Looking back… there is certainly plenty to say.
— What are you complaining about? You’ve always had everything you wanted.
Yeah… That’s my father’s voice echoing in my head, although it is not quite time yet to talk about my parents.
So, where am I right now? Considering the way I started this piece of writing, I think I have a first clue: those famous complicated love stories. They say that every story comes with its share of complications, and mine are no exception. My last serious relationship? I still wonder how, for four years, I stayed with someone who did not suit me at all and whom I disliked a little more as time went by. Opposites attract? Savior complex? Social pressure? Probably a bit of all that. Still, when I go through the different chapters of our adventure, I find the phenomenon curious; having felt feelings for one another before gradually sinking into a form of contempt that grew worse and worse over the years.
But it must be said that the situation is almost laughable: spending four years with someone who is not right for you, wouldn’t that be sabotage?
I think it is time to go back a few years to understand what brought me into this situation.
SEPTEMBER 2016
Once upon a time, there was a young man approaching his thirties who suddenly woke up in a bedroom reeking of stale smoke. The beginnings of a first awakening? Let’s just say that after drifting for several years through a kind of interstellar void, it was time to mop up the life I had led up until then for the first time. Back then, I had a highly questionable lifestyle, with a routine oscillating between joints from morning till night, booze-filled weekends, and culinary nightmares made of sugar and GMOs. It is not hard to understand that this deplorable lifestyle, which I had indulged in for a long time, had placed me on a slippery slope, whose excesses were leading me more and more toward a certain unhappiness, if not an undeniable one. This realization came after asking myself when the last time I had shared an intimate moment with a woman was… maybe six months ago, or a year? And my last serious relationship? Not exactly a fairy tale either, to say the least. Almost ten years already.
In short, so many signs pointing toward a model not to follow, resulting at this stage in a disastrous love life. I must admit, however, that not everything is so negative: I have a relatively active social life with many friends around me, and a steady job in which I do not feel too bad. I was even already doing “a little” sport, a rather meager attempt at salvation to compensate for the different forms of filth I was inflicting upon my body and mind.
One fine day, after years in that thick fog, I wake up and say to myself: damn, I’m twenty-eight years old and I no longer know how many years I’ve wasted doing nothing, except letting my life evaporate like a cloud of smoke while background noises drift by through my long lethargy.
Such a waste of talent, because I am a musician—not the worst one, without wanting to blow my own trumpet—but apart from playing in my bedroom, my sanctuary within the family home, nobody except the walls ever hears me, or very rarely.
Around me, a good number of my friends have houses, children, go on vacations, have projects… It hurts to realize that at twenty-eight years old, in the middle of a bedroom that reeks of joint smoke and regrets. That is when a rather sudden switch occurs: I have to take my life back into my own hands by putting things in place.
The first step of the plan? From one day to the next, I decide to cut out all the crap I keep sending into my stomach: no more fat, sugar, or soda. Once again, since it is not the first time I have followed a drastic diet, I start paying attention to what I eat, the first step toward a very specific idea: feeling good in my own body.
But in all honesty, I am beginning to suffer from the effects of isolation, the lack of love and attention. I want to feel desirable and to desire in return, to share my secret garden, to have plans, and above all, I want to escape the confinement to which I have condemned myself. So, in an instant, I begin by exercising more alongside this new eating plan. I start losing weight and soon after add a drastic reduction in my consumption of tobacco, alcohol, and above all, cannabis.
Indeed, I realize that a large part of my unhappiness goes hand in hand with this bad habit, and above all, the hazy state I am living in is becoming unbearable. My mind is never clear, and I cannot count how many appointments I have forgotten, not to mention deadlines, details, and objects. One day, while I was stoned, I even left a bag containing brand-new clothes I had just bought on a bus. My tolerance for conflict is almost nonexistent and, sometimes, after smoking a dozen joints, I collapse into bed before it is even 8 p.m. This has to stop.
A few weeks after this realization, around the end of September, I travel to Italy with my mother and sister. During this week-long trip, I do not smoke and do not even feel the urge to. When I return, I get rid of whatever I have left to smoke and minimize all temptations which, I must admit, are quite strong at the beginning of withdrawal. My bedroom, my room, my refuge, and all my familiar landmarks call out to me, but I will hold firm!