Act II: We were practically the first people to arrive at the club. There were maybe another 3 or 4 people already in, but that didn't make it less strange. Not the same kind of strange it is to see a club with all the service lights on, during the daytime. This time, it felt wrong. Like I shouldn't be there. Maybe I was the one feeling strange.
If you know me well enough, you might be asking yourself how I ended up in a club, on a Saturday night, after 11pm. I'm normally in bed an hour before that, even on a weekend. If not, I will be tucked in, under the blanket on the couch, watching something on youtube. Or listening to music. But likely not out, and definitely not at a club. So I hope you are ready for the next plot twist in this tale: I decided to go out approximately 20 minutes before I was out the door.
Here, once again, your knowledge of me might help out: I plan things, way in advance. I am never spontaneous. In this particular evening, that was even more prominent. For the past 10 years I have wanted to buy myself a record player, and 3 days before that Saturday, my new record player arrived. Saturday would be the big night of listening in. No interruptions, no plans, no time to go to bed. I cleaned my old Pink Floyd records and decided the order I wanted to play them, all in advance. The evening would end with the last two songs of The Dark Side of the Moon, which are my absolutely favourite Pink Floyd songs.
It was comfortable, safe, protected and predictable. It was all those things I came to like and surround myself with, throughout the years. And if haven't decided to go out so last minute, I would probably be here talking about boy troubles. But I am not, at least not yet.
So why did I decide to go to a club on such a whim? I cannot tell you for sure, but I think it has to do with the CBT I have been doing for almost 2 months now. Which is funny to think about how far I’ve come in 2 months, despite writing about my issues for years in this and other blogs. CBT is like the hero in the movies, who come along to save the day and normally take most of the credit. It's been incredibly helpful, but it would be unfair to give it all the credit. The fact that the hero usually has a lot of help from minor characters is often overlooked. Ultimately CBT only allowed me to see something I have been looking for, for a long time already: where do I go from here.
I think I wrote about it, but right now I cannot remember if I did or where. In any case, it’s simple to explain, so here we go: I realised a while back that, in general, I am aware of my issues, what causes them, where do they come from, and why they affect me so much. But that doesn’t tell me how I can use this information to make things better. To stop letting those things affect me the way they do - and I am fully aware that 1- this is probably not possible and 2- if it would be possible, it would probably not be entirely under my control. My point is, I am relatively aware of how I got here, but I don’t know how or where to go next.
And here is where the CBT and this blog comes into play: for the first time in probably 20+ years, I saw through the cycle. I understood how the things I built to make me feel safe and comfortable were only temporary fixes, pills designed to treat the symptoms, but not the real cause of the issue. I watched the behind the scenes documentary about the movie, and now I cannot see the story in the same light anymore. Now I know how they make it seem like someone is floating in microgravity when they never left the earth. The glass is broken, and I cannot not see the cracks. Entropy won, as it always does.
I can now see, almost as if I’m floating above my body, that some things I created for myself are not real, they are a pseudo safety net against the chaos of the world around me, against the things I cannot control, against the unknown, and maybe most importantly, against the real stuff from deep down that I need to face one day. Maybe I built tolerance to my own drug.
So here’s where I am, right now: The stuff, they still affect me, they still cause me anxiety and pain, they still suck. But I don’t have the option to postpone them anymore. I need to look into them. I need to look into myself. I need to look into my feelings. And my first question is this: Why am I trying to explain my feelings? Why am I trying to use the rules of logic to explain something that uses a completely different system? It's almost like I'm using German grammar to explain why Portuguese has 5 or 6 types of past. Native speakers of Portuguese don't know why you use the imperfect or the perfect, they just use what makes sense to them in that sentence. Something else would sound wrong to their ears. They just know what they feel. Just like I know what I feel, even if I don’t understand it.
My friends, they are always so further ahead of me. This time it was someone who has been supporting me throughout the CBT process, and when I was telling them about a particularly tough session, he asked me: “how do you feel?” I explained him a bunch of things, and he said: “you're analysing. Tell me how you feel.” I couldn't answer without another analysis, another explanation. Maybe I don't know how to feel anymore. Maybe I've let my brain win so many times that I forgot how to listen to my heart. And Marie Fredriksson didn't sing these words for nothing, may she rest in peace.
