I AM NOT YVONNE NELSON

os I shared on that social media platform. I was unconscious of the repetition, but he had the time and presence of mind to track the different occasions I had won the sa

hing and make-up can cover physical blemishes, but they cannot make up for the gaping deficit between one’s true emotional state and the appearance they must put up in public. Many celebrities, therefore, resort to drugs to manage their emotional imbalances. For many, that is the only way to stay afloat in the turbulent waters of showbiz. It is an inescapable trap that keeps you enslaved to the dictates of public opinion and makes you cringe at the words of people who have no business having certain expectations of you. There was a time in my career that I lived for the cameras. Growing up, I didn’t prepare for the trappings of fame or public life. I had no clue that someone else would celebrate me when my own father disowned me, and my mother and siblings were obviously not proud of my poor academic performance. So, I couldn’t have anticipated stardom and prepared for it. My luck, however, was that my background anchored me and kept me on the shores of sanity when there was the temptation to go haywire. I had a point to prove to my family. I had to show that I wasn’t useless after all. I needed to prove that I was somebody. It was the reason I took investment seriously when I started earning money. Before I even thought of buying my first house, I had helped to renovate my mother’s house in Dansoman. We replaced the louvres with sliding windows because times were changing. We tiled the floors, changed the ceiling and painted the house. When it was done, I chose my late grandmother’s room. It was in this room that I used to hold her long breasts, the breasts I nicknamed “bombo” when I was a child. The fact that she had died did not scare me. Some fear living in the rooms of a deceased person. My bed was where hers had been, and I thought I would live there for a long time. I had borne about 70% of the cost of the renovation and felt profoundly proud that I was a major contributor to the family. My mother was proud of me, but, as is usual of her, she wouldn’t say much about it. However, instead of telling, she showed it later. It showed in the decision she wanted to take. She wanted to will that house to me, perhaps, because of the role I had played in the makeover of the old version of it. That decision didn’t sit well with me. I didn’t think I needed it. And even if I did, that wouldn’t be fair to my two siblings. I would be happy to rent it out and share the proceeds with them instead of taking it all alone. I had no problem living in my mother’s house even at a time I was a household name, but others did. A female friend I met in the movie industry was not tired of reminding me that I needed to rent my own apartment and move from my mother’s house. Her words had an effect on me, but I didn’t act on them. I knew where I lived was just a phase of life, but I had to move at my own pace. When the time was ripe, I did not rent as she had suggested. I moved into my own house. When I was moving to my second house, the same lady who had pestered me to rent a place wanted me to rent out my first house to her. I cannot pretend that I haven’t been affected by the pressures of the celebrity lifestyle. There was a time I bought bags I didn’t need. I had to show off. My first car was a necessity and I didn’t mind the make or model. All I needed was something to help move my hustle. My second and third were more than that. I was conscious of the choices I was making and the need to keep my place in the industry. What car which celebrity drove was as important as which role one played in a movie. There were times I wore clothes to impress. What others thought of me preceded everything else in my decision on what hairpiece to invest in. My Damascus moment, however, came before I turned 30, so I can say I burst my celebrity bubble less than a decade into my career. It happened when I was turning 29. It suddenly dawned on me that I would soon be 30, and that I would begin my journey into old age sooner than I had imagined. At 29, I wasn’t the happiest of ladies you could find. On the outside, things were moving on well, but they didn’t translate into internal joy and peace of mind. For instance, I was dating a man I didn’t love, a man who was making marriage plans while I was planning how to opt out without hurting him too much. On my 29th birthday, he took me to Venice, the city of love and romance. I knew he was going to pop the question, and it scared the hell out of me. The night before my birthday, I called my mother and wept uncontrollably on the phone. I could smell the proposal the following night after dinner, and I wasn’t prepared for it. The response I was about to give would come from my mouth but had no place in my heart. My mother was confused. The man checked all the boxes of a decent and modern-day gentleman, the kind of man every sane woman would gravitate toward when she thinks of settling down. He appeared to be at the stage of his life where he needed to settle down. He had a blistering career. He owned a beach house in London. But love works differently. It doesn’t care about society’s standards. It has its own standards. The standards of love may fail the test of logic, but that’s love. It works in its own way. Some say love is a decision and not a feeling, but how you feel about someone sometimes determines the decision you make about them. Either way, there is some element of feeling that cannot be completely dismissed. Besides, the demands of marriage far exceed the expectations of love. Marriage is deeper than love. Even if I had giant butterflies fluttering inside me, I knew a time would come in the marriage when they would cease to exist. It is what remains when love dies that should guide one’s decision to marry a particular person. In my case, I didn’t see the strong presence of either ingredient—the ingredients of the head and that of the hea