MY STORY OF LOVE

Bukola Odu once wrote,

Sometimes, to hear someone’s heartbeat, you’ve to stop yours for a while. (Jeez! it feels so good to quote myself.)

I was just beginning to settle into the boredom and dryness January represents in my mind when my friend reminded me that valentine was around the corner. Not that I’ve ever been one to attach much to the day but it definitely is something to look forward to and write about too. So I decided to tell my love story……

        Me and him had been friends since we were but innocent children. They used to live in the big house next to our block and flat. One day I got left behind by the school bus and he missed his bus just to walk home with me. That’s when we became friends. We were just seven and nine I guess. Between growing up, boarding school and university we grew apart. I never even thought of him till I came home one Christmas break. As I stood on my father’s balcony, he just stared at me. It took me like 3minutes to recognize the laughing boy from across the other side. The geek glasses now replaced by a more fancy adultish one and a kind of subtle handsomeness had covered the childhood innocence. I don’t know how I knew but something told me he was the one at my door the next morning. The first two things he said to me as I opened my gate was ‘Merry Christmas’ and ‘I think I want to marry you’. ‘Smug’ being my middle name, I simply answered ‘you’re still thinking about it?’. Six months later, we started dating. He’s now a doctor and I’m soon to be out of law school. It’s been 2years now and its been pure bliss…….

        Ok! You just read a one paragraph lie. Except for some few misplaced truths, that was basically fiction (you’re going to have to apply if you want to hear about my love life. Haha!). in my defence though, what I just told is what most people want to hear, read and have.

        The thing about love stories is they’re generally meant to be happy and gay all the way. No hitches, no issues, just all butterflies and isn’t that just great? To have that one perfect relationship with that one perfect person through whose eyes you see the world and who is your refuge from the insanity called life. The one into whose body you fit perfectly and whose smile ties your insides in a strong knot. We all want that.

        Personally, I always imagined a man who would make me laugh and let me love God more than him in our 20’s.

who would love me more than money in our 30’s.

Dance runnyman with me and bring me chocolate in our 40’s.

Carry me in a twirl dance in our 50’s.

French kiss me in our 60’s.

Take me on walks n tuck flowers behind my ears when we’re seventy-ish…..

Grand right? I noticed. I also noticed that its all filled with me, me, me. If he would do this for me and let me do that and give me those, bla bla bla. Truth is, most people who crave for this never get it. Not because there is no such thing but because they are unwilling to write their own love stories.

        Somewhere in the combination of Hollywood movies and the excitement of young people in love (which mostly turns out to be lust anyway), we seem to have thrown away the beautiful culture of giving and sacrificing such that when we say ‘I love him/her’, we’re actually saying I love what he gives me, how he treats me, how he makes me feel, how he looks et al. There’s almost always something attached to the way we love.

        In reality, you sometimes have to create the kind of love life you want. Just as the golden rule in life is to treat people as you want them to treat you, the rule of an enduring love is mostly to give and be what you want from the person next to you. Love is a giver and its nature is expressed in a constant desire to see the other person smile and be the cause of their every laughter. So as you celebrate this valentine, my challenge to you is to for once turn the tables and let your plans be centered on the next person and what you can do for them rather than what you expect from them. Meanwhile, let purity of heart and mind accompany your every action and keep in mind that Love comes only with the baggage of ease.

(i hope you dance-Lee Ann Womack. i love this song. i think you will too)

Happy Valentine

Ps: this is not restricted only to the people in your life. Extend your heart to someone who really needs it.

Bukola Odu

T.W.I.S