The Elastic Heart Series with Atoke: Part II – I Failed

{If you read the first part of this series, you can skip this introduction bit and head on to body below}
I always say to Glory Edozien, “You are the love mistress. Love is your territory. You love, love.” It is true; Glory IS the love queen. She has this glow when she talks about matters of the heart. Me? Not quite. I don’t care. My love is my writing. My heart? Chained away, padlocked and frozen.

So, when I found myself in a Situationship, I struggled with confronting the realisation that this is what was actually going on.

Wait, you don’t know what a Situationship is? Where were you when Isio Wanogho and Uru Eke were talking about it here on BN? Tsk, Tsk! Okay, I’ll help you out:

Aidanneal.com properly captures it:
“A situationship is basically a pseudo-relationship. A placebo masking itself as a formative relationship. It smells like a relationship, it sorta looks like a relationship, and it may even feel like one, but it’s not. Urban Dictionary describes a situationship as any problematic relationship characterised by one or more unresolved, interpersonal conflicts. usually confused with dating.”

All caught up now? Good!

A situationship is that halfway place between talking and being in a relationship. It’s sha a whole lot of rocking chair style techniques. (No, not sexual, you perv!) I mean, it gives you so much to do, but takes you NO WHERE!

You’re talking to this person but you don’t really want to ask that dreaded question because you don’t want to come across as an Eager Beaver. So you just let the absence of definition drag on and on and on! Till you find yourself broken hearted. Then you’re told “But we were not in a relationship, ke!”

Dearly beloved, I’m here to preach one word of Rhema to you today…It is very okay to ask that question. The Love Queen, Glory Edozien also confirms it. In any case, once you’re in your 30s, you have the carte blanche to do anything you want to. You know why?

Because you’re an ADULT!

So, since I’m such a tough talker and a know-it-all, why did I fall into this pit of despair and become a bumbling mess when I asked the “what do you want with me?” question and got the “friendship!” response?

I was still going to be a strong woman, okay? I wasn’t going to let a man use me emotionally and tell me he just wants to be friend. No! I stood in my room, with all the righteous indignation in the world.

“I am going to need to dial this back a whole lot! I can’t do the kind of friendship you want.” I beat my chest King Kong style and decided to cut the man off!

The Elastic Heart Series is the result of my decision. It chronicles my walk through the pain of trying to clutch myself back from my Situationship. It has been a long, arduous journey and I hope that nobody will ever tell you that it is easy.

Because, that sh*t hurts so bad.
My emotions Yo-Yo’d from happiness, to relief, to anger, and back to intense sadness. Days of tears soaking my pillow, and me trying to muffle my sobs because I didn’t want my roommate to think this strong girl had somehow crumbled. I feel a little better now, and I’ve decided to share my experience in a 5-part series. If you have never heard Elastic Heart by Sia, please get acquainted, because this song got me through this very difficult period. I may not be as strong as I thought I was, but now I realise that what I have is an Elastic Heart.

I hope you enjoy this series and I hope it helps somebody.

***
I miss you.

I’m probably not supposed to say this out loud, but I do… and I’m going to be a grown woman about all of this. I miss you. I really do.

I miss just knowing that you existed in the periphery of my life. I miss your stale memes and over saturated shared social media jokes. But that’s the funny thing about all of this… you’re the guy who sends stale jokes and still makes me laugh like I’m seeing them for the first time.

I miss the raw honesty of your views about life. I miss how you surprise me with sudden bursts of knowledge of pop-culture. And I miss the purity of your heart.

You’re a good guy.
A really good guy.

You’re decent and you have no scruples about being good.

And I miss that.

I don’t want to, but I do.

I’ve been here before. I’ve done this cold turkey thing before. It was hard, but I did it. If you ever read this, it means I failed.

The last time I went cold turkey, it was to save my life. It took a lot of help from my friends. K.B ensured I always had Amala from a particular bukka. A-R constantly ensured that I remembered I didn’t have to remain grateful that a man wanted me.

A combination of food and revalidation helped. I then went on to have a series of successes in my career; what started as a pain that would never go away, ended up being a faint distant memory.

I soared.

I didn’t remember him with pain. Instead, I looked back and I appreciated the experience.

Then, I closed that door, chained it, and threw the key away.

It particularly helped because I had grown into a place of loving myself so much that it didn’t even matter that one guy didn’t love me.

It is this over-estimated sense of self that has led me right back to this cold turkey zone.

I love myself too much to be a crutch for someone. What will I get in return? What is in it for me? I can’t do that? I have to look out for ME.

I say this over and over in my head.

Day 1 of Cold Turkey – I love me too much to be okay with being a crutch.

Day 2 of Cold Turkey – Does he want me to justify why I’m worth it? Nah, I can’t do that for any man.

Day 3 of Cold Turkey – I CAN’T DO IT! I’ll take whatever scraps fall from your table. TAKE ME BACK! Friendship, WhatsApp… anything beats this loneliness.

I don’t know whether tomorrow will be a better day. I hope it is.

I hope you never get to see this note, because if you do… it will mean I failed.

And I am not a failure.

Big Girls Cry – Sia

Photo Credit: Charity Adetiba-Howard