Sunday, May 23, 2010

Strip Yourself

After having been systematically stripped of everything I thought was dear to me or vital, I think, or I am starting to think, I am on my way to something really, really true. In my life. And true doesn’t mean easy or comfortable, but as human beings, I think we seek truth above all else. Or at least I do. Even when it hurts or burns. I guess, I just want to live truth. Hard as it may be.


It all started about 2 years ago I suppose. I had just moved out to California from New York City, stuck in a co-dependent, miserable relationship with my then boyfriend. The only way I saw my self coming out here, 3,000 miles away with not much money, was with him. It was my only shot, in my head. So I powered through, knowing that our love for each other had long since expired, and was now something- sour. Angry. Violent. We tried to hold onto it for the sake of just simply staying together because it was cheaper rent when it was split 2 ways, and tried remember the good times that had long since passed. I was 22 and feeling 50. Too much to shoulder, too much to bare, in what was once a very loving relationship, now something quite abusive.


After he went to jail for smashing my head against a concrete wall, giving me a concussion and a very bruised and bloodied face, I still didn’t leave. Never told a soul the real details, and was too ashamed or prideful to come running home to my parents. Although, I likely should have done that. Instead, once he got out after 4 days, my life became a haze for the next few months. Crying apologies followed by doors being slammed, and pushing, shoving and restraining. Anything that wouldn’t leave a visual mark. Court sessions where I begged a judge to drop the charges, the young, white, female assistant DA, shaking her head at me. Judgmental eyes all around of just another one of “those women.” I was frightened of what might happen if I left, what he might do. What I might be subjected to. All alone in a brand new city with no real friends, no real family close. I was stuck and terrified. I found myself saying things to people that I never thought I’d say. “Restraining order revoked,”, “multiple contusions”, “bloody fist”. I didn’t recognize myself. The once strong, opinionated, feisty young woman I was, I couldn’t even stand to look at myself in the mirror without being ashamed of what I’d become. A battered woman.


The slumlord at our drug riddled, roach infested apartment hit his wife, and cursed at her every chance he got, a drunk. So, in a strange twist of irony, I didn’t have an alibi there, where I should have, I had an enabler. I was trapped. Alone, and not acting or auditioning. I wanted to write, but didn’t know how, couldn’t lift a finger, too sad, too tired, too hard. I was afraid mostly of the things that might come out of me if I were to put pen to paper, what I might actually have to face. No one knew. And this was my penance for wanting to come to LA, or so I thought. Should have listened to Dad and gotten my Masters degree, I thought to myself. Too late now.


After 4 more months of agony- pure and total agony- I finally left him. It was impromptu. I still loved him very much, believe it or not. He was all I had ever known, my first real relationship. My first love, and when that get muddled, even they way ours did, to dire circumstances, it’s still incredibly hard to leave, no matter how strong you think you are. Manipulation and con-dependency must not be dismissed, they have incredible power over people and interpersonal relationships gone south. Only those who have been involved in these types of abusive patterns, whether they be physical, sexual, or emotional, or all 3, are the only ones who know what I am talking about. The world wants you to hate your abuser, but it simply is not that easy. However, I knew if I stayed with him, I’d be dead in a year.


I had long since hidden all the kitchen knives in various places around the apartment, so he could never get to them, and if need be, I would systematically know where a weapon would be close by. I knew this was no way to live. But, like in all abusive situations, it becomes all you know. All you know how to do. I moved out that month, after he begged me to stay, offered a marriage proposal, that he’d change, that he’d find a way to be better. Nothing. Gone.


Then came the house that credit built. I used every last cent I had to live in that new studio in North Hollywood, far away from a life I was trying to forget. Bought cute colorful furniture, and started to really love the new aloneness that would later plague me. This ushered in the writing era. Still auditioning here and there, I starting to mainly hone in on writing. Short, heartfilled, gut spilling diary entries at first, then short film scripts. Then features. It was an exorcism of sorts. But there was no way I would have ever come to the conclusion that I was worth any salt as a writer had I not lived alone. That said, I was broker than ever in the 18 months that followed. 18 months, out of a twisted, masochistic, hatefully passionate 4 year love affair, 4 screenplays, a blog, 5 short film scripts, and countless suitors later, and I had nothing to show for it but battle wounds, some hard lessons learned, and what some might call, an artistic awakening of sorts.


I find myself now, temporarily homeless with nothing but a car full of clothes, dvds and literature. Pictures, blankets, and shoes. Words. Words are what I have. Words are what I covet, and I have lost almost everything else.


