Hands gripped firmly around the handles of my citibike, I pedaled through Central Park, in the dark, at an unnatural speed as I took an electric bike. I was on my way, coming to a dramatic halt, sneak on the pavement, to my friend’s 40th birthday…as Professor X’s protegee.
I’m about to turn 40. It’s not the easiest birthday for me because of how terrible my thirties were, I lost everything, and I am not at all anywhere I’d like to be. And now, luckily, I no longer have the guru in my system of thought at all — meaning he no longer controls my thought processes, as his voice took over. He imposed his belief system onto me as if it were absolutely true. And he should be smart enough to know that his belief system would spark intrigue, outrage, and debate.
I feel like I am back, at least, to a time and body before he came into my life unnecessarily. His beliefs ruined me. But at least, I’m past this absurd idea that I wanted this, or something, as he believed that everything that happens to you is what you want. It was so scary. I did not want this. I did not want some irresponsible man projecting all over me. Or, acting wise… there was nothing wise about his actions.
So, my friend, rented out the top floor of a small bar, and there was a gathering of people, and I don’t know if I ever even threw myself a birthday party like that. And why? I don’t know. I don’t know so much now, though now, I don’t know what to do, because I didn’t exactly build a life for myself, and I’m not that proud of my existence, I mean, if I attracted this? Talk of psychicness, just so foolish. I lost everything so some guy could jack off, essentially, just that relationship was so stupid, pointless, like, I ended up watching Reese Witherspoon last night telling people to SAVE their money, not that “it doesn’t matter what the rent is…”
I have no idea what to do for my birthday, my 40th, because it’s not a milestone at all, but one of these — I got sent back to the beginning with less than I had 10 years ago. I hardly have any friends, even, because I didn’t exactly build a life anywhere, like, sure, I can invite people to a bar, and maybe I will, I don’t know, but I ended up listening to “it doesn’t matter what the rent is…” you see, and I have nothing right now. It’s not that pleasant. Nothing MATTERS. It doesn’t MATTER. That relationship crushed me, coming from the background that I did, like on top of just trying to be a well-adjusted, open person, not to say I was perfect, I’m going to have to deal with some dick in Beverly Hills with fantasies of being a talented psychologist. So that crushed me. Like, why would you be irresponsible with me? He knew nothing about my background, nothing, and yes, it does matter.
I’m not feeling that celebratory. I feel like I learned like, fame and money aren’t necessarily going to bring your happiness without having acquired either. I had money, but of course, the guru wasn’t seeing that. Reese Witherspoon? She would have. She would have never treated me like a toy. So I hate myself for not being able to see what was happening, that I was so impacted by this man, confused, like, even his way of responding to this draft, it was all weird. I did not deserve that.
I did see an old friend, and perhaps a real new friend, Dana, a lesbian, “gay,” she said simply, because I didn’t know how she identified. She’s a total fox who is in this super lucky position where she’s transitioning from one girlfriend to another… but she’s been with her partner for so long, six years, and they live together, that their breakup is happening over time… they’re friends. Her new girlfriend and old girlfriend were at this party together, hanging out, even. We caught up — in this atmosphere. She’s a warm person, the type that I would gravitate towards now. Normal. Friendly. Talkative. Open. Someone who is fun to talk to. Down to earth.
Not the guru. That man is not “down to earth.”
And sometimes, when I meet someone warm, it touches me too deeply, because the guru lacked the basic ability to care. She’s just a woman my age, she doesn’t give a shit about my pursuits… or my PAST, for the love of GOD. I never met anyone like him, the guru, he was a demon, mine. And I struggle with the reflections, that I was vulnerable, I look back on myself in this relationship, wanting only to hold myself, as if I were my own mother. “Please don’t do this…” I didn’t know I was disturbed. She’d probably come to my birthday… so I’m thinking about it. It’s just too emotional, today, just because I never thoughtt about throwing a stupid birthday party. I probably had a dinner once, something, who knows, but I’m not exactly throwing myself birthday parties….
And any trigger that takes me back to the utter horrific experience I went through, I think about him, the guru, I think about my parents, if I was abused, and I want to throw a chair at a sign called “mental health.” Maybe I should get a pinata, and Dana will smash it to shits with me, I’m sure. So I’ll see if her parents simply triggered me, or they had that in mind…her father said, you’ve had an interesting “life arc” thus far, and I didn’t know what that meant. What that was referring to. My life ended, so.
