Two years ago I gave up on love. I finally came to the conclusion that love was not meant for me. Maybe we’re not all meant to fall in love, wear a white gown, and stand in front of the church and say I do. Some of us are meant to be part of the congregation that shouts “Dondoo” and send congratulatory messages to friends who recently got married. I didn’t just wake up one day and decided I’m over love and relationship. Situations forced me to.
I and Julius came very close to marriage. He loved me and it showed. Everything he did and said to me was full of love but when the time came for him to make the final decision, his parents, especially his father stood against our marriage. What was his reason? I come from a place where his grandparents had forbidden them to marry from. According to his father, if that covenant should be broken, the catastrophe that would befall his family would be so great both of us would not live to enjoy the marriage. He didn’t say it out of hatred. He said it almost like an apology to me. He said, “My daughter, look at me. If I die today, I don’t mind but I would mind if I should allow you two to go that way. Find another person you can be happy with and be with. This family won’t help you.”
We thought we were stronger but the day his father said, “If you won’t listen to me, go ahead and get married,” we knew there was something we should not play with. Grudgingly, we said our final goodbyes. Grudgingly, we forced our hearts to let go. Grudgingly, we decided to bury alive the love we shared. Today, Julius is married to one of his tribe women. They have two children and he talks about them with love and bliss. I am here, talking about my pain with a sore heart.
When Julius left, it took a while to heal. It took a long while to give love a chance again. Before I could say jack, I had fallen head over heels for Steve. He was quite a gentleman. There was nothing he promised that he didn’t give and that was the reason why I told myself, “It was good after all that I let Julius go. Look who I found in his stead?” But when the time came for Steve to turn his back on me, he did it with all the malice he could savor. I asked, “Steve, could you name one thing. Just one thing I did wrong to deserve all these you’re doing to me?” He answered, “You don’t have to do anything wrong. When love is not working between two adults, they cut things off. They don’t continue pushing it.”
What was not working?
He only knew what that was. Even when I suspected that he was cheating on me, I listened to his reasons. I watched him lie to me. I gave myself the permission to believe what he was saying though deep on the inside I knew he was lying. I gave him the benefit of the doubt because the evidence I had wasn’t conclusive but guess who he ran to when he left me…the same girl I suspected he was cheating with. Today, I think of him and smile while shaking my head. Guys. When they are loving you, they do it with all their being and when they are being stupid, they do it with all their being. They don’t do anything in halves.
I was 30 years the month Steve left. I had a job that paid well. When I didn’t like that job anymore, I resigned and stayed home. One month later, I had a better job with a good condition of service. When I needed a car, I worked hard and saved a lot of my money. I did an extra job to earn more. A year later, I got myself a car that I was proud to drive. I drove through a community once and told myself, “This is a place I deserve to live.” I worked my ass off and a year later, I rented a two-bedroom house in that community. Everything I want, I work hard to get it except relationships. No matter how hard I work at it, I still lose the ones I have.
So two years ago, I said, “Enough is enough…no more love.” I told myself love was a waste of time and a waste of one’s precious emotions. I’d rather work on things I have control over than to waste time building a relationship that would end up collapsing on me. So it was job, job, job until Ben worked his way into my heart. It was a slow and steady affair. I fought the feeling. I fought him to leave me alone. I fought everything that came with him but he was insistent, slow, sure and caring. One day, I said yes to him. Even that I was very careful not to fall in too deep but you know what, love is love. You either love with everything in you or not love at all. There’s nothing like sitting on the fence when it comes to love so slowly I fell in too deep and told myself, “If I die I die. After all, what am I living for?”
First three months I was careful. Second three months I threw care to the wind and loved away. Ben was so good I thank God for losing Julius and that idiot called Steve. “God was taking away my troubles so he could lead me to the perfect love—Ben,” I said and smiled to myself.
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One afternoon, my phone rang. The call came from Ben’s senior brother who had returned from abroad recently. There was fear in his voice. That got me confused. He said, “Adwoa, Ben had an accident. I’m at the hospital right now. If you’re not doing anything, you can come around.” What would I be doing that could stop me from rushing to the hospital? In the next hour, I was there. I didn’t recognize him when I saw him lying there on the hospital bed. He was covered in bandages; head, left arm, left leg and a drip was fixed in the right hand. “What happened to him? How did it happen?” His brother answered, “He was riding his motor bicycle when he collided with an oncoming vehicle. The doctor says he’s stable.”
I remember fighting Ben on that motor bicycle. That’s what his brother brought him when he returned from abroad. I didn’t like it one bit. I was scared for him every day but he kept assuring me, “It’s safe. I enjoy riding it. Someday, I’ll teach you how to ride it and you’ll enjoy it.” I stopped talking about it but I didn’t stop being afraid for his safety. I looked at his face, tilted my eyes as if to look at his face through the bandages. All I saw was his nose and some bit of his eyes. I stayed at the hospital until it was late at night before going home to sleep. The next morning, I decided to pass through to see him before going to work. That was when I saw his mother crying. His brother too, he was standing with his face against the wall weeping. I felt the loss but I wanted to hear it from them. His brother said, “He couldn’t make it.”
I sat on the floor with my face buried inside my palms and cried like there was no tomorrow. “Ben…What happened to our plans? To get married at the beginning of next year. What should happen to me now that you’re gone?” Questions that had no answers. Those you love—the people you give your heart to are the ones whose absence gives you the deepest cut, especially when that absence is forever. It’s a pain I will never wish on even the worse of enemies.
Ben had been gone but I am here—here with the pain of all the broken hearts I’ve had to endure. Love? I don’t know. I may say never again but I’m only 33 years old. I don’t know what or who may come my way but it will take a lot of strength—a huge form of courage for me to say yes to another. Maybe, Love is not meant for people like me.
