Posted By Afro-Awesome Guest contributor
On Feb 19, 2018
By Awino Okech
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” – Rumi
On February 14th 2018, I saw a post on social media from a woman moaning about not being in an intimate relationship. The complaint was triggered by the unnecessary advice that came their way from married people seeking to “fix” their “affliction” – namely, being single. Despite asking married friends to take a few seats, they ventured into the day obeying, what we have come to subscribe to, as ‘Valentine’s Day traditions’. They wore a spot of red, thus inviting the possibility of conversations about their love life on a day that the world feels they can ask those questions of anyone.
As I read her messages, the one word that came to mind was, ‘unnecessary’.
All of it just seemed unnecessary. The unnecessary performance of wearing red, searching for a red garment to wear for the day. The unnecessary need to frantically desire to be coupled on valentine’s day. The unnecessary feeling of failure at not having lived up to being loved by someone. It all seemed very unnecessary.
I am not anti-love. My resistance to valentine’s day has nothing to do with not knowing, wanting or experiencing love from one or multiple people. My resistance to valentine’s day has everything to do with the love that is validated. It has everything to do with the messages reinforced about which love is legitimate, the love that we must prioritise and aspire to and how this love should be performed in public.
Often it is heterosexual and performed in distinct ways. A heterosexual woman expects that a male partner they are interested in or have been intimate with, will send red roses, chocolates and also wine and dine them. The day becomes ‘mummy’s special day’ or X (insert female name’s) day. Somehow the expression of love is a one-way performance, that affirms the man as the lover and woman as receiver. For parents whose children send them gifts often generated from a male person on valentine’s day and schools that stage valentine’s day events contribute to sending overt messages about which performances of public love are legitimate. Naturally the consumerism that accompanies this day is nauseating and yes – unnecessary.
Valentine’s day is a day when I think about the other forms of love we don’t cultivate and nurture. The necessary love we relegate to second or third priority or de-prioritise when necessary love appears. The forms of love we place somewhere on the far end of the continuum after “blood” whether that is through marriage (children) or birth (siblings et al) or the people we choose to travel with for sections of our lives in intimate ways – partners in their gendered variety.
Yet when these “top tier” relationships fail, crumble or are tested it is to the secondary or tertiary relationships we return to for solace, reassurance and nourishment. Some may call these relationships – friendships. For others, non-heterosexual, orphaned, those far removed from the blood bonds associated with necessary love, those friendships are family. Necessary love becomes invested in the people who hold you up every day. Bonds that are generated by choice and not held together by physical intimacy or children. They are bonds you prioritise because in them lies the necessary love cultivated by intentionality.
Next valentines’ day – think about necessary love. Think about the constellations of love that keep us going and ask yourselves how do you keep that love alive beyond February 14th
How intentional are you in building necessary love?
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