Marriage, Its Obstacles, and The Way Back Forward

Teach me how to forget, replace the character set

Teach me how to unlearn a lesson… Jason Isbell sings.

I am in my car, in the Tarzana Post Office parking lot. Catherine is at home with Elis, the new addition to our family, a blessing — her nanny. It’s hot, the only parking spot I could find was in the sun, but I don’t really care. I feel irritable, frustrated, numb to the beauty, to the richness, to the excitement around me. These days, I seem to be going from feeling too much to feeling nothing at all; it’s been a challenging time, and whether it’s postpartum depression, “regular depression”, Wellbutrin withdrawals, or something else, it has been going on for months, and it’s been affecting my wellbeing and my marriage.

Ben and I had another argument today. We have been arguing a lot lately, and it feels as if the distance that has come between us only diminishes with some kind of confrontation, for a fleeting moment, before a greater distance sets in.  Have you ever felt this way in a relationship? Love is there, and yet nothing else seems to be, no passion, no kindness, no patience, no pleasure. All I seem to want is for time to go by, and for life to distractedly brush against me without too much contact, without burdening, without emotional involvement.   

A week ago we went on a date; it was the first one in a while that didn’t somewhat include business. 

We went to the Greek Theater and saw Jason Isbell. I had never been there, and the show was one of the most beautiful I had ever been to, one of those that leave a trace, one of those that make you want to listen to the songs for days, in the car, in the shower, after dinner, before a party. 

The night was lovely. We were there with friends, the breeze of Los Feliz was pleasantly warm, and the sky at dusk the perfect shade of late summer in L.A. I could have seen that picture a thousand times on the cover of Sunset Magazine, sweet familiarity, the quintessential portrait of California, home, perfection.

Before the band hit the first note, we went backstage to say hi to Jason, and to to his wife Amanda [Shires]. The following day their daughter would turn three, and the bubbly love the little girl spread in the air like glitter and sprinkles, looked to me the seamless continuation of the leathery, rock ‘n’ roll, and sexy one between her parents. We left backstage and walked to our seats; the lights were still on, so we didn’t have to ruin the beautiful sunset with the artificial shine of our phones. We sat down, and after a few minutes the band walked on stage, Jason and Amanda at the center; they looked at each other and started playing.

The first song was a verse in, and memories came back to me. I remembered my first Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers show in San Francisco, in 2014; it was the first time Ben flew me out, before I’d stay on the tour until the end, before I’d move in, and marry him in Malibu less than a year later. I was very proud of my independence, so I didn’t want him to pay for a limo. “I’ll take the shuttle,” I had told him. It took me almost three hours to get from the airport to the Four Seasons, where the band was staying, and I remember him waiting for me in the lobby with red roses in his hands. He was handsome, with his Panama hat and dark shirt.

Memories kept coming back, backstage at Red Rocks, that same year, Madison Square Garden, the laughs with Mike in the limo as we entered the venue, when he and Ben made fun of me with the strongest southern accents I had ever heard. Memories came back, more and more shows, electronic cigarettes, grapefruit LaCroix, cities I had only dreamed of, the Author’s Suite in Chicago, New Orleans, Nashville, Seattle, Tulsa. I remembered an animal-print scarf I had bought at a thrift store, a kiss in the wind, and a selfie he had sent to our friend Julia. I remembered having brunch at Nespresso, on Market Street in San Francisco, and then again in Boston, on Newbury St. I remembered the Hypnotic Eye laminate, hot coffee on the plane that would take us from one city to the other, waking up in the most comfortable beds, room service when I didn’t care if the eggs were a little too oily, the Lowell Hotel, lavender creme brûle at Mon Petit Café, in Manhattan, hours and hours at the museum, and crying before Van Gogh’s Starry Night. Memories hurt when I hoped they would heal.

Song after song, I was hypnotized by not only Jason’s songwriting, grace, humor, and kindness, but also by the way he and Amanda looked into each other’s eyes, and by the harmonious rhythm to which their perfectly matching voices intertwined. I loved the fun they were having, the way they smiled at each other, partners in crime, friends, lovers. “We used to be that couple,” I thought. And all of a sudden I felt sad. Ben and I were holding hand, but I didn’t feel safe.  

And the couple in the corner of the bar

Have traveled light and clearly traveled far

She’s got nothing left to learn about his heart

They’re sitting there a thousand miles apart

Baby let’s not ever get that way

I’ll say whatever words I need to say

I’ll throw rocks at your window from the street

And we’ll call ourselves the flagship of the fleet

 

                                                                                                     Flagship, Jason Isbell

I am still in the post office parking lot. A tear falls on my iPhone, where I am typing this. A grip holds my heart hostage and tightens up my stomach. I still remember everything, from the very first kiss on a Saturday evening after gelato and a barbecue; I still remember everything, but I don’t seem to remember how to go back there, go back there from here. 

