This week has been the longest and most draining week in my history of annoying weeks. School is hard, Entrepreneurship is harder, the country is draining my very existence and my emotions have been spiralling out of control all week long. I’ve been the sore thumb everyone is weary about. My friends are scared to talk to me lest they offend me more than I already am. This is no fault of mine, the universe just surely hates me and constantly at work with my village members. I’ve been all range of anger whilst displaying my village drama to anyone who pays me any attention and yet this man is still here. Still on this bed with me and that in itself makes me feel good while still feeling terrible because being a bitch to the ones who love you do not deserve a pat on the back.
All week my feeds, chats and timeline have been filled with stories of failed marriages, Yoruba men being what they really are and the generalization that love is not for the weak. Definitely marriage is also not for me. I don’t have it in me to play dumb to any man…and yet I’m here in bed with this man.
Hello I’m Oge and I’m emotionally unavailable. Don’t judge me yet you do not know my story but it doesn’t matter because I’m not telling it either. I’m only here to tell the story of why I think I love this man and I hope he understands it. We’ve been seeing each other for almost a year and in a year I’ve been the hard guy. Ours was a business arrangement, “Scratch my back and I scratch yours”. No expectations. No false promises and reassurances cause we do not need to lie to each other about feelings we both do not have other than the fact we have turned to glorifying fornication.
Fornication noun
FORMAL•HUMOROUS
sexual intercourse between people not married to each other.
Our arrangement did not require us to play house and for that I’m grateful. No need for the world to be privy to who we were having wild sessions with and whose bed we woke up in the next morning.
Law broke the rules first. “Law” cause that’s what I call him and that’s how I broke my first rule too. Giving ourselves names. Law for Lawrence. He started out with giving me gifts on our official first date…this man who I am staring at whilst he’s fast asleep. He sleeps as though he’s fighting for something or someone in his sleep. There are lines on his forehead, I want to kiss the worry off his brows but that would mean me waking him up. He’s super alert like that. I was pleasantly surprised when he did that and as cliché as it sounds he got me cake on that day saying, “You’re so hard to read and I didn’t know what to get you, so we would have to make do with this”. The year has been draining but he has been that little ray of light peeping into the darkness that is my life. People abuse the term being depressed but I’ve lived through depression. Have I thought of turning off the switch to my life? Certainly. Have I envisioned various methods of leaving this place? Yes and I’m still of the opinion carbon monoxide oozing from my “I better pass my neighbour” generator locked in the room with me tops the list of painless deaths. This is not a cry for help so do not fret just yet.
I’ve had more laughs with him than I have had in my twenty some years of living. Sitting in his car having meals makes the perfect date. I once had a mental breakdown and well, you can guess who came running to save me from myself. This man. This man snoring lightly by side holding me tightly so I don’t vanish. We do have this inside joke you know, about the real reason he holds me tightly while we sleep. It’s definitely because he doesn’t want me stealing from him. It’s hilarious but I was the one who thought of the joke. He simply guffawed when I told him the joke and called me “his little 5 feet 4 inches worth of crazy”.
This day is no different from all other situations I’ve gotten myself in. I was having the longest of weeks with things not working out and going my way. I’ve lost count of the day I last had breakfast…ohh…wait…that was on Friday. I was sad and not responding properly to basic human behaviour and this man came to pick me up. I have no idea how my toiletries came to be in his car but we found ourselves here in Enugu. The air here is relatively different. We drove 3 hours to get here and I have no idea how I agreed to this madness.
“You need a break”, he said. “I do not enjoy seeing you like this, it’s like you’re here but your spirit is no longer with me. I want your spirit back and I don’t know but three days is all I have to give you right now okay?”. “Please work with me…”
I’m here now. Working with him. Working to get my spirit back. Working because he doesn’t deserve this drama I give to him. Working because I want my spirit back. Working because I think I love him and I need him to have the better version of me. Enugu has been surreal. I’m getting myself back gradually. Today is the third day, we’re leaving first thing tomorrow. We’ve been everywhere, we’ve spent the nights in bed together and its not about sex. He sees me and he brings me back to life…
Like all good things in my life I’ll have to kill him though before he kills me. For now I would keep laying down here with him. All we have is now…
To be continued
–Happy New Year
xoxo