On: The Woman I Married...
This article is best enjoyed whilst listening to the song "If I Needed You" by Guy Clark - https://youtu.be/HOnoDYXvGpk
I pride myself in being a writer, nay, a great writer - or maybe a fairly decent one. I mean, I have a published novel to prove it (shameless plug). But a lot of times, it amazes me how short of words I find myself when I try to write about this person. I can tell you that this here is probably like my 5000th attempt at this. I'd try and then stop and then read through and be like "Nah this is shite!" And then rinse and repeat. I've often asked myself why it always feels so difficult to write about this person, someone I dearly love, the only woman that I have been married to for the past two years.
I mean, love is enough of a recipe for me to pen down a masterpiece and have the words laced with passion and awe, flowing through me like the clear spring waters of - wherever has the most beautiful spring waters in the world. But alas, that's never the case. I end up trying to find the words and then even when I think I have, it seems insufficient. So, this here, is me stamping my feet and making this the one ode to my marriage partner that would stick. This is my final attempt and at this point, I don't care how it comes off - incoherent, corny, a lot of mushiness not associated with my bad beesh brand (or hers) - whatever it is, this has to be the one that sticks. It just has to.
Now how to begin this...um...I met Tomi on Twitter, two years ago, around this time of the year, or earlier, I'm not so sure. We had a vibe. I had just recently gotten into the podcasting universe and was excited to listen to everyone and everything being put out. I can't remember how I may have stumbled on her podcast but I remember listening to it and being enthralled with the calmness in her voice. Later on, I'd find out that those times I was enthralled by her voice and its calmness was because she was recording from underneath her duvet. But I digress.
Tomi and I, as I said, shared a vibe. She sounded like she was pretty cool and I believed I was cool too, so I shot my shot-ish. I remember reaching out to her via her DM and expressing my admiration for an episode she'd done with her son, Daniel, and how much I wished he'd be a more regular voice on her podcast. And I am not sure how I knew this but when she would return my message with the laughing emoji and a "thank you" attached to it, I could feel just how genuine her laughter was. And in all honesty, that was one of the best things about our vibe - our laughter. Even via texting and with all the limitation and pretentiousness that emojis hold, our laughter always felt and was indeed genuine. Tomi was a breath of fresh air in my life back then. I remember asking her to be on my podcast sometime after, as a guest and being so excited for her appearance that I set up three separate reminders for the event. I know this sounds corny especially looking back now, but in those first few days of chatting with her in the DMs of Twitter, I felt like I had found the one. Yup. I fell in love.
Yeah, I know how that sounds and you are probably thinking "Ha, Mifa, so quick?" Well, truth is, I've always always been a hopeless romantic. I just do a great ass job of hiding it. And hiding it perfectly was what I did back then with Tomi. I remember I would ask her for pictures almost every day and she'd oblige me. Until this day, 90% of the pictures on my phone are of her. We recently reminisced about this and she admitted to me being the only person she knows that she sends loads of pictures of herself to. Looking back now, I figured I had asked for so many pictures from her for the very same reason people expect their lovers to end each conversation with "I love you." - I wanted to feel seen by her. And this might sound ironic since her sending me a lot of pictures would make it seem like she wanted that for herself. Basically, I reckoned that for each picture she took with the thoughts of sending them to me, knowing fully well that I would probably ask for them, it meant she'd always have me at the back of her mind. Plus, it also felt like a badge of honor that she was willing to trust me enough, to even share pictures with me at all. But again I digress.
As I mentioned earlier, I fell in love with Tomi basically like two weeks after we had started chatting via the DM. And for the first time, I found myself not even concerned about any sort of reciprocation for my feeling (although I would admit to having never actually made them known to her). Nevertheless, to the best of my knowledge, I never remembered feeling any urge to tell her about it in such a way that she'd feel like she needed to make a decision about our friendship or something. I just allowed myself to bask in the beauty of this amazing thing that had happened to me at a point in my life when everything felt like it was going to shits. As most blooming vibes on Twitter go, we soon moved from that app to WhatsApp (the place where Twitter vibes go to die), and fortunately for us, since our emojis were as genuine as our smiles and laughter, it didn't happen this way. Instead, what felt like a good vibe that was hinged a lot on discussions about podcasting and sharing funny memes and jokes became something more profound on WhatsApp. Plus, WhatsApp allowed us room for more verbal conversations and I dare say it was at this point that I knew I had fallen hard for her - like, really hard.
