i crave love but fear companionship.

I want to fall for someone—but just in theory: (also a lot of tooth paste talk).

I talk about love a lot in my essays, mostly because it’s a large part of society and hugely because it’s something I want to feel. I’ve written about it as a metaphor for eating human flesh, and the horrors of making it transactional. As a little girl I’d spent my nights ducked under the covers of my blanket reading books about bad boys and nerds who find each other, about humans and Fae-kind who despite all the odds fall immensely for one other. Of struggling female leads and charming/brooding male characters whose confessions make my heart squirm and butterflies dance in my stomach, reading until time blurs past and I’m late for school the next morning.

I didn’t just want read about this in books, I wanted to feel it to; to love someone and have them love me so immensely that it carries on generations after. To feel the heat of their touch, long for their presence and submerge myself into them— hoping they would do and feel the same towards me.

I’d written once in my essay, the art of not knowing, “What does it mean to love someone? I find myself asking this question sometimes. When I think of the word “love” I think of my mother; the ability to sacrifice everything you have for them if they asked, to cry whenever you see them hurt, the spike in your heart when you realize there might come a time they won’t be there any longer, the need to cherish the beautiful memories, the fun times, the happy moments shared. For them to have a piece of your heart, and hope, or know, or feel, that you have a piece in theirs.” I’m truly, quite frankly, a yearner.

But I begin to wonder; of the love the romance books and movies never talks about. The love that comes after. The two characters have beat all the forces coming between them (either internal or external) and are finally together, happy ending. But is it really? What lies behind ? What comes next? They probably will live together of course and dabble in their affection and desire for each other but that seems watered-down to me, like a simulation, a caricature of what it might be like.

In reality, I don’t think it’s that simple.

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My mother yells at me for turning the toothpaste upside down instead of putting it back up. I’m not the type of person obsessed with routine or willing to keep up to a clear pattern; so I don’t know why I preferred leaving the toothpaste down. It just seemed okay. Right. My mom—like most African mothers—was my direct opposite and loved things just the way she wanted it. I began to wonder if this isn’t the tragedy of living with someone else, someone different.

It’s like two separate worlds colliding; they having the values and character and living patterns that has been hammered into them since they gained consciousness and shaped them. I am the same too and change is not really my strongest forte.

I do like the toothpaste being placed down and pressed from the bottom rather than just anywhere. I love lots of onions in my meals and massive amounts of spice. I like to keep the bed unlaid so as to show a sign of life. I drink too many satchets of water at once because my brain spots out the fact that I’ve already quenched my thirst, leaving a mess of half opened nylons on the dining. I like my plates wiped before they’re placed on a rack. I tend to forget things everywhere no matter how hard I try. I can be very messy; but it’s me.

I’ve learned to live like that, and will until maybe I find that perfect person and everything flips.

Or, instead do I source for someone who has come to live the same way, or at least a bit identical to me so as as to live in harmony? But love isn’t something that is planned, it’s spontaneous and you start getting to know the intricate parts of them in the process.

Then when I do, and it’s time to settle down; I know I’ll begin to rewrite all that is a part of me.

They could hate onions and not do the toothpaste the way I like it. They could complain about my constant carelessness even though it’s something I don’t think I have a power over. They might want the bed neat and tidy and be a morning person. They might be all the things I’m not and I might try to mold myself because of compromise and because I love them dearly, but is it selfish to want things to stay my way?

Are they also selfish for wanting things to be in theirs?

Or are we to find a middle ground and see what works, even if it means either the both of us might be annoyed at the result?

That scares me in a way, having to do and be all of that. Maybe that’s what love is; equal parts beautiful and gut-wrenching. And maybe, one day, I’ll be brave enough to want and experience both.