EKWUEME (My Word Is My Bond)

If all is well, then on at least one night between engagement and wedding, you SHOULD wake up with a cold sweat. True. If you don't, well, it's probably because Machiavelli (and I don't mean Tupac) was right. He was the one that said you had to be standing on the mountain to really see the valley, and you had to be standing in the valley to really see the mountain. In that context, let me write this down in plain English – being single is a beautiful thing.

 

Yes, yes, I don't know your mother, how she calls weekly to pray over your 'condition'. And how weekends are SO difficult, with nothing to do and no one to do it with. But, sis, weekends are no picnic either, when he wakes up and decides it is the perfect Saturday for EPL re-runs and that Pounded Yam only YOU can pound. Did you know? This is a serious question. Did you know that a baby deer will stand on its own feet within minutes of being born? Well, look in the mirror – YOU ARE NOT AN ANTELOPE. Your own babies will tie you down for a lot, lot longer.

 

So, looking back now, one of the best reactions I got when I told people I was getting married was Segun Abdul's; he sort of half-smiled, 'Have you guys fought yet?' Another good one was my Dad's; he sighed to himself, 'Are you sure about this?' (In the same voice you would say, 'Come and take it', if your fourteen-year-old wanted the car keys.) It all made me ask me – ARE YOU SURE ABOUT THIS? Because, Dike, you're not bringing people, some of them thousands of miles, just to update your status three months later – 'Ehm. My wife and I are separating. Irreconcilable differences. Please, respect our privacy.'

 

My brother, it may look like it is, but it is NOT 'beans' – the way some people still laugh after decades, still spend evenings watching love movies from the '70s. As resilient as Love is, it is still vulnerable; like that game we played in school, where you had to carry an egg in a spoon and run a little race. Ah! How do you do it? How do you find Love that lasts forever?

 

If there's an answer, I have not found it. At least, not one you can decode from how soft her lips feel when you kiss them; or how desperately he makes you cling to the belief he loves you even when he's mopping the floor with you every morning. Please, let me just say one thing. A broken nose is a broken nose. Good sex is good sex. True love is true love. If you've mislabeled these things, no wahala; go and quietly update your status. Life is too short.

 

What I'm actually looking for are those difficult, yes, but walkable paths to life-long happiness – you and me tossing and turning till daybreak; hurting each other without meaning to; so much in common, but never short of quarrels; wanting to be together, but not wanting to lose ourselves. It IS frightening to know that, regardless of how good we look in photographs, there's nothing that says it will last forever. But – and it is comforting to know this – there's nothing that says, it will not.

 

So, barring the unforeseeable, I intend to DO THIS! For that reason, I refused to repeat generic lines. It's too easy, when you're parroting the Officiating Minister, to under-estimate the true weight of words. And, if you think about it, that is what Love REALLY is – to keep a promise. Yes. Even the ones they didn't know you made. So, I sat up at night and thought these things through, eyes wide open. When I was done, I wrote my own vows. Because – imagine it – from that sad day when Love died, if we start walking backwards, we will come to the moment when we first broke our word.

 

Image taken from:

http://www.lettertag.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/holding-hands.jpg