So, this is love?
“Love endures with patience and serenity, love is kind and thoughtful…love is not rude; it is not self-seeking…love bears all things [regardless of what comes], believes all things [looking for the best in each one], hopes all things [remaining steadfast during difficult times], endures all things [without weakening].” 1 Corinthians 13:4–7 (AMP)
On a random evening, one when I was not particularly excited or happy, my phone chimed, and I peeped to see; it was a text from a friend who relocated to Canada a while back. My friend is Igbo, but the texts rolled in in Yoruba-
K: Ola mi,
K: Bawo ni?
K: Se o wa?
In the English language, these translate to “My Ola, How are you doing? Are you well?” And just at the sight of the messages, whatever gloom that weighed over me in the instant faded. I felt joy leap inside me. That burst made me begin to consider how far I’ve come with friends. It transported memories on waves to my present. It made me think of what love is.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to belong. There are many things that I didn’t know I wanted when I was younger, but I was sure of one thing- I wanted a friend. As I grew older, I added an ‘s’. I didn’t want a crowd that was just perfect for when I hosted or fantasized about hosting, but I wanted enough to form my own party, my own tribe. I wasn’t sure I wanted any cliques, mostly because I wasn’t sure I would thrive in them, but I wanted my people whether they turned out to be separate or clustered.
My parents do not really have friends or people that they would go to any lengths for apart from family. I saw them walk through difficult times alone, afraid to bare themselves out to people. “They never let their guard down enough for people to know them,” I thought, but as I have grown to see, they did, got burned and gave up. People will always be people and as generous givers of themselves, it became more important for them to protect themselves from people who returned their kindness with cruelty or the ones who never remembered their kindness at all. They gave and gave, and I watched people turn around to throw dirty water at them in return. Their response was a withdrawal into themselves. Boundaries are good and important even, but when we set up protection in a way that there is almost no way through, the price to pay can be high — Like doing life alone (which is a zero out of ten experience, I do not recommend), living without freedom such that the fear of what people will do in return pre-empts your acts of kindness and so you hide every part of yourself. You hide your progress, you hide your joy. Moving in silence is okay, but why we choose to do it matters.
I decided quite early for myself that I wanted to get it right. Did that mean that I would pick my friends with ease? Absolutely not. But I learned to protect my softness and only unleash it where it would be recognized.
Friendship, unlike your family of origin, is the love you choose for yourself, why choose anything less than what you truly would give then? I began with one friend and I took it seriously. Everyone who knew me knew her as my only friend. We didn’t live close to each other or attend school together, but she was my friend, the only one in my universe at the time. We are very different. She is quite the extrovert, and I am my introverted-quirky self, but we worked. We had sleepovers, we twinned in outfits, and our families bonded too. We were almost inseparable. But the truth of the matter is, even the best of friendships end. It was a bittersweet ending. Bitter because we had been in each other’s lives for almost 15 years and experiencing people will always leave you bereft of the space they took up, almost as if they walked away with a part of you yet, leaving memories of good times behind for you to mull over. Sweet, because it was a growth marker for me. I was evolving. What I wanted became clearer and quite frankly, until further notice, there is nobody I love more than myself, so I walked.
Fifteen years down the line, I am a different person. I have learned so much about myself. I have learned that cruelty disguised as bluntness or truthfulness is not my style. I don’t want it. I want to be corrected in kindness. I want to be told the truth with love. I also learned that more friendships will come, and they will end and that the core of who I am must align with the people I choose to do life with, else, the misalignment will be the wedge that separates us in the end. I learned that safety is important to me. To be comfortable, to be free to unravel, to be regarded as whole, human, woman. To be reminded that there is beauty in every anomaly, that the way I think or see is not twisted, that there is space for me in their world, to be grounded in their faith in me. I learned that I deserve friendships where imperfect me is allowed to grow and shift and change her mind and find pleasure in new things.
I decided that I had denied myself enough peace of mind and freedom when it came to friendships, and so I became more deliberate. I remember saying prayers for me to be led right by God, to choose right. That even the ones that would come about by happenstance will not mar or wreck me like the past.
As I listen to Good times by Asa ft. The Cavemen typing this, I’m thinking of how my friend K’s text made me see the many ways my other budding friendships are similar to what we share. I always look forward to talking with my friends and I miss them when we aren’t. Love like this is what love is.
Now, I truly like my friends. I didn’t just choose them, they chose me too. Now, I am truly proud to be associated with them. We’re all different in the wonderful ways we have been made, but we are growing together and learning together. Now, I know that I can hold space for my friend by reminding them that they can always share their truth without pressuring them to do it before they’re ready to.
Friendship is serious business, why treat it with levity? I have found friends that love me loudly, with loyalty and patience, with softness and kindness. They do things to show me they always think of me and only speak to me with gentleness. My friends see the good in me when I don’t see it for myself. They remind me that I am worth it, simply because I am who I am. I can put up boundaries within my friendships safely and trust them to be respected.
Have I said I like my friends a lot? Because I absolutely do, and I love every single one of them — for every candid conversation and for the unending banter, too. For every “can I ask you something?” that was met with kindness and a willingness to respond. For seeing me. I hope they stick around for a very long time. But even if I lose any, I will always be open to this love. I will never give up on friendship. It is love, so beautiful and full. It sticks up for me in difficult times and holds my hands so that I’m not alone. I like it here, and I will forever cherish these golden times.
