I’ve never experienced real grief. Not the kind people talk about, where someone’s very existence ceases and all their loves ones are forced to carry on somehow. I don’t know what that’s like. I mean, both my grandpas died but they were terrible people so that was just fine with me. Not all deaths have to be this big, earth-shattering thing. Or maybe I’m a sociopath. Whatever. I’ve lost people I cared about, sure, but usually to misunderstandings or conflict or perhaps the worst of all, time. Too much of it slips through your fingers and suddenly you’re a different person, and you just don’t fit anymore into a life you thought you’d always have. Your jokes don’t quite land. Your friend’s smile doesn’t reach their eyes. You suspect they have a group chat without you but you don’t have any evidence to bring forth and even if you did, confronting them over that feels insane. It’s not like you respond to their texts anyway. Despite all this, you want to cling because this is all you’ve ever known, and a life without it feels wrong, but deep down you know that it will never be the same.
I’ve been thinking a lot about grief lately. Six months out from leaving the States, I think I’m experiencing my own form of it. The old me is dead and I can never return to my old life. Probably, many people have felt this way before and I’m not special, but if snowflakes can all be unique then why can’t we? It’s not like my old life was so great that I wish to return to it, in fact I often hated it and wanted to die, but I can’t just kill my attachment to it. I don’t have a home. I yearn for the scene in 13 Going On 30 when Jenna goes home (to New Jersey) and reunites with her estranged parents. When things get really hard, I don’t have anywhere I can go where I get to be a child again and have someone take care of me and brush my hair away from my face while I cry in their lap. Unfortunately, I have to do it myself. And I really suck at it.
They’re big feelings, and as I get older and the longer whatever the fuck is wrong with me goes untreated, I find myself less and less able to cope. I used to know how to compartmentalize my bullshit long enough to go to work before numbing myself with an edible the second I got home, but nowadays I can’t experience a negative emotion without turning to short form video content to drown out my pain. Also, I keep putting off buying weed because I really don’t want to go into the center of Madrid during summer. Tourists are universally bad people, and they have to be dealt with. I also just don’t want to see anyone and I don’t want to be seen. Not before I get my eyebrows done. But I need something to take the edge off. I’m fucking fiending for it.
So I plunge my femcel lair into darkness, and yes I will continue to call myself a femcel for as long as I want, because despite having a boyfriend the spirit of the femcel lives on inside me, and if you asked him I’m sure he’d vouch for me anyway, and I lay on my bed and stare at the ceiling. I don’t have a hypnotist to guide me through this because I don’t want to pay 100€ per session, but I need some kind of assistance along the way so I turn on a Spotify playlist I found called Bronze Age Classics 🔥🔥🔥 that I did not make myself, and let it transport me to my past life. My real past life. My past life as a twink in Ancient Greece.
I wake up on a beach with the tide lapping at my feet, blearily glaring into the sun. I’m hungover, and I know instinctively that I spent the past night drinking far too much diluted wine, because in every life I struggle with substance abuse issues. It’s another day in paradise, and what could be on the agenda for today? I could go check out the olympics, which are naked for some reason, because this is not a serious civilization, but the thought of being around that many people makes me sick. I can’t stand all the tourists who come in from Crete just for the summer. In this life, I’m vaguely racist. I could also just keep drinking. I really consider that before opting to pray at the altar of Ares instead. Ares is my favorite because I’ve always found the Spartan armor hot, and in fact I’ve even begged my own erastês to don the outfit for me for a while now but he keeps refusing and instructing me to focus on my studies instead. What’s the point of even having a sugar daddy if he’s not going to treat you? Sigh. I ask Ares if he’s mad at me. I don’t know if I mean him or my erastês. His statue stares unblinkingly back. Why do they make their dicks so tiny? I don’t have all the answers. Or any. Filled suddenly with a sense of gloom that I can’t pinpoint a reason for, I resign myself to having another unproductive day and start drinking again.
Another memory. This time I’m visiting Athens, just chilling at Plato’s symposium. Up until this point I haven’t really gotten involved in the conversation, because someone is playing Protos Delfikos Imnos Ston Apollona and it’s giving me sex flashbacks to the last time I had premarital intercrural to it. Is that right? Could there have been a band? This memory is blurry around the edges and I can’t quite grasp it. Plato is being such an attention whore, like usual, and blabbing on about the idiotic masses while I’m just trying to catch a vibe. As much as I don’t want to engage with him, I have to shut him up somehow.
“You’re so right bro, it’s like they still live in caves.”
Plato, seemingly taken aback, looks at me thoughtfully.
“Caves… yes, yes..”
Oh brother. I return my attention to my wine, desperately wishing it was something stronger. Why do we dilute this shit anyway. And how hard is it to get some opium up in this bitch? Plato keeps prattling on to himself in hushed tones. I can’t wait to get the fuck out of Athens.
Another memory. I’m almost of age and soon it’ll be time to find an erômenos of my own, and possibly a wife. I don’t know how to feel. It’s too much responsibility too soon and I’m not quite ready to be a real adult, and I also don’t know if strap-ons have been invented yet. The future is too tenuous for my liking. I just want to be a twink forever. I want to be cared for. Erômenos. Beloved. Why would I ever give that up? At that point my erastês walks in wearing a spartan uniform, wishing me a blessed birthday. My troubles are put aside for the evening. I love Ancient Greece.
When I come to back in Madrid, I feel a lot calmer. Everything that has happened to me before will happen to me again. I am the same in every life. In this way, I always have a home to return to.
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.