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Love is a beautiful thing, each time I reminisce on my first love experience, I feel lucky to have started my love journey that way. My parents were a bit strict about me going to the relationship at first. In fact, at a point, my mom had to frame up a lie just to prevent me from going into any relationship.
We were conversing one day when she said, "Ehnnn, I forgot to tell you, please for your own good, don't go near any lady, what's trending now is, if you touch any girl, she will immediately get pregnant and you know you are too young right"?
I answered, "Yes Mom, but Mom, can I shake them"? I inquired. She said, "No, even a hand handshake is a touch". I should be in junior secondary school then. So, I continued on that lane, I became very strict with ladies to the extent that I got one of the popular names those days; "Man Of God". Girls barely sit on my seat and I don't relate well with them.
Subsequently, I got into senior secondary school and my mind started maturing. While I was in senior secondary school, one (SSS1) I started liking my neighbor, Joy. We weren't attending the same school. So I could still maintain my status of MOG.
Joy attended a boarding school, and every time when school is in session I look forward to holidays just to see her. Joy is someone who naturally loves giving gifts out to people, she doesn't mind whether she knows you or not, if she discovers you are in need she will try her best to reach out to you in any way she can. That one act of hers made me fall in love with her.
During holidays, joy will always visit me, we will gist, play games, and sing. One funny thing is she has never visited me empty-handed. She either brings a stick sweet, biscuits or juice. Sometimes written notes to tell me she misses me. Gosh! I felt loved.
So, I talked to my friend about her and he said I should shoot my shot. I got scared because I was MOG (Man Of God) I preach against relationships and here am I trying to fall into one. It took me some time to agree with myself on that. One of those days, a week before she went back to school I wrote a love letter and out of fear, I gave it to my immediate younger sister to it to her because I couldn't face her.
As soon as Joy received it and read what was inside, she stopped coming to my place. Gosh! Different things started going through my mind. Was she offended? Could it be that she doesn't feel the same way? I was left in suspense until the Sunday she was going back to school. She came to my house and gave me a piece of paper asking me not to read it until she left.
I patiently waited until she left, then I opened it and it was written, "I will give you a reply concerning what you asked for when I am back from school." Damn, I felt like crying. I had to wait for three months and when she finally came home for a break, she wrote and gave my sister, reads, "Face me and tell me what you want".
To be frank, I was a very shy guy then, I didn't know what to do. I went to my friend and asked for advice, and he gingered me the way I expected. One evening I went to her house and we had a very nice time together, I waited until it was dark, then I said, "Joy I love you, can you be my girlfriend"? Gosh, she was just beaming, I could see how happy she was on her face.
Wondering where I got those words from. It was the handiwork of my friend LoL. She was surprised that I did that. To cut everything short, she gave me a yes and it kicked started.
It was the days of writing letters, every day we were exchanging letters, and my immediate younger sister was our messenger, sometimes we had to bribe her with ten Naira before she did the needful.
Joy's mom suddenly became uncomfortable with Joy going out because some boys in our community, almost harassed her sexually one evening. We didn't have phones then, the only option was to continue writing letters. To date, I still have one of them.
This image is mine
One day, I visited Joy and she ignored me, she didn't only stop there but she went further to tell me we should break up. Gosh, I felt like I was dying. After crying all the cry I could cry. While still in deep thoughts of losing the one person I so much cherished, I quickly remembered that my best childhood friend once told me that when his girl left him, he wrote a letter to her and dropped his blood in it.
That is it, I quickly took my pen, wrote how hurt I was, and pled for her to come back, in the end, to prove how much I loved and needed her back seriously, I took a razor blade, cut my left palm and allowed the blood to drip on the paper and concluded by saying "that is my blood, if you ignore this I know you don't love me and you never did all this while."
Omo, that cut was so deep but love gave me a covering, I felt nothing at the moment. Guess what? when joy read my letter, she replied "You are crazy, I am burning this piece of shit. Why would you harm yourself for love"?
When I got that reply, I wept like I was going to die in my room, my senses came to my head, and it was then I started feeling pains from the cut too, I saw my folly right before my eyes. I had to keep the matter to myself to avoid people laughing at me LoL.
The good part of the story is, that I was lucky enough, the following day, Joy came to my house and apologized for everything, she said she just wanted to know if I truly loved her. And boom, love continued. To date if I remember that stuff, I laugh at myself. Love can make anyone do silly things regardless of your status, age, or class, except you didn't fall well into it.