To Dana, I was saying, I don’t know what to do as a straight woman, now, because where am I going to find a boyfriend? Where do people go? My priorities were out of whack, like I ended up meeting a psychopath, that’s who this guru was, he was a psycho-path.She said that her other straight friends have ended up dating younger men, which isn’t exactly my cup of tea, but she thought, it’s probably harder, and I’ve just got to figure out where to go…
I’ll see Dana soon, I want to go over to her place and hang out with her girlfriends… just to bask a bit in her world, a minute, as that’s rather rare, that they transitioned to being dear friends, what can she say? But they are consciously unstructuring, so it’s taking a minute, as her ex has to find a new place in this case, so they’re roommates, more or less. But just seeing these two blond women chit chatting with another over her shoulder, it was funny. I noticed Dana’s soap, she smelled good, and I’m extremely comfortable with myself in that way, there’s no inkling of a problem in me with one’s sexuality. I rejected that a long time ago, twelve, even made my father cry when the Catholic Church tried to sell me homophobia. I made the man cry. So I complimented how she smelled, but I got a touch of a remark from her girlfriend, though it was benign. “You smell amazing.” It was true. I’m buying the soap right now. That’s Dana. She gave our friend THIS soap. And she’s showing up with two blonds. I have to laugh. And she’s not reaching for fame, UGH, she’s not Alexander the Great, which, why was this necessary to put on me? WHAT exactly made me so special? But not, it was so heartbreaking. And this guru, this psychopath, he would think that it was…a compliment. If it hadn’t been, I could have bought a house right now, you see. If I had met a different type of person. Not one is telling DANA this. Before she does anything. No one is putting that SHE DOESN’T KNOW she’s special, because she has a vulnerable personality, or SHE CHOSE, as I did, to NOT be like that because of my background.
“His brother,” okay? “This guru’s brother, also a genius psychologist in some regard, he told me, for real, that in the 15th century, I would have been the one to speak to animals…” isn’t that insulting? I couldn’t get ONE practical piece of advice. Like, don’t spend your money. Something. Not until now—Reese Witherspoon popping up on my phone, and I almost cried. I felt so stupid, and it’s the pompous airs of the guru next to the simpliest piece of advice, that sends me head spinning. Not Dana’s soap. I ended up in outer space… and it hurt me so deeply as a person, that I’ve struggled to move on, because I can’t quite make meaning, like, other than, “I was vulnerable” and stupid. These dudes, from Beverly Hills, they can jack off for years if they want to, believe in whatever, but they shouldn’t talk to people like that, which is how these plant people spoke to me… like, I was a psychic.
At least, though, I identified someone I’d actually like to hang out with, I like Dana. She’s someone I’d discuss art with, hang out with, because it’s just so easy to talk to her. She’s not complexed, she’s not elitist, which I can’t stand, and we never have to discuss my background, ever. I just run into these emotional moments, because I even remember, turning 30, and asking my friend’s girlfriend at the time, and she has another lovely girlfriend now, who I introduced myself to. She said, “40 is coming,” right? That’s all she had to say as a woman about to turn 40 to us, at 30. “I get it, you’re thinking oh, wow, I’m 30, but no, 40 is coming…” and she said, “You’re going to want to feel good about that age.” And I don’t, exactly, though I’m looking forward to 50, let’s say, because maybe I can make it more productive, fruitful, nicer, even, kinder to me. Just a better decade with normal, people in it. No psychedelics. No psychics. Not unless I’m doing a show about it. I can’t quite avoid feeling knocked down.
Like seeing my friend’s parents, and wondering if they had been informed about what I went through, if they were thinking about it, I didn’t need a reminder. I keep feeling knocked down by what I went through, and the tears really roll down my cheeks, as I nod at warm, normal people who fit my personality, who would never specialize me, would never write all over me, or try to help me, if that makes sense. I’ve always been a sensitive person, meaning, I had a tender heart, fuck sensitive. So ringing in my forties feels like a mourning. I don’t know if I was abused, in the end, by my parents… or by someone… and I went through a crisis, also thanks to the guru…
And I struggle to move on.
We’ll see what my friend says, as I’m curious if this is going to be another, “let me sit down and rid myself of the psychic bullshit” once again, or it’s going to be, which has happened, one of these—”oh, Maria can pick up on things sometimes…” which everyone can. Or they get fearful. You know? I say that because the GURU placed a degree of importance around HIS FEELING about something, that, I don’t do. I don’t act like I’m necessarily correct, but that attitude most certainly confused me. So, I feel like I’m struggling to move past something that happened years ago, and no, these gurus in Beverly Hills need to stick to their own lane.
I called this guru, confused as to whether or not I was fed… because this guy kept shoving “THEY FEED YOU” down my throat, over a book draft? He made comments that ALLUDED to his BELIEF. “YES,” he said, cold, a cold man, “and I suspect you weren’t bathed either.” It was UNNECESSARY. Telling me “you’re probably going to go through experiences,” because YOU think I was repressed… based on what? Because I didn’t know how to write a fucking book? “You were repressed for a long time…” I could strangle him. Repressed how? What did that man know about repression? Other than he, might be? Talking about how HARD it is for a MAN to express his feelings? Didn’t LOOK that hard.
So last night wasn’t that easy for me, though seeing Dana was lovely. And I dislike the effect this causes in my mind, as these gurus believe you can telepathically communicate, that what happens in your head in real, which isn’t true. So I just ended up feeling terrible this morning. I don’t know why. But I'll keep trying to re-find my happiness. At least, at the top of my thirties, which my friend said, I was happy. I loved life. I didn’t need to be Alexander the Great, over a sex scandal? Or some crazy family story? So I grieve, maybe that’s what the end of the decade is, for me, at least decade. A funeral. Grieving what I lost. Taking deep breaths: perspective.
