Let's Talk About Love...

#Love #ValentinesDay

Hello!

It has been a little while since you heard from me.

I know. I know.

But it is always great to be back. And look at me, coming from my almost-hiatus smack in the middle of February.

If everything goes as planned, this piece will be live on Valentine’s Day. Isn’t that fun?

Well, Valentine’s Day isn’t exactly fun for everyone. I mean, it’s the season where lovers exchange gifts with one another. It is the time when everyone gets to see all of the aggressive marketing towards Valentine’s Day. Think-pieces about what love is. Quips and jokes about what Valentine’s Day should be.

Today, I went to the supermarket and I saw this huge spread of Valentine’s gifts. Teddy bears, perfumes in pink packaging. Lots of red things in shiny wrapping paper.

I stopped to admire it for a while. It really is very beautiful you know. Love. And it is also a bit difficult trying to choose a gift for someone you love romantically. Or maybe that’s just me.

Anyways. I don’t talk too much about romantic love on the blog. I don’t think that is going to change very much but a few days ago, I put out a post on social media asking my blog subscribers what they wanted to see more of on the blog.

Someone said love. Romantic love. Your love life specifically.

So, this is me giving the people what they want.

LET’S TALK ABOUT LOVE…

There is this rendition of Kendrick Lamar’s All the Stars by Jorja Smith. I find it quite lovely. The way her voice lilts on those words.

Love

Let’s talk about love

Is it everything and anything you hoped for.

(Little side note but what Kendrick Lamar did in the Super Bowl half time to Drake is NOT love. But his pettiness is HILARIOUS)

Okay, back to topic.

I have written about love in general quite a few times on the blog. In fact, this blog post titled A Note On Love was written in 2023 after I attended a wedding. It is so cute that the couple celebrated two years together a few days ago from when I am writing this. I am so very happy for them.

So, that question.

Is love everything you hoped for?

Some people are so lucky. They get to be with the first person that they fall in love with.

When I was a teenager, the idea of being with someone from your teen years into the REST OF YOUR LIFE sounded like a prison of some sorts. It sounded scary.

I don’t know exactly why, but I think its because I was just a kid back then. And I did grow up in a very specific culture where you are discouraged from dating as a teenager. There is a lot of negativity around dating before you hit maybe, I don’t know, twenty. And after that everyone asks you why you’re single.

Now that I am older, I have grown to recognize how important that aspect of your life is. Having the right partner can really determine what direction your life goes in.

But, look at me doing it again, seeing things with my head and not my heart.

I tend to do that. And to answer that question is love everything you hoped for? Well, I think I have had to reshape my mind to hold what love is really about.

I have always wondered at that thing about me. How I am someone who is very, almost unequivocally logical and analytical about everything. It doesn’t translate very well in dealing with people. Or in relationships of any kind. Thankfully, I have my more comedic, jovial attitude to smoothen that side of me.

Still, I do feel like some people are incredibly lucky in how their love lives go. They just seem to know how it is supposed to be. And it feels like many other people are just floundering around in strange seas, trying to find the nearest shores.

This applies whether you are single or in a relationship.

You can feel incredibly lonely even if you have someone in your life. Love isn’t about the optics, it is about the genuineness of showing up for someone you care about.

Wherever you are in your love life, happy, alone. in-between relationships. in a weird rebound situation (ha-ha), love demands something of us where if we really want to hold it, we have to shape ourselves into a form that can truly hold it.

Which brings us to the next thing I want to talk about.

LOVE AS COMMODITY. LOVE AS CURRENCY

Social media will have you thinking that you are single even when you are in a relationship.

There is so much going on and if you don’t have all of the aesthetics of being in a relationship, you will be tempted to wonder if your partner even cares about you.

Now, there is a very clear line between having standards regarding how you want to be treated, and having unfair expectations because of what you have seen in someone else’s relationship.

These are things that need to be considered.

When I was a bit younger, and weirdly much more jaded about love, I always wondered about the merry-go-round of getting into a relationship because you were expected to. Or because everyone else was doing it and if you didn’t participate, you would be the odd one out.

Of course, being different can be a painful experience if it is not something you are too comfortable with.

But I always worried about the person on the other side of the relationship. What if they really cared about you, and you were just with them to fulfil an aesthetic, or tick a box about the things your life should consist of.

Relationships shouldn’t be a status symbol.

That is what I am getting at. But so often, they aren’t more than that.

It is even much more pronounced in Nigerian culture, especially for women, where if you are not actively trying to be in a relationship heading towards marriage, something is deeply wrong with you.

The standard is that you should desire marriage, even better if you idolize it a little.

Valentine’s Day can be triggering for some (not me though, I’m good ha-ha) because of all the performativeness that comes with it sometimes.

But the legitimacy of love is not bought with gifts, or social media aesthetics. Or even real-life aesthetics. It is earned by two people deciding to build with each other and nurture each other.

REALLY, WHAT IS LOVE

I Corinthians 13 has one of the best definitions of love I have come across.

A few others have struck my mind as much. Nothing beats those calm words trickling down like a quiet stream.

Love is patient. Love is kind.

Love does not seek after it’s own.

It believes all things, hopes all things.

Sometime last year, I was doing a weird post-Valentine’s Day shopping for someone I was seeing. I had spent days trying to figure out what to get for the person.

Eventually I found myself in the men’s clothing section of a supermarket. That is a very weird place to shop for a gift, I know.

But I had run out of options at that point. I didn’t know the person’s taste well enough to decide.

Eventually, I wrote a poem about that experience and reading it again really transported me back into that hesitation. That question of if I should just be brave enough and make that jump at what could be love.

I am not going to share that poem here. It is probably a bit too much ha-ha. But I realized that my hesitation was the hesitation of someone afraid to try something new. Afraid to give someone else my trust. Buying that gift felt like giving that blossoming thing legitimacy, and I wasn’t sure if I was there yet.

I bought a gift some days later. I told my friend what I got and she said I should banish that gift into non-existence. Ha-ha. (Those weren’t her words but she did imply that it was too lame a gift so I shouldn’t hand it over at all)

I didn't anyways. So let's close that story right there, shall we?

Still.

Love is a very brave thing. Probably the bravest force in the universe. What can it not overcome?

I hope you think about that now wherever you are during this Valentine’s Day: love can dazzle even the most fearful of us to give new horizons a try.

So.

Enjoy the obnoxiousness of lovers. And be a bit obnoxious too.

Join in the fun.

I hope you are taking care.

Let me know your thoughts about love in the comment section