I’m not here to play games with you.

Personal growth is an amazing thing. When I married the first time I wanted nothing more than to have my entire family around me, have  a beautiful day that was picture perfect then share those pictures on facebook. Have my own day. A beautiful day to start a beautiful life.

Now I’m 30 not 21 and I couldn’t be further from being married again. However that doesn’t stop me from dreaming. It doesn’t stop me from thinking about what I’d do differently when the next time comes. (notice, its when, not if)

1.      Family.

In the intervening years I have come to the realisation that my family are not my friends. I have, like most people, 2 sides of my family. Mum’s side, and dad’s side. Dad’s side of the family, other than my cousin Eddie, were previously a hell no. That hasn’t changed. My mum’s side however were previously a hell yes and that has fundamentally changed.

My last surviving godmother stopped talking to the family when I married in 2014 because we didn’t allow her to bring 4 people in addition to herself. She didn’t understand that the hall was tight (180 people) and that we were already full and she took it as an insult and stopped talking to us. Only to reappear at my dad’s funeral like 7 years of ghosting never happened and that she was the same woman I’d call “Dunni, Dunni” after as a happy 18 month old because I couldn’t say her name.

Next are my actual cousins. I’m in a weird position that I have 2nd cousins in the UK (the children of my mum’s first cousins) these are the family I grew up with. Then I have 1st cousins in Sierra Leone.

Let’s take them both in turn.

English Family- The Harris’

I grew up with these guys until I was 13, then my parents moved away. For 10 years other than 1 occaison when I went to meet a new cousin at his first birthday, I didn’t see a single relative. I don’t blame them, they were kids. I was the eldest of the Harris cohort so if I was 13 they were between 13-6. So not their fault but 10 years is a long time. Even at 30, it’s a 1/3 of my life I have had no interaction with them. But I attached a false importance to them. So when I married the first time, I invited them. They then did a “family photo” and didn’t include me, the bride. That, hurt.

Sierra Leone Family.

I’ve met most of them for max 2 weeks, except my cousin Williams and Tina, who I’d met for 6 weeks, my maternal grandmother who may even get her own post and my aunt Priscilla. Again I attached false importance to them relative to their deserving and I gave them an invite. The disappointment was… a lot. My grandmother showed me open contempt. so she’s getting a minimum of her own paragraph, if not her own blog post and then the rest of the family showed me no love whatsoever until my dad died.

When my dad died I said to my mum that not one of the family called me to see how I was doing. People called her, the widow, their sister/aunt. But not me. Then my mum used her status as the rebel of the family to absolutely blast her family into the cosmos and soon I had my phone “blow up” like I was giving away free drugs. I’d originally made the comment because my cousin’s husband used to send me “Jesus messages” everyday at 4am-7am they’re spam messages with a daily prayer. Yet never bothered to actually ask me how I was doing. When his aunt, my godmother died, I sent him messages of condolences and yet I’m the one people say is cold and heartless and doesn’t “love people” (lies my ex told about me)

My Grandmother.

My grandmother has shown me extreme contempt almost from the get go. Sucks to be her, I’m the richest of her grandchildren and hands down the most successful. I’m a department head earning over £50,000 with my own property and car. Yet she shunned me.

It all started when my grandad died. When I was a small child, my grandad would send Christmas and birthday cards for me every year. He’d never forget. I was, after all his second granddaughter and the only granddaughter from his 3rd daughter. My cousin Tina was his favourite, but I was special too. His English Rose (I just made that up, I’m merely his English granddaughter) He died when I was 5. He’d always sign his cards, “From Grandad and Grandma.” Nice right? He died around Christmas, I believe he was buried on Christmas eve and he didn’t fail to send me a card before he died. That was the last communication I had from him.

When he died my grandma didn’t keep up the tradition, didn’t call or send cards for my birthday. She’d call if she was reminded, but she wouldn’t remember of her own volition. Eg. My 30th when she called my mother, not me and got the date 1 day late, despite having access to about 15 people in the family who have me on Facebook and could have looked up the date. The reason my 30th was important for her to get right was it was 2 months after my dad had passed away and it was important for her to actually step up emotionally and be my grandmother???? A little effort and intentionality for a grandchild who had lost a father she’d openly adored would have been helpful. Apparently, other people don’t love the way I love. That is my mother’s excuse. “she always asks for you” Like I care.

Seems like we’re going in most recent to oldest memories in terms of my grandmothers disappointments, so the next disappointment was the day after my dad’s funeral.

