Can You Surface Soon?!

To the people whose lives are so intricately described in these writings… Thanks for giving me the opportunity to write again – to write about you. Thanks for the parts that you actually wrote yourself. Thanks most of all, for the chance to share in your lives!!
Entry 01
Dear Future Hubby,
I’ve decided that I need to move on. And though it’ll be a long and hard road, it’s an inevitable road. I’m going to move on. My mental health depends on it. My ever meeting you probably depends on it. So I’m working on some sort of strategy. As part of it, I’m going to write letters to you… letters about him. Christian. It feels so odd calling him Christian. I don’t think I ever called him that. I’ll write everything that comes to mind concerning us, whenever it comes to mind. It’ll be for this whole month. Who knows, one day when you have surfaced, you’ll probably stumble upon them – if I don’t deliberately show them to you – and possibly find more reason to fall more hopelessly in love with me (More than you already will be, of course!)
So, I keep thinking… Just because we didn’t work out doesn’t mean we have to stop being friends. A lot of people disagree with this kind of notion; and I know full well that our relationship can never go back to what it was before – I’ll be a fool to expect it to, especially since I was the ‘dumper’ and he was the ‘dumpee’
But since he’s moved on, shouldn’t our friendship be an option? Shouldn’t we be able to go back to being friends?
I should probably examine my heart behind wanting to remain friends with him.
What do I want from him as a friend? What role do I want him to play in my life? If I’m honest with myself, I still harbour feelings for him. Not friendly feelings of course. Deep intimate feelings. And each time I have a conversation with him – those once-in-three-months-or-less conversations, when we say awkward hellos – I am secretly holding out for my second chance when he’ll forgive me and we’ll find a magical way to make it work.
I don’t need a fortune teller to tell me that that’s never going to happen. Of course I can’t blame him. To be fair, he needs to move on and find someone who’ll make him happy and respect him and love him and support him and feed him and give him babies (all of which I of course intend to do with you too, probably, one day, I suppose 😉).
And so if I want to give myself a chance to fully move on and not keep wishing things had turned out differently and have a chance with you, then clearly, it’s a No – No I can’t be friends with him. I can be civil towards him because total avoidance isn’t possible since he’s pretty much family, but other than that, may this letter be a strong reminder to me that it’s time.
Time to forgive myself. Time to fully own the fact that I made a decision that I have to stand by. Time to stop all the regretful thoughts that pass through my mind. Time to heal. Time to let go and be okay with this. Time to know and fully believe that you, future boo, will come at the right time and I’ll be whole for… par la grâce du Dieu – just as you will too. Time to understand that even if you don’t show up, alone isn’t bad.
Whenever break-ups come up as a topic, people are oh so willing to offer some sort of comfort to the ‘dumpee’…. His/her friends help in the getting over it phase. Nobody offers any help for the dumper. Before I get emotional about this, let me end this letter.
If you’ll ever show up, then I can’t wait to meet you. If you plan to show up,
Then Can you surface soon??
 
 
Entry 02
Dear Future Husband…
I contemplated taking a nap before choir rehearsals, over writing todays entry. But in the spirit of consistency, this won!
Today, I kept thinking about the importance of constantly building our relationships and staying abreast with the people we fall in love with, because change is inevitable.
When Dadze and I got together, (Dadze, because that’s really what I always called him… hardly ever Christian.) we had been long distance friends for 6 years and it had been pretty on and off during that period. He was considered family for the most part, and we’d been teased a few times by a couple of our mutual friends and family members. But there was really nothing to it. Innocent, great friendship. And of course when we got talking after our off periods, it felt so good – almost as if no time had passed
But the difference I noticed after we got together was that we had both changed in ways that the other person didn’t know about or expect or maybe we had been blind to some of the things while we were just friends.
See we got together at a period in my life when I was against anything homely/feminine/somewhat wifely. I made him aware that I wasn’t sure I wanted children and that I wouldn’t be cooking for him when we got married, etc. (See, I don’t cook. not that I cant. I can make the basic things that will keep humans alive. But I detest it.  The heat, the smell of spices, the annoying hum of blenders, the fact that I have to be careful that knives don’t cut me…. I hate it all!). He kept challenging that… and probably rightly so. But at the time, I didn’t want to hear the half of it! One day, he made an off comment, “Eii… aburokyire asesa wo” – To him, I’d become too westernized. I blurted out without thinking – “of course, Dadze, what did you expect, I spent most of my thinking years here!” That was how it all started.
Maybe that was the problem. We had each grown up in our completely different settings, and changed in different ways over the years but we weren’t willing to accept that and work with the differences. In hindsight I might agree with him to a certain extent about taking up ‘wifely duties’ (whatever those are) but that’s a conversation for another day. This is also one of the reasons why I ended things with him. He knew the old Maame, and not the Maame who had been roughened by life in Scandinavia, and then the US.
Of course, right now, I’m at a different point than I was when I graduated college. I’d say the big difference is trying to conform to the word of God and not my own ideas of what a relationship and responsibilities in marriage should look like.
I know we’ll change in many ways but one thing I do hope is that our core values don’t change; I know that if we keep God at the centre and make Him the unchanging factor, we can deal with all the changes that happen.
I shouldn’t have to use old information about you to work in the present. We must have conversations constantly to know what’s changed; fears, dreams, goals… etc. I can’t expect you to be the same from when we start dating to 50 years into our marriage.
Here’s to striving to know each other better every day. Here’s to committing time to know how the other person has changed and to accommodating those changes. To a large extent, I feel stupid about this coping mechanism/moving on strategy. Because what if you never surface? I’ll probably still be okay wont I?
But hey, if you’re ever going to surface,
Can you surface soon?