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Joyce Jenje Makwenda Inside Out
How time flies? The festive season is over, we are nine days into 2016. The festive season was the time to rest, feast, to be with family, friends and loved ones. It was time to take it easy from busy schedules and to relax.

This is the time when partners also took time to holiday, just to be alone; to have fun without any disturbances.

Love was in the air for a number of couples/partners because they are a little bit relaxed.

This was also the time when some of those who are single found love because of mingling in different forums and also parties which are hosted by family and friends.

Weddings were galore and I have heard and met a number of couples/partners who started their relationships through weddings of friends or relatives.

Some of the relationships are short-term, while some are long-term and they end up in marriage and in turn invite their friends and relatives to weddings.

A friend (Farai) who got her husband at a wedding and lost him under painful circumstances just after five years into the marriage decided that she would not attend any wedding under the sun.

She also stopped “loving”, she could not get into a relationship because she did not trust any man anymore. She was hurt.

Her outgoing character changed, she became isolated, but friends kept encouraging her to look at life in a positive way and love again, but she would say she had loved once and that was it.

In every group of friends there is that “crazy one” who will just say what they want.

(Tarisai) would tell her off about this “loving once” obsession of hers. “Tibvire. Love once, love once rwatova rumbo — chiyi ichocho kuzvipanicha iye hupenyu hwake hurikufamba.” Nonsense!

One day Tarisai dragged Farai to a gig where she was invited. At first she was not for the idea, but it turned out that she thoroughly enjoyed herself and she was on the dance floor more than all her friends, from then it started dawning on her that there is still life out there.

Yes, she realised that she was punishing herself and conditioning herself to loving once in her lifetime. She wanted her mind to believe that there was no life after what she had gone through.

I have seen many people struggling with the question “how many times can I love”.

Most of these people have encountered not so pleasant encounters in their past relationships. When that relationship failed they failed to move on.

Most of this attitude of failing to move on after failed relationship has to do with various factors, some of them — why has it happened to me, not wanting to let go, wanting to be in control and not getting advice.

One can love more than once in their life time and forever and should not punish themselves because of an individual who might be going through their own problems and changing partners to satisfy their selfish ego.

Because of a change of her mindset, Farai found love and she loved again, she then realised that her former husband was not the only man in this world as Tarisai had repeatedly told her, but she wanted to believe that he was the only man in this world.

Tarisai also used to tell her that it was a blessing that she had left this man.

Farai realised that it was true when the man divorced the woman whom she had married after her who was actually her friend (Netsayi) and who had been one of the bridesmaid at her wedding.

Farai was told of a scene where this woman — Netsayi — fought with one of Farai’s former husband’s girlfriend and asked her what it was that she wanted from a man who had nothing, who was as good as a little boy — regarding her cooking stick.

The girlfriend asked her (Netsayi) how she stayed with him for all the years she was with him if that was a problem. Netsayi had finally found her match.

Anyway, it was real cheap of Netsayi to say such things. It is also advised that this man stops looking for confidence by being a womaniser. Recently, a man in the UK, Antony Smith, celebrated being small and this has helped a number of men to know that size is not everything. He has been with his wife for years and they are happy (Ant Smith for Mailonline).

When Farai was asked about that by Tarisai she did not want to entertain it because even if she had left the marriage in painful circumstances she had truly loved her husband and she was not going to speak ill of him to that extent like what Netsayi was doing.

Netsayi had gone into the relationship for wrong reasons; one of them was just romantic love and yet with Farai it was what I can call universal love and romantic love followed.

Universal love is explained by Universal Conscious as; “Universal love is conscious and loving at the same time. It is also known as universal consciousness or cosmic consciousness.

“Universal love is a unification of all aspects of essence. When you experience universal love you understand the action of love. An action is loving when it has all aspects of essence. Whatever is needed is present — and in the correct balance — depending on the situation.”

“Romantic love everyone knows about. It is that wonderful falling in love feeling — where nothing else matters. Giddy, floating on air, life has never been better feeling. You only live until the next moment you can be with your Lover.” (Nanz-True Love in “Community Author”)

My muzukuru shocked many in the family when his wife decided to have a “good time”. She actually left him and when she came back she was not well; she was HIV positive.

He looked after her and many family members were not happy with his decision. They would ask him what he was gaining from looking after a person who had decided to go out with other men.

Family members could not even understand why he was worrying himself with a woman whom he did not even have children with.

He was then a young man of around mid 30s, some 10 years ago and most of his age group, his friends, were also worried why he had decided to look after someone who had once ditched him.

One day he visited me and said; “Ambuya, I know that people are not happy with what I am doing — looking after my wife after what she did to me, but Ambuya if I dump her who is going to look after her. I also made a vow — in death, sickness and in happiness, so I am honouring that vow.”

He meant what he said. I had been asked by some relatives to inquire if under those conditions mumba yekumberi mberi kwakanga kuchiri nechaiitika, (was the recreation room still functioning) and also what about his health; was he not putting himself in danger?

As I went round and round trying to ask the question, he got it and said, “Ambuya I am an adult and I know how to deal with a situation like this. I know the family loves me and I appreciate it very much, but I am an adult and I will be fine.”

I could see that he truly loved his wife who at this time had gone blind because she had left it for too long.

He would take her to the hospital, to doctors, for physiotherapy — everything that was supposed to be done, he was there.

When she died he spent some years alone and later remarried and he still has the love for his second wife that he had for his first wife. They have been blessed with children. He did not stop loving. His love is truly universal love and romantic love comes second. Universal love becomes the foundation.

Live life and love and do not punish yourself because of some misfortune in your life not to love and do not promise yourself that you will never love again. There is no need to do that.

You can love as many times as you want. You can love forever. Let it be one of your New Year’s resolutions. Tell yourself “I will love again”, love again if you had stopped loving. If you know of a friend who has stopped loving, help them to love again.

Have a Happy and Blessed 2016 and love and love and love.

• Joyce Jenje Makwenda can be contacted on [email protected]