I have two nieces, aged five and eight. They’re cute as buttons. Sometimes they’ll throw you with questions like “auntie, can you breathe with your nose ring on?” or “auntie does it hurt when there is a baby in your belly?” I try to have answers for all these questions and where I have nothing to offer, I admit it. Nine times out of ten, they are very gracious with my ignorance. I strive for honesty every time, and I encourage them to do the same.
So when I visited them over Easter, they immediately called me out on a lie that I told. See, the last time I had seen them , I had promised that we would go on a picnic the following weekend. Then life took over. I had school and work and rest, and life kept coming at me. I apologized for my fickleness . They were very kind about it.
I still couldn’t shake the guilt. I will definitely be making time to make the picnic happen. However, my guilt came from knowing that I never would have done that to a romantic partner, not in a hundred years! I would have either a) created time within my crazy schedule to make the pots…
or b) I would have communicated that life was kicking my little tush and made plans to reschedule.
So why did I think it was okay to deny the same respect to two of my favourite people on the planet?
But that is our thing, isn’t it? We reserve the best parts of ourselves for romantic endeavours. We dress well, we hide the abrasive parts, we show up, we apologise when we don’t show up. We have the difficult conversations, we do the fighting, we address the elephant, we buy the gifts. Aaaaaaaand then leave whatever scraps are left over for everyone else in our lives.
I don’t know if anyone shares this experience, but the funny thing is, my greatest saving graces have not been romances. This could be a testament to my taste in gentleman callers (a story for a different day). But, consistently, it has been family, friends, neighbours, friends of friends, teachers -even who have come through in both good and bad times. Yet these are the people also consistently that we fail to give our best to.
This isn’t to say romance isn’t important. I mean, I get it. The intimacy, the connection, the soul mate-ry of it (if that’s a thing you believe in), the idea of being separated by death (morbid by the way). You don’t need to sell romance to me. I hear it. But I am saying other relationships are equally important. I am saying denying people integrity simply because we are not attracted to them is crazy business!
We owe a lot of people a lot of things. Things that we have made exclusive to romantic relationships. Commitments to your nieces deserve to be fulfilled. Your friends deserve good morning and goodnight texts, and your relationship with your parents requires you to care enough to fight about something within it. Learn your brother’s favourite football team and pretend to care when they lose. Your grandparents deserve to be taken to a nice restaurant.
Ultimately, all relationships deserve to be nurtured. Homework to those who care, myself included. Pick someone in your life; friend, co-worker, family member, whatever it is, and pour into that relationship the way you would in a romance (minus the adult things, ngiyalazi lina!). Call, text, check in, give a gift, do the love languages (again, minus the adult things!) and see how much richer that relationship could be. Outside the romance, we all deserve full experiences of storge, philia and agape love.
