Have you ever had a dream? Have you ever felt like you had to give it up? Have you ever felt like your dreams were going through fire and all that came out was burnt ashes? Have you been alone in times when it felt like everyone watched you fall and thought you would never rise again? Have you ever been in love? Have you ever had to give up someone you truly admired, or had to reject someone whom you felt loved you more than any other ever had before? I wish to share my story with you, maybe not all the
details right here, but if you come to Paris for a coffee or two I will.;)
I have heared that we humans were created for intimacy. We are love starved. We seek closeness in all ways possible, some more extreme than others. The crazy thing is that despite our inherent longing for intimacy we seem to have lost the code how to get the true, long lasting love relationship that we all so desperately hunger for. As for me, I have fallen in love so many times. But I look back at my experiences in life and see where they have brought me today.
A few years ago, I said 'yes' to a man I didn't know. I proclaimed my love for the man in a local newspaper and told a national paper in Sweden how I was going to marry a man I had hardly met. People tried to tell me that it was a bad idea. But I was in love, so convinced of what I wanted. Nothing could move me, I was so full of faith and confidence in that young man and in God. I didn't tell anyone how afraid I was, how I cried when he didn't respond to my love the way I expected or he made choices that went straight opposite to my convictions. I believed love was all about giving up myself in every sense. When the man didn't get a visa to come to our wedding (which I had planned despite all those warnings), one week before our planned wedding date, yes after having bought the dress and made the arrangements and all, I canceled the wedding. The young man on the other side of the world had been brave enough to let me know he was afraid, and he said 'let's wait'. That day felt like the worst in my life. There was no way anyone could comfort me. He didn't say he was leaving, but he basically said he wasn't sure he could stay with me, even if he wanted, he wasn't sure. Right there when talking to him on the phone I realised I had a choice. I could chose who I wanted to marry and I could also chose not to marry. I cried every day for months because of the pain in knowing that I loved him but realising I no longer wanted to marry him.
When hurt, we still try to move on, forgive, keep the good and forget the bad. Since the heart is a muscle it needs to go through some hard time excercising, right? I too had to move on, and not too long after, I met a man on a night bus going from Bamenda to Yaounde, a man who cared for me and touched my heart in ever deeper dimensions than any other man. I was swept away, I was the center of someone's affection, someone who boaldly proclaimed that he loved me. Once again people around me warned me, out of love or out of fear that they were losing control over me, I don't know. However, I wanted to be free, I refused to listen to people who seemed to be locked up in religious rules. Inside of me it couldn't have been a more difficult chaotic storm of emotions, one moment I would be sure I could stand up for my love and let the world know their opinions mattered less to me. In the next moment I was filled with fear, I was paralysed. I got back and forth in our relationship so many times I stopped counting. With time, I realised I once again had to make a choice, a choice that I alone had to make.
Now, if I wish to keep anything from my previous 'failed' or broken relationships, lost trust and misunderstandings, it is that life remains beautiful. A broken heart doesn't mean a dead heart. My dreams are not dead, they are more alive than ever. I am not dead, I'm still alive and I can smile. I love my life, cause it is mine and noone else's, it is my responsibility today to make choices that can lead me in the direction of my dreams. I would even state that it is first when I live the life given to me that I can genuinely appreciate other people for who they are. Last year in my turquoise home with yellow tiles in the hills of Bambili I got to know many lovely children. One girl gave me her drawing and it pictures it so well. Only here can our broken hearts mend and be engraved with what is crucial for any future relationship, with a little more understanding for others, and most of all, courage to love again.
