I have always considered myself patient. I’d wait for buses without grumbling, stand in long supermarket queues while browsing my phone, and even endure poor weather conditions for events I was excited about. But waiting for Mwangi to commit? That put me to the test in ways I hadn’t expected.
We crossed paths at a friend’s housewarming bash in Kilimani four years ago. After my friend left me to welcome new guests, I was in a corner sipping white wine and pretending to be busy on my phone, like the socially awkward person I am. That’s when Mwangi walked up, holding two samosas and flashing a smile that made his eyes wrinkle at the edges.
“You seem like you need one of these,” he said, handing me a samosa. “I’ve noticed you pretending to text for about ten minutes now.”
I chuckled, thankful for his straightforwardness and the snack. “Is it that clear?”
“To another shy person who’s been doing the same thing near the bookshelf,” he answered.
That evening, we chatted until the party ended. He worked as an architect who had just returned to Nairobi after spending five years in South Africa. I shared my marketing job and my efforts to gain enough clients to launch my agency. When he asked for my number, it felt natural.
Our bond grew at a steady pace, and it felt right. Weekend coffee meetups became dinner dates. Dinner led to movie nights at his place and then to breakfasts the next morning. Half a year later, I kept a toothbrush at his home, and he had his drawer at mine.
Somewhere along the line, we plateaued. Whenever I mentioned the direction in which we seemed to be moving, Mwangi would say, “I am really happy about what we have now,” or “Why are we rushing? We are enjoying each other’s company so much now.”
At first, I agreed. Why put a label on something that is working? Alas, year one became year two and grew closer to year three, and I started to wonder.
My friends gave me mixed advice. Njeri was adamant that I give him an ultimatum. “Men will always waste your time if you let them,” she said over brunch one Sunday. “You’re 32, Joyce. You cannot afford to wait forever if you want marriage and a family.”
Wangari told me to be patient. “Men run from pressure,” she said. “The moment you push, they pull away. Trust the process.”
So I trusted and I waited. I told myself Mwangi was worth it, that our bond was special, and that fast-tracking it could ruin everything. In the meantime, I watched friends get engaged, married, and have children. I liked them on Instagram while swallowing the knot in my belly.
At our third anniversary, I decided to reopen the discussion. We were at a rooftop restaurant in Westlands, with the Nairobi skyline shining in the background like stars fallen on earth.
“Do you ever think about the future?” I asked, while my heart raced. I was trying to sound casual. “You know about our future.”
He sipped his wine, then answered, “Of course I do; I think of us always.”
I started hoping that we would head in the right direction. “And what do you see?”
Across the table, he reached for my hand. “I see us still being happy, just as we are now. I don’t think we need to complicate everything.”
I felt my stomach sink, the hope I had fading away. “Mwangi, defining our relationship is not complicating things. It’s called growing together.”
“Why are you so set on labels, Joyce? We are good together. Isn’t that enough?” He asked.
I withdrew my hand. “It was enough three years ago.”
The conversation deteriorated at that point, and by the time we left the restaurant, we were not speaking to each other. For a week, we were caught up in a strange limbo dancing through text messages and appropriately avoided phone calls. When we met for our talk, there was nothing new to it. He wasn’t ready. He needed time. He loved me, but could not promise that he would give me what I wanted right now.
I was beginning to see that waiting was a one-sided compromise. I was waiting for a future he didn’t want, at least not with me.
It did not hit me at once, though. I didn’t just open my eyes all at once to how he’d been treating me. It was more like a steadily rising tide, with each wave of clarity following another and breaking on the sandy shoreline. I started noticing certain other things, too. I realized that he never introduced me to his family, even though they visited a lot from Nyeri. How he flinched and changed topics every time friends brought up our plans. How he very carefully kept a distance between us, particularly when conversation began to touch on topics demanding commitment.
Four months after that rooftop dinner, I met Mwangi at a quiet café near my office. This time I had no questions to ask him.
“I can no longer do this,” I said, my voice steadier than I expected. “I’ve been waiting for you to be ready, but I don’t think that day is ever going to come.”
He was genuinely surprised. “Joyce, you know how I feel about you.”
“I know what you feel at the moment,” I responded. “But love isn’t just a feeling, Mwangi. It’s also a choice. And you’re choosing not to build a future with me.”
“That’s unfair,” he said as he leaned toward me. “I only need…”
“More time,” I finished for him. “I know. But I don’t. I’m choosing myself now.”
Leaving someone you have built your entire life around, even without an obvious cause, a fight, betrayal, or cruelty to warrant the break, is never an easy thing to do. You slowly realize that the roads you were travelling towards were leading in different directions.
The months that I spent after the breakup were tough. I longed for Mwangi. I kept looking over our past photos and wondering if I had done the right thing. I, however, slowly started to reclaim parts of myself that I had put on hold: I applied for the marketing manager job I had thought about for a while, decided to start taking evening classes for my MBA, and even took a long-planned trip alone in Zanzibar.
A year after our breakup, I received a text message from Mwangi. He wanted to meet. He had done some thinking. For a moment, my heart raced at the possibility. Maybe he had finally realized what he had lost. Possibly at this last moment, he was ready.
I said okay to coffee, dying to know what he had to say. I met him at our café, and there was a spark of old attraction, but something was different. I had changed.
“I have missed you,” he said earnestly. “I can tell I made a mistake.”
I took a sip of my cappuccino, allowing myself to hear him. “What mistake would that be?”
“Letting you go. I wasn’t ready then, but I am now. I’ve been thinking and have come to realize that what I want is a future with you in it.”
A year ago, those words would have meant everything to me. At this point, they felt different. “Good for you, if you found clarity. But I am in a different place now.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I am not waiting anymore, Mwangi. Not for you and not for anybody. I am living my life on my terms.”
He looked crestfallen. “Are you seeing someone else?”
I smiled. “For the first time in years, I am finally seeing myself and I like what I see.”
The moment I walked out of that café, there was a lightness I had not experienced in years. There was much irony in it; Mwangi had finally arrived at the place I had for so long been waiting for him to get to, only to find that I had moved on from it.
That night, I called Njeri. “You were right,” I told her. “About not waiting forever.”
“So what are you going to do?” she asked.
I gazed around my apartment at the vision board I had created for my new marketing agency, the brochures for a digital marketing course in Cape Town, and the dating app that I had finally downloaded just last week.
“Now? I’m on my timeline. It feels just right.”
Sometimes, the most essential lesson in relationships is not about finding the right person but becoming the right person for yourself. I had waited for so many years for Mwangi to decide that I was good enough for him. But the day I decided that I was good enough for myself was the day I stopped waiting.
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