Dear Ex Fiancé
A piece about normalizing love that didn’t pan out but isn’t dead.
Yes, I just showered. And yes, I still love apple.
I decided to go back to writing on my phone because somehow the thoughts flow better when it feels like I am just writing a text versus writing an essay on my laptop.
Hey you, how is it working for you?
Shoving all those emotions and stuffing them down because the relationship ship didn’t work out.
Did it really work? Did you really move on or did you just succeed in moving on to the next as a means of forgetting.
Because when you forget, you don’t ever need to forgive, or do you?
I have no shame. I still love my ex fiancé.
Love is a strong word.
I know. But I do.
Do I wanna get back with her?
Do I want to still be with her ?
Would I date her if she was available ?
No.
Also, I am not thinking about her everyday. Infact I don’t remember the last time she came to mind until today.
BackStory
I posted a picture of my new haircut on IG. And Facebook or is it metaVerse, decided to post it on my Facebook.
Her aunt, reacted to the photo. Not with a like or love but with an interesting emoji which I still don’t know what it meant.
Keep in mind that I rarely go on Facebook. She was the only one with the reaction. So her name stuck out.
You see, she was my biggest fan in her family. We cultivated a healthy relationship. Okay maybe she wasn’t. Honestly I was well received at least to my face by most of her family. It’s a little hard trying to figure out who didn’t like me cause I know someone or a couple strong enough influences didn’t.
I digress. Her aunt and I were close. And her reaction got me to click on her profile. And while I was in her profile scrolling, I decided to check out my ex too.
Awww, she went on a trip to Europe and she looked really happy and really good with her husband. I was so happy to see her happy.
Sometimes I think that I am sick in the head because when I look back, through the heart break and through the process of healing. I never once hated her.
Infact I got strength to move on once I knew she chose a man at least from far that was clearly a better fit for her and made her happy.
I may present factual evidence when I discuss how I was heart broken and things she did that made me feel some way. But I never allowed myself collate those evidence and use them to fuel a conclusion that would deviate me from loving her.
Love has no conditions.
I feel one of the reasons why we have such a high divorce rate stems from our perception of love.
The love that we abide by in marriage is nurtured and practiced by the love that we fuel in dating, even in our family.
I have long held the belief that love is a choice. It can be spurred by emotions. It can be easier to stick to when it remains logical. It is beautiful when it feeds your soul. But neither of these things should come into the picture when we choose to love someone.
I for one believe the choice to love is akin to the choice to adopt. It’s a permanent choice or should be.
My dad loves me. He loved me enough to spend his life saving on my school fees. He loved me enough to drive me to high school 6 hours away 3 times a year. Then, his expression of love was service and sacrifice. Now his version of love is receiving gifts, words of affirmation etc.
The way he loves me has morphed overtime but his choice to love me is independent of what he receives back from the choice.
Imagine if my dad chose to love me because it felt good to him to serve someone other than himself.
What happens then when that person decides they no longer want or need that service? Does my dad take back his love because it’s no longer serving the purpose that made him commit to loving ?
The answer to that question is easy for most to answer because it seems obvious to most that a dad doesn’t choose to love a child based on what they get back from it. Instead a father chooses to love a child before that child is born and before the child even forms a personality or pattern of action.
In other words, most dads choose to love their child when momma says:
“Your son just kicked me, come and feel it.”
This choice carries on and adapts to various phases and especially emotions evoked by the object of that choice — love. The richness of love is in the diversity and range of its season; the depth of love is dug in the adversity in its seasons.
Deep love knows it will last because of what it has has outlasted. Rich love basks in its beauty for her variety of seasons paints an emotional peacock on display for the world to see.
Love is a commitment through the unknown based on the evidence that is known.
The Unknown in Love
Does that sound deep?
Does that move you?
Does that evoke eternity within you?
Does that make u desire whatever it is ?
For me, it did.
But there is the sadness in modern love.
Our love has conditions
They require insurance
Our love needs permutations
One that comes with assurance
Our love needs to know
That the future is insulated
Our love ejects any sighting
That requires avoiding arrows
Especially arrows of life
Aimed at our sails
With precision loaded with strife
Epic fails, and static tails
My love will not wither
It will not still hither
My love will litter
It will even linger
My love will not splinter
It will not sit still
In a storm, it’s a painter
It will die on the hill
Love is not a fool
The immediate misconception here is that the way we love when things are on the high should be the way things are when on the low. That is not what I am saying.
I am not saying a woman being abused should stay with the man because she loves him.
I am not saying that divorce will no longer exist because we choose to love.
I am not saying if someone you love hurts you that one needs to keep staying in a place to be hurt.
My dad loves me when he used to pay my school fees and he had the money. My dad loves me now when I send him money and he is not employed and so has nothing coming through. The seasons changed but the commitment didn’t waver.
In my culture, a child that insults their father is threatening the very chord of parenthood. Yet, I have insulted my dad before. Unintentionally or not, he was hot and mad.
If he disowned me, does that mean he no longer loves me ?
Everywhere else but in romantic love, love often embodies a decision that will not change.
When did I start loving Oreos? I used to like them a lot!
I love my mom.
I love my pet.
So why is romantic love full of conditions and performance metrics?!
I love my ex fiancé, and no, I don’t want to hold her or caress her or none of that!
I love my ex fiancé and yes, she did hurt me and cut me so deep.
Love is easy when emotions align with my commitment but it is withstanding hardship that is the premise of love.
There is no love if it doesn’t guarantee outlasting every obstacle to its existence. And yes, every.
Instead, modern love today is a contract for the good times. The contract that guarantees to remain as long as the emotions of today stay protected.
Is that love? Or is it extended infatuation?
Little Letter to Ex-Baby
I don’t want you back
But I want you happy
I want to see pictures of your little babies
I want you to be a mom
To take on that one role that made me fall for you
I want to see you balance work and career
With being momma RayRay.
I still feel lost at sea
Trying to find a better you for a better me
While I know there is none
No better you, no better me
I hunt one
I see the way people look at me
When I talk about you
The way they call me obsessed without a word
Just because I love you
I don’t want to hug or kiss you
But I want you to be happy
The End
If love be for me, a chair, always will I have to sit on.
7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. — Romans 5:7–8