Wine and Tears
Hell I’m not drunk. Just a little tipsy to be honest. I
drank so much the liquid is starting to seep through my eyes. Maybe I am a
little emotional tonight. I get like that when I drink alone. It’s a sad
experience really; I guess the true danger of alcohol that they don’t put on
the labels: reduces driving ability but could also drive you insane if you
drink it alone.
Why am I drinking alone when I have such a big family? My
kids are grown now, I should be drinking and talking to them about life and
love. But none of them are with me. All with their mothers, it’s sad. I swore I
would never be like my father, but what the hell did I know swearing on things
I had little control over?! We are all product of the same system: fathers go
away in search of money believing families need money to survive; you cannot
live on love, they say. Well it appears generations will suffer for lack of
love as a result of such shallow beliefs. They love their work for sure;
spending so much time on it could make it your life. Hell my grandfather spent
so much time at his work he ended up never coming back home till he died…in the
gold mines!
My father worked Monday to Monday, sunrise till sunset. The
only time you ever saw him was when he was tired and about to rest…right after
he finished drinking his beer. Makes you wonder where in the world he got the
time to make 27 children with 7 different women! I guess you do make time for
the things you do love after all. I’d be a little different if I got a little
bit of love from him, probably.
Yet now I’m grown and trying to start a new family every so
often…and always seem to be failing. I’m like a checkers player trying to play
a chess game! I don’t know how to do this; and maybe all these women I am
attracted to have the same problem too. We are trying to build a family when we
ourselves are products of broken families; hell the only prototype of a family
that we have is filled with hate; anger and a whole lot of fear!!
I read there was a great man that once said “if you love
your children, get a business, not a job”. Hopefully a business would not steal
you from your family; hell it will allow you to take your kids with you to work
and maybe one day it will become theirs. Now all this time my father spent on
his work could be something we all share if it was spent on his own business.
But then again, what do I know, right? We are all products
of the same system. Maybe he also tried, and failed. Just like I keep trying
and still failing. Now my biggest fear is never being able to love my children,
and they grow up to be just as loveless as I am: hell it’s hard to expect that
their mothers give them the love I cannot give to them. I happen to believe
mothers need love for them to be able to pass it on to the children, otherwise
they get drained of the little they have and get bitter; then the kids will
suffer the wrath. Crazy ideas I have really, it must be the wine. But truth is
I have seen something that makes me say this; see when the mother is abused by
the father, they pass the abuse on to the child. And similarly if the mother is
loved by the father, they pass on the love to the child: physically abused
mothers physically abuse their own children; emotionally abused mothers
emotionally abuse their children! I’m starting to sound like a professional of
sorts, huh! Red wine will do that to you; make you feel smarter than you
actually are. Well I do have a little bit of education but it still does not
qualify me to make such assertions. Just my fears really; my personal worries.
What if I end up alone; with my seed spread widely across
the country and yet I am here, alone; drinking myself to sleep countless nights
in a row. Drinking oneself to sleep is no different from crying yourself to
sleep. Ask me I know. You wake up with the sadness still lingering waiting for
night to fall, and you are alone again; then thoughts start flooding back one
by one.
How did I mess it up with baby mama number two; we were both
grown and ready to be responsible, but what went wrong? Was I too impatient
with her and failed to understand that she still had a role to play in her
mother’s house? Maybe it was her fault; she was trying to be something to
everybody; a good sister, a good friend, a good employee, a good daughter, a
good neighbour, a good colleague, a good aunt, a good niece and even a good
acquaintance to some. I know she was a good mother too but I did not feel she
was a good lover. She divided up her time so much there was too little left for
me. Maybe I was too demanding; maybe the problem was I needed too much of her
time and expected that she let go of some of her roles to make time for me and
our child; give us a chance to be a family. But what do we know about family,
right?
I remember once she asked; “if I don’t go to work this
weekend as you ask, will you be able to give me the money I stand to make
working weekend? I didn’t think so!”
She was right, I did not have that money,
but I also didn’t think I needed to buy her time. Well as she made it clear, I
could not afford her time. I guess that made me feel like I was not man enough.
It ended. I got tired of being made to feel like less of a man; whatever that
means. Hell I don’t even know what it means to be a man!
Maybe number three would have worked out if I was not trying
to balance out 1 and 2 while I was with her. I kept trying to keep contact with
both children and their mothers while she was pregnant and sometimes the phone
would ring while she was trying to speak to me about her worries especially
being so close to giving birth. I know she felt the birth of our child was not
as special for me as it was for her; this being her first and for me only the
third. After she gave birth to our daughter, this being my third daughter, she
felt there was no reason to continue our relationship.
She claims she saw it in my face that I wasn’t so excited.
And maybe if it was a boy like the doctor thought it would be, I would have
been happier and our relationship would have a chance but nah! I think she got
pregnant too quick; before she had a good grasp of my situation.
Well now baby number four was a boy…that too did not
survive. Well I have been drinking ever since. Whoever thinks I have a drinking
problem is not looking deep enough; that’s like saying the person who cries
themselves to sleep has a crying problem. I do have a problem and drinking only
helps me manage it. I know it won’t go away, whether I feed it wine or not. If
you ask me what problem I have, I would tell you I have a love problem; coming
from a system that did not allow me to get love and ultimately unable to give
it. One day I will get it right, but till then I’ll just keep drinking myself
to sleep while trying to drive the tears away.
Written
by Eddie Bhila
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