I was blamed for all my parents’ problems — all of them. I read through this — tearing at the guru’s commentary — Christmas in Naples is a Sport draft, and nod, nod at myself, a person who didn’t realize that OTHER people can act inappropriately… that I didn’t have to let people do…whatever they wanted to a certain extent, especially around my STUPID fucking story. But hopefully, to Gumby’s turning under falling snow (my young cousin) as an orphan, as that’s the first role I cast her in, maybe all this will make a good book… a real journey… as I’m now thinking I’ll do a sweep… across my life… I have the Forrest Gump soundtrack in my head.
A bit of a voice of a simpleton. In that, “I was called special, but I don’t know why. It had to do with my personality… “ my cousin Carmine called me “a touching person", but man oh man, I would not wish that fate upon any man, not from where I stand. I would tell a touching person, “it’s time to build walls.” TO NOT LET PEOPLE IN. I suffered I did, without needing to, needing to make peace with coming from a set of characters that people didn’t believe were real, true, in a world that must protect itself… from shady people.
I just didn’t want to project my story out into the world, I didn’t want to judge a book by its cover, I never ever did that. And here, some people would say, “come on,” except I came from the background that I did. And I had to learn how to JUDGE. Discern. Because, in the end, I ran into my doom… and from the ashes, I hope Barbara Harris will fly above Phoenix, and the joke that I “got here, got through this,” taking off action-star aviators, “thanks to the ghost of an actress…” in this imaginative tale called my life. Full of intrigue, charm.
Anyway, honestly, in the end, right? Who cares if I picked up on something or not. I think it was more the feeling of being judged or misunderstood. Like what I went through wasn’t understood. Anyway, I’m off to work on my EPIC essay, and I just want this to be over. I don’t want to be a writer, yikes. I just want it to be over. Like, I might keep going… through my life. College, I began to disappear. That was a disaster. The end of family 2. Dr. J returns. She calls them “classless.” Amazing. And then, people are going to look at me as if they don’t know what crazy is. Like there aren’t fucked up people out there… and go to Paris… tell a bit of that story… to come back to LA, through NYC, which is the introduction of the plant people, and my third family… I mean, by the time I got to 30, I reunited with my cousins. And I’ll use them, and the guru, to show the OBSTACLE of the OTHER.
Not totally realizing that I can’t SAY she accused him a being a child abuser.
There’s something about them singing to me… constantly, that I like. I’ll figure this part out. But I’m starting to think about writing a more sweeping journey… practically pulling clothing racks across airports…as my clothes became my thing. Anyway, no rush there… wish I could kick back right now, with money in the bank, which I had, I wish I bypassed the disgusting display, truly, of my specialness, or ability to BECOME FAMOUS WRITER SUCCESSFUL, and just gotten a job, found the right psychologist, and worked out the relationship in question: boyfriend. Husband. I didn’t MEET Obama, you know? A man who would have made an argument for marriage.
Like, the guru wrote me this birthday card, “BE AMAZING if you chose to be…”
What about “I love you just the way you are…” ?
You know?
Is it AMAZING to write a book? WRITE AN AMAZING BOOK?
I was just a pretty young woman sitting in a cafe—to him. He found me attractive. Or else, weirdly, he found my STORY attractive, and it triggered him in a way that was going to harm me. I couldn’t recognize that, as I had been so disrespected around the story, which my cousins will show in scene one, of my interaction with them. And the one thing I had to learn was: say stop. Enough. I’ve been through enough, in relation to this stupid story. Go watch TV. Go write a script. Make up whatever you want to… but spare me.
So, I just want to keep letting this go. Even seeking validation that one day the book will be published, nothing but applause, Booker Prize nominees, whatever, where I will feel validated and understood. I hated the whole story, unfortunately. I gotta keep — moving forward, and continuing to do what I’d like to do, and I’d like to find what it is that I felt I was made to do… and secure my future, really, as I do get worried, right now, so I got knocked down, my life fell apart. I’m 40, and I’m here. And I’m looking at this Gilded Age photograph going, fingers crossed. Let’s see if I can turn this around.
I’m going to be damning talk of being special, as a warning, don’t do that to someone. Not over shit like that.
As I told this guru, “assholes like you, man, assholes like you.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Who want to play ZELDA…” flying over the world on a cloud… fighting supernatural raccoons for the sake of art, artistry… over some GIRL, who came with a PAST. Oh yeah, she was pretty. A nice person. I need to get over my anger. Wanting to chuck his apartment out his windows. Smash his computer. “You can feel my PAIN?” That’s what this man said to me, the second time we hung out, because wouldn’t I be uncomfortable? Would YOU be comfortable talking to a stranger? Don’t you know what it means to have gone through something? Anything? Like, I’m not trying to pretend like it didn’t AFFECT ME, dickface. And then, the anger comes.
Gotta go.
I struggle to move on because I can’t resolve this with this person. I can’t get an apology. I’m going to have to let this sick fuck go, on my own. That’s what bothers me. I need to let it go. Yes, he gets AWAY with shit, doesn’t he? It gets on my nerves.