I loved that studio. The studio I could no longer afford by myself. It represented freedom, and the single life. And a symbol of strength that I “did it.” I relished the new material things that I bought with the money I didn’t have. They were masks for me that I was trying on, trying to be an adult with a couch, an adult with my bookshelf and gloriously large bed. It was all STUFF. Stuff that was only mine, no sharing. No more ashamedness. No more yelling or turmoil with men. Just me, my beautiful stuff, the computer and notebooks I used to write in daily to start to develop my quirky writing style, and the people that I chose to let in my life, only when I wanted, and only at certain times. I was alone, single, and fabulous. I was living my own Sex and the City.


After losing my apartment, and everything in it that I couldn’t carry out to my car, I decided that I truly was living a lie. A fakeness had set in, and it was time to remove it. I had long since had my cable/internet turned off before I lost the apartment, and had gotten used to not watching my marathons of SVU and Grey’s Anatomy. I has gotten used to not having internet everyday, and if I wanted it, having to trek to the library to get it. My phone bill had been a late, and then my phone was sporadically turned off and then on again a few times, which was also, what I considered to be turbulent and unfair. But what it really was, was the universe telling me, YELLING at me that A) I could no longer afford my 1,000$ a month apartment that I had come to love so very dearly as a symbol of my strength and triumph, and B) I had become so attached to these… these THINGS- having television to fall asleep to, to the same tired, played out Cop/Lawyer plot, a phone to jab away at for no reason sometimes, calling people when I should be looking for more work, or writing my masterpiece. The couch that I had come to hate, pretty to look at, but uncomfortable and course, the queen sized bed that was too big for me. Too big for one person, with my gorgeous dark, deep purple bedding, a cruel reminder that I spent most nights alone, by choice, in this seemingly ever expanding, vast apartment that was starting to swallow me whole. It wasn’t that I yearned to have someone to sleep with- I did- I had people, I just- since the long, arduous, and scarring break-up 18 months, almost 2 years ago- I just can’t really sleep with people. I can screw them, that’s no problem, I just can’t sleep soundly next to person for some reason. So, I don’t. I equate that to my own intimacy issues that I have apparently now developed since this said break-up with the abusive man. An issue, I am only realizing now that I have. Now that I have moved out of this once dreamed of, this once loved, then hated apartment of mine. Now that it’s gone, and with it, all my furniture, lamps, tables- kitchenware- you name it, one might think I’d be devastated. Hurt, done for, ready to give up. But the thing is- I have never been more relieved.


I have a chance- a clean slate if you will, a chance one rarely ever gets in a lifetime to be FREE. To rid myself of everything material that I don’t immediately need to survive, and start something a little more- truthful, a little more real. After the abusive man, who I thought took so much from me, I fought with myself, I still fight with myself to retrieve it somehow. And the thing is, on the path to doing so, I padded my life- with things- nice things, new clothes, new haircut, new bed, new couch. New life, great life. Untruthful life. Padding. Excess. I did the same thing with men afterward too, to some degree. It’s a very hard thing, trying to fit in, and make everyone believe you are OK, that you are a normal, and happy person, when inside you are screaming from being on fire. What I am saying people, is that look around- even if your shit isn’t that nice- look the fuck around. What do you have? Do you like it? Does it make you feel better about yourself at the end of the day? Does it function in a way that makes your life that much more easy or manageable? Why did you buy it? And do you watch that many episodes of NCIS because you love the characters or because you are numb and need a reason to escape the thoughts, the sometimes scary, but very real thoughts you think at night, when you’re all alone?


Once stripped of everything I thought I needed to survive, I realized that I need close to nothing, in actuality. I move in a week to a new apartment, with roommates, so in a far more affordable situation. I look forward to it with my new sense of how I am looking at the world. When I say I lost everything these past few years, it wasn’t a lie. I lost the man I loved in the worst way one might lose one- a death of a soul, not a person, but the death of who you thought someone was, the betrayal of who you thought YOU were with that person, the life I could have had with him, the life I almost had with him- near perfection, had he not hit. Had he had the capacity to channel his anger through exercise or journals. However, that’s not how it happened, and that is OK. It’s the best thing that could have ever happened to me- a brutal awakening, but a vital one, and it has made me likely one the savviest, most clever, and most solid people you will ever meet. I have foundations deeper within myself, deeper than you can ever imagine. I lost the material things that held me together after this man was out of my life. The things I thought meant something, something real. They did not. And I now have me. My thoughts. My words, and clothes, books, and films, I so dearly cherish. And that, my friends, is the only thing I need besides a pencil and paper. I am thankful to be alive, thankful to be in Los Angeles, and thankful to now have a roof over my head, and people in my life that support me enough to be able to catch me, to fill in the gaps when needed, and enrich and enlighten my life everyday. I am happy. I am full of passion. I have a thousand ideas. I am alive. I am whole. And I have not a thing.

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