So, it is like this; I woke up thinking through a couple of my experiences along my life's journey, mostly at those moments i took, or rather, attempted to take a detour through the dark alleyways of love. There seemed to be a recurrent theme - love, like dark chocolate, felt good, but more often than not, leaves a bitter, if not a sour taste in your mouth.
How did it all begin? Those who know me well, and I doubt anyone can lay claim to that, will tell you that I started out very early on the adventure quest for love. During my nursery school days, I had already figured out that - Lesson 1: boys and girls were fundamentally different, and that there was something that girls had to give boys - and that boys wanted, and I wanted that thing (even though I didn't know exactly what it was), and I sure as hell was gonna get it!
My first (documented) love in Nursery Two, was Jessy, she was my classmate in school, and oh boy was she gorgeous! a mulatto (or half-caste like we called them back then). she had long legs, dark hair, and rosy cheeks. All I thought of as I skipped to school daily with glee (imagine a chubby male version of little red riding hood but without the red cape) was staring into Jessy's eyes where the sun seemed to rise and the moon... well, I had no idea what the moon did at night because I was not allowed to stay up that late at 5 or 6 years old!
As a toddler, I had already fine-tuned the art of fantasizing... in my fantasies, I was Mickey and she was Minnie mouse and we always played and sailed away together in the cartoon world, on a tugboat. Lesson 2: (if you can dream it, you can achieve it) I don't recall the exact words I used in spinning her, all I know is that my lunch box, my 'Mothercare' (R) pant (fondly called pata back then - those two-color striped pants... I loved the red ones and blue ones the most), and of course, my mickey-mouse watch which had Mickey skating through the watch to tell the time. Then it happened, Susan transferred to my class from some other school and it hit me... two mulattoes are better than one! - Mistake 1
Lesson 3: if you treasure your sanity, do not make her mad and jealous! I knew she was hurting, but I liked the attention I was getting from Susan (and didn't notice how much she was hurting); she showed me in good time.
During the lunch break on some fateful day, my class teacher singled me out in class (it was a moral instruction class) and asked me if I had done anything wrong at home of late. With all the little boy swagger I could muster, I said no. Then she did the unthinkable. (She held in her hand a ring and a bracelet).
Weeks earlier, I had accidentally picked up one of my mum's rings and another of her bracelets (gold) and had as a true reflection of love given them to Jessy and Susan at different times, and had foolishly told Susan never to mention it to Jessy. Lesson 4: Code it, and code it well! That was my undoing, and another lesson in love and relationships, Lesson 5: Women Talk to each other (they leave all their differences behind and gang up to attack a perceived common enemy). Somehow, both girls talked and not only exchanged items but felt that they should proudly inform the class teacher that they were 'getting married to Femi'. Somehow, I had convinced them both of the value of them marrying me and having little cuddly, baby Femi (er, now that I think about it, how would that have happened exactly?)
While I stood in front of the class fidgeting nervously as my sins were read out to me, my Mum walks into the class (she had been called in by my class teacher). A sore bum, a spinning headache, and three buckets of tears later, I finally figured out what had happened; my mother went Jackie-Chan on me and afterward, threatened my very existence with the words "wa dele wa bami" (I'll be waiting for you at home).
Surprisingly, both girls felt obliged to pet me and reassure me - Lesson 6: If you know how to cry, it just may wash your love-sins away. I would rather not go into the details of how I got home and was pampered into having a black eye, and how I was suddenly being stared at by a bunch of irate women (code-named aunties) who felt honour-bound to each offer a knock or a slap as led by the spirit.
The implications of my innocent attempt at sharing my heart and attempting to love so early in life included being suspended for two weeks (I think the school was more concerned with my promise to make them have baby-Femi's than the fact that I had given out my mother's jewelry as a mark of undying love).
Lessons learned, I moved on through the rest of primary school without incident - more out of fear of my mum and the 'aunties', and the fact that my mother constantly reminded me of my acts of foolishness in the quest for love.... she reminds me to this day.
Love in secondary school was a different experience. To sum it up, I learned that if done wrong, the wages of love is failure. In form 3, I fell in love again, she was, true to form, yallow, gorgeous, and had the loveliest eyes I had ever seen, at the time. (I shall call her SA). Everything about her made my heart beat faster, I even descended to a perpetual state of denial, and it took the wise counsel of older males in my life at that time, to convince me that she, like everyone else, farted (but that could not deter me....I was sure her fart smelled like the essence of strawberry). I may have genuinely loved SA and always found a way to be around her, and she knew it: I even applied to join the Girl's Guide (she was a member); of course, I was firmly rejected by the club.
Then came the next Lesson, 7: peer pressure is cool, but is just wrong in the context of love and loving. The more she opened up to me, the more I had to (pose) that was the trend then, you had to feel like you were doing her a favour by being with her. Foolishly, I succumbed to peer pressure, hurt her feelings, and she left me.
Long story short, since I did not read, I did not pass my exams! and if you fail, you must repeat (borrowing the words of a public figure to justify why his son, a then governor was qualified to run for a second term in office – if you fail, you must repeat your class, He has failed, let him repeat his term as governor).
So, for a brief moment, I became a state governor, I was an emotional wreck, and I vowed not to love again, but I soon got over it, swiftly. My experience (in my formative years) at storybook, fairy-tale, Mills and Boons, Silhouette, Pacesetters, and Temptations-love has been a mix of pleasure and pain...starts with pleasure, ends with pain. But the brief moments of passion, pleasure, and bonding make the underlying pain worth bearing.
The butterfly-in-tummy, spinning head, and the feeling of floating in the clouds is a truly wonderful feeling, but is that love?
Love is a decision and not a feeling o jere. It is a decision to open up to joy and happiness and occasional pain, to cry when you are happy, and cry when you are sad; it is a decision to make yourself vulnerable on purpose.
Love hurts.
'Back in the days when I was young, I'm not a kid anymore, but some days I sit and wish I was a kid again' (anonymous)
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