Monday, September 22, 2008

Old Ghost


In less than ten days I'll be a married man, and, truth be told, there is a reason loneliness, isolation and forsakenness have been a recurring theme in my blog lately. This is an issue that's become prominent in my life all of a sudden, and I've been doing my best to avoid it. Silly me.

I have never been able to talk to any of my old people. My father, poor old man, is a plain loser in life. Spent many nights of his adult and elderly years and much of his physical health playing cards with Rotarians and Freemasons, but was never invited into their closed spaces and feast in the top of the social Pyramid. His only advice to me ever was, "nobody needs you, and you need these people who make you feel so miserable". In these exact words, albeit in Portuguese, repeated over and over again, even when it didn't apply. My mother has always had the maturity of Paris Hilton's chihuahua, and anything I let slip to her, she'd spread around the very toxic neighbourhood we used to live in, and in three days, my life was nightmare. Once, I was living on my own for a few months and I made the mistake of letting her know over the phone that I had got a cold. She immediately air-mailed to me a list of blood tests her gynecologist prescribed to me, and I had four bottles of blood drawn from me early in the morning, with nothing in my stomach and a heavy headache. Because I had a cold and was in perfect health, my body naturally raised the defenses. The following week, the news in Rio were that I had Leukemia. No wonder my social life has always been one nightmare after another, and lately, the ultimate challenge for me.

We all know how the story goes, and here is how the story went: I got engaged to a guy who's been trying to change me from day one I stepped into HIS country, HIS house, HIS social circle, HIS life, all to fit HIS tastes. And then he convinces me I'm too arrogant to admit I'm wrong. I've given up everything I could afford to give up already, and I'm fine with it, but I really couldn't get back to eating meat again, and now he's determined to make me feel miserable, really miserable, and of course guilty, too, everytime we go out and there's anything food ever mentioned.

His evolution has been very positive, very impressive and very welcome. I'm thankful that now he doesn't make a scene when I want to caress him during the day anymore. But I can't help feeling stifled sometimes, when I tell him, for instance, that I am hungry, and he with a flicker and a flash and a heavy whiff of ash suddenly thrusts, shrouded in the smoke he keeps making: "You see, if you were more flexible..." And then he talks about Morocco and some other muslim, homophobic shithole I don't have the money, the papers or the wits to visit anytime soon.

I swear I only went to the meeting with his gang tonight because I was too lonely here in the flat, and none of the new friends I've made here was available for a walk or something. And my webfriends weren't online to talk to me.

In moments like these, unresolved ghosts from the past resurface. And I'm exhausted of dealing with them all by myself by now. I know it was a stupid move to quit the gay therapy group since they came back from the Summer, but I need to cull the projects that currently cost money, and that was the next in the list of nice-with-a-price. But I need to address this issue. I need to fix myself and be able to actually have a social life outside the Internet.

Image: "Loneliness 7", by Karol Petres.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi how are you? I like your blog and would like to become friends are you up to it?
Come and visit my site sometime, and please comment. If you do, I will do the same thanks,
and take care.
Jesse

The Crown Prince said...

Awen...I don't know how to say this…I know that we are pretty much kind and loving words and an image on a screen to each other...but I feel I need to take a chance and risk crossing a line.
Is what you have with him really love? I’ve read so many of your words about him. I have to admit that nothing you have said about him sounds like love to me, it sounds more like obligation. And you are set to marry him in less than 10 days? Awen, my heart is breaking and hurts so much for you right now. I am so scared for you.
I have never experienced real and true love in my life, but I know what it is. As I said, I have read your writings, I can’t find any real statements about love between the two of you. He shouldn’t cringe or “allow” you to caress him during the day. That offends me that he is like that to you. If I was with someone, we would hold hands, we would caress each other, we would show affection to each other whenever we could or the mood took us. It wouldn’t matter to us if we were in public or not. It wouldn’t matter what time of day. All that would matter is that we were together. I feel that you are one of his pretty little accessories in his eyes.
This isn’t the first time that you’ve mentioned how he has and still tries to change you. That very notion infuriates me like no other. How can someone say, “I love you, now change everything about you”? What should be a partnership and 2 becoming 1 is more like a boss and an assistant were 2 are fully 1 and 1. The man that is your true love should look upon you as if he is looking at the most perfect piece of art. The only change that he should ever ask of you is moving from where you are and into his arms.
Awen, as I read your blog tears formed in my eyes. If I were to try to talk right now, I would lose it and burst in to tears. Awen, you are light and you are good. I know that you have so much love in your heart and deserve to be treated with so much love in return.
I feel that I am really crossing so many lines and need to stop. But before I do, I need to risk one more question. Is this really the man you are meant to spend the rest of your life with?
Like I said, I do love you, and I do see you as a great friend. I hope that this hasn’t changed or hurt that. But if it means I have to hurt you to save you, then that is a risk I am willing to take.
Love,
Nathan

Awen said...

Nathan, telling the truth will never tear us apart. Ever. Quite on the contrary, it'll bring us together.

That said, I do understand where you're coming from, but really, it's a bit more complicated and a lot more simple than what jumps to the eye. I understand that you only has my version (and even perhaps no more than some part of my version), and also there's the everyday life thing. When you move in with a guy, new things you didn't pay attention to before become paramount in life: cleaning, bills, respect for silence, personal routines, timetables and appointments not hindering each other's life. And then some. And in all these things, Jose and I match pretty well, despite even his cigarettes.

Moreover, and probably much more important, you remember the old intuition vs. reason thing?? I know it sounds like it's the other way around, but indeed my intuition tells me to hang on, to stay around, despite the blabbering in my head trying to lure me with Brazilian delights that never really existed other than in my mind.

I'm not in a position to state something for the rest of my life. Maybe it's temporary, maybe it's a sign of maturity, maybe it's just insecurity, but doesn't matter: I know I'm doing my very best and I can't afford to consider guilt or doubt this time around. Not again, please. I need to move on with my life. Saturn's Return and it all, you know.

But all in all, I'll be fine. Much finer than if I went back to the shithole my parents live in.