Welcome to the Dark Side

“And remember, people like to read stories about things going wrong!” The final words from my visiting friend as we said goodbye have gnawed at me for the last couple of weeks. So I think it’s time to write something. It was a beautiful summer, ahhh summer, and I felt, above all, positive and hopeful. But the flip side to summer is that then comes the fall, both literally and figuratively. Fall is a historically hard time of year for me and this one is no exception, in fact it’s a doozy. It’s been what feels like an awful lot of darkness, personally, for the people I love, and the world in general.

The US election looms over everything, even here in Italy. I think most of my readers are of a similar mindset when it comes to politics, so I don’t need to go too far with expressing the anguish I feel. The fear, the bafflement, the sorrow over the fact that evil won, that the fate of human rights and the health of our planet is more precarious that it has ever been, we are all reeling from it. I will admit that before the election I had been thinking it would be pretty amazing to be back in the US to celebrate the first female president, and now… Our world is interconnected so I’m not missing out on the on the mourning and anger just because I’m on another continent. And I’m also not missing out on conversations that are uncomfortable and upsetting; people never fail to surprise me, both with their capacity for greatness and their ability to be hateful and selfish.

I’m having an awful lot of negative moments right now. It’s a struggle to sit with all of it. On a quick trip last week to visit my lovely daughter in Scotland, I got strep throat because, of course I did. Life has got me by the throat right now. And not just me, so many of us are struggling. It’s hard to put our personal trials in perspective when we are being collectively marched into the lion’s den. The minor hassles and hurts take on more weight in a time like this. I fell down and jammed my wrist, Airbnb has new paperwork requirements that are impossible to figure out in this country, I was grabbed and kissed against my will in a cafe, my son has a massive amount of homework that is beating us both down, my roof is leaking and I can’t get agreement from the other building owners to fix it…I could go on, and I’m sure, so could you. These little problems seem extra brutal right now, but what is even more brutal is the feeling that maybe none of it matters at all since we are entering a real life dystopia, where all the power lies in the hands of Darth Vader, Gollum and The Terminator.

I recently ended a relationship, the first one that has meant something serious to me since splitting up with my husband. This was a man that I knew from the start was not a great fit long term, but I have found that the heart likes to learn lessons through connection with other people, and there is no stopping it. I hadn’t meant to get into an exclusive situation, but it came and presented itself to me and I let it in, knowing it would probably end up hurting me, because I want to keep myself open to what life has to offer. This man had plenty of qualities that I wasn’t really compatible with, and I knew I was sacrificing a piece of my freedom to be with him, but he was also a good, good person. Honest and forthright in a way that was sometimes a bit shocking, but I knew exactly where I stood with him. He is steady, stable and emotionally intelligent. He was able to put into words how he saw me struggling with my own past traumas and offer insight into behaviors that might not be serving me at this point in my life. That was a true gift, though not an easy one to accept in the moment. We knew our time together had run it’s course, but it’s hard to end something when there is nothing actually wrong besides a “lack of butterflies” as he put it. But there is no time to waste in this life so we decided to move on, in spite of the sadness. A huge part of my sadness now is disillusionment. I have believed that most of us are good, and that shared humanity will save us, but that belief is shaken in this moment. Letting go of a kind soul seems like a risky thing to do when they are more rare than ever.

What do you do with a bruised, but not broken, heart? My wounds are abrasions, not deep or threatening, but they still need tending. I am face to face with my own vulnerable self once more. This was an important person in my life, but I was not in love. And still, I can’t help but be hurt by the fact the he was not in love with me. How could he not fall in love with me, I wonder, when I did everything I could to win him over? And that right there is both the question and the answer. I need to knock that shit off. I’m not a child, I don’t need to make everyone love me (but oh my god I want to!). I have work to do on this.

For a while I was being very good to myself with lots of vegetables, ginger tea, self reflection and tears over both my heart and the state of the world. This is the “right” thing to do, the healthy thing, and I’m sure I will get back to that at some point, but right now I have a feeling of ‘well, we are all doomed anyway so why bother with broccoli?’ I went alone to an olive oil festa one evening and bought a paper sack of porchetta and ate it with my hands while crying in my car. And I felt better.

I have made some choices for myself lately that might not be particularly virtuous, but you know what? Sometimes that is what we need. You bitch and moan with other unhappy people, get drunk with your girlfriends, reinstall that dating app (with the hope, not of love, but of a low percentage of creeps), and remind yourself that life does go on. Life goes on even though the world is full of weirdos and shit bags. Forza my loves, forza.