“The thing I’ve known for a while,
is that you just don’t have enough money.”
Three days is a long time to spend with someone. But it’s not enough time when you’ve spent the last 18 months in someone’s world.
Today I’m trying to figure out where I start and end, and where the artist begins.
I’ve had a rule for a few years now that I always send the newsletter out on Sunday evening. I’m rewriting this one at 11pm, knowing full well I don’t know what I’m sending out.
I’ve just ended an 18-month relationship with someone who, throughout that time, was dating somebody else. In our closing moments, when I was trying to figure out what went wrong, I got something back I didn’t expect.
“The thing I’ve known for a while,
is that you just don’t have enough money.”
I’d managed to heal a little from it over the last few days. This morning I heard it again.
“A man has to feel like a man.
A woman has to feel like a woman.
Human nature.”
Friends
“We should still be friends.”
I now know that’s not the right path. But when we last spoke I felt that I should accommodate it. When we parted ways, I agreed to stay in touch by email.
It felt like I was being asked to stay as committed as I’d been, while she went off and lived her life, and I fell into playing the saviour. But I’m not a saviour. “I don’t have enough money.”
I spent the first half of today writing a letter. It’s the last she’ll ever receive from me. It’s something I promised. It took a lot for me not to share it here. I still don’t know if that’s how I want to live as an artist.
Part of what I realised I had become in that relationship was the emotional support for her to be brave enough to leave her previous one. [timeline clause: is the man on the boat the same man, or a new one?] What became clearer over the last six months is that the pain she was feeling in that relationship, and the way she was being treated, was something she was learning how to do with me.
Sometimes people find art and artists at a time of need. Whether I was the support to leave, or a disposable object that hasn’t got sufficient resources to question being treated in this way, I don’t know.
Money
She comes from a much more affluent background than I do. The last time we’d spoken before this week, I needed some time apart, juggling our calls between her life events was messing with my head. She was on a boat with her partner and their friends on holiday.
At times during our relationship, I had to run faster than I could to keep up and provide at a standard that was acceptable for her. For her it was a man being a man. For me it was zeroing out my bank balance every time I saw her.
Sometimes I had to find time to see her at the cost of work, because that’s the time she could take away from her relationship. Over time my work eroded and hers began to flourish.
I thought that maybe that would be enough. That if I showed everything I had was devoted to it, then somehow it would be enough. Somehow I would be enough. That she would accept that although I don’t have as much as other people she knows, at least everything I have is going into us.
I’m not there. I’m an artist. I may not ever get there.
And as I’ve said very clearly before, I don’t like boats.
Cracks
The relationship broke down a few weeks ago. This week I managed to reconnect with her when she came to my city. To say what couldn’t be said. To get the last bit of juice out of the lemon.
There’s an emotion I love that you get very few chances to experience. Nagori. For me, nagori is the melancholy of enjoying something that you know is going to end. The lingering afterglow of the experience. I’m still in it, I think.
I told my friend the plan. Three days together as if they were the last three days we would ever see each other. She told me I was insane.
“You are insane”
“I know, I’m an artist”
“No, you’re literally insane”
They were the last three days we would ever see each other.
There’s a painting I made during our relationship. Whenever I thought about her, I’d pick away at it. It’s hers. It’s hers because it’s every part of her journey. I thought that on this trip she’d get to see it.
She sat in front of it and cried.
I think it’s the first time she realised that maybe I actually know what I’m doing.
But that’s still not enough.
What I learned today was that maybe I shouldn’t have spent any days at all.
I don’t want to learn that some relationships only work if you have enough money.
Collar
Money is a collar. A financial imbalance is a power imbalance. It gives you the ability to control the other person.
I’ve watched myself run around to match the lifestyle of someone I loved, as they stayed chained to another relationship for the same reason.
Today I thought to myself, maybe she’s right. Maybe as a man I need more money. At the very least, it seems to work. But I don’t know if a team always looks that way. If you can’t take someone at their worst, do you want them at all?
But All I do know, is that I haven’t got enough money for her.
Maybe that’s the whole of it.
Part of how I try to see the world is that people are defined by their actions, not by their resources. What I really hope is that the people I meet and fall in love with won’t be so flippant about defining me by what I have over how I act.
The wealthiest people I know don’t act like that.
I have a friend who understands wealth. He doesn’t wear it with ego. He’s comfortable with it. I’ve listened to what he’s taught me about it because there’s no emotion in the way it’s delivered.
“There are three types of people around wealthy people: other wealthy people that they can relate to, people trying to be rich, and interesting people. Russ, you are not wealthy like this. But you are interesting.”
That interesting side of me has taken me to some rooms I didn’t know existed when I was on the 510 bus to school in Wolverhampton and the kids next to me were setting fire to the seats.
I’m fortunate that when I’ve been brought into these rooms, I’ve been able to look around and see what I like and what I don’t.
I’d rather look for the rooms full of interesting people. From what I can tell, that’s what the wealthy people are looking for too. They have enough of the rest. So what is the money for? Power? Furs?
Maybe the life I’ve chosen means I don’t end up with certain people. I put everything in and ended up with nothing.
I still remember the first time I met her best friend. She sat opposite me, and when we were left alone she said,
“What have you done to her?”
I didn’t know whether I’d done something wrong. We had broken the conventional rules of relationships. My lips were sealed. I knew better than to voice the chaos we had started.
“What do you mean?”
“She’s not like this.”
“Like what?”
“Happy.”
Final Words
Maybe the work right now is me trying to process whatever I’m going through. Maybe it can’t be done in a day or a newsletter.
Today I thought a lot about how much of this I can share with you. Do I share the letter, do I share anything at all. I’m still figuring out my balance point. This will help.
Everyone gets to decide what they love.
I don’t have any advice.
Just remember.
Some things you can’t take back.
I love you loads,
Russ x