Lucy advised her fellow ladies to look for money, and not love. Love is something everyone has, money, not much. So, what will you offer in exchange for the money you so desire? What happens when the tap is closed? The thing about money,y I have heard from people who have some, is that it is never enough once you start chasing.
Why, in the name of all that is holy and audited, do you want your struggling boyfriend to buy you the latest iPhone when between the two of you, the only thing in both your names is a rental agreement and unshakeable optimism? What exactly are you photographing that demands a pro-grade camera – a one, Okello does fine by a Tecno.
Your rented apartment? Each other’s faces, which, I assure you, look exactly the same on a Tecno? A modest Tecno, or dare I say it, an iTel, will call, WhatsApp, and embarrass you on TikTok just as effectively. Loosen up. Start slow. The luxuries will come. Probably. Life is often perceived as cruel.
Along the way, you have picked up the language of people who own property and are using it while you are renting a single room somewhere and sharing yaka. Vacation. Road trip. Disposable income. Staycation were invented by people with savings accounts that do not cry at the end of the month. Your enthusiastic admiration of them will lead you to depression faster than URA will, and URA, beloved, does not play (lately, at music shows – they come, you finish your small house – they come, you sell your land – they come).
That designer outfit can wait until you can buy two of them without flinching. Personally, I have the same black kind of shirt – it has worked for me. So can the seventeen pairs of shoes you plan to own, of which you will wear one pair at a time, like every other human being with only two feet. In the absence of a car, take a boda. For short distances, provided it is safe and the sun is not being dramatic, use your ones and twos. Assume it is forced exercise or exercise for poor people.
While all this responsible adulting is happening, treat yourself, but treat yourself with sense. On a good day, split a meal at KFC or RFC (if you are Gulu), or sit together at Café Javas like the aspirational couple you are. Go to the cinema. Watch the blockbuster. Join a group trip and split the costs six ways until it is practically free. But hear me: if he did not take you to see Awilo, dump him because that man had time to save or borrow from MoKash. Awilo is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I mean, are you going to see him from Congo?
The real villain here is not poverty, poverty is temporary and has been defeated before. The real villain is the Instagram grid, the WhatsApp status, the neighbour who just posted their “holiday” in a hotel you can see from your window. We have begun living for an audience that is simultaneously broke and also judging us. We perform luxury for people who are performing luxury right back at us, and at the end of the month, we are all performing poverty together but in silence.
Here is my take. Hold hands, like lovers do. Take a walk that costs nothing but shoe rubber. Argue about small things and forgive each other for free. Play with each other’s private parts and make promises, big, beautiful, slightly reckless promises, some of which you will keep with your whole chest, and others which will live forever in the box of unmet promises.
The luxuries will come. But first, first, let love be enough. Drink water, mind your own business and get laid.