Thursday, Jul 24, 2008
Dear Cary,
I'm in my mid- to late 20s, at the beginning of an art career. I recently finished my master's. I recently fell in love with a handsome and talented drummer, who was adventurous, a social butterfly, charming and obsessed with literature. He was an interesting risk that I took on gladly (at the time) -- he hadn't finished high school, was looking for a job, was in a successful band and was recovering from heroin addiction. I had only been in love (mutually) with one other person in my life, and I was ready to give anything to this one, and I did. I gave him a place to live, fed him, drove him to drug-counseling sessions and held his hand during heartbreaking mood swings and self doubt. In return, he gave me loads of moral support for my own problems and dried my tears, and really cared about and understood me. Our romantic connection was intense and unparalleled. I found myself happily telling close friends how deeply in love I was. I also partied adventurously with him, drinking and dancing all night.
After several months, there was no progress in his finding a job and a real home. At one point, he confessed he'd "slipped" -- used once, quickly followed by recommitment to change. He'd already gotten ultimatums from his band and friends, and now he got one from the girlfriend. It's impossible for me to express how badly I wanted him to "get well" -- to get away from the drug and get his life together. Then came the awful week (one in which I had a very stressful deadline): What is that funny bruise? Is he "nodding out"? Why are there footprints on the toilet seat? When I finally confronted him, he was honest, except this time he'd been using for many days, sometimes in my room. I felt so violated, I could barely speak.
And so I broke it off with him and left him to his own devices. My heart was smashed to bits, and I felt that I had been forced to break it myself -- not by him, but by the drug. I told myself if he took his recovery seriously and started taking steps in the right direction, that I would take him back. He has taken the breakup as an excuse to go further down the path, and I feel that I must give up on him. To thicken the plot, he's now paying rent and living with mutual friends next door. I'm watching his decline as a performance, and we're not really talking.
A mere four weeks after this all happened, I met someone else -- a shy painter, smart as hell, educated, eccentric, gorgeous and not addicted to anything. I'm very attracted to this one, and he to me. Again the connection is intense, but I feel split. I'm still in love with the drummer. I feel like a traitor to both, even though I know it's not my responsibility (or even possible) to "cure" the drummer. Meanwhile, I hunger for that deep connection again, but it's not fair to make the painter some sort of fallback.
Should I give my heart some breathing room and take it slow (or even take a break) with the painter? Or should I dive right in and let this feeling of whiplash subside over time?
Nobody's Martyr
Dear Nobody's Martyr,
A drummer obsessed with literature? I've never heard of that before. I've heard of shy, gorgeous painter boys, though. Nothing wrong with that. Something tells me, though, that what you need to do for your art and your mental health is cure yourself of romanticism, of the need for being out of your head, of drama and longing and cleverness, cure yourself even of your own attractiveness, cure yourself of your image of yourself as a woman living a creative life, cure yourself of desire, of the need for acceptance, cure yourself of cuteness and the need for cuteness in others.
Cure yourself of rock 'n' roll and thinness and artistic ideas and academic titles, cure yourself of studios and theses and advisors and tuition, cure yourself of matriculation and postgraduate research. Cure yourself of ambition and boredom and self-defensiveness and self-consciousness and be very uncool for a while; be as uncool as you possibly can be. Give up on thrift shops. Grieve for the heroin addict. Wear only Ban-Lon shirts. Stop going to the nightclub you keep going to. Disappear so your friends wonder where you are and when they finally see you, be evasive. Become difficult and stubborn. Concentrate on your art. Concentrate on technique. Sit on the floor and try to breathe normally.
Try doing that for the rest of your life, and see if it doesn't help.
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