According to Sierra Leone Tradition, someone should sleep in the bed with the widow, before the funeral. Everyone bailed (typical) and so I had to sleep on the floor next to my mother’s side of the bed because I outright refused to sleep on my father’s side. So I was in my mum’s room when my grandmother called to ask about the funeral. She may or may not have watched it via skype. She’s not into technology and she lacks the love for us as a family to go through even mild discomfort for the sake of support in my opinion, so she called afterward.

Mum, like every other African parent put the phone on speaker so she can talk loud on the phone to her African relatives (why do people do this???) anyway. My grandmother and mother were conversing about the funeral. My grandmother asked about “De titi.” Which is Creole for “the girl” I want people to stop and pause here. 3 weeks after my father had died, the day after I buried my dad, my grandmother. My blood grandmother, referred to me as “the girl” not “Annetta” not “my granddaughter,” she referred to me as “the girl” like I was some stranger. Next to compound the rudeness she referred to me as “de whait oman” meaning “the white woman” my mum tried to pass this off as a compliment, its not. Being called white means I’m not black and therefore can’t be their blood.”

 I later found out she’s rude to everyone. She referred to my uncle Donald, married to my aunt Waltina for 30+ years as “your mother’s sisters husband” If he wasn’t the only surviving son in law I’d have had no idea who she was talking about. It was so abstract. No one calls him anything other than “uncle Donald” because that’s his relationship to basically everyone. She’s just rude for no reason. People think you can just be rude to God’s creatures because God let you live past “3 score and 10” (biblical quote for 70 years) and its not true. Nothing and no one gives you the right to trash God’s creation, especially if they are your blood.

She didn’t talk to me in the intervening years between my dad’s passing and my wedding. She should be ashamed of how she acted at my wedding. Here’s why.

She didn’t give me a present until the day before she left, I’d totally forgotten about it, I’d been married 3 months, been through moving house and really all I’d wanted was my grandma at my wedding (be careful what you wish for) and I moved on. The day before she left she presented me with this wooden carved plaque. I thought it was beautiful. Until I read it.

A grammatical point here. Creole is derived from English, so if a sentence doesn’t make sense in English it by default will not make sense in Creole. Why do I say this? Because the sentence that was carved into the wood didn’t make sense in Creole or English and it was written in English. My mum tried that one too. Like I’m an idiot. “its creole.” No it fucking well isn’t. the spellings would be different if it was creole. Its and English plaque. Now, another cultural point. The majority of adults in Sierra Leone are illiterate. So there is an almost certainty that the person carving was an illiterate…I have no animosity against them. May God improve their situation and allow them to continue to live a blessed life. My grandmother however is not illiterate. She could read that plaque and she knew it didn’t make sense. She should have sent it back, or gotten something else. Or not given me anything at all. Most people didn’t bother.

The only other person in of my mum’s 7 siblings that got me a wedding present was my aunt Waltina… No applause for her, she did worse than her mother. She got me… (I swear I’m not making this up) Black and burgundy pillowcases. Yep, not bedclothes…just pillowcases. It gets better. The pillowcases weren’t sewn. i.e. they were glorified scraps of fabric. And I at the time didn’t own a sewing machine. I highly doubt her own daughter, who is 3 months younger than me owns a sewing machine to this day. But I digress, do you see the lack of effort? Both gifts were clearly re-gifting with a clear insult of “we’ll pass it off as cultural, she’s never been she won’t know the difference”

Then we have my wedding day. Strap up. That woman really acted like a Bridezilla at my wedding.

Insult 1. My grandmother, a highly fashion conscious woman who cares deeply about her appearance, didn’t give a toss about the outfit she wore to my wedding. When my cousin got married, she had her outfit picked out from England. When I got married she wore some random rubbish with the hat from a charity shop.

Insult 2. The morning of my wedding, we were running late. I asked my grandmother to help me with some bits. She refused. My great aunt (its what I call her, she’s my grandmother’s family, quite distant relative, but around the same age as my grandmother, about 5 years younger) got on her hands and her arthritic knees (she was a former athlete and busted her knees over it) and helped me with the finishing touches to my wedding details. The one time I’d asked my grandmother for help. She thought herself a guest, and refused.

