Love is the Actual Ghetto

I want to talk about love. Yes, the world is burning with this whole Corona thing, and Satan and his people are probably dancing with joy, according to my cousin’s vivid imagination. But I want to sha talk about love. Not the kind of love that you fall into when you are 23 with young blood coursing through your veins. You know, that type of love that kept you up all night with free calls. Exactly. The very kind that made you juggle three babes or two men at the same time. Mmhmm. Not that young, foolish love. Nothing of the fleeting sort.

Let’s just face it. The love that you love at 23 is not the same one that crosses 30 with you. My people have I told you that I am over thirty? (Father Lord, what is this old age that is befalling me?!!) Anyway, back to love. The meat of the gist. Love after 30. Or love after dark. Or love according to Nigerian mothers who want to carry their grandchildren. The ‘be-careful’ type of love. The ‘when-you-marry’ type of love. See ehn, that kind of love is different. It understands tradition, and it knows how to read time. It knows that if you are speaking to a man for three months and he has not laid out his intentions, then it is maybe time to pick yourself and move. Brethren, they say that love is patient, but it is not this type.

So, my thirty-plus self was thinking about this type of love and the whole modern-day thing. That is how I decided I would take matters into my hands. Like they say, ‘shoot your shot.’ Brethren and Sistren, I slid into a man’s DM o, in the name of ‘love’ plus ‘feminism’ plus ‘the future is in our own hands.’ But not all that sounds well ends well. Forget Netflix, finding love is complicated and brutal. Also, the way I landed in the gutter ehn – It was like a movie!! Love is the actual ghetto. #Sigh

Anyway, there is no real point to this post o. Maybe it is the quarantine, or online classes, or my students and their tireless demands, or perhaps it is even my Ogbanje housemate who threatened to deal with me. (haha, I laugh in Lagos madness because that one does not even know anything), but these days I have been thinking about love. This adult love. This tiring love. This my-mother-needs-to-let-me-rest love. Who knows, maybe I will think about it long enough to shoot that shot a second time.