A. M. K

I was born the second child in the middle of four girls, all very vibrant and more socially adept. All three had a more likeable public persona, at ease among relatives at family parties and during Christmas holidays when we all gathered at my grandmother’s house. While everyone immediately fit in and played in groups, I usually found myself on the outside waiting to be let in. I was always to be found wherever my mother was, like the proverbial “mummy’s child”, hiding behind her skirts.

Until my months at a small village in the deep South West, I had expected for myself what other people expected of me, to melt into the background, to smile coyly and keep my thoughts to myself. I had found my voice five years before but when I had wielded it, it had been coarse and had caused much pain. I had to learn, and I’m still learning how, to harness its power.

The stories about middle children and their internal social conflict are numerous, but this story is not about a middle child. It’s about all of us. The generation of the computer age. We, who operate as avatars and only go offline when we sleep (that is debatable).

Some people have used their avatars for good and some have used their avatars for evil. The invisible line between the real world and online is incredibly blurry. Nothing happens until it happens online.

There are verbal showdowns, laughing-with-tears-streaming-down-your-face-emojis and people always #living their best life. Meanwhile, the person who types the laughing emoji will not even turn his or her mouth up into a smile. Sometimes, they have not laughed in days.

It seems that not even processing the deepest emotions is not reserved from the camera. The ‘event‘ is promptly displayed on the camera by a professional photographer, sometimes at the hospital bed- public sympathy is better than intimate sympathy AND the more followers the better.

In ‘The Camera Effect’ I wrote about how I used to ‘follow’ a YouTube couple- a picture perfect family who eventually bitterly separated and we, the followers were left reeling, wondering what we had missed, between the all-white sparkling walls and the matching pyjamas.

I have been a social media abuser before. On some of those days when I need a breather, I have ‘ranted’ to whoever cared, feeling downright powerless to walk into the office of the people I really needed to talk to and say, menacingly, “You have a problem with me?” I work in a profession where big egos run on dark-roast coffee. Many lawyers would rather lose a case than have someone else shine. Someone needs to work on a research paper on The inflated Ego of a Lawyer in Modern times and its effect on Health’. Ask Mike of Pearson Specter Litt.

It is just a little too easy to access, this virtual reality, every moment, every day at the tap of a screen.

“Look guys, I’m showering! This is how I wash my face; in a slow circular motion! This is how I eat; with a loud awfully cute munching sound! This is how cute my baby looks when I shout at him!”

Then you park your car and switch off the engine and there is no one there. In the dark, you stare at the ceiling and life is boring. You can’t wait to get high on twitter and Instagram again.

I read on Dr. Kasenene’s twitter (yes, that’s now a thing- not an encyclopedia, not a book) that human beings talk to themselves on average 50,000 times a day. I’m certain that with social media, the ancient tradition of looking at the person you are talking to is wilting away.

This generation does not even confirm quote attribution or cite our sources- we just say #stolen!” It does not matter that intellectual property exists – that the ideas, the quotes, the stories that are the creation of a human mind are extremely personal and inimitable that they are protected by law. The binding spell of ‘likes’ overpowers integrity.

Hobbies. It sounds like a word last used in 1997. We used to write down our hobbies (our teachers used it more for enticing white people into becoming pen pals with us); dancing, listening to music, playing football, cooking. Now we only want to be seen to be ‘turning up’ for the 2 seconds in which we raise our phones and capture everyone on the table smiling and nodding their heads; the two seconds before everyone sinks down back into their phones for the rest of the night.

Some have become backing dogs, reckless online, but toothless on sight. Their avatars are lethal with venom on every post and every world situation, even when not under attack.

But it’s the loneliness that gets most of us, that we would spend all day online, on 30 WhatsApp groups and still not have that one friend to talk to about the things that really matter. WhatsApp’s end to end encryption may not be as useful as the ability to deny a request to enter one more fruitless WhatsApp group. After sending supercharged dancing emoticons, it maybe useful to our psychosomatic system to, maybe once in a while, actually wear that red dress and dance.

