LOVE AND THE OTHER THINGS I COULD NOT NAME

I have always been the girl catching on to things late. I could only name the experiences I had gone through later on in life. It could be a week later, a month later or on some occasions years later. For instance, depression and anxiety had visited me before I knew their names. I had known serendipity countless times before knowledge of its name could reach me. When I could not explain why I preferred to stay indoors with my books, my drawings, my singing or just express my creativity alone than to go hang out with people I did not know, I will find out later in my teenage years that it’s because I’m something called an introvert. That my personality is more melancholic than any other type. That I had formed a soul tie with someone. All of these came to me before I could acquire the knowledge to name them. The truth is I’ve been “ today years old-ing ” my way throughout life. I’m constantly putting a name to my experiences from the knowledge I gather as I grow and the dots are constantly connecting.

In all my naivety with regards to these emotions, things were quite the opposite when it came to love. I knew love( or I thought knew it) in my own way before I could comprehend it’s fullness .
As a child I knew love was my mom buying me my favorite flavor of juvita for school. It was my my dad spoiling me and my sisters at the bonjour supermarket with ice cream and anything we wanted after church on Sundays. I knew that Jesus loved me because my teachers taught it to me and whether I understood it or not I did not matter. As a child love existed only within the walls of family and religion. Anything else could possibly not be it.

My comprehension of love evolved with me, it felt like every stage of life I reached threatened the knowledge that I held on to about love from the previous stage. Causing it to totally wither away or to entirely submit to the new change.
This was evident when I entered adolescence and everything altered, I begun to feel and see my body, my emotions and my thoughts change. My knowledge of love took the hint and moved along as expected. This time, love was the cute boy in my class whom I pretended to loathe. I would pretend to dislike the fact that my classmates shipped us but would secretly rejoice within because I knew I was nursing a crush on him and I was waiting for him to ask me out. Love no longer existed in my home as I knew of it before. I was sure my parents hated me because of how they always restricted me. I was certain my siblings were in on it too because why were we always fighting ? Then, love was only what I felt in my heart and in my stomach when I saw someone I liked. I could only love when I felt like it, if I was not feeling it, it was not love. However, I made demands of others, constantly seeking out that my love languages were satisfied. I wanted them to sacrifice. All I wanted to do was take and take and take but never to give as much as I took.

You guessed right a selfish kind of live was what I held on to. It almost always never ended well.

Everything begun to change when I started becoming a young adult. I welcomed new people, I found podcasts, I picked up reading again( a hobby I dumped between high school and few years of university ), Covid came and I was forced to find God again because nothing was making sense without me holding on to him. I believe that I discovered my creativity in the process. I got my heart broken over and over again but I picked up the pieces l and I tried again.

I found that, I thought I knew love because I could name it but I had to allow myself to learn what it was. Sometimes it came easy other times I had to learn the hard way with tears running down my face.

What do I know about love now that my young self did not know?
I know that love is first and foremost a choice. You choose to love and you choose to do it everyday. I know now that love comes in different ways and forms. It exists in the bond I share with my siblings and my friends. It’s in how we affirm each other, it exists in how I look out for another person when they need it the most and in deciding to buy my mom her favorite biscuits because no matter how small the gesture, it lights up her mood in a way that warms my heart. Love is not only in receiving flowers and gifts and service but also in giving gifts and my time and my resources to the people I say I love.
It’s in contributing money to get pads for the girls who need it the most even though I do not know them. I know now that love means sacrifice and selflessness. I know now that it is patient and kind and gentle and humble. It is not self serving nor I’ll mannered and it does not rejoice in falsehood but delights in truth. Though these things are hard virtues to build I strife to become these things not only to my partner and my family but to my friends and my colleagues and my church sibling and most importantly to the person who might be needing it the most near or far from me.