You sit at the sofa silently in the world you stroll off to, admiring the photos plastered sequentially on the wall that was once a blank canvas — a healthy relationship. Everything is different. The air smells fresher, homely even. The TV never goes off with shows labeled as ‘couple activities’ airing throughout the day. Shows that are way past their trends. However, great shows are priceless even to time. Watch them with your lover, and they are golden. The aroma of food hits differently as it dances through the open kitchen making you bubble with joy and thirst as if you’re back to the day your crush said hello. All is well. All is great.
Yet the frames on the wall longingly stare back puzzled whether indeed the one occupying the second part of the photos is the right choice. The photos, innocent and comfortable, remind anyone who cares about good times. They sit harmless, void of sorrow. But as you look at them, there’s always that seed whispering doubts and all its negativity towards the one who makes the house – home.
Each relationship is hard. Hard like when you’re 7 years old and your mum and dad make you choose whom between the two you’ll live with because they’re having a divorce. You get a Ph.D. in maneuvering this road filled with blind spots that are dark like the blackspots in Salgaa.
On some days, the thorns in your rose sting. And when they do, they go deep like a drill burrowing through your bones to get to the cartilage. Your rose! Babes! Your bubi ngwashe knows the deepest secrets in your soul. Sometimes they know without you ever having told them. On normal days, when you’ve left your socks all over the place, you know the vault is safe as she punches your space with fiery words angered at your audacity. Babe, do you think my work is to collect your dirty laundry all the time? Don’t pass these genes to our future kids!
On scary days, when they hear you talking to Karin or Beatrice in a friendlier way than usual, their eyes spell doom. Or when they catch you gazing at other ladies in scanty dresses “definitely” meant to tempt you, musee, run for the hills. A nuclear bomb is about to explode and you might as well book Elon’s flight to Mars because earth is going to be harder than usual. I’ll pop those eyes out and throw them to the dogs!
Having one partner for the rest of your life should have its own chapter at school. How to remain sane in a relationship. It’s fantastic when it comes to a constant supply of sex, a crying shoulder, or a non-judging persona when you’re in a whole-day-pyjama kind of vibe. Did I mention the sex? As usual, there’s a but. There are days you wonder whether they really know you. Sometimes you get bored; of the house, of the walls, of the routine — you feel locked in a dome and you can count the steps that cover the whole radius. To add to that, you feel lonely and ugly. Sad and depressed. All you want is to eat those sweet cookies from Art Caffe that she brings even though you’re cutting off weight and laze around with your phone switched off. Alone.
Cherish the moments in a relationship. When you stare at the walls know they are constants. They are present but not. Worse still, they know your cries. And even more, your random vents. They know what soothes you to peace. I like to plaster them with memories of random things that make me happy. Of my partner when I feel I’m not worthy of their love. Paint the empty spaces with future little fellas oblivious of their parents. Of paintings that give you a whole spectrum of emotions that make you acknowledge the artist’s talent whilst understanding what they were going through. I like my walls to convey me — to convey us.
