RELATIONSHIPS WITH THE ETHER

A CONTINUOUS SUBMISSION-BASED PROJECT BY GABI ABRÃO   STATEMENT SUBMIT YOUR ETHERSHIP

[etherships]

The last 12 years are a dizzying silk tapestry that I'd like to ceremoniously burn. Near the end, you asked me to take you back and I couldn't do it. Cut to a few months later: you're selling off your belongings and packing up your life in a box to move into a whole new world that I'll know very little about. And as you are slowly cutting yourself away from the miserable conjoined thing that we had become I'm realizing how I didn't appreciate all the beauty you brought into my life.  I couldn't see it through the veil of stress brought on by being the main source financial support for two people over many years (that of course, dear reader, is not the WHOLE story, but a big enough part). You became the succubus and I was the good guy putting up with so much - or that's how it looked to everyone. But you were trying so hard to break that mold.  And I, by this point, had become a miserable bastard who just wanted to be alone. So why then do I get the thing I want, freedom from you, and I don't want it? What kind of sick fucking joke? How childish of me! There was a day when I was alone and I said out loud to myself "oh god what have I done" and I broke down and cried for the first time since your departure became a reality. If everything happens for a reason there better be a good god damn reason.  I paid a high price for this perspective. But hey...I'm happy you're happy. Even if it’s not with me.

[etherships]

Broke up after 4 years in Apr 2021. Tumultuous, on-again-off-again fog for the rest of 2021 and half of this year). Tried to stay friends, but whenever we did hang out I kept finding myself reverting back to a version of me that I was ready to let go. That’s why when I do grieve him, I also grieve a version of me that lived in such a scarcity and fearful mindset.

Just like the clouds that whimsically meander the sky, the grief comes and goes. The yearning for closure comes and goes. The desire to show him just how much I’ve grown and accomplished alone and in my own power, comes and goes. Sometimes the heartbreak feels fresh and other times it feels like a distant memory that I remain grateful for. Maybe one day these clouds will dissipate into invisible mist before they even reach my field of vision. But for now, I will worship the blue in between until the next cloud.

[etherships]

Christmas 2020. My Mom said you looked so skinny before she took this and it made me mad. So mad I called my own mother fat as an angry retort. My inherited trauma is subtle criticism. All my mother would do is criticize my looks, and others as well. "She needs to fix her teeth or she'd be so pretty." "If you don't use the acne cream I bought you your face will be all pockmarked and no girls will want to go out with you" 

You were so different. You taught me that comparison is the thief of joy, that to criticize others just reveals the insecurities in yourself. You were so beautiful, so kind, so compassionate and caring. You did so much for me, made me feel so loved, and always checked in on my feelings. Due to my critical nature, I convinced myself that there were more attractive people out there for me, that you weren't pretty enough, that I wasn't attracted to you anymore. The more you tell yourself something, the more you believe it. It also didn't help that 6 months into the relationship when we took mushrooms together for the first time, something told me that this wasn't the right person for me, and I denied it for 2 years, until it became too much to bear. Eventually I let you go, because I was no longer capable of denying those feelings, and lying to someone who genuinely loved me with all her heart was just cruel. When we broke up, you still spent the night at my house, and we cried facing opposite sides of the bed, knowing this would be the last time we slept together.  

Things were always a bit rocky with us, but like my parents as well, I tried to sweep it under the rug by avoiding it and any confrontation. It was really a struggle trying to help manage the mental health of someone who had abandonment issues, who was a sexual assualt survivor, and was prone to high anxiety, all while living through, at the time, a terrifying pandemic. They say anxiety is incredibly contagious, and I was never a very anxious person before we met, only having a panic attack once after smoking way too much weed. 

I'm much more at peace now that we're no longer together, but I often wish we were still, despite all the bad stuff. Your brain loves to shove all that away and remember the good, in hopes that crazy nuerochemical cocktail of serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin, and others, could be made real again. I know it won't ever happen again though, and I've come to be comfortable with that. Hopefully one day I'll find someone as special as you again.

[etherships]

Neither of us were leaving but we knew how it would go if we were. A month later you did let me go, and I thanked you for it, smiling through the tears. I find it warming, and a little sad that this was one of the only photos taken of the two of us. To be held by you was to be surrounded by the ether and all of the possibilities it held. 

[etherships]

[etherships]

My first and last boyfriend. This pic is from my sweet 16 before I came to terms with being a lesbian. I will always have a place in my heart for him : )

[etherships]

In some parallel universe I know you held me tighter. You tried harder. You said, "Look my love, I will meet you halfway"....

[etherships]

You can still be sad about making the right decision

[etherships]

I have a lot of feelings about our relationship. Anger, sadness, confusion, missing you, love, appreciation, etc. I still feel the hurt and sadness quite often about how the last month went. I have confusion about why you did what you did and how that changed my view of you and how I can process it all? I’m learning more how to see the gray and nuances in life and in your absence, you have helped me to adopt new ways of thinking. You were sleeping in this picture and so beautiful to me, I was so happy you could relax in the midst of struggles with insomnia. This is a picture that I can look back and remember the purity of love I felt in the moment. Those are the things I miss most, the tiniest moments that we shared, so full of love and life and normalcy that I wasn’t thinking about it as it was happening. I love you in some form, I always will and I don’t quite understand what that is yet or shaping to be. More than anything, our relationship served as a catalyst that has changed the course of my life in all of the ways I needed most. And what a gift that is. Maybe the depth of that impact reflects the depth of emotion and love we shared together. I wonder if it has changed your life like this too? I’m smiling at a new horizon now, one that you helped me to discover in myself. 💛

[etherships]

[etherships]

I just miss the illusion of happiness

[etherships]

I wanted to spend more time with this image, to make it perfect.

I let it go.

As real and imperfect as we,

as rough as the water,

I wonder if you feel the waves too.

[etherships]

Thank you for the growth and the learning. Letting you go was one of the hardest things I have ever done, but I am so much better for it.

[etherships]

We were friends first. After the break up, I tried for months to bury my pain and keep him in my life as a friend, hoping that someday we’d be together again. I was desperately trying to hold onto something that wasn’t there anymore.

[etherships]

Three months later: I tell him I’m scared, he looks away. I have to leave, we say goodbye and neither of us know it’s the last time. We end things 1,000 miles apart over the phone.

[etherships]

[etherships]

"Hola, cuida tu felicidad que con tu felicidad inspiras más felicidades voy a prepararme la infusión y voy a llamar a mi abuelita recuerda tratar de tomar sol y que saludes a las margaritas. Piensa bonito por salud. Tire la buena por su bien nadie sabe con la sed que bebe el otro no, no que lleva bajo la piel."