I haven’t always been the best at being alone. Which is weird when you consider that up until the age of 10, I shared a bed with my siblings and mom. That up until my brother moved to New York in 2006, at my house, I didn’t have my own room. That I’m in introvert and, in many ways, crave silence.
But the thing of it is that I’m a paradox. And the fact that I get lonely rather easily is also a deep part of my own makeup. It is difficult to live in this tension; to both desire, deeply, a need to step back from the crowd, but also know that being in conversation with and among people is a joy.
In 2013, I was still learning a lot about what this meant for me. And, specifically, what it meant to allow myself the space to be alone.
***
2013 was a year of self revelation. That journey doesn’t begin here, but I think it’s easiest for me to explain this by starting with starting therapy in December of that year. I entered because I’d had to finally admit that I struggled with addiction.
The therapist I worked with, even in my early time, lead me through a lot of different things I’d learn about myself that somehow remained out of reach: that my fear of heights, for example, stemmed from a bold desire to discover as much as from a desire to not die. That my coping stemmed from life circumstances that placed a lot of pressure on my shoulders. That I had a core belief that I had to earn love; and that the hole it left was unfillable by anything I’d tried up to that point.
It was, as the kids say, a lot. But one of the things that came up in my therapy sessions was how I had managed to cut certain parts of me in order to fit into other peoples’ lives. That I would mold and shape myself to fit exactly what the other person needed, often forgetting or, worse, denying my own needs.
It’s a weird thing to come to grips with - that the way I’d come to see and interact with the world was entirely shaped by other people. That I’d surrendered my agency for affection and connection.
But also that it was a falsehood constructed entirely by me. I’d bought entirely into the lie and imprisoned myself within it. It is an embarrassing revelation, but one that brought me a real sense of freedom.
Because for years I’d prevented myself from going to the movies alone for no reason beyond my own discomfort at being alone. 2013 was situated to be, however, the year I would remind myself that I was wrong.
***
A source of tension for me in a particular relationship I was in was that my girlfriend at the time and I did not share the same threshold for what content was deemed acceptable. I, generally, would be interested in any piece of cinema or television regardless of content rating provided that the narrative either piqued an interest or the work hit some sort of cultural/artistic relevancy. She, on the other hand, only wanted to watch films that were more demure and what some might consider wholesome.
There is nothing wrong, necessarily, about her boundaries around media. And as such, I found very little reason to pushback too much. It was, though, a disappointment because I always hoped to be able to share in conversations about art and media with my partner. But this was, all told, a small-ish tradeoff when you consider the many other ways in which we worked. She was, and still is, the one for me (spoiler alert!).
But it did make for a conundrum: what to do when a significant piece of cinema were to be released? My initial answer was simply to forgo them. We dated relatively long-distance in that we only could see each other on the weekends. I didn’t want to waste a date night with her on a film with friends. To add to that, though, I had fewer and fewer single friends who weren’t in a similar place. And so, given that I wasn’t into watching films alone, it essentially meant I would simply erase significant films from my watch list.
The Summer of 2013, though, presented me with an interesting opportunity: my girlfriend would be going away for a month. I’d need to find a way to cover the time I’d normally have spent with her. I couldn’t have known then, but watching a film at the ArcLight in Hollywood would be the first step in my journey of learning to be alone.
***
Ryan Coogler’s Fruitvale Station is an absolute masterpiece. A film about the 2009 murder of Oscar Grant by BART Police Officers, starring Michael B. Jordan as Oscar Grant, the early buzz around the film was that it announced Coogler as a director to watch. It also rocketed Michael B. Jordan, who’d already built an impressive resume by then with appearances on The Wire, Friday Night Lights, and Parenthood, as well as a role in Hardball, to the rarefied air of a bonafide superstar.
I knew that I would want to see the film - I was already familiar with the story of Oscar Grant and was interested in films that spoke to the need for racial justice in America. I was also a deep, deep fan of Michael B. Jordan. The film was, however, rated R.
With my girlfriend out of town, I thought I might consider going to watch the film. But I felt guilty, as though I were doing something I wasn’t supposed to. But I forced myself to go and the film touched me so intimately that I still remember, in vivid detail, the walk out of the theater and to my car. How I took an extra lap around the Amoeba Music to soak up some of the sun and drive the chill from me. How the brightness of everything felt at odds with the way my heart had been rented by the film I’d just experienced.
I remember speaking to my girlfriend, shortly after I’d made it out of the theater, and spilling all of the details of my day. But I couldn’t shake that I’d somehow felt like I’d done something elicit. Something that wasn’t meant for me. So, when she returned from her trip, I went back to avoiding films above a certain rating. At least, until therapy lead me to the Coen Brothers film, Inside Llewyn Davis.
***
I didn’t know the benefits of therapy until I’d started going in December of 2013 for issues dealing with addiction. As I’ve noted earlier, one of the big lessons coming out of it is that I had not learned how to prioritize myself and my needs over time. That I would often swallow my emotions and complaints over certain circumstances in order to look and be a team player in various environments.
The gift in recognizing this was that it reminded me that I am an individual person with their own needs and wants. That other people’s affection wouldn’t be won or lost by me adhering to their preferences; or, rather, that I may want to live a life surrounded by people who accept me for me and to trust in that acceptance.
And an easy way for me to think of that is how much leeway and understanding I would afford other people in their personal preferences. How I would not say that one’s taste in films necessarily meant they were useless or worth avoiding entirely. The final kicker was recognizing that I wasn’t allowing myself the same grace by cutting out something that well and truly meant something to me.
When Inside Llewyn Davis was released in December of 2013, I had an opportunity to put this into practice. My girlfriend wasn’t necessarily into the idea of the film, it was rated R, and I wanted to see it for myself without the pressure and weird expectation that comes with someone next to me who is not enjoying the film. So, I went.
And what an absolute revelation the film was. Oscar Isaac delivers a touching and poignant performance as an out-of-luck singer songwriter who, maybe, is his own worst enemy. As a bit musician who was seeking treatment for addiction, of course this resonated.
By the time Isaac was singing a soft sea chanty to his dying father, with whom he’d had a fraught relationship, I was a mess. It was cathartic and reminded me of the beauty and joy that can come from feeling a little less alone. The unique kind of emotional release that comes from viewing art.
***
These two films, then, sit as a space wherein I began to remind myself of the whole parts of me. A person I’d decided to segment because it was easier for me to closet off parts of my personality to be with certain people; to get along with a group.
As I sit here, in 2020, recognizing how my relationships have shifted and aware of the friends I’ve lost as my journey of self re-discovery, I know it is, as is perhaps emblematic of me, all a bit melancholy. Because I’m still aware of and tallying the losses.
But one thing does stand bright amidst it all. That as I’ve gone through this transformation, little by little, that girlfriend stuck with me. She’s now my wife. And the gift is that her presence through it all reminds me of a key thing meant to pushback against the cobwebs of addiction that lie in wait to steal my joy: that I am worthy of love, simply because I am me.
I can’t help but think that Oscar Grant and Oscar Isaac’s character in Inside Llewyn Davis - my two Oscars - are also reflections of two characters deserving of love. One was cut off from it due to racism. The other, due to his own machinations. But both, like us all, deserving still.