BLESSED OR LUCKY By Blessing Peter Titus

I heard the knock, but I was engrossed in my sewing and didn’t want any distractions. The knock came again, this time a little louder, and then the doorbell, whoever it was, was clearly bent on seeing me.

As I shifted the curtains to open the door, I saw my Landlady’s daughters (Odi and Ify) through the glass. I let them in, and they told me they’d come to spend the day with me. Interesting, I said, but in my mind, I’d sworn and told them I wasn’t in the mood for visitors as I had a dress I wanted to finish. Anyways, thank God they couldn’t read minds because…

I offered them water as we sat in the living room and talked about random things. 30 long minutes later, when it was obvious that they meant it when they said they’d come to spend the day with me, I told them I had a dress I needed to finish. As I stood up to go back to my sewing room, they both followed. I’d wanted to tell them to stay back in the living room and watch TV, but somehow, the words didn’t form in my mouth.

As I sewed, Odi asked a question,

 “Auntie, how many boyfriends did you have before you married Uncle?”

 “Two, my ex and then my husband,” I responded.

Their wow , made me pause and turn to look at them. I returned the question, “how many boyfriends have you had since you started dating?” Their laughter and uneasy facial expressions were all the answer I needed. I then asked a different question, how dating is like, for them? Both of them gave answers that made my heart ache, for the deceit, pain and heartbreak they’d both endured. That was how our gist shifted to dating, marriage and sex for the rest of their stay, the dress I was making, left abandoned on the sewing machine.

When night fell, and they left, my mind was a jumble of thoughts about dating. I tried backtracking to when I started dating and the journey until meeting my husband and getting married. I asked myself if maybe I was just one of those “lucky people” who never got to meet the sons of the devil or if the practical guidance of my older ones helped me choose better. You see, long before I started dating, when boys had started writing me love letters and coming to the shop under the guise of buying something when they wanted to see me, my mother and siblings noticed. But Mama wasn’t one to discuss boys; her talk was always simple and straightforward: “if you want to marry, marry. Don’t be in my house and follow boys because the first time you sleep with a man, you’ll get pregnant, and if you try to abort, you’ll die.” That statement put a holy fear in me.

My sisters were more lenient and willing to listen to my questions. Aunty Babba even read the love letters I got and guided me on how to reply—not rudely, but clearly, letting the boys know I wasn’t ready to date. Ignoring them was never an option, she said, I needed to know how to say no to boys I don’t like, leaving no room for ambiguity. When I was ready to date, she told me 2 things that stuck:

1. Knowing what you don’t want in a relationship is more important than knowing what you want.
2. Never double date. If it’s not working, break up honourably and clearly before getting into another relationship.

My sisters are my rock, they never just dished advice, they drew practical instances from their lives, showing me the results of right or wrong decisions. This made me extra careful not to take their openness for granted, and I promised myself that with God’s help, I wasn’t going to repeat any mistakes they’d made. I listened keenly when they talked and watched Singles and Married with Pastor Bimbo Odukoya with them. These, alongside lessons from church and relationship books I read, formed most of my perspective on dating and marriage.

If you ask me if I’m lucky or blessed as it pertains to love relationships, I’ll say it’s a bit of both; I’m blessed because I have older ones who were intentional in guiding me and showing me the right path to take. God also helped by bringing his sons my way. I’m lucky because youthful exuberance and peer pressure to date didn’t override lessons from my sisters and lead me to date anyone who asked. So yeah, you need a mix of blessedness and luck to succeed in romantic relationships because over the years, I’ve come to realise that like every other thing in life, relationships are not guaranteed; you can do everything right and still have terrible experiences.

I said a prayer for them and my single friends, too, that God will lead them to his sons and daughters. And to you reading this, the prayer extends to you as well.