My First Love
Tired!
Tired!!
These were the words that sung in my ears. I was beyond every doubt physically exhausted.
I had just returned from the entire charade of today’s drama. The usual hustle of trying to make it on time to exhaustive and equally boring lectures, the unending bustle of meeting absurd assignments deadlines, and so much more. One would think that as a penultimate student, I would have gotten accustomed to all these by now. But no, the feeling was so much worse every day, and terrifyingly harder every time.
With exasperation and tiredness written all over me, I quickly hurried down to my hostel. As I walked by, I noticed my neighbor’s television set was on, and blaring loudly as usual. These days, the power supply in Ekosodin was commendable. I quickly hissed and hurried into my room, shutting the door behind me, as I was in no mood for promoting the act of good neighborliness. At least not today.
As I lay in my bed renumerating over the day’s events, my thought patterns were continuously interrupted by Bola’s television set. My makeshift apartment shared a thin wall with her, and hence, all of the activities from her apartment usually reverberated back at me. These days, it was hard to retain one’s privacy as well as finding a place of quiet and comfort even in one’s private apartment. As I quietly hummed to Fireboy DML’S popular tune “scatter“, I immediately felt better, guessing the whole apartment noise was not so bad after all. I loved good music too.
My mind quickly conjured up the distorted images of my lecturer’s face-Mr OJO. My grand disaffection towards him only grew by the day.
“Get out of my class, you lousy girl, why’s your hairstyle so large anyway??“
These were the derisive words he fired at me because I had walked into his class a few seconds after he did. Apparently, he was not bothered that I came in late, but his anger was at my Afro hairstyle. He was obviously uncomfortable with the idea that I chose a hairstyle that embraced my Africanity. I was perfectly normal, and I thought I looked perfectly beautiful in it too. It’s his problem if he chooses to normalize a lot of abnormal things. I couldn’t care less. I chuckled loudly.
As I closed my eyes to take a quick nap, I noticed that the tune from Bola’s had stopped. And one of Mel Colgrove’s intricate works from ‘how to survive the loss of a love’ was being read.
“When an emotional injury takes place,
The body begins a process
As natural as the healing
of a physical wound
Let the process happen
Trust that nature
Will do the healing
Know that the pain will pass,
And when it passes,
You will be stronger,
Happier, more sensitive and aware”
As I heard these words, I felt a cold cringe within me, my peace broken into shambles before me. As my mind was catapulted back to my freshman year, All I could think of was Efeh, and how much good would have come out of us, even if only, he had stopped for a little while to believe. My early days in the university had not been a bed of roses, as I’d had my own fair share of bizarre experiences from day one.
It all began on the 28th day of January 2018, the story that would forever leave me In shambles. A broken miracle. I had just gained admission into the prestigious University of Benin, which was acclaimed for its academic competence across Nigeria. And so it was the perfect choice of institution to pursue my grand dreams to become an Engineer.
The first day we spoke, our eyes met from across the room. He’d marveled at my hair, he said he loved it and would like to weave his someday in an intricate pattern as well. I was curious as I knew most guys would never consider the thought of making their hair into a weave. He was different and I liked different.
We sparked off from there, hoping to last in a fantasy of happily ever after. He liked vanilla ice cream with toppings, I did too. His favorite authors were the same as mine, and we both loved classical music. We had hit off immediately on the first day and spoke about everything, to the exclusion of everyone else in the room, from silly matters to educational, psychological, and even food. We both loved our stomach equally. We were inseparable, and could not stay farther apart from each other for a day.
We went steady together for over three months until he popped the big question, and I agreed to be his girlfriend.
Efeh was a final year undergraduate student, while I was just a young fresher at the time. We’d sit together and plan our lives till we could speak no more. I was convinced he was the one and only true love for me, and I was grateful to have found him. My Instagram and social accounts were enough public proof declaring to the world that I’d found the right one at last.
Our love was not only cemented on the basis of proclamations but by visible acts, flowers, and presents.
