Making me happy



Sitting down at my desk to write this post has not been quite easy. I was thinking I would do it quickly but have just heard about the death of someone I know who happens to be close to a few friends of mine(their Pastor) and sometimes when I hear of deaths like this, I begin to wonder if I am doing enough and doing all I can to ensure that I affect positively the lives of the people I interact with while I am alive and when I am no longer here, then I hope that the legacy I have left in my writings will provide the opportunity for those that  never met  me in person to become acquainted with my values and thoughts.

My earliest recollection of a relationship lesson was one that came before I even got into any relationship.
I was in my third year as an undergraduate (I just remembered though that someone thought he was in a relationship with me at one time-this was way back in year 8(JSS 2 )  when a boy in my class left for another school. I knew he fancied me but I did not realize how serious he was.  Well he wrote a letter to his friend in the class who was still in the school. I am not sure  how the letter got ito my hands, however the long and the short of the letter in which he tried to explain to his friend about how things were with him. Was that he asked after some of our other classmates and then asked him about me, I mean with my full name , while referring to me as his proposal…..I was flattered) .

One of the things that characterized the third year in the medical school then was the defining examinations as to whether one would remain on the path to actually becoming a doctor. It was a stressful year and I am not sure whether that was the reason but  quite a number of people  then had begun having defined and committed relationships. There were three  female classmates of mine who happened to be friends.They were mostly seen together and people generally did not break into their company. They were best described as “Three musketeers” and were all in relationships One of them was dating this acquaintance of mine  who was also in the medical school but a year our senior and everyone knew about them.

I do not know why I had such a view but it was an eye opener one day when I asked her about him. I was shocked at her reply. Almost with a rather non-challant tone, she told me that she was currently angry with him because he had been annoying her in recent times . For real !I could hardly believe her. I somehow erroneously thought that people in relationships were to be loving and doting and did not know that someone who is meant to be a “sweetheart” could ever do anything annoying to a partner, more so to the extent that the partner now mentions it in public.

Yes I was naïve but not for a very long time. At least, it stopped me from having any false expectations. I am not sure if prior to that, I had built it based on my novel reading with no real life experience. Any which way, that theory fled from my head but up to this day, I still see people unhappy in their relationships or even give up on a  potential relationship because of the false  expectation that someone else is going to keep or make them happy all the time and are so sorely disappointed when t doesn’t  happen .
In as much as I hate to bust the bubble, the truth is no human being is capable of making or and keeping someone else  happy all the time.. In actual fact , even God is not able to do that ! And honestly if God is not able to keep us continuously in cloud 9, then it is unfair for us to mount that unnecessarily pressure on someone else.

Although my  classmate did not know it at that point, she armed me with truth that helped me in my relationships. Somehow just associating a sweetheart with negative feelings made me realize that  it was okay not to be in agreement at all times with a significant other.This was freedom ahead of time .

It began to shape building blocks for my future relationships as I extended her statement as far as I could possibly do and told myself it also meant that it was  okay for me to see things different and still be a  sweetheart.
 It is  not healthy  for us  not to  be able to hold our views  that may be different from another just because we are in a relationship. In short , if I have to agree with every thing you do or say, then I am not really going to be myself in the relationship. I would be denying myself of my true personality, especially if this tends to be the criteria for peace and remaining in a said relationship. That would suffocate me and in these days where there is virtually a name for everything, I would dare say that such relationships are actually abusive in its variant forms.

And so quite early in life when I did not actually go reading a relationship book, I learnt off handedly about a big relationship lesson that saved me a few heartaches as I travelled this path of life. Don’t get me wrong, for some of them I did go on and on , holding out the olive leaf and never really voicing my feelings in order to maintain a false peace. It backfired, almost always, I confess .

That particular classmate of mine did not eventually marry the guy as he called off the relationship almost after we left the medical school. She was devastated  but shortly after, he died but she is still alive and married today.Sometimes I wonder if she would have been so heartbroken if she had seen the future , that the heartbreak saved her from becoming  a young widow.

 On the flip side of the coin, being in a relationship that brings you tears all the time makes me want to ask if you are actually in a relationship with a person or you are in one with onions!

Have a great weekend.

Gracillis 

DISHUSBANDMATA…passionate about relationships

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