“What happened to us?” I thought. I stayed in the car for a few minutes before going inside to mail my two packages, one to the UK, and one to Italy. 

Ben and I used to be the couple that always held hands; we used to go to the gym together almost every day: “Oh, you are still in the honeymoon phase,” I recall Ben’s manager saying a while back. I remember that day as if it were yesterday: we were in Ben’s car, and we were heading to Equinox, our gym back then. It was 2016, we were getting on the 101 N from the 405 (I think we were returning from Beverly Hills where we just had doctors appointments). We were not “still in the honeymoon phase”, we lived in a constant honeymoon. It’s 2018 now, my workout has changed (I do follow the Tracy Anderson Method), we haven’t been to the gym together in ages, we are moving, and we’ll never again go to the Woodland Hills Equinox. 

We used to drive the Golden Gate Bridge, pull over and take photos in the misty wind; we ate quiche Lorraine and drank too much coffee, Ben drank Coke Zero, I smoked. We stayed in our white, soft bathrobes until noon, and we made love as if it were always the first time. We used to go to museums, walk by the beach and eat fish tacos in the sand, we used to buy a whole roast chicken from Whole Foods for dinner, watch Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies, and fall asleep happy — we were us. 

“What changed since 2014?” my therapists asked a few weeks ago, during our session. We were taking about my depression, my nightmares, the lack of desire, and how my phobias are getting in the way of my life. 

“In 2014 I was fearless and independent; I am a different person today, I am afraid of everything,” I said without too much thinking. 

In 2014, I lived in a one-bedroom apartment on Beachwood Drive, in the Hollywood Hills. On the second floor and with no AC, I’d sleep with the window open in my bedroom, and I had no alarm, only a fantastic neighbor, Flipper, always ready to help me in case of need or emergency. I had insomnia, and I used to wake up in the middle of the night and smoke a cigarette by the kitchen window; I’d fall back asleep looking at the Hollywood Sign from afar, and then I would wake up again at 6 a.m. to go to work, one of the three jobs I had to pay rent and give some money back to my parents. I had no financial security, only $500 in my bank account. And yet I felt as secure as I had ever been. I worked non stop, I had ideas, created a podcast, and wrote a book. I was sober and working a program, I was brave, I was of service, I was often lonely, and tempted by a heroin addict who lived downstairs. I was having an affair with a married man I loved deeply and who I knew would never leave his wife for me, and yet I never lost hope. I was self-sufficient, proud, and resourceful. 

Today I am married to the man of my dreams, we have a beautiful daughter, and we are financially blessed. But I am haunted and paralyzed by phobias — rape, burglars, loss. Today I sleep seven hours a night, and yet I have the worst nightmares, and I wake up in physical pain.  

“The nightmares became worse when I moved in with Ben,” I told my therapists. 

And began to wonder why, today, I need to be protected. Why do I feel I need to be saved? And saved from what? 

We didn’t really talk about how Ben has changed, since 2014, because it is not for me to discuss or write about it; I am the only character I can freely dig into. 

When I was little, I used to look into houses illuminated from afar, wondering and envying what other families had, did, felt. When I moved to Los Angeles and felt lonely, I would drive through Hancock Park and dream of a life I didn’t have. And I did the same at the Greek Theater, when Ben and I were on our date that had nothing to do with business, that night we saw Jason Isbell on stage with his wife Amanda. I had “looked through their window illuminated from afar” and I had wished that light, their light, could shine on my stage.

I am finishing this essay on Thursday, September 13th. 

I think I’m dumb

Or maybe just happy

Think I’m just happy

My heart is broke

But I have some glue

Help me inhale

And mend it with you

We’ll float around

And hang out on clouds

Then we’ll come down

And have a hangover, have a hangover

Nirvana’s Dumb has just played on the radio, and my memory, this time, has gone back to the many afternoons spent with my friend Paola in Pilaz, a small village in the Italian Aosta Valley. 

We loved Nirvana, and I remember it well, the cigarettes and raspberries, the slightly uphill path to the chapel, the wooden bench, Dr. Martens at our feet, distressed jeans and a military tote. We were 18. A few months ago, Paola and I reunited and had dinner with our husbands and daughters. We are about to turn 37, and we are still the same young girls turned women. 

What does this memory have to do with my marriage? 

It is a memory. It is the memory of something that was, something that will never come back, and yet that still is, evolved, changed on the surface, but the very same at its core. It is a memory I miss, just like the one of me and Ben in 2014.

And that’s what Nirvana and Paola have to do with my marriage; the core of who I was has always been the same. I can’t have 18 year-old Paola and me back, but I have my friendship with her, different from what it was, special for what it is. So I can’t have a replica of what 2014 was with Ben, but I can dust off the very core of it that has never changed — love — now, in 2018.