the ache of yearning

how to hold a hunger that feels like a sin (spoiler: don’t)

I have days when my longing for love feels unbearably heavy. On those days, my exasperation is made evident through my constant sighs. It’s not just about the longing it’s the sadness that comes with it.

That kind of sadness doesn’t fade with sleep or distraction; it lingers. It sits heavy in my chest, pressing against my ribs as if trying to carve out space for itself. It’s the weight of yearning, of wanting something that cannot be forced into existence.

how it feels being a yearner in a world full of fakers

I must acknowledge that I am loved. When I say this, it’s not an attempt to convince myself with empty affirmations it is the truth. I am a child of God. I am loved, I feel loved, and I love others. My friends, my brothers, my sisters, my parents, my extended family even those who barely know me seem to admire me in some way.

Yet, the love I sometimes yearn for, especially when PMS rears its jarring head, is a romantic love that often feels as though it only exists in films (and not Tyler Perry ones). A love like Jay and Michael Kyle’s in My Wife and Kids. Their marriage had its flaws, but that was the beauty of it. They were simply two people who understood each other, and when they occasionally spoke different emotional languages, they always found their way back to common ground the foundation of their love. (Like when they literally thought the other was speaking Chinese in Series 1, Episode 8.)

they were so annoyingly funny

I watch the world around me, love on display in its many forms: soft glances exchanged across rooms, hands finding each other in crowded spaces, intense eye contact over restaurant tables. Quiet, instinctual intimacy. And I wonder what are the odds? What are the odds that I, someone who craves depth, longevity, and truth in love, will find it?

If I believed embarrassment was real, I might say it’s almost embarrassing to admit how much I want it.

We’ve been conditioned to act like we don’t, to pretend that the desire for romantic love is something to suppress, something shameful that should be neatly packed away in favour of “self-love” and “doing me.” I hear it all the time:
“Just focus on yourself. It will come when you least expect it.”

How convenient it must be to dismiss my longing with a platitude. How easy it is to tell someone to be patient when you aren’t the one carrying the weight of that yearning. It’s frustrating. The truth is, we aren’t meant to do life alone. I will forever shout that from the rooftops. Connection isn’t some frivolous, pathetic desire it’s a fundamental part of existence.

Even at our most primitive, survival depended on community. People protected each other, relied on each other, shared warmth, food, and knowledge. “Such partners are often so tightly connected at the roots that sometimes they even die together.” That’s not a James Baldwin quote about soulmates, it’s from The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben. The book explains how trees understand the importance of community, which brings me to my point: even trees, rooted and immovable, send messages through their underground networks, warning of danger, offering support. Trees know they are not meant to exist in isolation.

So why do we tell each other that we should be fine with being alone indefinitely? Why is longing treated as something to “fix” or “work through” rather than something to honour?

I think back to past situationships, relationships, and dates with men who occupied space in my life without truly being there. I think about how I once believed that breadcrumbed affection and meaningless “you good” texts was better than nothing, that occasional convenience was something to be grateful for. I thank God I have since built a higher sense of self-esteem and respect. My frontal lobe developed, and so did my common sense.

Seriously, dealing with men after 25 just feels like this:

I wonder and wonder, ruminate and look inward, only to realise that many of my romantic encounters were baseless. My incessant need to control how others perceived me was a barrier to building authentic relationships. How could they appreciate me when I wasn’t even showing up as myself? More often than not, they didn’t like me for who I was, but rather, for how I made them feel about themselves. I don’t want a love that makes me feel like an afterthought. I don’t want to be merely tolerated, accommodated, or kept around for convenience. I will not settle for that, even if it offers temporary comfort in the form of teaspoons of affection.

me looking at the bare minimum being offered to me

We may be hungry, but we can manage our hunger.

I want to be chosen intentionally, undoubtedly, and without hesitation.

For now, I will sit with the ache and cherish it because it reminds me that the love I seek exists within myself and others. I wouldn’t even be able to desire it if it weren’t conceivable. It is calling to me because it is meant to be part of my story.

So, I will keep belting out D’Angelo songs and rewatching Sex and the City while thinking about my own Mr Big. That show, for all its flaws, understands yearning. Carrie Bradshaw spent six series and two films chasing, losing, and finding love again trying to make sense of why some people slip through our fingers while others stay. I have always related to her introspection, the way she overanalyses love, and the way she yearns so deeply it almost consumes her. Sometimes, I watch and think about how much of my own romantic history feels like fragments of the show: misunderstandings, fleeting passion, the exhaustion of caring too much for people who don’t always care enough in return.

Anyway, this isn’t about Carrie’s yearning and, in turn, her yamhead behaviour, but rather that what we want; what we so intensely crave, whether it’s success in love or our careers is completely attainable, and that’s why we want it so much.

What I want is already mine, and in this case, it’s an endless love.