Holding onto a fantasy, letting go of a dream

30 Nov 2011 2 Comments

by OutTales in Holding On and Letting Go Tags: , ,

We had not seen each other for many weeks, which was unusual for us, as we would normally hang out most weekends. I had been the one to initiate recent telephone contact, during which I felt the intimacy gone from our conversations.

I felt something was amiss and did not know what to say or do. I wanted to address it, but deep in my heart I knew I was not ready to hear those words ‘It’s over!’ All I did was cling, afraid that letting go meant abandonment, an old childhood wound which had been reactivated, during those many weeks of not seeing each other.

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The Ultimate Letting Go

11 Nov 2011 6 Comments

by OutTales in Holding On and Letting Go Tags: , ,

I woke up this morning to an email from a cousin informing me that our grandmother had died; his father’s mother, my mother’s mother.

As I stood in my kitchen glued to the words in the email, I remembered the last time I saw my grandmother. It was over 9 years ago, during a visit to Lagos, when I had travelled there to face the ghosts of my past. We had not seen each other in over 15 years, and when I entered the crowded room she was in, she immediately burst into song. Even though she was well into her 80s’, she was fully alive in every way. She was frail and could not walk unassisted, and yet she swayed as she serenaded me with her words; summoning the spirits of our ancestors and thanking them for guiding me back home.

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Losing myself in the arms of another

26 Oct 2011 5 Comments

by OutTales in Relationships Tags: ,

I spent a huge chunk of my growing up feeling flawed and damaged. I felt very much an outsider, and sold myself out in my longing to belong and be accepted. The older I got, the more ways I found to hide from those feelings of deficiency.

In adolescence, I had escaped into my imagination, including into the world of novels and movies. In adulthood, I escaped into friendship, studying, career, travel and collecting ‘stuff’. During this time of seeking refuge, I always had at the back of my mind that I would truly find myself and be healed once I was in the arms of another – aka in a relationship.

I look back now and smile, for during that stage of my life, I made no distinction between – a hook-up, fling, dating or relationship; as far as I was concerned then, they were all relationships!  (I actually only recently discovered that there was a difference between these categories – who knew!). As I moved from encounter to encounter, yearning and longing to feel whole again, I often felt like I was walking from door-to-door, with a ‘love for sale’ sign on my back. More

Standing Still

21 Oct 2011 3 Comments

by OutTales in Relationships Tags: , , ,

Today I wish to answer a simple question. What is the most important relationship in the life of a man? For many the answer is simple, his family. The one group of people who would ideally always love him unconditionally, hold his hand when he needs them and allow him to be there for them as well.

Sometimes, I agree with these people that family is indeed the most important relationship and it becomes even clearer to me on days like yesterday when my cousin was getting married and I went to his dad’s house. It was full of people attending to various matters as though their lives depended on it. In many ways, I guess their lives did depend on it; they were playing their respective roles in symbiotic play where no one was the loser. I looked at my uncle and I could see in the way he smiled that he sits back at quiet times, thankful that he had a wife and five children, four of whom were married with children and present at the house; that he had his five siblings, and two of whom were there that day with their wives and children, all to make this day easy and joyful for him. His wife had passed earlier that year but her sisters and their children were in his house too, preparing to extend their reach to bring in another woman, his son’s wife and by so doing enlarge this family. More

5 Qualities I bring to a Relationship

13 Oct 2011 5 Comments

by OutTales in Relationships Tags: ,

It appears the blog on ‘5 Qualities I would like in a Boyfriend‘ resonated with a number of people, as it recorded the highest number of hits (so far) in a day on the OutTales site.

In reflecting on the piece, I was conscious that the other side to that coin also needed to be explored. I therefore went back to contributors to the ‘5 Qualities I would like in a Boyfriend’, and this time asked what ‘5 Qualities do you bring to a relationship’. The intention behind this second question was to provide a more rounded picture to the earlier piece – the first question explored what was desired externally, with the new question exploring the internal perspective.

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5 Qualities I would like in a Boyfriend

10 Oct 2011 7 Comments

by OutTales in Relationships Tags: , , ,

I used to have a picture in my head of what my boyfriend would look like, what he would do for a living, how he would dress and where he would live. And yet, each time I met someone, my list would very quickly go out of the window, as I would find myself compromising on every item on the list.

As I got older and more versed in the art of dating, I came to realize that whilst my list might have focussed on issues that did not necessarily make a relationship fulfilling and lasting, it still felt important to have an idea of what I wanted – For ‘if I did not know what I wanted, how would I know when I found it!’ During the time of this realization, my then list evolved from one consisting simply of the external stuff, to qualities that I felt were important to me. More

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