GETTING SETTLED

  

It is early Monday morning. The lovers hurdled up close, sniffing each other’s early morning scents. She is quiet, thinking. The conversation with an old friend still played out in her head. ‘Get settled’ he had told her. He had intended the meaning to mean ‘get married’ she had argued with him. Getting settled is many other things and not just ties to another through oaths of fidelity and eternal love, she’d said.  Get settled? What the hell does that mean really? And why do people always intend it to mean the same thing? Getting married these days is as easy as going to court and signing legal papers 3 months after…

The last thought about the ease of getting married tickled her. She knew she didn’t believe her own argument. Getting married was not an easy decision for her. She can’t even decide if she even wants to be called ‘Mrs this’ yet…

‘I had a chat with a friend just before you woke up’ she said. He is still half asleep but he heard her faintly.

‘Huh?’

‘I said I had a chat with a friend earlier, just before I woke you. He said something I didn’t agree with, he said  ‘getting settled’ was getting married, I think people always misrepresent that phrase, getting married doesn’t transfix you to a town or country, plus, for someone to be settled, he or she must have fulfillment in every area of his/her life, there must be emotional, financial, spiritual and physical stability first. Marriage is like a contract, merely getting tied, in my opinion, is not stability’

‘But getting married presupposes that you have all the security that you just mentioned, no? Once marriage and children happens, one does not have the freedom to up and leave a city, job, or location as single people do. It means your every decision and or security is tied to another now, hence, ‘settled down'. He finished.

‘But that is exactly what a committed relationship does to you, no? Once you are in a relationship, like we are, our decisions are still not impromptu anymore, you still consider the other in every step you take, still settled in the sense that you mean… you are settled with me aren’t you?’ her  voice is smaller now, almost a whisper. He heard her. He heard the ting in her voice as well, but wishing not to lie to her, wishing to tell her what he had always wanted to tell her since she started asking him questions about his family, about wanting to meet his mother, he replied;

‘No babe. We are not settled. We are not secure with each other’.

She heard him in her silence. She knew what his words meant too. She was going to leave his city to another country on a job transfer soon. He had told her she was very independent of him. She made her own decisions and almost always just informs him. They both knew it was going to be different once they part ways for the 16 months that she was going to away. They had been together for about a year now. It was necessary that he told her what he had always wanted to say…

She realized what she must do now. It wouldn’t be an easy decision but she must make it.

© Igali Tukokumo Conquer. 2012