”As a society we are embarrassed by love, we treat it as if it were an obscenity.”- Diane Ackerman
Last year, I read an amazing article by Nwabisa Mazana reminding us that it is okay to be lonely and to be unfulfilled. This article has stayed with me and reminded me that my feelings of loneliness and my lack of fulfilment were not a personal failure on my part but rather another part of the human experience.
https://taggedonline.co.za/features-content/we-are-lonely-and-that-is-okay/
My desire for companionship has yet to lessen, as I write this blog entry to be published on valentines day, the holiday of Love I realize how scared I am of this feeling. I have always deeply craved companionship from my earliest memories, I have desired and cherished the idea of community and I have always openly spoken about this. However, my desire for romantic love was whispered in corners with my closest friends the words urged forward by a few bottles of wine and tears no one knew were simmering in the background.
This desire for romance felt as if I had betrayed myself, I had betrayed the teenager set on her ambitions and aspirations. The girl who pushed away ideas of love as flimsy with no real promise and payout. The investment did not seem worth the uncertainty, the fear and the possible heartbreak. I was cold towards love, I was so cold I never thought love would be on the cards for me. I considered myself capable, and fiercely independent and I knew I could scrape myself up from my lowest low. Why give away my power by loving and risking hurt? I feared nothing because I believed that I could provide it and if not my community would step in when needed and when informed.
I filled my time with the community, building a community to not be lonely until I realized the community I was building had a foundation of quicksand. I needed to learn how to be with myself. Bell Hooks speaks about how ‘learning to be solitary is central to the art of loving ‘ as this allows us to build community without using the people in our community as a form of escapism. Once I learnt how to be with myself I understood why I needed the reality check. I was able to see my projections, my anxious attachment style and my lack of trust for anyone except myself and my closest friends. I was able to see how high up I had built my walls, I was able to differentiate between openness and vulnerability. I could see myself and I was scared. I could clearly see my desire for companionship had not disappeared while I was solitary, instead I realised that I not only desired it but hoped for it, from dusk till dawn thoughts of companionship filled my mind. This is not to undermine all the different types of love and companionship that fills my life, I am truly blessed and loved. I am grateful for the abundance of platonic love that flows like a river filling my heart, my wells, and reserve taps. Constant, unwavering, and real. I know my community exists and has worked tirelessly to de-centre romantic relationships as the centre could not hold and it would all eventually fall down. However, even as a de-centred, de-platformed form and type of love I still crave it. I feel like a failure each time I realize this.
My romantic life or lack thereof is glaringly obvious to me currently as I am in my ”prime” years of University, this is where I was led to believe that I would date, the focus being quantity and not necessarily quality, I would have sex, lots of it and I would experience romance as someone who had never experienced romance in high school. Unfortunately, I can report back that I seem to be in my flop era, my prime never peaked and I cannot help but think that there is no companionship waiting for me after University. I fear that it is true, that something about me is inherently unlovable and therefore, I will spend the rest of my life yearning and pining for this feeling of romantic companionship that seems so out of reach.
However, I have decided to try this year. I have decided to try to love even if my heart beats quickly, my hands become clammy and my mouth dries up at the thought of that vulnerability and showing off my inadequacy, my failure to use self-love and look nowhere but inside for love. I have decided shame was for those who did not think about companionship so often it frustrated them, the people who need not think about it as it is constantly available to them. I have decided to love shamelessly and feel entirely.
This valentines day I urge you to look at the love in your life, in all its forms and expressions and hold it tightly, tell them you love them. I urge you to love openly, freely and shamelessly. I urge you to consider yourself worthy and capable of love. I urge you to not see this desire as a failure, an inadequacy. People have fought wars over love, dedicated their lives to loving. People have made music, and art and died in the name of love. Shakespeare kept love in his sonnets and plays. Our ancestors loved and before them, their forefathers loved. And so will we even though it feels so difficult.
I urge us in 2023 to give love space in all its forms. I urge us to love in all its forms. I urge us to give love names. I urge us to say the words when our voice shakes.
with love, Lulu
With Love, Lulu 