A sincere question and An Honest Answer: All in a Bittersweet Letter.
"To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering, one must avoid love. But to avoid love is to suffer nonetheless—so, in the end, love and suffering are inseparable." - I summarised the words of Woody Allen
The Background
I believe that our minds are where all our differences dwell. I used to think it was the heart, but I have come to realise that we all feel similar things in the same way. As a person, I spend most of my time here, in my mind.
This is not always a good time because I spend most of it thinking about the most unthinkable negative things happening to me, while others may be spending the time here to think about the positive.
However, with this open letter, I wish to welcome you to a specific corner of my mind. I hope to show you, in all honesty, some of the thought-provoking questions I ask myself, some answers I have found that influence most of my convictions about life, and finally, why, of all emotions, I enjoy feeling ‘Bittersweet.’
This also answers some questions about love: how I feel it, how I wish to receive it, and how I perceive I connect best with people—whether in a romantic relationship or friendship.
To begin with, everyone talks about values and wishes to be with someone who has them and lives by them. I am no different from you here. My favourite definition of value is that of one of my junior secondary school teachers, ‘an unforeseen worth placed on something.’
Therefore, one of my values related to love comes from my father. As a preacher, he always emphasises how transient the world is and how we will all be separated from everyone and everything we love at some point. Understanding this helped me a lot when he died in my arms a decade ago—I kinda felt prepared for it.
Therefore, before I open my heart to love or accept love, I have already asked myself how long you will be around before you leave me. Not knowing the answer will always be the bittersweet aspect of loving you.
Moreover, the good part is that this is like a litmus test of my love. If the thought of your departure is unbearable even while you are still around, it is undoubtedly love for me. However, the downside is that it affects how I connect with you, as part of me would always want to stay away from you occasionally in preparation for your departure. And this is part of what makes my relationship with love scary.
In Friendship - My Holistic Overview.
If I had ever called you my friend and you had ever observed me smiling at you several times when we were together, then I would have developed a special feeling for you. Also, you are safe. Because I am at peace with you, knowing that you will experience me enough to benefit from our friendship but never learn sufficiently to abandon me. I hope that makes sense to you.
Nevertheless, over the years, I have lost friendships that unbearably hurt me—I even published a reflection about some of them in this article - ‘What I Learned from a Friendship Breakup.’ However, I find solace in knowing that everyone I love is transient.
By the way, how do I define friendship? When I receive positive compliments or words of appreciation from friends, I always welcome them with a phrase summarising my perspective: "The world is hard enough, and challenges are endless—we only have ourselves to make it better and a little bit easier for us.”
So, each new friend I have made is an opportunity to make life better and easier for you in many small ways. However, even though I expect the same in return from you in the first few months/years of our friendship, these expectations are so insignificant that I almost feel they are not even there.
After all, for someone like me who always wants to logically rationalise everything, the only qualification I need to see you as my friend is contrary to logic, based on how I feel about you and around you. As long as I feel safe, seen, heard, respected and welcomed, you are my true friend - this is the expectation, if there must be any.
But then, over the years, I have become so acquainted with friends that even though these expectations have increased significantly, I have equally learned to believe in them, that even if they fail once in a while, I don’t get hurt or disappointed. Furthermore, I expect the same grace from them - which, sadly, I often fail to receive.
But generally, at a visceral level, I understand the brutal realities of the level of commitment I owe my friendships—for this reason, I dread easily making new friends. In the initial stages, most of my friends approached me first; however, after this stage, I may end up being the friend reaching out and watering the friendship for a lifetime, because I can never overstate the expansive benefits of genuine friendship connections.
I can easily attribute twenty per cent, if not more, of everything I know and the achievements I've made to the contributions and sacrifices of my friends at one point in time.
To you, my ever-beautiful, steadfast, and considerate current friends and those I will make in the future - I love you so much and I got your backs right back.
As a final note, I want you to know that if anything ever goes wrong in the future, I will try to see things from your perspective. And when emotions cannot rationalise logic, I will at least not stop seeing you as the good friend and kind person you once were to me.
Dear friends,
I am rooting for you earnestly.
If the top ever existed, it would be so lonely, boring, and somewhat meaningless without you.
So, therefore, see you there!
Menc
In loving - My holistic overview.
Having lived in London, one of the most culturally diverse cities in the world, for over five years has allowed me to meet a diverse range of people with various aspirations.
Conversely, I yearn for a simple and structured life—the journey of what I am becoming and to be like water.
“Empty your mind. Be formless. Shapeless. Like water. You put water into a cup; it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle; it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot; it becomes the teapot. Water can flow, or it can crash. Be water, my friend.” - Bruce Lee
I sincerely fear that when new people encounter me for a potential romantic relationship, they might not perceive this aspect of me but instead see the direct opposite.
This might be a good feeling since they tend to admire me, but who wishes to be admired for what they are not? Another fear is that even if they had perceived this about me, what if they had underestimated how simple I am?
And when they do, what if they leave me, not because of a fault of mine, but simply because my real self has disappointed the illusion they have built about me?
I have/had so much to write about love, but this article has been sitting on my draft for over a year.
I feel I should just hit the publish button and let it go.
Please forgive me for raising your curiosity and then abruptly dropping the ball without a warning.
This is what happens when the heart of a writer has so much to say but is struggling to find the best way to write it without boring the readers.
I assure you, though, if you continue to follow my writings, I shall keep finding a sentence somehow, in a paragraph somewhere, where I will keep telling you my holistic overview about love.
Or who knows, I might one day get bored or courageous enough, or vulnerable enough to cast myself bare on the pages of your screen.
Until then, I urge you to keep on cherishing a bittersweet memory of me, to continue reading and, in a way, keep expressing the lonely things your chemical heart whispers.
Many thanks for reading my perspective and giving feedback.
My fervent wish is for the personal growth of everyone and the success of all young professionals who put their hearts and souls into finding their purpose in life.
If you find this content insightful and would like to join my community of wonderful people, which I am trying to build, please subscribe and connect with me.
Copyright © Ekene Moses, 2025. All Rights Reserved.
I really enjoyed this and I actually really love how you right