Desire or Duty?

Up until the day before the wedding, I kept asking myself whether I was getting married because I wanted to, or because I felt I needed to.

Lately, I have begun to question how many of my desires are actually mine.

The older I get, the harder it becomes to tell.

Society hands you a script early in life. You know the sequence. Go to school. Get a good job. Get married. Have children. Whatever happens in between is largely your business, as long as you arrive at the major milestones on time.

You do not really understand just how unsettling this can be until it is your turn. Growing up, I never questioned the sequence, or even thought to. In fact, I reinforced it in my own mind. I used to pity aunties who were not married by a certain age and prayed for those I assumed could not have children. Little did I know there’s more beyond the eye.

Seven months ago, I walked down the aisle with the man I said yes to in my third year at university. Up until the day before the wedding, I kept asking myself whether I was getting married because I wanted to, or because I felt I needed to. They are two very different things.

It was not cold feet. It was not doubt about him. It was doubt about myself. I wanted to know whether I was making a choice that was truly mine, or simply arriving at the next sequence in the script society had laid out for me.

Seven months later, I have my answer. I really wanted to marry him. What I feel is not butterflies or the dizzy excitement people often describe. It is something far more assuring. I want my own person. Someone I want to build a home and future with. I gave up chasing butterflies a long time ago, and for good reason. I found something more. My gee for life.

Now, I am slowly entering the stage where people begin to glance at my stomach with curious eyes, unable to ask the question on their minds. I find it amusing.

A couple of years ago, I was misdiagnosed with fibroids. I cried harder that day than I had in years. The last time I remember crying that much was after I was scammed of ₦60,000, money my brother had given me to prepare for NYSC camp.

Looking back now, I still wonder why I cried so much. Was it out of fear that I would not be able to have a child, and ultimately disappoint society? Forgive me, at the time, I genuinely believed that fibroids meant I would never be able to have children.

Every so often, I come across pictures of beautiful babies, or I spend time with my niece and nephew. I adore them. Their saucer-like eyes, cheeky smiles and delightful little voices have a way of making the world feel lighter. Moments like those make me think that perhaps I do want children someday. Then another question quietly follows. Is that desire truly mine, or is it another echo of society I have always been taught to want?

Even now, I cannot honestly say I know the answer. My parents did an amazing job of raising us; God forbid I fall short of the standard they set.

I think that some questions cannot be answered by thinking about them. They can only be answered by living. Marriage taught me that some decisions become clearer after you have made them.

Perhaps parenthood will be the same.

Maybe adulthood is not about following a script and collecting milestones as quickly as possible. Maybe it is about going slowly and collecting your answers along the way.