I became a social recluse and was all about Efeh alone. With time, my friends began to flag red signs at me, clearly warning me of the dangers that lay ahead. I turned blind eyes and focused more on him than anything else. With time, one would realize that the love that offers companionship to one, can be detrimental to the others. And that companionship may not be secure at all.
Towards the end of the next semester, we had been together for six months, when his complacency and continued indifference began.
He’d go weeks, and weeks without calls, and often return my calls with short unengaging texts messages that’ll read:
“Sorry I’ve been busy. Final exams. You understand?“
On and on it continued, until one day he broke the news that it was over. Our six months together were the most beautiful, entertaining, educative, and most uplifting I’d ever experienced. It came as a blow, that took a long time to recover from. To think I had already written the name of our first three kids together. My fantasy with Efeh had reached the ends of the earth, so it seemed absolutely impossible that’ll be our last conversation together as a couple. I could not believe it.
The reality hit home when preparations for his final year dinner began, and a day to the D-day, and he hadn’t sent me an invitation to be his date. I had already done my hair, bought myself a new dress, and even did my facials in the hope that a few hours to the time, he’d change his mind and ring me up. It never happened. He ended up going to dinner with someone else.
A few days after the breakup, still trying to understand my new reality without Efeh was hard. It seemed surreal that we were no longer together; a bad dream brought to life.
I had picked up my phone countless times, yearning to see his smile, or hear his reassuring voice that it was all untrue.
My notifications showed that our pictures were no longer accessible on Instagram. Apparently, he had deleted all of our memories on our social media accounts. A perfect way to announce to the whole world that we were officially over.
I had ignored the warnings from my friends that the majority of college relationships do not last. It was always a fling they said. Maybe for Efeh, it was, but somewhere in my mind, I’d always hoped that we would be different. The only miracle that emerged from several College flings. He was the only boy I wanted to love, my first true love.
I was so engrossed in the need for Efeh’s attention that I didn’t see how much of a ghost of myself I had become. The next day I had dressed up nicely, and gone to his department, hoping that he’d catch a glimpse of me, and regret what he was giving up. My friends were frustrated as I’d call them up at odd hours in the night to ask them stupid questions like,
“How did it get so wrong?”
“Wasn’t I beautiful enough?”
“But, I thought he was happy with me?”
On and on, I had gone, questioning myself, blaming my inadequacies, and thinking I was the only one to blame, the only one not good enough to be with someone. I had forgotten how to be myself and learned to rely heavily on him. I had become a burden and a complete emotional disaster to everyone else.
Slowly, with time, as with everything on earth, I had begun to heal. I don’t know when it all started, but it was a tough process. On the day Efeh had written his final papers, I had walked up to him, hugged him and wished him the best in life. This was not something I understood, but I knew I had to do it for myself.
I became less of a bore to my friends, joined more extracurricular clubs, and began trying new and better ways of appreciating and loving life again. Life without Efeh.
In my rebound stage, I began to try new things and found that I could have fun without him. I took up special interests and discovered things I totally enjoyed doing like swimming, volunteering, and frustrating boring lecturers by causing distractions in class.
As often as we like to believe that we’ve got everything fixed, and under our control, we’re still susceptible to breakdown and hurt. Life always has a way of getting the better of our plans and pushing us beyond the edges of our expectations. I’d learned to feel the pain in the process of healing while admitting that Efeh was My First Love.
Now, I’m in another relationship with Tony, a sweet boy, with an equally appealing smile. We may, or may not end up together, but I’ve learned through the process that learning to love oneself would always be the magic to spark fire whenever the need arises, a magic that would always be more than enough. And that feeling the hurt of love is better than not feeling any love at all.
So, with my new found appraisal for myself, I smiled smugly, embraced my pillow tightly, while dozing off to Bola’s new tune of Adele’s “Someone Like You“, while pondering if Efeh had finally gotten around to getting that intricate weave hairstyle.
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