when we lead with our hearts
My friends.
It’s 7 AM on a Saturday morning, nearing the end of April. A cup of espresso is beside me and a glass of ice water. I’ve had 2 pieces of leftover potato pizza, and I have an overnight hydration mask on my face. I’m wearing my favourite white wide-legged lounge pants, with my fuzzy pink robe wrapped around the rest of my body. Chemtrails Over the Country Club plays in the background.
Rome is quiet this morning. The sun is slowly starting to peak out from behind the clouds. The sidewalks are empty. No one is outside on their morning stroll, arms full of grocery bags. The neighbor isn’t practicing his violin, and the old woman across from me hasn’t come outside to water the plants on her windowsill, just yet.
It’s how I wish every moment could be. Just me, while the rest of the world is sleeping. Feeling like this morning, and this moment, was made just for me. Me and the universe baby, it’s just me and the universe.
-
“I’m leaving.”
I look up at the Man at the Front’s 6’5 frame, tilt my head, and smile. It’s a Thursday night, and I’m slightly red wine drunk from an impromptu dinner.
He looks taken aback. But not completely shocked.
“To where?”
“Back to Toronto for a bit. Maybe for a portion of the summer. But, I’m starting to put plans out there to the universe for other places in the fall.” (I’ve become a bit superstitious. He knows where I’m thinking, I’ve told him, but I don’t want to write it in my newsletter, just yet.)
“I just feel like…like I’ve learned everything I need to in Rome right now.”
He smiles. “It’s what I love the most about you. If you want to do something, if you want to go somewhere, you just do it. You lead with your heart, your emotions.”
Me and you, Emy. We speak with our hearts. We always speak with our hearts.
“I know, I know. I’m not the most analytical person, not like you.”
“But I envy you. You see the beauty in everything, in everyone.”
“And sometimes that gets me in to trouble.”
His tone softens. “Well. Next time, just don’t get blinded by it.”
My wine drunk haze gets the best of me. I raise my eyebrows. “Are you talking about - “
“Emily.” He smiles. “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
-
When I turned 21, I started to put safeguards in place around my heart. It was a survival tactic, a defense mechanism (as me and Our First Muse would so often discuss).
My ex-boyfriend loved talking to other women. Especially when we fought, especially when my mom got sick, especially when I’d break up with him every two weeks. The new followers after a night out. The archived messages I’d dig for.
“It’s a distraction and an addiction, Emily. Somewhere along the way, he was modelled that feeling his emotions were wrong. And so at any point of discomfort, he reaches for his phone. The next girl, the next message to give him that rush of dopamine. To remind his ego that he is still “wanted”. To help him temporarily forget what he is feeling in the first place. ” An old therapist would say to me.
It became a routine. I’d look for something. I’d find it. I’d ask him why he kept doing what he was doing. He said he didn’t know. I’d break up with him. He’d beg, he’d cry, he’d promise to change. He’d write a letter. He’d send it to my house. I’d become bored of being single. I’d take him back.
My mom would roll her eyes.
“I can’t talk to him about serious things.”
“Well. I’ve learned that’s what your girlfriends are for.”
Something about her advice made me sad.
It became a cycle. Rinse. Repeat.
And somewhere along the way, what must have conditioned me was this: men are not to be trusted. As soon as you show the slightest bit of emotion, they will take this on and look for an exit strategy. So, you, Emily Mais, must learn that men are disposable. And just as easy as they are to get, they are going to be even easier to lose.
-
Last March, the manager had invited me to the launch party of the new drink menu at the bar. Crowds of Roman locals, journalists, and PR were there, ready to write about the bar’s new innovations and what it was doing to Rome’s cocktail scene.
A stranger opens the glass door for me, and the first person I come face to face with is her. PN’s girlfriend, carrying his child in her arms.
I avoid making any eye contact with them, and give the manager a hug instead.
Turn off your emotions, Emily. I tell myself. Turn off your emotions.
-
“It’s interesting, though. Every time I’d come here, and every time I’d tell you both something. Needing advice, needing someone to just listen. Or even needing someone to encourage me. I’d trust you both to tell me what I needed to hear. And you both would tell me the same thing, just in different ways.”
The Man at the Front doesn’t say anything for a while. And I’m slowly starting to understand the confusion of his position. How he’d watch as PN’s girlfriend came early in the evening and went, and how soon the other women would trickle in after.
The distractions.
And then there was me. This foreigner, who, as much as she tried not to, wore her heart on her sleeve. Who was always alone, who was always kind and gracious. Who really loved nothing more than sitting in her corner spot, two martinis in, digging underneath the surface, digging underneath the facade of the men around her. Who’s relationship with PN confused everyone, including herself. This girl who’d leave, and then come back. Who’d always leave, but she’d always be welcomed back.
“Comfort.” The Man at the Front finally says. “We were your comfort.”
And he was right. How men could be the source of my pain, but how they could also be the source of my comfort.
-
Now, sex, I’ve realized, for emotionally guarded people, becomes one of the best ways for someone to communicate. It also provides a temporary relief of any pain inflicted on you by someone from your past. You can close your eyes and imagine the other person as the one who hurt you. It makes you feel beautiful again, doesn’t it? It makes you feel wanted.
And sometimes, sex for emotionally guarded people, becomes the closest you’ll get to telling someone how you actually feel.
Let’s pretend. I’d tell myself. Let’s pretend we have more than what we currently got.
