16.10.24
While I respect your position, I tend to differ.
And I’m predisposed to getting attached.
It might be because I’m socialised to prefer that arrangement, or it might be my experience in past relationships
(neither exclusively good nor exclusively bad),
it might be naivety, it might be something more Eternal.
I’m not looking to sway you though. I understand where you’re coming from.
I’m just contending with whether it could work for me.
– Lele
We had broken up.
No contact; because talking would pull us back into the cycles of anger, offense, and defense.
I wrote to you; scribbling urgently on pages until I couldn’t see through the tears that made the dark ink bleed. To soothe my heart, I had committed to writing a letter every time I missed you. Every time I wanted to say something to you, I would say it on paper. After all, I did not need for you to hear or receive it. I simply needed to have shared it.
Several weeks and a full notebook later, I had accumulated a hefty stack of personal confessions, hopes, odes, and prayers. My strategy was working well enough.
And then, for whatever reason… perhaps in my naivety, I sought your acknowledgement of my feelings… I gave you those letters. In between awkward platitudes and under a sky that seemed to hang lower than usual, I handed over to you the thick envelope of my heart.
Something inside me died when I learned that you threw it away. The risk had not even occurred to me. I thought I might never write again. What you did was sacrilegious, it was final, and it was necessary.
In the wrong hands, the depth of my vulnerability is no different from used toilet paper and rotting produce.
Now I write, not to grieve, but to survive.
-Lele M
The fall. A narrative as old as time, woven into the very fabric of creation.
Genesis 3 tells of a paradise shattered, of innocence lost, and of an intimacy with God interrupted by a single choice. “What is this you have done?” the Lord asks, His voice heavy with the weight of love betrayed. And in that moment, humanity’s relationship with God—and with one another—was forever changed.
I find myself reflecting on the fall, not in Eden, but in my own life. A public union of hearts and lives, shared and celebrated, has ended. The first partner I ever called home is now no longer mine. The mighty have fallen, the poets say. Though I am no king, my heart feels the weight of that phrase. How fragile the human spirit is, how vulnerable we are when we give ourselves to another, laying bare our hopes and fears, trusting they will be held with care.
In the aftermath, I have asked myself: Was it love that failed, or was it simply us? Is love eternal, as scripture teaches, or is it fractured by the very human vessels that attempt to carry it? Perhaps it is both. Perhaps love remains pure, even as we stumble under its weight.
“To love at all is to be vulnerable,” C.S. Lewis once wrote. “Love anything, and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken.” To love is to risk the fall, to step into the unknown with faith that the one you hold close will not let go. Yet, sometimes, they do. Or perhaps it is we who loosen our grip, weary from the journey, distracted by our own frailty.
The fall reminds me of surrender—not just to love, but to God, who is love itself. What does it mean to surrender when the heart is broken? It means to offer up the pieces, trusting that the hands that shaped the heavens can also reshape the human heart. It means to acknowledge that the fall is not the end of the story. Eden was lost, but grace abounds. The mighty fall, but the humble are lifted.
In this moment, I see the nature of man: fragile, flawed, often blind to the divine within one another. I see the nature of relationships: mirrors that reflect not only beauty but also brokenness. And I see the nature of love: a call to transcend the fall, to forgive as we are forgiven, to endure as God endures.
Perhaps this is the beginning of a new story—not one of perfect love but of perfecting love. For even in the fall, there is grace. And grace, I am learning, is where healing begins.
-Lele M
If I ever forget you…
There’s a chance you will read this, and although it frightens me, a part of me is hoping you do. A larger part of me than I care to admit. If you do, if you are – yes, I’m loving through letters again. I can’t help myself.
We reflected on our relationship one day. We were both taking accountability for our influence on the course of our relationship, which is standard practice in these reflections. Until I reached an epiphany of the adage “all’s fair in love and war”. I’d always understood how all’s fair in war. But how could all be fair in love? How were love and war alike?
The answer came to me in that conversation. We weren’t just reflecting on ourselves. We’d taken the time to understand, and contend with, the other’s perspective and feelings. In that, we’d found the silent pleas we’d missed in our emotional stupor – pleas for affection, protection, support, peace, and patience. We found out just how much we differ in our thought despite similarity in our needs.
Consider this; we both believe we’re fighting on the right side. We’re both convicted enough to pursue it ‘by any means necessary’ – such that we can justify causing harm in pursuit of what we believe is right. One cannot tally the rights and wrongs in a relationship to determine a score for each partner.
By the end, I realised we’d both been both right and wrong (often at the same time) too often for it to matter. And that’s the nature of being in a relationship, as it is with war. All is indeed fair in love.
I hadn’t understood this until I realised how much we’d been through together. How much we’d put each other through. How much of it was avoidable, and how much of it was not.
I have loved loving you, being loved by you, and loving with you. Some of my best memories are with you. We’ve also been through the wire – serious character building stuff. From everything we’ve had to learn, to everything we’ve had to forgive, we’ve both grown tremendously. I’m proud of us.
We’ve done well, you and I. We make a monster team.
– Lele M
What are good reasons to get into a relationship?
A few weeks ago I had a conversation which has borne this piece. The part of that conversation which made an impression on me was a simple question. What reasons do I have to be in a relationship?
In the first instance, the question presumes the existence (and necessity) of ‘reasons’ to be in a relationship. As such, the question is loaded. Secondly, the word ‘reasons’ requires qualifying. A useful definition would be any causes or motivations. Put differently, what motivates my desire to be in a romantic relationship?
To answer this question, there is as much value in looking outward as there is in looking inward. I prefer to learn from the stories of the people around me. Thus, I contemplate this and other related questions with a dynamic sample of young people throughout the next few weeks.
– Lele M
Lele Muthali 