Insult 3. This was big. African’s love posh expensive things. My wedding reception was at Royal Holloway, the Founders dining hall (google it, its beautiful) so it was a beautiful, luxurious affair. My grandmother is a middle class/upper class African woman, so she’s used to eating western food. She also lived here for 6 months when I was 12. So she knows all about Salmon fish, they eat it as a delicacy in Sierra Leone because its not a native fish (it’s a coldwater fish from Norway and Scotland) but it is eaten. Salmon was the main course at my wedding breakfast. She shunned it as “Not African food” and requested to my parents for them to take her 5 minutes down the road back to their house and give her something African to eat…On my wedding day. She couldn’t put up with 1 meal for my sake on my wedding day. My parents did as she asked, missed the song “dancing queen” that I’d had the DJ specially play for my massive ABBA fan mother and held up the evening reception because they had my evening outfit at home and spent the time preparing then waiting for her to finish her evening meal.

This brings me to a bug bear about black people. This is people who are 1st and second generation immigrants. Black is always superior. People have a chip on their shoulder the size of the state of Texas. People have to mention at all times how the black food is the best food, we breed the sexiest women and the strongest most intelligent men. No other race is as oppressed as we were (lets not forget that for the natives of America, Caribbean and Australia and New Zealand it was a genocide, they aren’t oppressed because they’re all dead. And the ones that are still alive…are oppressed) its tiring. If you are so great, why is Africa the poorest continent by far despite being the richest in natural resources? If we’re so smart, why haven’t we figured a way to halt global warming? Africa is a continent on the equator, like the Americas. Its going to hit us first and we’re way more populous than the Americas. So where is our solution? Or are we too busy feathering our own nests and blaming white people for all our problems? Yep. Grow up. African food is just as good as Italian food. Which is just as good as Chinese food which is just as good as Bulgarian food. Grow up. Ditto the women, the men. People are people, food is food.

Between my wedding and me being 13 years old she didn’t talk to me then either. That was 10 years. She paid almost no attention to her 2nd grandchild.

When I was 12 my grandmother came to the UK. I desperately wanted to bond with her. She was my grandmother after all. I’d been told so many stories about her beauty, her ability to cook. Her wit. None of them were true unfortunately. I met a 68 year old. Who didn’t really care for me, she spent the summer with us in London, then in August/September she went to Birmingham to the Birmingham Harris’ she spent 6 weeks there and missed my birthday, despite the entire purpose of the trip being to bond with me. She gave me white shoes for my birthday when she eventually got back, which suggested they were cast offs. They didn’t even fit.

So that’s my grandmother. I only have one happy memory of her, when we made pancakes Sierra Leone style in our tiny kitchen in London (deep fried, then they wonder about the mortality rates???)

The less said about the Smiths the better.

In fact, nothing should be said about the Smiths. I have dozens of posts about the campaign of terror that the Smith family have inflicted on me and my mum for the past 30 years.

The problem I have with the idea of inviting my mum’s family to a wedding that hasn’t got a groom component to it is that I would get my hopes up. “This time my family would surround me with love…” Nah… they won’t and the older I get the more I realise my family don’t care about me. Not in a nasty way, but they say the opposite of love isn’t hate, its ambivalence. My family are ambivalent to my existence whereas I loved them.

The cousin on my mum’s side I considered myself closest to sent me a message the other day… Not to say hi, she wants me to get her husband a £1,000 laptop. I’m betting I’ll need to front the cost as she pays me back in instalments. In this life, with my dad’s tombstone looming, his anniversary less than a month away, it is bottom of the barrel priorities. Few years ago I would have jumped at the opportunity to be of service. To be noticed. For someone to even acknowledge my existence by asking politely if I’m okay. But now I don’t. I don’t care. I know when she messages its because she wants something. I know the only reason my grandmother called me when my mum was in Freetown was because I sent her £50. My dad had passed 6 months previously, my mum, her daughter is my only surviving relative and she’d gone to Sierra Leone and I was on my own, the only reason she called 1 time was to thank me for the £50, if I didn’t send her money she’d have left me to my own devices not caring that her granddaughter was undergoing serious sensory deprivation, because the one person a week I’d touch (my mum, I’d hold her hand in a café when I’d see her once a week) was now 6,000 miles away. I have no access to touching another person who isn’t my nail stylist and she didn’t know that because she didn’t care. She didn’t care that my dad was dead and I was all alone. Because I’m white apparently, and white people don’t deal with death in community. So essentially because I was born in the UK. Something I couldn’t and didn’t control, both my blackness and my humanity are up for debate. In fact they aren’t debated. They are completely void. Black people not so secretly think that “evil white people” are godless, soulless heathen who worship money. That is the petty narrative that is used to make them feel better when they continually mess up their own lives. “the white man is only successful because they have turned their back on God and sold their soul to the devil”  Apparently hard work and innovation count for nish. But I digress.

