LESSONS FROM LOVE

This is a memoir of the lesson by love, for love, I’ve picked up in my 25 years of life on this planet. Some come from performing autopsies on lost love and dying relationships, some come from books read long into the darkest hours, some come from witnessing love and some from the sweet melodies of love songs.

1. Forgiveness is the core of what love is. There is no love without forgiveness and there is no forgiveness without love being the motivation. Human beings are deeply flawed and we spend too much time focusing on these flaws to pierce our relations. When Jesus Christ was bleeding from crucifixion and God wanted to wage war on humanity, Jesus wailed “forgive them father,for they know not what they are doing.”. Thousands of other religious scripts place emphasis on forgiveness and rarely is love mentioned without forgiviness following shortly after.
2. Above anyone else, forgive yourself the most. You spend 100% of your time with yourself. You know your flaws and mistakes more than anyone. That can brew a lot of resentment and judgement for self. You deserve to give yourself the grace you dish out to other. Forgive yourself for the mistakes you didn’t know were mistakes, for the mistakes you know were mistakes and for future mistakes. It was after I made peace with that no one comes to earth with a manual on how to get it right that my inner voice started to be softer and kinder. You are a better lover when you are kinder to yourself.
3. Unconditional love is reckless. There is no theory of love I want to eradicate from the earth like the facade of giving unconditional love. Unconditional love means I love you regardless of what you are,who you are and what you do. It removes self awareness and accountability from people towards the people they love. It is (here comes that word i hate) TOXIC. Unconditional love enables hurtful behaviour from one partner and promotes continuos self sacrifice from the other partner. The concept of unconditional love was coined by a male psychologist, Erich Fromm, in his 1956 book ‘The art of loving’. The theory was coined around infants being deserving of it because they were pure and faultless, and indeed they are but not adults. Enabling bad behaviour from your partner prevents romantic progress in the relationship.
4. Relationships are nothing like what is on TV and print. In a best seller romcom,boy meets girl, they fall inlove,some evil factor breaks them apart,boy drives to the airport and gets there just 5 minutes before the girl’s plane leaves,confesses his love,she kisses him and they live #happilyever after. Real life relationships are messier than that,lol. You have two individuals,in some cases more, that have different personalities, different morals, different values,different life experiences, past traumas and the trick is to mould that into a safe environment for love to grow. The fights get messy, the love gets real too.
5. Learn when to let go. Marriage warriors will tell you that you fight to your death for your love to work because love always hope, always perseveres. I disagree with that mbokodo complex. Love is also kind…It does not dishonour others, it is not self seeking, it is not easily angered. When promises are broken and actions change, when the love is no longer gentle and empathetic, it is time to let it go. A love that leaves you feeling forgotten and uncared for is not a love that is meant for you. A love that has you constantly in a pit of sadness is not a love that is meant for you. A love that continuosly disregards your boundaries and breaks your is not a love meant for you. A love that does not seek to affirm your love is not a love meant for you. The final act of love you can do for your relationship is to realise that your love has completed its cycle, leaving the idealisation of what once once and living in the reality of the withered love.
6. Never settle. My therapist once challenged me to write down the qualities I want in a romantic partner and anyone that does not embody those qualities should be a no-go for me. It has come in handy in my dating years. To my suprise, each person that I’ve rejected because they did not embody any of those qualities has turned out to be a loser or a creep. The love you want and seek exists, in abundance.
7. Do not keep quiet to injustices against you to keep the peace. I hate conflict, run from it and wish to bury myself should I be in an uncomfortable confrontational situation. Over the years I’ve realised this escapism has served an injustice to me. People continuosly cross your boundaries, disregard your feelings and have their way with you if you allow them to. What I’ve done instead is find healthy ways to express my dissatisfaction and it has saved many a relations in my life.
8. Grief, like love, should be embraced. I have a bad relationship with grief because my first experience with it was laced with shame. I was grieving the departure of someone that had humiliated me in full view of my colleagues and friends, used me and then left me. I kept on telling myself that I shouldn’t be grieving because the person hated me. It was until I evaluated the source of the grief and I realised the grief stands in the place of where love once stood and is no more. It was when I gave it space that I started healing. Grief, as ugly as it is, is not something to be avoided and buried somewhere dark. It shows your ability to love and that in itself should be conforting.
9. Love is based on choice and deliberate action. Feelings in a romantic relationship can exist, in many ways but what defines the relationship are the deliberates actions we take towards growing the love between us. The good morning texts, the goodnight texts, the “I saw this and thought of you",the constant reassurance are some of the deliberate actions done between romantic partners.
10. There will always be more love. A relationship that has ended is not the end of your love life nor is it the ceasing of the existance of love everywhere around the world.