The decade of the 1980s brings back memories of the highest of highs (both natural and induced) and the lowest of lows (again, both natural and induced). I moved into the decade at the age of 22 and did my damnedest not to grow, not to be an adult, not to accept most responsibilities someone moving through their 20s would tend to grasp. I lived amongst communities of Peter Pans and Wendy’s. Come to think of it, we had our fair share of Tinker Bells as well.
One of the primary themes of these musical triggers, along with my ease with staying stunted from the parts of life that would indicate a child is truly becoming a functioning adult is this sense of detachment, fear, sadness, and an extremely unhealthy dose of self-hatred. I did not really know these things existed while they all painted and dwarfed the areas of my personal communication and relationships. At least what little I had in my own limited experience. Let’s face it, I never really enjoyed being around people. I felt discomfort trying to acclimate into any pack of individuals. Part of me feels that I just never found it authentic to try and be something I am not in order to find acceptance and continue with that disguise. Another part of me understands it was the fear of rejection or failure of not being able to pull off the very inauthentic character I told myself I didn’t want to be.
I have created characters in so many situations or areas of my life for years. From being a scared kid who would break rules and challenge what I likely knew was right to pushing the limits and creating a more abysmal version of what anyone would have expected. Perhaps it was because I needed to defeat the odds (in my head) for being someone l thought would be ‘better.’ What I did not understand as far back as then was I had an intense self-hatred. Because of that distaste for who I was, I tried to seek outside ‘fulfillment’ to fill the empty hole and that lack of self-respect. Not liking Mark essentially made it easier to not like anyone or anything else.
But I did not want to dislike everyone. In hindsight, I feel that I may have wanted to avoid the relationships primarily in order to beat them to what was sure to be a rejection. As sad as that sounds, it was easier to avoid than to run any risk of being discovered. My weaknesses stemmed from a sense of inferiority based on feelings I did not understand and likely wouldn’t fully understand for a good chunk of my life. I have told people about certain times in my later teens and throughout the pre-Los Angeles era while living in Phoenix, where I did not dwell on hidden sexuality. Instead, I concentrated mostly on drugs and lived in complete denial, hence creating two separate characters and timelines to fit the need for protection from the inevitable punishments or embarrassments the actual truth would reveal.
The hard fact when someone lives in a double life is there is no real love where there can be no real truth. I began having these short spurts of ill-conceived relationships built upon stilted and uneducated inward battles with codependence and sexual urges. These attempts never came close to divulgence of real personalities and were never given a chance for intimacy at all. It’s hard to love someone when you don’t know what true love is.
It could be said that we evolve in our personal definitions of love. We grow in inches and centimeters with each relationship, sometimes having to step back. We think what we are feeling is the real thing and often cannot be warned or talked out of what is in front of us until it crashes and burns. Even earlier forms of intuition, which I can’t say I really understood either, would not deter me from the low self-esteem pushing me forward in case this sort of opportunity would not arise ever again.
Desperation or codependence are not part of any definition of love. In so many of my trysts I might have thought that ridiculous notion of “this could be the one,” but I don’t know if I truly ever believed it beyond what was mostly the cover-up about how I looked, or what other people thought. Infinitely my soul believed I was not a full person without someone attached. I was a half looking for his other half. Nobody wants to be the third wheel or the last one chosen. I picked partners in hazes of delirium, lack of sleep, woozy detection, and wet brain. I was never really sober in these decisions and could not have really known right from wrong when it wasn’t part of the picking process.
This isn’t to say there weren’t some positive relationships. I can’t say that every choice was a dud OR that I was the dud in every choice. There were several that I genuinely did feel were real or real enough to attempt to make work. The problem then was both in an underdeveloped sense of compromise or the old adage that states that I was never provided a handbook for living. I just did not get what I was doing wrong, or I could not understand what I needed to do to fix it. Add to that some things were simply not fixable, or perhaps they were based on sex, and we never really recognized that was all we had in common.
Both beginnings and endings would also be the catalyst or setup of all the underdeveloped emotions. Let’s face it, I did not know how to control all those feelings. Anger, jealousy, betrayal, envy, bitterness, expectations, and control were rampant. I can remember being in a state of euphoria because something felt so good. The only way was down, especially considering the euphoria was aided by the drugs. When relationships begin with drugs we don’t always recognize the other when the drugs are wearing off. Sometimes a new relationship becomes one-sided and some of the greatest pain imagined can be felt. I can remember the pain so deep and so misunderstood that I could not function, I would become obsessed, and I would remain in a fetal position. It was usually because of something so far out of my control it became pathetic, and yet it could not have felt any more real.
This musical trigger is a song of melancholy from 1985 that used to be the go-to for the pain. It illustrates a relationship at its end and the singer in a place where he is unable to let the other person move on. The band, called Matt Bianco (not the lead singer’s name) included Mark Reilly and Basia as its two primary vocalists, along with Danny White on Keyboards. Matt Bianco helped me sway in my despondence as if someone actually understood me. “More Than I Can Bear” is a beautiful, mellow, Latin-jazz piece that will always remain a trigger for the pain of learning love. Fortunately today I am spared the highs and lows and have learned my one and only definition of love.
I thought that I was over you, how I was mistaken
Why did I bump into you, and start this chain reaction, mm
I felt it building up inside, when suddenly
Oh, it was more than I could bear, mm more than I could bear
When I saw you
Walking down the road with someone new
I couldn’t believe that it was true, it was true, yeah.