Journalled on Sunday, 27th of October 2024 | Santo Cristo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: 25 degrees, warm and overcast.
It is Sunday. I have been in my new flat for two weeks now, and in all that time, I have not seen Yasmin once.
She was going to visit that first weekend, but for some reason it never happened. We had not really spoken since, and last weekend I felt a little upset, or more accurately, disappointed with her. She sent me a message that said only, “Hello, is everything OK?”
No reference to my position as her father. Obviously, I am not just anyone in her life, and she did it on purpose to provoke me. I did not reply; I just let it be. Thinking about it, I used that same phrase when I broke up with Julie: “let it be”. More specifically, we were messaging, and I wrote, “Julie, let me be, please”.
It’s a powerful word, even though it’s short, and I don’t fully know what it means. Is it to stay away? Give me space! Am I not happy? I am not happy with you! This isn’t for me! What went wrong? What went wrong with us? Don’t say anything, because if you do, it will only make it worse!
Since my breakup with Julie, I feel like I’ve put myself into voluntary isolation. I’ve only been able to live alone for the last couple of weeks. Still, really, since our breakup at the beginning of July, I’ve been in a kind of emotional isolation, a numbness, waiting to enter physical isolation to complete this new phase.
I have consciously cut myself off from almost everyone.
The only people I still have contact with are Yasmin, Nalva, and Jessica, the most important people in my life. Even then, to a certain extent, they are no more than my pupils- people I have to stay in touch with to make a living.
This phase of my life was not a conscious decision; it just happened. Now that I see it clearly, I am embracing it. Julie has a lot to do with this. She touched me in ways no woman has in a long time. Even with her shortcomings, which I didn’t always agree with, and my own recurring flaws, what we had was amazingly special, and I am profoundly grateful for that short time with her.
My isolation and introspection are helping me come to terms with my past, my shame, and my repeated mistakes, the flaws in my nature that I need to face, treat, and finally understand.
I am getting older, like everyone else, but I hope it is not too late to repair myself and become a better version of myself that the people I love can still benefit from before it is too late.
Obviously, I am talking about the people around me who, in their own way, love me, care for me, and want the best for me, just as I want the best for them.
Sometimes we do not really know how important we are in other people’s lives until it is too late. Everything is so pushed, forced, and rushed! Nowadays, it is almost impossible to know what is true and what isn’t, what really matters and what doesn’t.
My trip to England opened up a can of worms. I was once in the car with Julie, and in my frustration with the situation, I said to her, “I am living in a toxic situation with my mother, and I have a girlfriend I can’t have an intimate relationship with”.
It was extremely frank, hard, and maybe a little insensitive, but true. These last few days, I have reread my journals from that time. They confirm how toxic the situation with my mother really was. As soon as she discovered I was going out with a woman, it became clear to me that she turned jealous, manipulative, and toxic.
And my beautiful little perfect woman, Julie. I was living with my mother, and she was living with her parents.
We had arranged to travel away for a weekend, but it never happened. It was not meant to be. In psychology, they say a woman will initiate and lead the way when she wants to get physical with the man she likes. Julie never did this, and it still plays on my mind, hurting a little.
I understand she was not ready for it. It was not the right time, or something was wrong. I asked her many times, but she always froze, deflected, or couldn’t really explain.
Obviously, I was doing something wrong too, and I apologise to her for that. Sex was never the be-all and end-all for me. What mattered more was the emotional intimacy, understanding each other well enough to build something good together, and sadly, that never happened.
I know she has her own problems, and she found it difficult to open up to me. Later in our relationship, as we tried to go deeper, it became clear that my inability to give her what she needed made it even harder for her to trust me.
I wanted her to trust me, but she could never quite find it in herself. I am not talking about trust around other women, though she tried to insinuate there was a third person who never actually existed. The trust I wanted from her was simpler: for me to feel confident enough to confide in her, and for us to confide in each other. But that never quite happened. It almost did, just not in the way I would have liked.
Sometimes I regret coming back to Brazil so quickly, maybe so abruptly, but on the other hand, it was necessary in the name of self-preservation and self-renewal. Now I’m in a voluntary, induced isolation, trying to know myself and who I really am.
In bed by 10 p.m.
Thank you for reading. Please explore my other posts and share your thoughts in the comments.
Richard
