I like to look good. Not ravishingly good, but just good enough to make my husband proud. Since I was a child, I always loved looking stylish and that’s what got me one of my nicknames ‘Atwech’ which means a girl who dresses well.
But I am not a ‘slay queen’: I think those mamas are a unique species with a bigger agenda than mine.
The other Saturday, I wanted to dash to the supermarket for some shopping and return the car to my hubby since he was running late for some urgent mission.
Because of that pressure, I prepared and put on some old ‘segenge ni ng'ombe’ T-shirt and worn out baggy mummy jeans. And to crown that drab look, I threw on a scarf. Worse still, I had no makeup.
I jumped into the car and drove to the supermarket where I grabbed a small basket and started shopping in a huff. Guess who I bumped into on one of the aisles?
My hot ex from campus: the one man who broke my heart into a million pieces.
Mike was every woman’s desire on campus. Tall, chocolate charming to a fault and impossibly handsome. All my friends used to wonder, “how did you get that catch?”
The sad bit is that this buffoon cheated on me with a Plain Jane First Year and that’s how our roller-coaster love tale ended.
Now more than 10 years later, I have moved on and I am happily married and he bumps into me looking like an overweight career mum with five kids struggling to make ends meet.
But pray! Why is it that the day you decide to look the shabbiest is the day you met your ex looking dashingly good and holding the keys of a Mercedes?
Not that I am still into him, but there is something in us women or rather humans, that when we meet the “enemy” (read ex) we want to look dashingly good to send him a message that he made the mistake of his life to cheat on you.
But on this impromptu reunion day, you are looking so ‘woiye’, yet on any other day, you are one of the office ‘slayers’! Total injustice.
Anyway our conversation was as awkward as they come.
“Mo, my dear, you’ve really changed. You look so different. Not the girl I knew in campus,” he said teasingly. I cursed under my breath. “And you’ve added weight. Kwani how many kids do you have?” he asked, sarcastically.
I just mumbled something and disappeared in a huff. I felt like telling him, “Hey Mike. It’s just today. I messed up my look. But I am doing just fine...”
Moral of my story: Mums, always leave the house looking good because you never know the day or hour you will bump into that hot ex who broke your heart into a million pieces.
The writer is a married working mother of a toddler boy and a pre-school girl. She shares her experience of juggling between career, family and social life.