And as I’d wrap my arms around his tattooed frame, his forehead pressed up against mine, I could never stop the tears from forming. I wouldn’t bother wiping them away, either. I’d let them fall across my cheekbones and onto my pillowcase. And with pain behind his, and with pain behind mine, he would look into my watery eyes and kiss me. The tears would fall, and he would still kiss me.
-
The Man at the Front lights a cigarette and passes it to me.
“Remember New Years?”
I inhale and nod. “I loved that night.”
“Me too.”
It was just us standing outside, 15 minutes before the clock struck midnight.
“Commitment.”
“What?”
“My word of the year. You asked me what my word of the year was going to be. And I told you, commitment.”
“You remember that conversation?”
“Emily, I remember all of our conversations.”
How men could be the source of my pain, but how they could also be the source of my comfort.
-
One of my favourite movie moments is in How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days. Kate Hudson sits in Matthew McConaughey’s bathroom and starts to cry.
“It’s just when your mom hugged me, she like, really hugged me.”
In his grey Duke t-shirt, he wipes away her tears, Chantel Kreviazuk’s Feels Like Home starts to play, and they then proceed to have shower sex.
This line, and this scene, often ran through my mind when the Man at the Front would call me baby Emily. When, after the party back in March, the manager let me shed a few tears in his arms while apologizing. “Emily. Oh Emily. I had no idea you felt this strongly about him.” I even thought about this line when I’d walk in, looking the slightest bit off, and PN’s immediate look of concern and an “are you ok?” would follow.
Maybe they really, really cared. In their own, unique ways. Maybe they all really cared, and maybe I had more to offer someone than just sex. Maybe I just didn’t believe it. But maybe I always had more.
-
I told the Man at the Front we should stop hooking up at the beginning of March. I knew he had feelings for me, I knew he had a complicated ex-gf. And I knew how I felt, or rather, I knew how I didn’t feel. I knew it wasn’t fair.
But, standing beside his 6’5 frame, and after a few glasses of wine and 2 puffs of a cigarette, all of my rationale goes out the window.
“Want to come over after work tonight?”
He smiles and sighs.
“Listen. I know you still think about someone else. I could always tell.”
Before I have a chance to say anything, he continues.
“Let’s just leave it like this, Emily. It’s perfect just like this, isn’t it? Us talking again.”
I smile and nod. And for some reason, I feel relieved.
“You’re right.” I tell him. “Thank you.”
He was right. And I was sorry.
-
We are all flawed, I realized. Flawed and hurt human beings who walk around this earth with scars, cuts, scrapes, holes, gashes, and wounds. Accidentally inflicting the damage from our battles onto others.
An old friend always used to reference Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs when talking to me about love and relationships.
“When you’re little, and that one basic need isn’t met. The basis of security, of a safe foundation. It effects how you access and receive all the other ones.”
Love and a sense of belonging falls in the middle of that hierarchy. It balances in between the others. It is a product of safety and security, and what self-esteem and self-actualization are birthed from.
-
To my father: We are both bound by blood, and both bound by the loss of our mothers at an early age. And for that, we share a similar pain. A similar hole. And I understand that void, and I understand that no matter how far we run, or how much we try to fill that void, it is still an empty space that, if we let it, will swallow us whole. But I want to thank you. For every time you dropped me off and picked me up, for every time you’d come home, excited to cook a new recipe. For every time you’d bring me a glass of wine while I got ready upstairs. I’ve learned about the different ways in which you show and express your love, and that is what I will choose to carry in my heart.
To my ex-boyfriend: We were so young, weren’t we? So young. Too young to be in the relationship we found ourselves in. But we learned, didn’t we? Maybe it’s what happens when two Geminis get together. Comfort and combustion. Too many personalities in one. But I will always remember you calling me flip-flop, Terroni dinners, and even when we had broken up for good - you letting me stay with you in Vancouver (on two separate occasions) for when I needed an escape. There’s something unconditional about that.
To Our First Muse: “Right person, wrong time.” Is always your go-to when we talk about us. And I realized something. Does the wrong time even exist when it’s the right person? I’m still unsure about that, but you know what I am sure of? That I always had the time of my life with you. Thank you for being the first guy to see me for me, thank you for pointing out my defence mechanisms (each and every time), thank you for the amazing sex, thank you for letting me follow you again on IG when I get mad and unfollow you, and even after seven years, thank you for always letting me insert our conversations into these newsletters.
To The Man at the Front: I write about angels in the form of strangers a lot. People who come into your life, who immediately help you and look out for you without any explanation as to why. Thank you for making me feel beautiful when I was at my most vulnerable. You didn’t run. Instead, you handed me tissues and told me that I deserved a lot better. You always told me that I deserved a lot better. Your sister is lucky to have you as a brother, and your ex-girlfriend is lucky to have had you as her first love. I think I might miss you the most.
To PN: I did my best to tell our story over the past two years. I have this conspiracy theory that you read all of these letters, but you don’t say anything because you understand what it means to be an artist, what it means to be an empath, and what it means to be free. I think we both might have driven each other crazy. And maybe I’m crazy for labelling madness as love. I kind of regret refusing to meet up with you to “fix things” before I left for Australia, and bringing a date to the bar three weeks later instead, thus starting this whole circus. But I don’t know if that conversation would have made things any better, or if it just would have made things worse. Maybe it came down to this: fighting the universe by wanting to keep something that was never meant to be ours in this lifetime.
But you know what I do hope? That in this lifetime, I made you proud.
That in this lifetime, I made all of you proud.
I love you.
Emily