tsvetoslav shalev

No single story can be free of ambiguity or contradiction and no single story can encapsulate or handle all the contingencies of life.

~ Alice Morgan, What is Narrative Therapy

You find yourself in a vast chamber, its walls of solid ice. Daylight filters through, revealing stacks of.. no, heaps of words in English, made of cast iron. The font size is similar to that of a street sign. They are cold to the touch and hefty, depending on length. You’ve been here before. Rubbing your hands together to stimulate blood flow, you mentally prepare yourself for the gruelling task ahead. Namely, that of finding something you’ve lost a long, long time ago. A feeling made solid with scant certainty, an object of power to help fulfil your anxious desires. The clang of metal reverberates, filling the space, entangling with your own jumbled thoughts. You glance nervously at your smartwatch. The hands of time are moving on, sweeping what little presence of mind you possess. As day turns into night, you’ve shifted a fair number of the word-plates from one place to another. Observed from afar, your effort is negligible, yet you’re no closer to finding what you’re looking for, originally.

I must confess that – the JD v AH defamation lawsuit has more than captivated my attention. At first, I would altogether ignore YouTube’s algorithmic recommendations, having less than zero interest in the affairs of celebrities. Grossly overpaid, deified by their rabid fanbases, spoiled for choice. Just how interesting and informative could a personal-relationship mess be? Moreover, why make court proceedings public? It all seemed like a stunt to me. And then, I caved in and watched one of JD’s testimonies. I didn’t listen to it carefully, at first. What was there to hear that had any relevance to my own experiences? Turns out, a fair bit. An unimaginably difficult childhood, somewhat vindicated by a decent career; substance abuse born out of necessity, less so of financial status and poor choices in life; falling for the charming trappings of an obsessive, borderline personality disorder individual half his age. Watching this man’s painstaking deliberation over each and every word confounded me. One should be forgiven for thinking that a person of his social status and experience in acting (pretending to be someone else) would breeze through the exposition of his life’s narrative. Instead, he looked like me when trying to complete a task in Duolingo – carefully scanning kanji/hiragana/katakana-filled capsules, in an attempt to string together a sentence that would match the task’s objective. “Boko No Isu Wa Dokodesuka?” or “Where is my chair?”. You know things are dire when your chair walks out of your life, as well… JD’s facial expressions reminded me of a weathered sail, billowing during moments of coherence, then slackening while he prodded and probed the darkest recesses of his mind. Was this also an act? After all, his profession rewards those who excel at delivering a consistent/convincing lie over the course of a franchise no less. What betrays sincerity is the occasional weary half-smile. Many of us resort to it when after a prolonged period of intense frowning, confronted with life’s absurdity, we surrender control to the defensive mechanisms of humour in a futile attempt at defiance. Deflated, but obstinately undefeated. I’ve experienced first-hand what it’s like to try and love someone like AH. Younger, impossibly beautiful, sophisticated, incapable of empathy and infinitely cruel when triggered. On occasions as rare as the forming of gold in the universe, the person is painfully charming and even submissive. Yet as soon as something (anything) deviates from what they perceive to be normal, you find yourself crushed and fast suffocating under an unrelenting avalanche of verbal abuse. Reduced to a pile of nothing but flaws and shortcomings, made to feel small and insignificant, labelled the worst humankind has to offer. For hours on end, with not a single chance to explain or try and make amends. No, instead, a set of demands is made and a contract signed. A warning: you’re never to repeat the same mistake again. And ideally, should give something up in propitiation. Once appeased, they slowly begin to warm up again in this perpetual rollercoaster of toxicity and bastardized love. I was fortunate, however, as my case was one of long-distance, primarily virtual and cost me very little but vital energy. Breaking up with the individual took no small measure of courage, but at least I was able to do so with little to no impact on who I am as a person – a good man, but never good enough. And that’s alright. How JD was able to put up with not just the emotional, but also physical aspects of trying to love an individual so volatile is beyond my comprehension. No, he isn’t perfect, but by Dog, is any one of us?

Realize that all of us make mistakes, probably on a daily basis. Identify and learn from them. Correct and adjust as necessary. And when the situation calls for it, take the path with heart. Enough baloney. Now go love someone! Get out of here, come on! Shoo! Leave me to myself and my piles of words.