This post is inspired by another post where a woman described how her grandmother raised her even when she originally refused to support her grandson for taking responsibility for another man’s child.
One thing is constant in the many ways we define love: It is much more than definitions; it is embodiment and action. To love is to be creative with expression, consideration, flexibility, and resolution.
I have spent countless moments in deep gratitude, with tears in my eyes for the friends I have. Not just what they mean to me, how they color my life but the kind of ways they force me to show up and be better. They constantly expand my capacity to express the fullness of my essence. This fortune is inestimable, to find perfection in reality from imperfect people.
I have seen love demonstrated in how my parents go all out, grown as I am, I feel pampered so many times when my mom says to me “My baby.” Sometimes, hearing those words just replaces the tension of trying to be strong with the realisation that I don’t always have to be strong or be strong alone.
I have been fortunate with immensely satisfying relationships. I have found sisterhood in friendship even with oceans between us. I have gained brothers, mentors, and lovers, just a miraculous expression of how binding love can be.
With these openings also came the many heartaches I have suffered. Oh god, let me not start this today. If you ask me, I won’t want my daughter to experience my version of womanhood and all the turns it has taken but I know she will forge her path.
Love has broken me apart and love has picked up the pieces. A friend asked me, D, why do we even bother loving? To which I replied, we were made for love.
Like every other thing in life that requires practice and building, love is on this list. Sometimes you don’t get it right, you hurt people and they hurt you, you feel so hurt sometimes that you never want to try again or even open up yourself to be vulnerable. If you have suffered betrayal, there’s a part of you that never really rests in love because somewhere deep down, you are waiting for the possibility of the disappointment that comes with humans being themselves.
I once came across a statement that read something along the lines of but in my own words, learn to make space for others you love to disappoint you without breaking the essence of the bond.
Loving is an opportunity to discover so many things about yourself. Even the weakest moments could be transformative for the strength you’d acquire later. Since love is transformative for good or bad, it is important to remember that you can decide in what direction you want to go.
It is true that some events are like whirlwinds, or tsunamis that sweep you out of control and your comfort zone but even after every raging storm there is a new beginning, that is the moment you decide in which direction to rebuild.
I am dedicating this post to aching hearts, the type caused by betrayals, mistrust, ineptitude and disappointments. Friends who have failed each other, parents who have failed their kids, lovers who have made war instead of love, and institutions that breathe chaos instead of the safety promised. To myself, for all the many times I have been let down.
This is a subtle reminder to try again, maybe in a different direction but again. To pick new stones, to lay the debris aside, to trust again, to remember what you were made for, to love and be loved. We are love beings.
May love change us even when we grieve its absence. May love fill us and never depart. The Yoruba word is “Duroti”. (it means much more than staying, it almost signifies a constant, inseparable presence that brings solace).
I hope this is the kind of love that replaces all that is lost and the kind we find courage again to become.
Here is to letting go and starting again 🥂.
Xoxo,
Dcconnoisseur.
Connoisseur of Memories 