It is 5:49 AM. Nothing cinematic about that. I wish it was 4:44 or 2:22 on the 22nd of February but no, it is 5:49 on the boring 27th of April. And as if things were not bad enough, it just happens to be a Monday!
Anyway, I'm listening to Jorja Smith's lost and found album as I write this to you. Still on the first song of the album so you're quite early.
The day before yesterday, I had a hair day. I cleared out my schedule for a retwist session. I like retwist/ hair days. They are one of my favorite days.
On my retwist days, I pretend that I am everything I dream to be: A happy single (or booed up) woman in her late twenties/ early thirties. I imagine myself sipping red wine in my bathtub. Holding on to the porcelain tub, tapping my perfectly manicured fingernails on it as I think of my next story or article.
I imagine being frustrated at the lack of ideas, taking off my blue headscarf, letting my locs loose and drifting into the water and letting my locs float.
I imagine being out of breath, coming out with a gasp, laughing and wondering why the hell I had done that!
I imagine sipping the wine from the perfect glass, tapping my fingers on the stem of the glass and watching the petals in the water float.
I imagine coming out of the water all giddy because she's coming.
I imagine putting on the last scented candle as the doorbell rings. I contemplate grabbing my robe but decide against it. “Fuck it, she has seen me naked so what does it matter?”
I open the door. She is standing there, eyes wide in a mix of shock and awe (‘cos I'm cute!)
She gets in…
*cut to the next day*
It is still dark. Dawn. Early morning. I have to get up. I have to write. It is tradition, a well-kept ritual. It's been at least a decade and I still write in the mornings. I'm still up before everyone else. Up before her.
I contemplate just ditching the writing and just staying there: in her scent. In our perfect little world.
I want to. I reallyyyy want to but the annoying manager in my head orders me to get up and write. So I do that because I have to.
I tiptoe out of the room. She turns a bit as I open the creaky door. I frightened that I had woken her, relieved that she goes back to sleep.
I head to the open balcony. The one that overlooks the mountains or the lake, not sure yet. I just stare. I cannot write. Consider a coffee. Decide to just stay there and take in the beauty of the place.
Take in the beauty of my life. Our life.
I take the time to travel back in time. Back to the nervous insecure girl in Uni who only wanted locs.
The girl who had worried that getting it would make mom mad. Make everyone look at her different.
“They'll know I'm gay,” She thought because she couldn't say the word lesbian yet.
She got the locs anyway, regardless of fear. Just like she got everything she had ever wanted. Everything she had ever dreamed of, regardless of the ever-present fear and insecurities.
The woman sighed with a smile.
She turned to see her lover at the doorway.
“You should have woken me.”
“I want to spend nights and mornings and forever with you.”