Back to the club, I realised that evening that I was doing the same thing I did 22 years ago with PMM, which was the same thing I did whilst I was dating girls: I was chasing an escape, a way not to face my feelings. I was looking for a quick fix. And the emptiness of that club showed me that, but not in the way one would expect. As the night went on, more guys came in, but he never did. Even though I knew he wouldn't. I didn't expect him to. In fact, I would actually be surprised if he showed up. I still expected. Yet, he never did. And who is he, you ask? This is the same question I've been asking myself. Who the fuck is he? Who the fuck am I expecting to come through the door to save me? To whom do I want to be the damsel in distress?
I have an idea of who I was waiting for, though. And note the way I phrased this: not who he is, but who I was waiting for. That night. It was the person who, right now, is the personification of my saviour. Who is also likely the latest object of my limerence. But even if he would show up right here, right now, and offer to save me, he wouldn't live up to my expectations. Because he will not solve the deeper stuff. Ultimately, I am the one who can save me. Once again I am back at the old prerogative of my life, where I have to fend for myself. And that makes all the difference, because it makes it daunting to me. But we'll get to that.
In the case of this guy specifically, it's also been too long. Too much time passed without him, too much time for my mind to fill the gaps about him with best case scenarios. In a regular relationship between two people, whilst they are getting to know each other, the gaps are slowly filled by the things they discover along the way, some good and some bad. If the good outnumbers the bad, the relationship prevails. If it’s the other way around, it falls apart. When the process is not followed, it becomes unreal. My mind fills the gaps I would have filled over time, and it only adds good qualities to those gaps. That person becomes flawless, and just them being normal is not enough anymore.
It's the Matrix all over again, with the reinsertion. When Cypher asks to be reinserted into the Matrix, like everything will be exactly as it was. But it won't. I changed, this guy changed, the world changed. It's so unfair, to him and to me, and so fucked up. The Matrix, by the way, is once again a fantastic observation by the same friend who asked me how I am feeling. My friends are really awesome, and this is key. I am chasing something spectacular parallel reality when my world is already pretty amazing. I just need to see it.
But luckily for me, spring always comes after winter. The sun starts shining warmer, days get longer, and walks on the beach become a thing again. This week I took a stroll on the beach in Hove with a new friend. He’s a lovely guy, but I was feeling extremely anxious. He’s not the one I wanted there that day. And I asked myself, more than once, if I was making him a placeholder again, someone to give me a quick fix whilst I wait for the real deal to arrive. And then I realised what might help me break this cycle: I saw him, the new friend, beyond the label I put on him. Like all the boyfriends I had throughout the years whilst I waited for RSG to come back, he has amazing qualities and he can be a great addition to my life, if only I allow him to. I looked at him with a different perspective. I was fair to him, the way I wasn’t to many of the guys who came before me.
It still doesn’t fix my deeper issues, and it might sound like another distraction, but it’s not so simple. By being able to see the cycle from outside my body and to break it, I can focus on the next step. I can ask the next set of questions, think of the next set of reflections, which will hopefully be a step closer to the source of it all. I already have a pretty good guess of what, or in this case, the source is: my father. Blaming your parents, how cliche! But hear me out: My dad is the ultimate embodiment of masculinity, my first example of what a man is, and who also happens to be the guy who told one of his pals, in front of me, that he was extremely glad and relieved, because he was up to that point terrified of 'the life I could end up having' (as I mentioned here).
But talking about my father will take much more digging, and this is all the time we have for today. One last thing, before you leave: I am also asking myself how did Yogi manage to break away from all the other boys. Why were things different with him? I think that the answer will help me heal a lot of the stuff I have happening underneath. I’m sure it has more to do with feelings than logic. Plus with him, I don’t have to do it on my own. Like I didn’t (and I wouldn’t) go to the club that Saturday on my own, because I was going with him. Like he’s here now, by my side, whilst I type this. He’s watching TV, half asleep, but he’s here. I can count on him. And that is one of the things that keep me from falling off the edge.
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