The Long Con…
The long con.
There is no other kinder way of saying it. My parents committed a long con on me. Having been to Sierra Leone I can now see I was robbed. Mostly of a childhood of peace, an adolescence of financial stability and a young adulthood where I wasn’t the guarantor of my parents bad decisions. All of these have taken a toll on me.
Friendly people and hugs whilst costing you thousands? Not worth it. The calls the stress the pressure for money for people who literally don’t know your child’s name? Not worth it. All those things that were life and death years ago as it turns out are not worth it. My parents did so much to strap me to a culture and a country that was completely not worth it and wonder why I am so resentful that they wasted my lifeforce for it. Spent all that money on people who don’t appreciate them, because when you have a parasitic relationship with someone is the parasite grateful to its host? No.
I got stitched up at the Ritz in January for £550, I paid for the meals of people who I can say I have met a handful of times, that was my holiday to Germany gone. Over a meal. When these same people where meant to pour into me, as a child, they didn’t do so, when I got married these people humiliated me with giving me scraps of fabric, when my dad died they had to be court-marshalled into calling me…once…6 months after the fact. Yet they are apparently worth a German holiday to me.
My mum wants me to spend yet more money doing up my house…So that I can host relatives. I will not be doing that. Most importantly because I can’t afford it, but also because I don’t want to give anymore. I feel like what I have given is more than enough for 10 lifetimes and there will always be another problem, and then there will always be my wallet.
I have come to realise that the Sierra Leonean culture is a Ponzi scheme, there are winners and losers, there is an assumption that if you have money, you will give others that money to level them up. I have money and I won’t be doing anymore because I am sick of that lifestyle.
It has damaged me in so many ways, because I am not used to having reciprocal relationships. I have been a provider for my parents since my adolescence, first emotionally and then financially and it is no exaggeration to say that has cost me hundreds of thousands of pounds and fundamentally altered the life I have today and the life I can provide for my own children, because by the culture when I eventually have kids I will then do the same thing to them to maintain my social status, well that ends with me. I will cut my children off from that cancerous country and its subsequent culture, I will make sure they know where they are from, but they are expressly forbidden from getting involved or sinking money or emotion into that deliberate cesspit.
Therefore I am so glad I have found out that this was a Ponzi scheme and that no one ever had any intention of showing me love, “coulda, woulda,shoulda” for 29 years of either neglect or deliberate cruelty? Then you want me to marry into a culture of more parasites? And by the way there are more ways it can get messed up. The levels of irresponsibility is huge, because no one ever realistically expects to be held accountable for their actions, they can literally get someone pregnant and walk off the face of the planet. Or they can send that child off to live with someone else like it is the kids fault they and they are a burden, or they can sit and do nothing whilst they starve their kids of a better lifestyle if only the parents had motivation (by the way this is true in this country as well Sierra Leone doesn’t hold the worldwide license for fecklessness, but it sure is a key player.)
I want to re-iterate, love tells me that these people are not bad people, it is just there is absolutely no standard of care when it comes to me, I preach once again.
“You do not rise to the occasion you fall to your standards” which means because they were never forced to care early on, they don’t care now, and they never will care… and ordinarily that would be fine, you cut your losses and let it go, you have blood relatives somewhere, but if you ever need a blood donation…pray for O+ black people in the blood bank…
Where it becomes a con is the expectation that I will treat them as if they have always loved me and done their best by me, when the truth is that they haven’t. They haven’t cared for me, in childhood or adulthood. They haven’t considered me one of their own and they never will. So I have nothing to be grateful for because they have done nothing for me. I am not indebted to them on my parents behalf, I am not indebted to them on my behalf either. Therefore any act of kindness towards them is an act of robbing myself or my children, possibly both. And therefore I will commit acts of theft no longer.
I take this moment to formally and officially forgive myself for my past mistakes believing that these people cared for me.
I take this moment to formally and officially forgive my parents for pretending that their bare minimum efforts/outright wickedness were feats of courage/not acts of evil.
I take this moment to formally and officially forgive the parasitic relatives who did get money out of my parents and myself, and went on to enjoy themselves without a second thought to what it did to us. Then when dad died didn’t so much as lift a finger for us.
But mostly I draw a line under the long con, it was a part of my life, I was bitter, I was angry, I’m not now. I just view that country with detachment. The opposite of love isn’t hatred. It is Apathy, and I am apathetic to the comings and goings the doings and not doings of people from my parents nation.
Do what pleases you, but don’t be surprised when I do the same.
Grace and Courage,
Annetta Mother Smith.