[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04YuREsHVRM]
Has it ever happened to you that there’s this song you’ve listened to for a while now but you’ve never really payed attention to the lyrics, until once you did and it absolutely changed the way you felt about this particular tune? Today it happened to me. Walking back home, listening to Belle and Sebastian, I played this quiet song, The boy done wrong again. Standing in the corner, blank staring at the traffic light, the music streamed from my ears to my soul, making guilt take over my feelings with these lines: “What is it I must do to pay for all my crimes? / What is it I must do? I would do it all the time.”
Looking back in my love and sex life I can’t but regret so many things I did. I’ve hurt anyone that’s ever been with me, everyone that’s liked or just cared about me. It’s like a reflex, a mean instinct from some dark place in my mind. Why am I like that? How is it possible for me to get away with that every single time to move on to the next “victim”? I have no idea. Ironic as this sounds, I consider myself a good person. There are never bad intentions behind my acts, nor I do any of this things on purpose. Just happens.
Daddy issues? Sure! Growing up in a home dominated by psychological violence -or even physical sometimes- didn’t help me to get the notion of a right behavior towards women. My father, an old fashion sexist Latin man, set the perfect example of what I didn’t want to become. I admired my mom for how she remained a strong woman and did her best to raise me and my three siblings as good persons with profound values, given the circumstances. After that, I tried to keep on her good work, but failed miserably every time.
I spent way too long stuck in a relationship that didn’t fulfill me. She, among all the other girls of my life, was the one who had to put up with the more shit. I can partially understand why I did that. I was unhappy, frustrated, nagged. Never loved her and I never felt loved. Probably it was this phobia I got after breaking up the cause of the damage I caused afterwards. Relationships scare the shit out of me. Remind me of those almost nine years of constant emptiness I went through with my ex. Each start with a new girl, even if it was just a one night stand, took me back to those gloomy days.
There was just one girl I never hurt; on the contrary, I was nothing but good to her. I fell in love. But it wasn’t enough, or maybe it was just me who wasn’t enough. She treated me very poorly and then dumped me, despite she said many times that she loved me as well. The grim era that started after she left me was in which I caused the more sorrow. I had opened my heart and all I got in return was suffering. Therefore I was closed, a huge wall guarding my deepest feelings. Fucking around I tried to forget her, but only got to replace my pain for the one I caused to others.
Now I’m retired. The girl that I once loved came back into my life, and guess what? I hurt her too. The only difference this time is that I could say I was hurting her back, but that doesn’t make it any better. I’m not seeking revenge. I am on a quest to find and experience true love and, finally, to establish a relationship with all the ideals I write and dream about. Because if I have learned something from all the wrong I’ve done is that it hurts both them and myself. This has to stop. That’s why I’m retiring from the market. Seems my journey has come to an end, and that end looks pretty much like love. She and I brought sadness to each others life, yet the joy that came with it shines a light more powerful than the darkness we’ve been blinded with. For the wellbeing of she, me and all the girls that’d come after her if this doesn’t work, I hope it’s fucking worth it this time.