Burn It To The Ground
My First Relationship
I am grateful for our time together. I am also grateful for burning that relationship to the ground.
My first serious monogamous relationship was with a man five years older than me. I was sixteen when we first met and was swept up in the excitement of being with someone far older than me. He drove a car, had a real job and had my mum shaking her head in wide-eyed disbelief as I reassured her in earnest that ‘he was the one and we were in love.
My parents did all that they could to talk me out of dating someone much older than me, but I was terribly strong willed. In the end, my mum supported me by encouraging and supporting safer sex practices, and to helped me stay focussed on my education and music practice.
Almost immediately I was completely absorbed into his world. His friends became my friends. Weekends were spent with him. His hobbies became my hobbies. His beliefs and politics were now mine.
My impressionable and malleable young mind was feeding from the romantic fairytale which I was now the main character of. Isn’t this what every young woman wants? An older, cooler man to steer the ship?
Yet, as the years went by my world felt small. I felt small.
Usually when I share photos of myself to pair with my writing, I choose an image that Liam has taken of me that ties in with my words. But as I was choosing the subsequent photos for this article, I was drawn to images that captured who I was during this time.
When I see the image below, I see a young woman who was going through the motions of life with someone who was poorly suited to her. I see insecurity. I see the fashion preferences of someone else, dressed upon her like a mannequin. She looks so visibly different from who I am today that I almost have to stop and remind myself that she was in fact, me.