Tags: Published On: Monday, June 10th, 2019 Comments: 1
Have you ever thought about how drastically what you relate to in life has changed over the years?
Let me explain.
The other day, when I drove to Los Feliz, traffic wasn’t bad; I was in a good mood, I was going to see the new house, and then to visit my friend Constance at her boutique, Weepah Way. I didn’t want the news to turn my smile into rage, so I played some music on Tidal — 30 Seconds to Mars. I have been a fan of the band since they came out, in the late 1990s, but I hadn’t listened to them for a while.
Earlier in the morning, I had played the song Hurricane for Ben, so in the car I listened to the entire album, This is War. Music played loud, I changed freeways twice, and as I paid closer and closer attention to the lyrics, it struck me that, in my 20s, I could relate to words such as:
“Honest to God I will break your heart
Tear you to pieces and rip you apart
Honest to God I will break your heart”
Night of the Hunter
The weather was beautiful. California had finally bathed in summer, and probably because of the bright surroundings, and of the beautiful life I have today, I felt safe going back in time to when it was winter in Italy, but also to when it was summer that felt like winter inside.
In the past, I had crushes on mostly wrong men. Throughout my formative years, and all the way through my early thirties, it was as if I had one task in life: finding boys who would break my heart and convincing myself I would be the one to change them, and make them ‘boyfriend material’.
How many of us have heard these words: “I am sorry, I am not in the right place for a relationship; it’s not you, it’s me…”? And how many of us have interpreted them as: “I am not in the right place, but with you this may change, you may be the one who saves me.”?
***
In the past, I would also relate to words like:
Enemy of mine
I’ll fuck you like the devil
Violent inside
Beautiful and evil
I’m a ghost, you’re an angel
One and the same
Just remains of an age
Stranger in a Strangers Land
Most of my relationships, from the moment I started drinking and using drugs, have been permeated by abuse of some kind.
“I think I have a problem with sex,”
I had told Diane, my therapist, a few days before.
“Something went wrong at a certain point in my life, and I can’t understand why it’s still affecting me now.”
We talked for an hour; she asked me questions, and with every answer a new piece of my past composed the picture that inspired this essay.
My very first serious relationship, the man with whom I moved in after barely a month of dating, and the man I began to use cocaine with, had started with a sudden, “passionate love”. But it had soon become a golden cage I couldn’t escape.
He was intense from the very first date, and I had misunderstood possession and arrogance for passion and self-confidence. His jealousy I had misunderstood for love, his wanting me to become a porn star in bed as fatal attraction. He introduced me to cocaine, that I loved from the very first line. I lost weight, I was high, and I could become whoever he wanted me to be.
Unlike most of my girlfriends, I had never been very popular with boys. I had always attributed it to being a little chubby, but whatever the case, when my boyfriend chose me, I thought I had finally arrived in life. I had found my way of being seen and considered special, approved. That’s why it took me almost four years to leave him; because I was terrified of not being enough alone, and because his power over me had made me feel important, even if it hurt and humiliated me.
Later in life, with more drugs, alcohol, and experience, things didn’t change much. I fell deeply in love with a goodhearted man who, like me, was an alcoholic. Unlike me, however, he was absolutely unavailable (and obsessed with his ex). Needless to say he became my lifeline during those years.
Unlike with my first boyfriend, this time I knew what I was doing, and I bought into the notion that the only way a man could love me and have sex with me, was if I became somebody I wasn’t. So I drank more, I got high, and I played the part so many times that I couldn’t remember what Alice looked like, what Alice liked, what Alice wanted.
When I moved to Los Angeles, and initial reason why I stayed in the Unites States, was another very unavailable man. I loved him so much that I went the farthest distance from myself in order to be with him. I was sober for most of the affair, this time. So it hurt more.
Alice had gone missing.
The reason why I quoted those songs is that, looking back, I am astonished at how much what resonates with me in life has changed: everything used to be black, dark, sexy, violent, extreme.
“One day you’ll like white,”
my friend Dina once told me. I was newly sober, and for some reason we were talking about the color of her bed sheets; I had sworn by black and purple satin until the last of my days.
When I met Ben, I didn’t know what I liked. For years I had become and thought of myself an extreme, damaged and unhinged sex doll at men’s disposal.
“Why am I afraid of being vulnerable with the one man who truly loves me?”
I had asked Diane.
And the answer to my question was to be found in the word vulnerable. In fact, for fear of being humiliated or abandoned, authentic vulnerability had not been an option in my past relationships.
***
I believe in nothing
Not the day and not the dark
I believe in nothing
But the beating of our hearts
Jared Letosings in 100 Suns.
What’s beautiful about music and songs is that they travel with us through time, and there will always be a verse that resonates with where we are at.
When what resonated with me was about a broken heart, pain, and wild sex, I dreamed of romance and fairy tales. I never thought that I could have that, and I never thought that I could listen to a song like 100 Suns and think:
“Oh my God, I have that, I have that man!”
“You were so brave talking to Diane about it,” Ben said to me when I told him I was writing this essay. We had just had a beautiful dinner with our friends Cynthia and Jim, and my life couldn’t be further away from the old darkness.
“Rather than brave,” I said as I put away the delicious chocolate cake they had brought, “I was tired of giving the past all the power.”
Those relationships and patterns, in fact, still have shackles on me. I can’t allow those ghosts to haunt my life; it wouldn’t be fair to me, because I am worth all the happiness and freedom I can have, and it wouldn’t be fair to Ben and Catherine. For they both deserve the best version of who I am and can become.
Just thinking about it, asking the question twice, makes me shiver.
I have a daughter today; I don’t know what she will go through, and I don’t know what music she will relate to in her 20s, but what I know is that I’ll be able to tell her, like my friend Dina said to me:
“One day you’ll like white, my love”.
Actually, I will say that in Italian:
“Un giorno ti piacerà il bianco, amore mio.
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Thank you for your courage, your honesty and for the hope your journey inspires.