I Started Over Twice, Part One: Coming Home

The first time I had to start over, I thought my life had fallen apart. I had left Kenya believing I was beginning a new life. Returning home meant facing the end of that future and the people who had watched me leave.

When I left Kenya for the United Kingdom, I was overjoyed. We had been talking for a long time, and moving there for our relationship seemed like the natural next step. I was excited about a new country and the life we thought we would build together.

I even had a farewell party. Many of my friends came, we took lovely photographs, and I celebrated my departure with people I was close to. There was so much happiness around that move. I was leaving with plans, and I wanted to share the excitement.

At work, I resigned from Standard Chartered Bank. My colleagues organised a farewell party and bought me gifts. It was an official goodbye, because as far as I was concerned, I was relocating permanently. I gave up my house too and stayed with my aunt for the period before I left. I had made room for the new life by letting go of the one I had.

I had imagined the ordinary things that make a shared life feel real: waking up in the same place, making plans that no longer depended on telephone calls, and finally discovering what our relationship could become without an ocean between us.

Two months later, I was back in Kenya.

Only two months. After the parties, the photographs, the gifts and all that excitement, I had returned. The future I had gone there for had not worked out, and I did not have my job or my house to come back to.

I could not quietly disappear. These were my friends, people I had been communicating with all along. They knew I had left, and now I was here again. Naturally, they wanted to know why.

“Why did you come back so soon?”

I lied.

I told people I had gone to pursue a PhD, but it had turned out to be too expensive and I could not afford it. That was the explanation I gave for coming home. It was not the truth. I had also been dishonest with some people about why I was going in the first place.

Once I had given that explanation, I had to keep giving it. I lied to people I should have been able to speak honestly with. Some have never asked me about it since. I do not know what they believed, but I remember whom I told, and I still feel ashamed of having lied to them.

At the time, I was more afraid of admitting that the relationship had not worked than I was of carrying a story that was not true. I worried about what my friends would say and how they would see me. I had been so happy to leave. How was I supposed to explain being back already?

Returning home felt like giving them an answer I had never wanted to provide.

I did not announce that I was beginning again. I simply found myself back in Kenya, trying to work out what came next. What happened between my departure and return is a much longer story, and one I tell fully in Tough Luck.

Not long after that, I tried to begin again somewhere else. I applied through AIESEC for an internship in Mumbai and was accepted. Perhaps part of me hoped that leaving Kenya would also take me away from the questions, the gossip and the embarrassment I was carrying.

It did not. The gossip had followed me because it was already in my mind. Even from Mumbai, I kept wondering what people back home thought of me. Had they decided that I made terrible choices? Did they see me as someone who had failed? I had changed countries, but my thoughts had travelled with me.

Mumbai itself was an extremely difficult experience. I was stared at constantly, I encountered racism, and I never felt settled there. What was meant to be another fresh start became one of the worst periods of my life.

While I was there, I applied online for a job in Kenya and attended the interview from Mumbai. I was offered the position, but they needed me back in Kenya as soon as possible. I ended my internship contract and returned home once again. This time, at least, I was returning to a job.

I remained employed until the organisation I worked for closed in October 2017 and I lost my job. That was when a long period of unemployment began, and with it another chapter of this story.

Looking back, I wish I had been able to say, “I went because I thought it would work. It did not, and now I am home.” That would have been the truth. I did not have the courage to say it then.

Today, I can see that there was no shame in starting over, or in taking a risk on a life I wanted. I regret the lies. I do not regret believing that something good could happen to me. Even that difficult return became part of the journey that brought me here.

I have been through enough now to know that I can survive a setback. Other people’s opinions have less power over me than they did then. I still feel disappointment, but I try to stay focused on what I can do next. The woman who came home after two months could not have said any of this with confidence. I can say it now.