I remember back then going to bed at 4 am in the morning simply because I was up all night speaking with her about random stuff. At some point, we started doing movie nights, where we'd use a platform called "watch2geda" to watch video clips on YouTube or movies and stuff. It got so intense I downloaded a world clock on my phone so I could know when she'd be up on her side of the world in order to be sure when I could send her a good morning text. Our friendship blossomed; my love grew. But then something strange began to happen. It felt strange at first and trust me, I tried very hard to fight it. I did. And I did so because I felt like if I didn't I'd let it win and doing so would ruin all of the amazing castles I had built in the air with respect to my being in love with her. I would find myself actively trying to push conversations in a particular direction in my bid to keep the fire of desire burning in me so I didn't feel like I was losing a grip on a possibility that felt so wholesome in itself. But it was a losing battle. The more I fought, the harder it became to hide from the truth. I was no longer in love with her. No, it was something else. I now actually loved this woman.
Indeed, I know that this might read as confusing to some and I can understand why because I felt the same wave of bewilderment too. Here I am saying I was no longer in love with this amazing woman but then following it up by saying I now loved her. "So, what's the difference?" one might ask. The difference in my case, which I would admit might again sound like the corniest shit you ever heard, was that unlike the former which was basically me falling in love with the idea of her and what I thought she represented in my life (a romantic connection), the latter was more like me getting to know the real person underneath my idea of her and what she represented in my life ( a genuine connection unbridled by the limitation of romance).
Ah, fuck it! I know all of that sounded like a bunch of hogwash. Trust me, I read that back a few times and it still doesn't even communicate what my exact thoughts are about how my feelings for Tomi evolved, but to avoid running the risk of oversimplifying shit, that explanation would have to suffice. I remember recently we joked about how our relationship feels more like a marriage than anything else, especially with the number of times she has threatened to divorce me and take my laptop as her share in our divorce settlement (she does this a lot). Her saying this made me laugh because in thinking about it, ours has indeed been one of the weirdest marriages there is.
Our fights are not even really fights because when we do we still end up texting each other random funny stuff even though we do it with pretentiously hardened faces. We probably are the only married partnership that I believe uses WhatsApp stickers as a greeting mechanism - hers is a Nollywood clip of a woman conjuring a stone from her hut to go hit a girl on the street and mine is usually the same. I remember one time when she went for a full week without speaking to me, she was mad at something I had said and I on the other hand had no idea what she was exactly mad at and I downplayed her angst by continuously texting her as though nothing happened. When she eventually came around to speaking about what I did to make her mad, I did what most typical Nigerian married men do in such situations, I tried to fish for something she had done too in the past that I overlooked to keep the peace. Good thing was, I got schooled on what gaslighting meant that day, and ever since then even when I'm not sure if what I did was offensive, if she says it was, I apologize so our marriage can be peaceful.
Ours is a marriage where I have learned so much as a man about women that I'd never have known in a million years. I tell her this as often as I can, but she changed my life in ways she probably still isn't aware of. I have learned how to be present in the pain of someone you love that you might not really understand. I have learned just how much empathy isn't necessarily about walking in another person's shoes to better understand what they are going through but simply wearing yours and standing/walking by them as they go through their journey.
It's been two years of our unique marriage and quite recently she mentioned we had to mark our anniversary. The only problem is, neither of us even remember on what day we actually began speaking or at what point what we now consider a marriage even started. And I think that in itself is beauty personified because it's almost like we just became this unique entity without any beginning to point towards. I reckon it's like how most religious people think of God's existence. Now, I know for sure that I have always been a proponent of why I think marriages in the traditional sense of the word are a terrible idea in this day and age, but in all honesty, I feel hypocritical because this marriage I've been in has been such a surreal experience. And the best part about our marriage is that we get to have sex with other people (yay!). And in my opinion, chances are there'd be fewer divorces in the world if more people adopted our marriage model. But then again, I digress.
This piece is nothing more than my attempt to use the easiest medium for me to express my undying love for one of the few women in my life who has undyingly made my life worth every moment. Tomi to me is irreplaceable (unless Rihanna comes along and says she has dumped ASAP Rocky then I am replacing her in a heartbeat). She's a ray of sunshine in what can sometimes be a very dim existence. She's a woman who has mastered the art of being dutiful, gracious, and ambitious without having to come off as a snub. And I have been privileged to be by her side as I watch her continue to make leaps and bounds in her life and career. And like the loving husband that I am, I don't mind being the sidekick to the superhero life that she creates.
Nevertheless, as I mentioned at the start of this, I am still not sure this makes for the kind of awe-inspiring tribute I'd want to give to her but for now, it would have to suffice. Hopefully, as our marriage ages, the poetic words I seek would find me. Or maybe, she’d eventually make good on her threats and divorce me, taking my laptop with her, which would mean no more writing. Whatever the future holds, I don't mind it as long as ours continues to be a marriage to remember.
Cheers.