Now that September has ended, we can go wake up the guys in Green day. They did tell us to wake them up when September ends. But as for the rest, maybe half of the world that was conceived during the festive seasons of Christmas and New Year’s (Americans call it ‘New Year’s eve’- but for most Ugandans its just New Years), we prefer to be awake during September because it is our birth month. This is the only time in the year that we are allowed to feel special or more special than others. It is that one day that you expect to be celebrated. In the ‘dot.com’ world today (as our parents and anyone over 50 calls it), it is the day that you are supposed to be ‘posted’ about, displayed like an advert.

To the best girl I know. Queen! (Hands up emoji) The most beautiful soul. Happiest birthday! Blessings upon Blessings.

And that, is why the birth day can be one of the most depressing days.

I had a birthday party for almost every birthday since I was three years old and until around age 13. Thereafter, the third term of school always began on my birthday. My 13th birthday found me dosing off in night prep in a dining hall that smelled of the soup of boiled dry beans. When I awoke from my dosing fit, I was trying hard to speak without getting caught so that the teacher on duty would not slap my head blank that night. It always started as scattered whispers and then a feverish din would engulf the entire hall until the sharp sound of a hot slap would get everyone quiet again. I had cut cake with my mother at home before I left, but it was not the same. Life had continued as if it was any other ordinary day.

My 17th birthday had some pomp and glamour but mainly it had a bit of drama. The kind where you choose whom to call, whom not to, and your friends from lower high school and your new high school tried to mix like oil and water. As we walked outside, I, surrounded, followed, listened to, coveted, covered on all sides, a tall dark figure came up behind us and gave me a present. There were shrieks of excitement and eyerolling and ‘I can’t keep this. Please take this back. I’m going to throw it away” because a boy had given me a present.

My 18th birthday was uneventful, it was the Sunday before school. It had been the year when the foundations I had placed my bets on had first caved in, leaving me falling into a steep spiraling black hole. I remember eating barbeque meat and watched the debris, as I hid behind the bright glare of the computer screen.

My 19th birthday resurrected life into the meaning of what I thought a birthday was to be. We were back on track. What did I want to do, what present did I want, where did I want to eat, what cake did I want. It was the birthday of beginnings. It was after all the beginning of the end of childhood.

In my first year of University, I had waited all day for someone to recognise my birthday. I got instead, what I felt, were a few half hearted messages from family. I had half whispered it to one of my classmates, a South African girl called Phangi, and she had said, “Ohhh shame, it’s your birthday. Happy birthday?” And she had moved on to the next topic.

In my right angle triangle residence room, I sat on top of the table (because I was being rebellious to the norm) and watched the grass. When I heard the Taiibos boys screaming in glee as they jumped into the pool outside, grabbing pale skinned girls and pushing them into the water, tears run down my eyes. It was my birthday and no one in the world knew.

I didn’t sit in the dark for a long time. It was 7.30 p.m. when my sister called me to come visit at her apartment. I said no. It was too late. The day had ended. She insisted. When I got there, the skin around my eyes was visibly dry and my mouth was so tight it could barely turn up into a smile. But she had bought me, a cake whose pristine taste I have never forgotten; peppermint, caramel with a silky cream in between moist crystals of baked chemistry.

On 2 birthdays (except one) that followed during my University years, it had become clear to me (usually after the occasion) that cake and a free meal had been the biggest decisive factor in acquiring the attendants’ presence.

After that, my birthday was always a mixture of excitement and disappointment. It took me years to realise that I did not have to wait for one day in the year to feel special. And I did not have to wait for anyone to make me feel special. Last year, after I realised what a heavy burden I had put on one day of the year to make me feel special, I receded my expectations, believing that everything would always fall short and so we should keep it simple.

But this year, when the birth day came around, I had come to understand that, there was nothing that anyone or any day could do to make me feel special if I did not, could not, allow myself to feel special on the other 365 days of the year. And so, this year, I hesitated on the ‘Yes’ when he said we were going away for a bit. Back down. Back down. I really wanted to say, “That’s not necessary. At all. What about…?” Shut up. Just accept it. I was seriously battling myself as the word came out that I could see the confusion that my inner conflict was causing, reflected on his face. Then I got ready. I got ready to feel the sand crushing under my feet, to hear the waves rushing back and forth against the shore all night, to be happy; secure that it was not in just this one day, or in the close or distant people acknowledging me, that I had to weigh my worth.

I did get the cake, and the singing, and dancing and a few heart warming messages and it was real and intimate and beautiful but I had already given myself the permission to be.