OFF MY CHEST: What I learnt from my heartbreak

When I was 19, I met a young man and fell head over heels in love with him. I was in campus then and I remember looking forward to Wednesday’s afternoon which is when I had my last lecture of the week.

Immediately after that class, I would pack a back and off I would go spend the rest of the week with him. My life revolved around him. His friends were my friends.

I even became a Chelsea fan because we would catch a game on Sundays right before I left for school. Until he cheated. On Valentine’s Day.

On that fateful day, my delusional love-struck self-thought it would be a wonderful idea to give him a surprise on that day.

So I told him I wasn’t feeling well and would come see him during the weekend. Then I went to his place at around 6pm and let myself in then locked the house.

Then plan was to surprise him once he got home from work, He was running late but I fought the urge to call him because I didn’t want to ruin the surprise. Sigh.

A while later, I was startled by the sound of the door opening. I peered at my phone screen as I sat up on the couch where I had apparently dozed off. It was 3.30am.

Then I saw him. He stood at the entrance, mouth wide open in shock. In tow, a woman in a very skimpy dress for was struggling to regain composure.

It took me a whole minute to process the scene. The breakup was brief but permanent.

The next few months felt strange. I didn’t know what to do with myself, with my free time. I hardly had any friends.

There is a week I watched 50 movies back-to-back. Mercifully, the long holiday was around the corner.

When I went back home, I secured an internship and thus began my relationship with work.

My job at the time included writing a lot and running community service campaigns. I loved the adrenaline of actualising plans and strategies. Happy faces of happy customers gave me an unexplainable high. Words coming together to form powerful stories became almost like a narcotic addiction. So I threw myself into work. And for the last seven years that has been my life, a very fulfilling life.

Of course many relationships followed that one, but these were different. My life no longer revolved around a mortal man. I was no longer dying to please some unpredictable human being. I had a life.

Although it earned me a few break-ups, the liberation and satisfaction were totally worth it.  

“How do you go for six hours straight without texting me? ” one of them whined. That day, the organisation I was working for was planning an event in conjunction with the office of First Lady Margret Kenyatta.

I was part of the protocol team. The last thing on my mind was texting someone who we had had breakfast with. And pending dinner plans.

There are now people in my life…a boyfriend, a live-in sister, family and friends but they know that I can’t give them all my time. You see, work gives me satisfaction and pleasure that they cannot fill. It’s not a competition or a comparison; work meets different needs; they meet different needs. When each party comes through, my happiness is complete.

I have met people who hate their job for one reason or another. Empathy dictates that I do not gush about my job, unless, of course, they ask. So when an acquaintance recently asked me about my job, I went ahead to explain how exciting it was.

I watched her face tighten up.  “Oh please! Don’t get too excited. It is just a job, you are replaceable. You need work-life balance,” she interjected. 

At first I was shocked. Then I had a similar conversation with a few more people in the following weeks and realised it is actually a phenomenon.

A love to hate your job. So if you were enjoying what you do then something must be terribly wrong with you.

“You need a life and you need to get laid. Do you even make time for dates?” another male acquaintance suggested while passing by my work station after 5pm. I almost gagged at the stench of his feigned concern. 

Perhaps it’s a flaw, loving your job so much. Missing you work station, and being on a constant lookout for career growth. Yet, to we who are branded workaholics, it’s a flaw that brings happiness.

A beautiful flaw that brings out the best in us. We thrive at the work place. Successfully completed projects make our faces glow.  So miss us with the guilt-tripping. Quit raining on our parade. Work makes us happy and that should count for something.