Rebirth

This month, Uganda celebrated her 62nd Independence Day. In October 1962, exactly 62 years ago, the British were deposed and power was transferred to prime minister Apollo Milton Obote. The country was reborn.

Rebirth is something I've actually been thinking about a lot lately. Not because I heard much about the upcoming Independence Day though. In fact I was working on Independence Day because I had forgotten about it. I was in the field, taking pictures of a large farming family, and none of them seemed to care about Independence Day either.

Looking back, I think my personal rebirth started around the funeral of mister Kaweesi Kakooza. Feeling that I was not welcome as he was laid to rest, made me feel something I didn't have the words for. It was an intense pain. But there was more to the feeling. The situation had made it clear I was back on the sideline, indeed not a part of the family anymore. I felt how I had mostly been a vessel. Trying to support David and his family, thinking I was building a love relationship with someone, ending with the realisation that I had certainly been loved but not had that kind of stable and sacred relationship between two people. It was very focused on the outside world, constantly influenced by other people.

In my relationship with David, I had also felt like I had to constantly rebuild myself. I basically rebirthed myself after every psychosis. Surely, it was mainly David who needed to rebirth himself after every episode but I had to reinvent myself every time again just as well in order to be able to keep standing next to him. It wasn't all bad. I learned a lot from it. But, at some point, I didn't take it in anymore like I had done in the beginning. Whereas I had felt inspired and had had the desire to create after David's first psychosis, my body became overwhelmed with pure sadness whenever he had mental issues again. Most of the time, I felt paralyzed.

I was tired. And yet, when we broke up, I had to put myself back to life from a deeper pit I had ever been before. I had to give birth to myself again while I had absolutely no energy for it. And I had to do it from a place where there was no hope anymore. David would not get better. At least not while being together with me. I had done what I could and couldn't be with him anymore - in fact he had become toxic for me. And all David’s family relationships seemed to be on the verge of collapse too. I knew it but I did not yet want to believe it because it felt like everything had been for nothing. Seven years had not lead to what I had hoped for at all. Time passed and the pain seemed to soften. Slowly distractions came my way. The distractions helped me find new inspiration and ideas for the future. But this rebirth was like giving birth to a first child: it took very long and was extremely painful.

Almost three years passed.

Straight after the funeral, Nairah, Nyla and I went to Kenya for a week. We had had this trip planned for a long time already and even without the funeral before it, it would have been quite a life-changing adventure. It had a lot of first-times for all three of us. Our first time in another East African country, the first trip abroad with the three of us, swimming in the sea while Nyla and Nairah had never felt the salty water around their bodies before, leaving the country and being on an airplane for the first time for Nairah...

Because I grew up traveling, I think I have a deep belief that trips can be challenging but should mostly be adventurous in the most positive sense of it. A rebirth but one you choose yourself and therefore doesn't have to be so painful. I generally went a step further than my parents did while traveling with three kids. I stayed away for longer periods of time and immersed myself in different cultures even more. Where I didn't need to plan, I wouldn't. And so this time too, we went on adventure indeed. I went in with an open mind and we did something every day we could not have imagined while in Kampala. (Although I was also not in my twenties anymore and quite cautious with a little child and someone who'd never even traveled outside of Baganda Kingdom. Also, I hadn't want to do this trip earlier as I hadn't rebirthed myself enough since the break-up and had become scared it might have been too uprooting).

I don't know whether it was me being in my natural habitat of living a more nomadic lifestyle and therefore being able to see clearer but after the trip, it suddenly felt like I was putting way too much energy in Nairah. It saddened me greatly. I had pictured the journey to be different. Maybe life-changing was too big of a word but at least bonding and bringing us more positivity. However, I found Nairah ungrateful and carrying a lot of negative energy with her.

Having said that, I knew I surely didn't always enjoy the trips my parents organised when I was younger. I went along because I had no choice. But what was so interesting about eating food I didn't like, sleeping in uncomfortable hostel beds, missing friends, getting lost and being stared at? Maybe Nairah felt a bit like that too now. Only she was an adult and she had had a choice. I never forced her to come along. Was I judging Nairah too harshly? Did she enjoy herself more than she showed? Was I still being in a bad mood myself after having been excluded from the burial? Was it because I had fallen sick on the last 3 days of our 7 day trip? It could all be the case, but I also felt I had lost some important values for me. I couldn’t allow myself to become numb just because of Nairah. I couldn’t just ignore her bad moods. She was allowed to have them but at some point she’d have to talk too. I started to feel paralyzed again, just like in the last stage of my relationship with David. Someone shouldn't just give me a grumpy face while she's being taken on an airplane for the first time. You may be scared or tired but you can at least share about your emotions. This was something I really couldn't stand about Uganda. It was the same as the kind of behaviour shop owners can show you when you come to them to buy something. Rather than smiling at you and welcoming you, they can look at you as if they prefer to see you drop dead instead of you getting a new dress from them. I was tired of this behaviour.

For a few weeks after the trip I tried with Nairah but the cracks our relationship had started to show were too deep. I sent Nairah away. It went in a sudden and ugly way, I had much rather given her the time to move and set up her fashion business elsewhere. In fact, I didn't even feel it was a choice that was just up to me. I had wanted to give her a home and therefore also make choices together. But she was dragging me down with her energy. And I was the one who was responsible in the end.

Nairah had been more than an auntie to Nyla . She had come in a time in which I also needed a friend and family member. Moving on without her, meant another complete rebirth. I wondered what I had learned about rebirth now. One thing was for sure: I had to put it more in my system that rebirths are a part of life. If that scared me because I didn't have the energy to rebirth myself again all the time, I needed to start living differently so that I didn't need to get in such extreme situations. Maybe I also shouldn't make myself so personally responsible all the time. I may not have the energy to constantly rebuild myself because I also don't live in the system or circumstances that allow me to be broken down and repair myself that often.

What else did I learn? There can be so many reasons for someone having to be reborn, needing to be reborn or wanting to be reborn. But at some point, we all go through the different types of rebirth. When I met David, I had maybe wanted to be reborn. By now, I had felt forced to be reborn too often. Feeling that I had been forced but having done it anyways, had made me realise I was much stronger than I thought. Only up to now, I still didn't always believe in that. The best rebirths happen when they come from deeply within and bring you a strong new belief. Maybe it was time for the latter now. I had to finally believe that, although I had felt forced to make certain choices, they had been the right choices. Just like Beyonce sings about in her song Sandcastles, it was time to stop building things that could wash away so easily. It was time for myself to be reborn and this time I was going to make it glorious.