A festering wound

Because, they never tell you that you will be hurt – these people. 

When you add a year, gain some muscles (or hips), and start developing those broad shoulders, they tell everything there is to life but leave out that bit: life will hurt, humiliate and shock you. 

The time they start seeing you with him – or her – they do not come and say: 

“Hey, are you ready for the heartbreak that will come from there?”

Instead, they talk of grown up people things. Like pregnancy.

And, you stagger from there laughing. Just a chuckle really, a suppressed one. Pregnancy? These people, they already know you are acting like a married couple, who told them? And, you wonder why the person who told them did not also tell them that you know how to protect yourself from that pregnancy. 

So, you dismiss them. And enjoy the ride.

But, truth is: you will be hurt – mostly, by love. 

Some things can hurt you, of course, and hurt you deeply but the hurt of love will be huge, remarkable and devastating. If you are not careful, it might even define – apparently, deform – you. 

Like him.

Chubby guy. The form of a teddy bear. Darting eyes. A face made exclusively for no smiling. Yet, with a huge heart. The size of the Malawi government purse. 

When he speaks, he is almost inaudible – blame it on that his ex.

He does not say but, I think, she was one of those who did not like people who were too loud. Those who come online claiming they spent an hour in the bathroom and found a connection to their soul. As if you and them who bath while mindful of the time are people who are careless with their souls. 

And, he does not want to talk about her. 

“Let bygones be bygones.”

I think, he is one of those who listen to sermons that say that the more you talk about your problems, the more control they get over you. Because, she is his problem. She is the problem. Needless that she left a time ago. Moved on. And, he moved on too. Into that happy relationship where you fight to make up, not fight to rush on social media and be updating cryptic statuses towards each other. 

He says he is struggling with this new lover. Says it with a carefulness that needs no other person to eavesdrop on our conversation – regardless that this space is crowded. 

He seems to not know how to communicate. She says A, he hears B, eventually acts C. Trouble!  

“So, you have been getting in trouble a lot?”

He confirms with a nod. It happens quickly that a moment of carelessness would let one not notice it. 

“At first, I used to think the problem is her, that she expected a lot from me. And, I am just human…”

I tell him to cut it at that. That such thinking is a bad attitude. It is the reason many love stories end the way most actual love stories end in: tears. 

“I realised that: it was a bad attitude. So, I got into an introspection. Accepting my flaws, always asking myself what I could have done right whenever she complained. I let all the defences down…”

I want to add: like no man ever manages to. 

Then, the diagnosis started. He realised communication was a problem.

“I just was not one who was open enough, like one has to be open in a relationship.”

I ask: “how much can one be open in a relationship?”

He says this, and that, which just makes me realise that the best way is for one to communicate with whoever they are sharing a life with. Ask them: what do you understand by openness in a relationship, what do you expect from me in terms of openness, can you reciprocate that?

He was not born a closed person. He picked up that habit. In that relationship he is not so eager to talk about. 

“There was fear there,” he cannot even call it by the name it was called: a relationship. He just calls it, as in pointing at a rubbish pit: there. 

“There was a constant judgment over my actions. If I did something and then told her, she would find fault with it…”

“Are all exs not like that, bad people whom we regret spending time with?”

“No. It is not as if she was the first one, I can tell you about the others. Nice people only that life interfered. This one was different.”

He says he embraced that fear with grace. Then, internalised it. 

He decided to stop telling. Things went South, he would just sulk and perhaps text: ‘hey, long day today. I am going to bed.’ Then, mull and cry over them. Good things he did, he would just be jovial in the texting and when she would ask what had him that giddy, he would just dismiss it. He did not want anyone sitting on his piece of cake just when he was to blow out the candles. 

That fear, he carried it with him when they parted. Like the tastes of a previous lover in the things they liked, he still carries it with him.

When things go South, he does not tell. They head North? Again, he does not tell much. At least, not to her. 

When she raised it, he fought it. Raised again? Fought again: why are women like this, always? 

Then, he faced it.

“And after facing it?”

“I have been trying to process it. It is not easy. But, I am heading there. I am relearning everything. I am confronting things.”

Progress?

“She is not that patient, does not understand where I come from.”

“Have you communicated this to her?”

“What, tell her about my ex? No, never.”   

***

First appeared in The Daily Times, March 13, 2020