Month: July 2017

When I Say I Love You

So I listened to this interesting video today And the rabbi essentially makes the point that many times, when we say we love someone (or something), we actually mean that we love what that person (or thing) does for us. E.g. I love fried chicken. So I kill a chicken and fry it. Does that sound like love of chicken or love of the taste of fried chicken? He extends the analogy to “falling in love”. When a woman falls in love, does she love the man or she loves how he makes her feel? It sounds cold, doesn’t it? I love this man because we make (or people say we make) a cute couple, and we share mutual interests, and have compatible life philosophies, and it makes financial sense to me to split living expenses and child-rearing costs? Bonus points for the fact that I enjoy his company and the gratification that comes with being married in a society that places value on these things. Fish love. And I’m wondering if fish-love is such a …

What’s In A Name? Living Two Lives.

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Romeo & Juliet. Someone called me “Jennifer” today. It’s been a long time since I answered to that name. It’s been a long time since I introduced myself as “Jennifer”. 14 years to be exact. It’s typical to have a first name and a middle name. In my family, we took our Esan names first, and then our baptismal names. Odd, when you think that our parents did the exact opposite. Their baptismal names first, and then their native names. My husband’s family did the same thing. Baptismal names first, and then native names. It’s a thing of curiosity how we choose which takes priority. For the first 9 years of my life, I used both names interchangeably. Osemhen. Jennifer. At home I was mostly Osemhen, except for a few aunts who preferred to call me Jennifer. In primary school, it was a 70/30 split. The teachers called me Jennifer. Some of my classmates called me Osemhen, especially …