up enough money to buy a small piece of land which she heard the size was 'point mbili' or two points ( she is still not sure how big that is  but by the look of it, definitely less than an acre) . The land was just enough to build two round grass thatched huts  and a vegetable garden with a few banana trees at the front.She started school when she could touch her left ear with the right hand.That's how they knew you're old enough for school.The way to school was a small footpath with bushy thickets on both sides of the road.Her mother always told her,  ''if  you ever got lost coming from school , look out for smoke, or  banana trees because every homestead had at least a couple of banana trees and a small kitchen  with smoke seeping out of the dried grass thatched roof tops. She told her , she should walk into any homestead and tell them  that she comes from Kap Kingo .(meaning Kingos place) and her mothers name was Chepsandui. 

Her grandfather, Kingo, had moved away from their original home in Kapsokwony after his two drunk brothers sold their land; their deceased fathers land. They didn't sell it all at once, they sold it bit by bit. One point here and there and all of a sudden, they were left only with a tiny dishevelled compound where their houses stood. He would go to the market and people would comment ''koseng'eng  kune muroni''. ( this guy is not sharp) because he was the sober one in the family and he had allowed the two brothers to sell all their land. They belittled and defamed the entire Kingo family for their poverty, illiteracy and his two brothers not being able to marry because of their drunkenness. The kingo family name had become synonymous with failure, because failure, just like drunkenness is often  associated with the extreme versions of it. And their failure was extreme.

Her name was 'Chebonabusandui' meaning Nabusanduis daughter. Because when she she was younger, you were either a man, someones wife, or someone's child. She never heard her mother being called by her name... Her father, Nabusandui, left her mother just two weeks after she was born. They had been been forced to get married when her mother discovered she was pregnant. She went to live with her parents until she gave birth.

She decided to go back home when the baby was just a week old because her mother in-law was a drunk. She hardly ever made any food for the family. Her husband, Nabusanduis father had passed on a few years before that. It was a hard life, Nabusandui was forced to be the one taking care of her and his two younger siblings. It was a hard life, harder than life at home so she decided to go back to her fathers house

 This was after he decided to move out of their ancestral land that had been passed down by his father because his t the main house was to be kept clean and tidy at all tiOmes.  It hat a small 'kabati' where they neatly kept  'glass untencils' for visitors. they also had one velvet cushioned sofa and two armchairs neatly laid with beautiful hand made embroidery. She remembers collecting warm cow dung in the morning, every other week to mala the the floors of the main house. Her mother would never let even a single dent be seen on those floors.  She had always  it had  Growing up, she heard many times her mo  Two teenagers who fell in love. Sb he got pregnant immediately after her final exams.  They saved their  hopes for smaller matters, like the next meal. she was determined to make her circle bigger.

Only she knew the true extent of the rampage her anger could cause. It wasn't just an emotion, it was a monster that could consume her whole being, leaving her a shell of her former self. She tried to hide it from the world, but her mind was a battlefield, and the anger was winning.

The day started like any other, but a simple misunderstanding at work was enough to trigger the monster. It clawed its way to the surface, fueled by all the frustrations and disappointments she had been bottling up. It raged inside her, tearing through her thoughts like a tornado, leaving nothing but chaos and devastation in its wake.

But as the anger subsided, a new emotion took over - guilt. She blamed herself for allowing the monster to take control, for not being able to keep it at bay. She was angry at herself for being weak, for not being able to handle the pressures of life. And that only made the monster stronger.

She tried to distract herself with other things, like her role as an auntie to her nieces and nephews. But even that brought its own set of challenges. She wasn't the type of auntie who could effortlessly connect with children, and that made her feel like a failure. She wanted to be fun and engaging, but she couldn't seem to muster the energy or enthusiasm.

As she struggled to make sense of her life, she began to think about the circumstances that had shaped her. She was born into poverty, to a single mother who struggled to make ends meet. Her father had abandoned them, leaving them to fend for themselves. She had to walk miles to get to school, and her childhood was marked by hardship and struggle.