Dearest Jessica, I Must Confess

Day 15’s Theme: Friendship

My Dearest Jessica,

Believe me when I say I’m more surprised that I am writing this letter to you than you will be of reading it. I guess I should give this letter a subject as is normal. Here it is: CHEERS TO FRESH LOVE.

Two months ago give or take a little, while sweeping my room, like a whisper or maybe a hint of fragrance your name fluttered through my mind and what happened next confused me. I smiled. No, it was more of a grin if I do say so myself. Even close to laughter!

Yeah, yeah, you’re saying “what’s wrong with this lady now” but hear me out. I’ve smiled lots of times before but this time it came from somewhere different…deep. It felt so warm, almost like I was meeting you for the first time. Which, you’ll agree with me is strange seeing as we’ve been friends for more than four years already.

We share similar life philosophies, family backgrounds, we’ve shared strange moments, cried and prayed together, seen each other’s pains and fears, and attended the same conferences.

We’ve had the negatives too; disagreements, pride, envy, gossiping together and maybe more secretive things than is known so yes, that warm feeling came as a surprise. My same Jessie? I asked myself. My first thought was maybe Jessie is/has been praying for me but it didn’t feel like that conclusion was all there was to it.

With the arrival of that smile and its refusal to leave, I did the next best thing that came to my mind – sat down on my table, with the broom between my legs and chewed on it. I wanted to understand what this really was, to dissect the feelings. In time, I was able to put words to the melody my heart was singing. I’ll try to explain some of them.

I felt like I wouldn’t ever want you to get hurt or be in a fraction of pain. I felt like I’d love to sit across from you as we talked and argued about everything. I felt like I’d like to show you to the whole world and scream, “Can your friend ever?!” (Perhaps, this is what I’m finally doing now as I write to you)

I saw your uniqueness and appreciated you for just being you.

I also saw your issues (I’m sure you know the look on my face right now). They were not overshadowed by this new burst of energy…emotion but they felt to me like sands on a shore- very inconsequential, forgivable, manageable. It got me thinking about how Peter did say that love covers a multitude of sins, maybe this is what it is? The power to see the wrongs, be patient and love still?

As I sat there thinking, more things occurred to me. You know me Jessie and how strange I can be, right? Haha. So right there, I decided to do a quick relationship review. Let me explain to you what I mean by that.

I’ve come to believe that the heart is very large. Way larger than the pictures I see in science textbooks. I liken it to a shelf with different compartments. These compartments, named after the different relationships in our lives; friends, best friends, acquaintances, nuclear family, extended family, mentors, spiritual leaders, crushes, classmates, Christians, favourite characters of books and movies, the list is endless. Each of these compartments takes a different kind of love fuel to run.

Hehe, you’re saying, “hian!” right now. Abeg, calm down, it’s my letter. If you want to talk, write yours. Back to what I was saying. I’m just basically explaining how we have a different feel of love for the different people in our lives. This love can increase and decrease and with, the persons.

For instance, this last year, I’ve watched two acquaintances leap to the spot of valuable friendship (It just occurred to me now, that I should probably write to them soon also. Feels exciting already!).

All I’m trying to say is, I did a quick review and there you were sitting right amongst the top in the friendship land…somewhere I did not put you. Somewhere you certainly were not a day ago. What’s stranger, we had not had any extraordinary interaction recently. It was just so. How do stuff like that happen? I’m still wondering. Maybe it’s a kind of revelation?

I can’t help feeling like this is a love letter. Hehe. Chai, I never imagined my first one would go to you. Indeed this life is unpredictable.

I don’t know how you’ll receive this but why do I feel like you’ll want to kill. Too bad, I’m nowhere close to your location.

I’m serious now. With the strength of God, I want to make you a promise, dear friend, to stand beside you, to be a shoulder to lean on, a push to your prayers, ears to your cries, hands to slap you back to reality and to love you through your weaknesses and strengths…even when you don’t want to be loved.

So, dearest Jessie, the summary of this letter is me confessing that I love you and I’m proud that I do.

Cheers to the love of God we bask in every single day of our lives.

Cheers to the love blooming in our hearts. I pray it grows in depth and height.

A Million Kisses For You,

Chioma.

PS: if you’re thinking this means I’m more pliable now, you wish. I still won’t hesitate to trouble you at you every chance I get, when I so wish.

PPS: So you have full hair and you’re with the #teamnatural, what do you want us to do?! Should we kill ourselves? Better go and cut that thing blocking our road, let us see the narrow way better.