Blancmange

These fractures carry me or maybe I carry them but nevertheless they still reside in my head as I sip on the very drink that became the befouling Picasso on our loungeroom wall; the very drink that heralded the one sided attraction and inevitably, my spiral into a type of cloistered oblivion.

It however, doesn’t start with oblivion. It doesn’t even start with trepidation. Where it starts, I think is when we’ve absorbed enough mysogyny throughout our childhood and teenage years, that we think our only value is when we’ve found “love”; when we’re part of a couple; when our independence has been blended into a side dish of blancmange. Because to not be in a couple, even in this day and age, is spinsterhood waiting to happen, staring you in the face at the ripe old age of twenty two. I like to think I had a choice but everything I ever knew told me that he was captivating and charming and intelligent and decisive and maybe, just maybe the gods might be smiling on me this time.

And smile on me they did for a blink, a deliciously heady blink. But as I defiantly learned, these were the very qualities that defined narcissism (I wish there was a more horrid sounding word). Yet as I spiralled down, I defied my own senses, my own judgement, my own test of character. I only really learned it in my heart whilst clinging to the last, the bottom-most fragile thread, though I’d probably known it in my head on that first day when I wanted the merlot and he, the pinot. I was so much more before I fell besotted into his guile. I was me. That was a very different, naïve, trusting me. Not for a second could I comprehend with my intelligence and my two decades of life experience, that one human being would wantonly, methodically and joyously destroy another.

My turning point was the pinot. The one that whizzed past my head not the pinot that I was given to drink on that first date along with the champagne chicken that I didn’t order. But on that first date, I found it endearing; “please try the chicken, it’s delicious here.” That first date, I went in with an open mind and forgave; a lot. It was filled with giddy thoughts of Prince Charming sitting across from me. The fleeting brush of the fingers whilst reaching for the salt. The fantastical stories I listened to with reverence. The restaurant befitting of the elite. The horse drawn carriage ride that set us at the front door. The doors being opened for me. I genuinely felt like a princess.

But like the frog boiled slowly, the prince slowly lost his lustre. The “try the chicken,” became “cook the lamb.” Opening the door for me became “hurry up.” A sincere hand on the shoulder became “what do you want, now?” But like the frog, placed in idyllic tepid water, it feels safe. It feels like it belongs. When the heat is turned up a notch, part of that safety stays with you and you tolerate the water a little warmer. It’s not that you don’t notice the water getting warmer but that it would be counter productive to hop out of the container just for the sake of slightly warmer water. Right? And so it goes. Incrementally getting warmer. In my case, the water became too hot too quick and I escaped. I was the lucky frog. Many frogs die because the water becomes incrementally warmer until they cook to death.

Being enmeshed in a relationship where you desperately want the blancmange creates an ever looming event horizon to the narcissistic black hole. My fellow science nerds and fellow survivors will understand. They’ll understand a point of no return where there is no escape; nothing escapes a black hole. No matter how you explore it, broken arms, noses and protons spiral like madness into nothingness. The closer you get, the tighter the hold and the weaker you become. You aren’t even like you anymore. Like a planetary body splintered in the accretion disk, waiting to cross the never never of the event horizon, the soul (if you will) or the spirit becomes weakened by the strengths being torn away. And with each wrenching, the internal capacity to escape diminishes until all that is left is loathing and futility.

I say I was lucky. And maybe that engenders that I had some towering strength or quality that allowed me to extricate myself. I did not.

I had to be forcefully ejected from the accretion disk and for this I thank a random catch up with a high school friend, all orchestrated from a like on a post of someone who was friends with someone we both knew. Kismet, coincidence, divine intervention. Buggered if I know. But what I also didn’t know is that I couldn’t lie to her. You see, it’s easy to lie and be dismissive to those in your inner circle, they too are frogs but in a different pot, but someone who knows you, or at least who you used to be, sees you, really sees you, and lays you naked.

It takes a person of great character to take on a person so broken. And I say take on, like you would take on a rescue pet. She could have been superficial and stuck to the safe conversations. She could have pretended to believe that I no longer wanted to paint. But she didn’t. She saw me. She asked the hard questions like there was no five year hiatus in our conversations. I was embarrassed. I was embarrassed that I had allowed myself to hurtle towards the black hole and abandon the very essence of my life. I was embarrassed that I wasn’t coping. I was embarrassed that I’d achieved nothing. I was embarrassed that she could see all of this. She looked past it all and still took me on.

Taking me on is different to rescuing me. And if I were retelling something cliché, I might elevate her to the position of rescuer but this isn’t so I won’t. This is about someone who loves you and wants to empower you to achieve your potential. She gave me the permission to rescue myself.

I have time to reflect now and hindsight is a wonderful thing. If I take myself back to that first date, that first glass of pinot; if you take away the pageantry, the gloss and the polish, he actually showed me who he was and I was too hell bent on blancmange to recognise it.

I’ve learned probably the greatest lesson a person can learn. Firstly, I’m allowed to want blancmange in any flavour I so desire and secondly, he alone made the decisions to behave rudely, aggressively, domineeringly, snidely, apathetically, and abusively. It had nothing to do with me. I’ll say it again because I think it’s crucial. His behaviour had absolutely nothing to do with me. I had merely become collateral damage.

As for me now, a wise old sage at 35, sanctuary has returned to my heart and maybe still naively, I still think of human beings as good and honourable people. We sit, sipping merlot as I reflect on everything that this glass of wine represents while I gaze out at the neighbouring farmland when from beyond the decking a gentle voice embraces my soul.

“I’m taking the kids into town, can I get you ladies anything?”

“Another bottle of merlot, if you don’t mind,” asks my dearest friend with a wink and waving the empty bottle overhead.