The L in December is for love. I mean the romantic kind of love.
Couples online posting matching Christmas pyjamas, people getting engaged here and there and everywhere, vacations, Christmas-themed shows and I should mention the need for my extended family to celebrate the occasional end-of-the-year wedding. There is no other month that comes close to December. Unfortunately, I tend to miss out on all the December fun because I am in medical school. However, I always settle for bringing the fun to my apartment by planning something that could pass as a good time in December.
It was in the 4th year of medical school that I began my L in December story.
I was hopelessly in love with a man. Dark-skinned with a handsome baby face and a smile that made me pool down there. Average height, but again when you are under, your spec doesn’t come into play. I was so into him. He occupied my every thought and filled my stomach with butterflies. We had been together for about 5 months and had been friends for more than a year.
Although I usually celebrated December with my family, that December, I planned to spend as much time as I could with him before he went home to celebrate with his family. And it started off well, we binged several seasons of Game of Thrones and played card games and I won every single one of them (maybe he let me win, but who cares). We spent the nights in each other’s arms, and everything was going perfectly – it was a December miracle. But something was different one day. It started when I realised his attention was somewhere else, with someone else, and I was scared to probe, to ask questions, to demand what was going on. Why was I not the focus of his attention? My fears subsided when he invited me to his hometown so that I wouldn’t spend Christmas alone. It was perfect again – however, the harmony did not last because I asked who he was going to introduce me as when I meet his family.
He couldn’t give a direct answer.
He kept saying words, saying things, making hand gestures and smiling in between to distract me but I couldn’t see past the realisation that I was in that relationship alone. He eventually left to be with his family, and I didn’t hear from him throughout the holidays, and he didn’t keep his promise of spending the new year with me. That Christmas, amidst all the fireworks, concerts, and club nights, I spent the holidays holed up in my room waiting for something exciting to happen. Maybe I should add that in this pathetic story, I went out with a friend to see Sugar Rush. I would also have thrown a party if I found money that I didn’t work for to at least celebrate the new year but in my situation, all I felt that was the logical thing to do is to disappear to a country where no one knows my name.
Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I had agreed to travel to his hometown.
How much would have changed?
Would I be getting a girlfriend allowance? What about the first time he meets my family? Do I have to defend our love before my parents and let them know there is no one else for me? Would I be picking out the colour for my Asoebi by my final year of medical school?
Anyways, by February of the next year, this same man was in a new relationship, and I was hit with the card “I think I led you on”. The end.
Not the end though because another Christmas came, and another L in December story begun to write itself.
That year I had planned to go home to celebrate with my family – we haven’t had time to go on a family vacation since the madness of the pandemic. I had a new lover, and this time, I ensured I didn’t deceive myself that we were in a relationship. It was a full-blown situationship and he had made it very clear nothing known as a serious relationship could happen to the both of us. I was okay with the arrangement too.
I was resting in his arms one day, telling him of my plans to travel with family when he suggested I stay back and spend the holidays with him. It sounded like a good idea. We would go see the movies, have a big dinner party, and just chill together after. “We should learn to spend time with each other,” he said. “You know medical school is ending soon, we won’t have much time to spend together.”
So, I did what every non-self-respecting hopeless romantic would do; I made up an excuse and cancelled my family vacation plans. To show the extent of my clownery, I would have taken time to plan our itinerary for the holidays, but I was serious about medical school and had a couple of tests to prepare for, so I didn’t. My plan was to download as many movies as I could and have a home cinema experience. One thing I am grateful for is the both of us choosing to be home buddies and spend the holidays inside rather than going out for concerts, games nights and parties. But just two days before Christmas, and with the impossibility of booking a flight home before Christmas, I received a call.
Take a guess, dear reader.
Yes, he switched up on me and went home to his family, without even asking me what I was going to do. So, there was no dinner party, no movies, and definitely no chilling together like he mentioned. That Christmas was even worse than the ones that came before. He called days later to tell me our friendship had a lot going wrong with it and he wasn’t sure we could continue being friends.
So here we are again, close to another December.
I am in my final year of medical school, and I still don’t have the love life that I imagined that I would at this time. It seems like I have signed a contract with life that December would surely be detty. I mean it literally and in a way that will never be satisfying to me. After all, for every detty December, there must be a clean-up crew, and that is where I find myself, sad and alone, cleaning up the broken pieces of my fragile heart.
There are no weddings announced for December in my family. That is partly because the next set of people to get married are my immediate family members. And as the first daughter with no love prospects, it is going to be impossible for there to be a wedding. My father has called to ask if I would be available this December so that he can plan a family trip this year. My mother wants to go to Ghana, my older brother is pushing for Dubai, and I have no idea what I am going to do.
But you should know I have a new lover. I can’t explain what drew me to this person. We don’t have any spark, and I had no butterflies in my stomach or any other sign that pointed to anything relating to developing feelings for this person. He wanted someone to be with and I needed a companion for the holidays. I just wanted someone to be with me. That is my L in December story.
Please tell me you get the gist. There is no L in December, so there is no love for me. Even if I tend to ditch my family for my lovers, I have decided that this time, in this blessed December, I am going to visit my parents and stay home with my family. Who knows, maybe I will get to go to a concert this year, meet someone new, go on a vacation, or sleep all through the festivities. No one can tell at this point.
One thing I won’t do is centre my plans around a man unless I want to take an L.
