Not knowing the details of what he was doing with her that weekend did me in, but also knowing he had done the same with me burned the most. I knew what they were doing.
We are all adults. This isn’t about something as petty as what they did with their clothes off. It’s about what they did with their clothes on: learning the nuances of each other, which a weekend away can offer. The one he had with her, over the weekend of my birthday, was their second time away together. The information shocked my system. I was not prepared for that. I think that makes me human, not weak.
I wanted to know everything because likely what I have in my head is worse.
When I asked how long she had been in the picture, he hung up and blocked me. Of all the crazy things we had said to each other on the phone and over text that year, I was surprised it was that one question, out of thousands, that ended it. É o que é.
Women have a word for men who block them, but I can’t reveal that. What I will share is this: in circles of women, at least the ones I had the pleasure of a night out with in Lisbon, being blocked by a man who once loved you but now hates you is a brag. Some might say I got what I deserved for being a malandra. Men who live and love the same way here aren’t judged for it. Nonsense.
I am, often by the very men who tell me my freedom and autonomy are “sexy,” judged for living exactly as they do, but with ethics and values. The truth is I don’t do what they do. I do what a healthy, single adult does: someone financially and emotionally stable, at the peak of her sexuality. And yet.
Malandra.
Someone who doesn’t love themselves might eventually hate you for loving them and not hating them too. That’s a typical malandro, if I’m going to get niche about this type. I have never believed you need to fully love yourself before someone else can love you. Sometimes someone else can help show you how it’s done.
I have learned that sometimes the complete absence of someone can inspire you more than their faded presence ever did. I have fallen in love with the idea of lovers far more times than I have ever loved someone whole and real, right in front of me, for exactly who they are. I think this afflicts most of us, most of the time. We are always constructing the version of our lives we think we deserve, but not all of us are living what we believe is for us, and we take it out on each other instead.
Some of us go harder on ideation than others when it comes to telling the perfect story of ourselves. I do. And writers do especially, I think. But most of us don’t call it overthinking, we just call it material, and find it hard to document it all fast enough. Overflow is the problem then, too much material to choose from and edit down.
The real issue I find lately though is admitting the stories were never just stories at all, but small lives, born and buried in the details we keep from ourselves.
Your narrative voice is masterful. It’s inspiring me to write more candid.
"She’s a Woman Too Free, Too Honest, and Too Good Alone." - scary. Soon she'll take a liking to cats, mixing potions, and casting spells.