By: Belén Zorrilla
An illustration by the author of an act of love.
Since I can remember, I have only ever wanted three things in life: a husband, children, and a home. Apparently, I played with my dolls as if I was their Mama when I was only a baby myself. I bottle fed them, changed their diapers, took them for walks in their strollers, and put them down for their nap. I'd swaddle them in a blanket like my mom did for me, making sure to tuck their little hands in as gently as my meaty ones allowed.
I don’t remember any of that. My mom will only talk about my baby years if I ask her, but when I do she retreats into herself, thick brows furrowed with a blank gaze as if the ghosts of that lifetime are consuming her. So I stopped asking. I got the important basics down, but not the details. Where those holes are usually filled by picture albums and grandparents telling stories, mine remain empty. I didn’t have pictures to fill the holes left by my parents’s divorce, nor a current relationship with my grandparents, who were so present at that time (I remember my grandmother would tap my bum against my diaper while humming to get my insomniac ass to go to sleep. And if I made it through the night, I'd wake up to my favorite breakfast: toast with butter and grape jelly, scrambled eggs with bacon and warm vanilla flavored milk).
They say the first few years of your life set the blueprint for who you will develop into as an adult. It sets the patterns for your future relationships, your likes and dislikes, and your little neuroses. Mine happens to be: Ketchup is a must when eating french fries, and I’ll accept not having mayo with my ketchup although I would prefer it. I have to wash my hands after applying shampoo to my hair before I can rinse my hair out. I have to help someone in need no matter what (as in: driving a stranger across the country because they need to surprise their partner at 3 am, real manic shit). And I'm so desperately in love with love that I’ll love anyone that pretends to love me back. I tried to ignore my blueprint; I thought I was immune to the risks of relationships, but my pain still lingered and only grew with my first one.
Being the product of divorce and then abandonment really leaves someone in need of therapy.
The trials of ardor have been smacking me around since I was born, and I didn’t even realize it until my therapist pointed out I had a lot more damage than I was willing to admit. As hurt as I have been early in life, I've also been in love with the idea of love ever since I walked in on my stepdad tickling my mom in the kitchen until her laughter turned into asthmatic snorts. I remember him quickly handing her an inhaler, until she recovered and retaliated. That scene plays over and over in my head when I think about the kind of love I want for myself and that memory has never gone away. But all the pain and fear distorted its image, making it a faint backwash on the walls of my childhood.
My first relationship with a man was one of abandonment: father dearest was mentally ill, did not take care of his health, and became abusive to my mother. He threatened to take me away from her if she left him. Peru, where I grew up, is corrupt and unjust—a mother could lose her child at the flick of the wealthy father’s finger. So she left the baby pictures behind. They remain withered and dusty on an aging mantlepiece in a home that was stolen from me, glimmering as the pale mountain sun sifts through the dirt in the air.
My second relationship with a man was one of rejection: my mother’s brother, my godfather. He is a brilliant medical student at nineteen; the one who glued my chin back together when I was two with surgical glue stolen from his school. During my childhood I would sleepwalk, rambling in what appeared to be demonic languages about invading my family’s bodies (Catholic grandmothers really have their impact, huh.) He kept a basket of rolled up socks next to his desk to throw at the bumbling chubby toddler who kept invading his study space. As I grew older, I wanted to be like him, and so his rejection—the first rejection I ever really felt—stung deeper. I wanted him to validate who I was, and so I became everything he liked— listening to Pearl Jam, Blink-182, and Red Hot Chili Peppers at eight years old. I showed an interest in medicine to feel his acceptance and all he would ever say was being a doctor is the worst, you would hate it.
My third relationship with a man is one of control: my stepfather, my one true dad. It's like he birthed me himself. Born two days and twenty-five years apart, we are two peas in a pod, if that pea was set on fire 5 times a day, burnt to ashes, reborn only to start all over again. He gave me life—he brought us to a new country, built our lifestyle, and never failed to show up. But he also taught me to fear love. He taught me to be small and quiet when he was home in case the dishes weren't done to his liking. He was the reason I secretly kept a change of clothes in my locker at school so I could dress to my liking and not his. He showed me that to be in love is to have power over someone. With him, I saw what it felt like to not be in control.
My fourth relationship was significant only because it was my first romantic one: one of deep friendship and zero compatibility. We loved each other, grew together for some time but eventually into two different people. There was this constant weight hanging in the air; never a fight or raised tone, simply a lack of communication and understanding. Polar opposites balance and complement each other, but that's not what this was. When we met, I knew we were doomed: where I was a hippie, he was a want-to-be army survivalist. Where I was hope personified, he was doom, and we could only like each other for a small amount of time before it became evident we were no longer in love. We were two continents set adrift by a rift in the sea, destined to drift apart endlessly.
My fifth (and hopefully my final) relationship is the best. It's so cool. Seriously, it rocks. I never knew what it felt like to be so loved. To feel safe, not just in his presence, but also without it. When he’s not with me I long for his warmth, radiating from every pore in his body. When I am electric and untouchable he reaches up and brings me back down, lulling me to sleep. I never knew what it felt like to be safe in love. Or just simply to feel safe. Until Jack.
To love is to lose control—we have to learn to let go of the ones we love. They don't belong to us just because we love them. We are just renting a large share of their being. I believed that in order for me to be happy I had to be fully in control. I had to control who I ended up with, the circumstances of how we met, what their life looked like before joining mine, etcetera etcetera etcetera. I could go one for so long it's exhausting.
And that's the point: love is not exhausting. Love is liberating and energizing. It protects and encourages and bolsters you to conquer the world. It took a lot of trial and error for me to see that, but most importantly, I had to see that the common denominator in all my relationships was me. I was holding onto the pain that was inflicted on me in the name of love. And once I chose to let go of all the pain, that's when real love came in to fill the spaces.
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