love is not capcut edit.

I remember my first time in a plane, a Nigerian plane… and I know you’ve heard this story so many times but I’m going to tell it again. I must’ve been 18 or 19, perhaps even 17. I fear that’s what time does it blurs memories. But that’s not what this story is about, its not about time or flights, its about love or well the absence of it.

I’m sitting in the premium lounge at mm2. Unlike the books I read; I’ve come to realise it’s not necessary the rich that fly business nor stay in executive lounges, it’s usually corporate. High earning mds, tech startup founders who had no real startups, investment bankers or lawyers and from time to time; me or at least people like me who enjoyed quiet and privacy and hoping I could get inspiration from something since I rarely got any inspiration at home. I’ve often written in airports, premium lounges, crappy lounges, the brown floored Ugandan airport with the leather massage chair, the Boeing 737 which turned out to not be a Boeing 737. I don’t know why but something about airports, air crafts and the air makes me want to write, maybe because being so high up, something about being so close to God, makes me want to pour my heart out.

I’m flying to calabar today, few days after I finished law school I laid in my old apartment, the one with the stairs, absolutely distraught. I’m not entirely sure if the uncertainty was mine or if it was borrowed from my parents. They would surely never ask me ‘what next’, but I know they thought it, they have to have. Everything in my life was always so routinous. My dad was one of those men who had a 10 year plan, perhaps even a 15 - he would always be humble enough to append his plans with ‘makachukwu’ or prefix it with ‘chukwuagoziem’, almost like if he showed gratitude enough it also became Gods plan….. but usually there were his, solely his and now I’m older I realize they were damn brilliant. I’m not entirely sure how he made us all so passionate; but my sister is a medical doctor, my two brothers engineers and I? A lawyer. But what I am sure of? I’m sure when he hatched this plan 25 years ago it must’ve been terrifyingly scary I wonder if he remembers it ….but then the recession came, and like I said before, time blurs reality.

And when you’re 22 and afraid that there’s no what’s next? You think of what’s now? And you take all of your money. Money you don’t even have.. part loan, mostly savings. And you’d take your first trip to Northern Nigeria, you’d land in kano to be precise; a shabby guest house close to a university without a working ac or a constantly flowing tap, but you wouldn’t mind… you’ve always dealt with poverty easily. The trip will reshape your mind, you’d find new meaning, new passions, new focus but no one would know it was after a fresh heartbreak.

What happens when you don’t fall in love ?

Few days ago I listened to a friend speak about love, I looked at the way his mouth pursed when he spoke about it, objective, operational and very self serving. But I didn’t tell him, I too was once like that. I opined ‘love should …’ never ‘ love is….’ . But before I slept that night I looked up at my ceiling, I couldn’t help but think I had subconsciously picked the same color of paint as that of my old house, different shade; same beige. There are things that never truly leave us and there are things that never truly stay. That night I asked myself ‘what exactly is love?’. Outside the fairytales, the books, the awfully written soapy yet beautiful wattpad stories, what exactly is love?

I know it’s the unconditional feeling from God, but when it exists between two humans, what is it?

Why is it A FEELING SO HARD TO CHARACTERIZE? When it ends how are we so quick to say… oh it must not have been love perhaps ‘I just really liked this person’. If you think about it, when you’re sad you know you’re SAD, when you’re happy, you also know you’re HAPPY, but when you’re in love or better yet, when love is over - why does it all of a sudden ‘feel like it wasn’t love’. Does its probability to end erase its probability to exist?

Hey my love, I’ve missed you. Take a minute; take a deep breath and ask yourself what is love to me?

Outside the smiling and giggling, characterize it, what does love mean to you? What do you want love to look like or feel like in your life? Take a deep breathe and think before you answer this.

I’m in a little animal sanctuary in cross river right now, in a little village CALLED Buanchor. I’ve lost my train of thought mostly, I’m looking around me, there’s quiet but not the quiet type, the one that has birds whistling, there’s kindness but not from people; from the tress that dance around to ensure I am not hot. I think I know why I began to write, I think we’re often made to search for love, and feel it even.. everything is so romanticised. Especially romantic love, so awfully decorated that we forget the hardest part is not falling in love it’s standing with it, by it and for it, true love is in it’s maintenance.

Love is an easy feeling but a hard decision.

Unfortunately the feeling is complex and new and wild and somewhat different. It’s most certainly not like the books… I mean it could be, but usually it’s not. I think as writers we often forget to describe the relationship of lovers, we describe mostly the feeling, the emotion. Sometimes that’s what we crave, the blues, the slight feeling, sometimes we don’t crave love we crave being loved and there’s a clear difference, love requires you to give, it requires you to be cringe and vulnerable and embarrassingly yourself. It requires vulnerability and honesty not just ‘pupils dilating’ and the world ‘moving in slow mo’ when you meet someone.

Love is more than a capcut edit.

True love is true effort. From both of you. So I ask again are you looking for love or are you looking to be loved?

Maybe the problem is you want the latter, because I did, largely. And it didn’t make sense for me to come to terms with the truth. It’s not enough to give yourself to be loved, you too must make effort to give love and for whom you love to feel the love.

That’s it, thank you for coming to my ted talk.

These past few days I’ve felt a certain level of anxiety that I simply have never felt before. I know exactly what it is but it’s new and unfamiliar and it wraps itself in so much self doubt, few days ago I was talking to someone and this person said ‘the man frozen in doubt will always fall behind the one crawling in confusion’ na once I jack my phone start to edit my video o Abeg.. I no want make poverty kill me. I hope you think of that quote for the rest of the week.

i forced myself to finish this let trees before i devour my pork ribs. hunger go finish m this night , but i no send tomorrow we soak garri. today we eat pork ribs

Lots of love,

Barr. Tobe

Before I forget - how’s your day going joor? My lover