I’m not here to play games with my emotions. My next marriage will be a smaller affair because I’m not inviting any of my mum’s side of the family. Only my mother. None of my father’s side of the family. Only a picture of my late father surrounded by yellow roses. Whatever my colour scheme, I haven’t figured that out yet, but it doesn’t matter. The yellow roses stay. And if anyone comes in between me and my father’s roses… Trust me my boo, that is not the hill you want to die on. My family have, over the years, bitterly disappointed me. Lack of love, lack of effort. Out of sight out of mind and then people get mad when you reciprocate. Everyone wants to be an honoured guest but no one cares about your life when you have problems. Cute.

2. Friends.

I have a select few friends and they too will be given the same treatment. No one is too good that they won’t be cut from the bridal party, especially if they bring drama. My first wedding, my ex-husband’s little sister was a bridesmaid. I figured it was a kind gesture to bring some excitement to a 9 year old girl. She, I hasten to add was blameless, simply a child. It was here parents that acted like an ass. I had exams in the June, my wedding was September and they demanded to know about the bridesmaid dresses the 9 months prior to the wedding. I stood firm, took my exams, passed them and then focussed on my wedding. But the stress they put me under was real. The rehearsal was at 7pm on the day before the wedding. She and her little brother were required to attend. The parents left late to feed the horses, despite the woman being a housewife, and declined to communicate that… despite them living equidistant from another member of the bridal party. That member of the bridal party were a black family who lived in London, their son was the other page boy and the mum was 9 months pregnant. My wedding day was the 13th September 2014, the mum gave birth on the 19th. They kept us all waiting. We had to re-arrange the rehearsal dinner for 9pm. It was ridiculous. If my dad wasn’t the minister the church would have kicked us out. It is this kind of disrespectful behaviour and drama that I seek to avoid. Only a few people will be selected as bridesmaids and the criteria will be based on their ability to give me peace, not problems on the day. Life is too short for this madness.

Next is pictures.

I wanted to put my wedding pictures on Facebook the first-time round. I think this time I may put one. But not all. If I wanted, you to know about it I’d invite you. If I didn’t invite you I didn’t want you there. The fewer people who know, the less drama.

The husband.

I’m going to…. PICK BETTER! My forever husband is exactly that… Forever. Its going to be great because I value real love this time rather than the appearance of it. My life was not built for suffering so I’m not here to “hold anyone down” or “mother someone else’s son” nope. I’m here for the man that we will grow together, but he has himself together. If I want a project, I’ll go to hobbycraft. If I want a child, I’ll have sex and give birth. I won’t marry a child (again, read my  mental paedophilia post) That “struggle love” (read trauma bonding) and “black love” (again, read trauma bonding) is not the will of Jesus in my life. I will be marrying a proper man and will be emphasising living in peace and harmony rather than living for Instagram or facebook. Life is simpler when you don’t concern yourself with other people’s problems.

In short, caring about people’s opinions who don’t care about me is something I left behind in my 20’s. If I told you about the horrendous drama my parents gave me about other people minute comforts at my wedding you would think me a second class citizen… and I was. When you put other people first, you by default come last. But from here on in, I come first. I will please you if it pleases me. If it doesn’t…I won’t. My mum rang my phone off the hook yesterday because someone spoke to her about my father’s aniversay and wanted an immediate answer. I was on a walk… and guess what? I took that walk in peace and then came back to it today when I was in the mood. As it turns out, it wasn’t urgent. I’m gaining a new perspective on life. A perspective that grounds and centres me. That perspective is that I matter. I have to love myself because no one else will love and value me as much as I value me. Other people are selfish and are only here to get what they can get. And what they can get is what you allow them to take. So make sure they get only that which you can freely give. Having standards and boundaries is so openly frowned upon because the black community only works if people have none. If people do extraordinarily generous/good things (e.g. pay for university education/child support for a child that is not yours) because other people will do extraordinarily bad things (e.g. child/spousal abandonment) if you want some balance and equilibrium, that won’t benefit the community so you are shamed for it. Well my dears. I’ve given up on the black community. I’m not here to play “sacrificial lamb” with the best years of my life. Who cares if you think I’m a bad person. You are 6,000 miles away. Your displeasure has no consequence to me. What I’m trying to say to you is…

I’m not here to play games with you.

Grace and Courage.

Annetta Mother Smith