Dear Dali

It is said that ‘if you dwell with a lame man, you will learn how to limp’. We become like the people that we spend the most time with. Way back when I was a young boy, my father (may his soul rest in peace) would ask that I accompany him to a ‘job’. Yes, ‘a job’, that’s what he called it. He was an electrician by training, and outside of his formal Monday to Friday would make connections for new houses, and repair electrical gadgets, especially stoves. Now and again, a client from the suburbs would give him an old stove after buying a brand-new one. My father would repair the stove and resell it at a decent profit. He would explain the Math to me with such pride. My mother always used to complain that he sold the best stoves, and yet we didn’t have a reliable one. All I remember is that after my father died, we always used to have stove problems. But I have digressed. Let me come back.

I was young and didn’t even know my life purpose. But truth be told, I hated these ‘jobs’ trips. My father expected me to know everything in his toolbox so that when he called out for a tool (you know the sizes of spanners, etc), I would hand it over quickly. Half the time, I made a mistake. My father’s frustration would be very visible. And he would complain to my mom that I was too soft, and he was not certain about my future. Truth is- it was not my life's calling to repair electrical gadgets. It was my father’s calling, and he was damn good at it. I was also sort of feeling guilty whenever I would disappoint him. He tried many other things with me. During school holidays, we would go to our rural home and my father would try to get me excited herding cattle, tilling the land, or weeding crops. Nope. Zero interest from me. At some point, my father was convinced that I was just downright lazy.

The spark for me was the library. We lived in an area without a library, so I had to go to the Mpopoma library, and oh my, I felt at home. I just had this love for books. It has stayed on. The librarians and teachers were my people—my favorite people. I was a loner everywhere else. My favorite people were in books, and I wished to be like one of those writers.

I started writing short stories, maybe in Grade 5 and won some prizes too. That was me.

What’s my point? As much as I would like you and Ruby to be something else the best advice I will give you is to find your people and your why. At your stage of growth, you will be part of many things because your friends are doing it. But at some point, you will have to stop pleasing people and choose your path. You are unstoppable when operating in your own lane finding your why. Usually, your why does not come as a job or a task, it’s something you look forward to doing. Good luck in discovering yourself. Always here to help. That’s all I can do.