FELGONAH OYUGA: I’m not going to live or die with regret

I turn 43 at the end of this month. As I grow older, I take time to reflect on some of the things that I have been through. I also think a lot about my mother’s life and her mother, my grandma, before her. I look around at the women in my family, whether I like them or not. I try to draw from their lives, lessons and examples.

A common theme in their lives has been regret. Sometimes it comes out as bitterness, bitchiness, gossip, envy, even religiousness. But it is all laced with regret. How do I know it is regret? Look at the things they (the holier than thou) choose to pick on you for.

I have been called, not to my face but in a roundabout way, a prostitute, (when someone claims you take different men to your house nani, the writing is on the wall) by old women who do not go to the club with me nor know where I live. They also claim to know the reason behind my marital status. As if it is some groundbreaking discovery or know I am in hell where I am now.

At first, I was so pained by it. It feels bad. Why would women, my mother’s agemates, decide this? And we have never been to any clubs they mention together. Well, upon examining their lives, I realised, just maybe they wished they were free to do what they thought I was doing. This has allowed me to move on past a lot of things and continue managing my own life as I see fit.

As I become older, I realise that soon we shall take over and be the aunties and the grandmothers. My hope is not to be like aunty so and so, who spends her time gossiping about nieces and nephews, often spreading lies and generally making no one want to come to family gatherings.

How will I do that? By trying to live a life with as little regret as possible. At the end of it, it is regret that manifests.

A lady married a man, she sold the “we cannot have kids” narrative when in reality, really after medical tests, there was nothing wrong with her, he never went for tests and there were never any rumours of he having had any children in the village or elsewhere. So it was safe to say he was the problem.

Yet she bore the brunt of being called barren and other physical afflictions that come with not giving birth when you can actually do so. As she stares at the last leg in her life, she is very judgemental towards her younger relatives who leave their marriages when they are dissatisfied with whatever.

According to her, a woman must stay married. But when you really look at what she is trying to say, she could not leave because her man could not give her children, how dare you leave because yours chews like a goat. Regret.

A woman spends her good years, youthful years, catering to a man. She is the ‘good’ wife. He ducks anything with legs and a hole. She has been told in the end, he will come back to her. The end is nigh but he has got a serious girlfriend now. He is parading her all over the place in their old age.

She thinks her time is done. Any woman who is making her own choices is a prostitute. Unlike her who has stayed. Stayed to be humiliated. Regret. She should have got out when she had the chance. It is never too late though. If only she knew.

She was hard working. Always has been. Married a man who is happy to just have his next meal. Happy to have any sort of roof over his head. Happy to let her do all the heavy lifting. In her career, she has met alpha males. But what would society think of her? What would society say?

So she has carried him all through the years and although she has thought of jumping ship, she has decided to be the ‘good’ woman and manage her man-baby. Now older, she looks at girls who make different choices. Better choices. Brave choices. She decides to shame them. If you look closely, it is regret.

One thing I am not going to do is live or die with regret. When I finally lay this body down, ready to join my ancestors, you can be sure that I did everything I wanted. Duck everyone, I was not made to keep anyone happy.