Authenticity hurts. There’s a song called Love Hurts. It was, is on the music cassette my brother and I used to fall asleep to as kids. Authenticity and love, to me, is the vision of authenticity looking into the eyes of love. In the mirror. So how can something like this hurt, right? I know.
Some just choose to listen to the idea of Love Hurts their entire life. I’ve just paid attention to the lyrics and now I know why I haven’t listened to it in such a long time, hallelujah. But by this point, the fabulous news is that the idea of those lyrics doesn’t affect me anymore. The spiralling into whatever doesn’t feel right. True. The mere existence of the word love in the song must’ve done the trick and set me into sweet daydreaming followed by dreaming. I didn’t hear hurts. And the serene atmosphere we were in before falling asleep. Of course the cassette still gives me goosebumps. Of course!
You know best what feels authentic to you.
A discussion with bestie on the phone this last Saturday night – Saturday night night, 00.00 my time, 22.00 her time, me at my home, her at her home – had me laughing like I knew I was in the mood of, yet it still caught me by surprise. Life! Life caught me by surprise and life made me laugh.
I’m always proud of her when she’s the most her and I know she’s always proud of me when I’m my most me. Proud for the smallest achievements, in the meantime, too, certo. So, she’d gone out the night before, got a little tipsy – we both like to get loose and feel good, feel safe – and let herself be carried away so much that she would just not stop from simply being happy. Herself. Lovely, loving with the – attention – female friends she was out and about. The night flew, as Friday nights do, and when the time came for her and her ladies friends to say goodbye, hug, kiss and all the candy stuff, as you’d imagine, one of the ladies told her – quote – Oh, f*ck off, you’re so full of s*it, I don’t like you – end of quote. I couldn’t stop from laughing while walking around my apartment in my frilly blush pink knickers. She’d just ordered herself some Indian. Her voice while telling me the story and the vivid vision of her face while listening to the aforementioned lady my imagination was giving me would not leave my sight. Just as her amazement wouldn’t leave her mind. I immediately thought of you, she told me. Welcome to my world, I told her. She’d, obviously, been there already, but we needed to officially tchin-tchin for it in both of our imaginations at once. For forever.
And for You can’t blame a fly for not knowing honey is better than s*it. You can’t blame them, they’re a fly, that’s what they know. And the bees are over there like ‘The honey is so much better over here, homie’.
Earlier in the evening, my brother called. We hadn’t talked-talked in a while. Hey, him, heeey, me, what’s up, him, good, home, me, whose home, imagine the tone, mine, I smile, ooh, with whom, him, we both laugh, just me, I carelessly, but surely, reply and continue. Did you just call to ask me something or anything and that’s it or is this a longer thing? It’s Saturday night, this is as long as we want it to be, he replied, good, wait, let me put my headphones and turn the music on, me. It’s 22.00 my time, 20.00 his time. And so we begin. So, how come you’re at home, alone, on Saturday night? We went from how we treat every hour of every day (it sounds more serious than it was, although it was pretty serious at times, but we’re used to a certain sort of rhythm we enjoy and when there’s joy, there’s truth, I could go on and on and on with this bracket and I, most definitely, will outside of it), to his daughters (I’m hugging in my heart as we speak), to holidays, to how we can not have light without the dark and to we all have good and bad within us, everything that good stands for and everything that bad stands for, it’s how we balance the scales that‘s creating our lives. It’s a choice, ta-da!
It’s nothing but a choice and it doesn’t take anything or anyone other than us to choose the side we, basically, launch the rockets from.
At some point – I’d just been warming up and, trust me, I’d talked really fast, it’s how I usually talk with my brother out of the eagerness, I guess, to communicate as much as possible everything that crosses my mind, every detail is crucial, obviously, and you never know when he needs to hang up or something – he says – in the middle of my banter – Sis, listen… What, is that it, I question mark and exclamation mark the s*it out of it. Now he can’t stop laughing and tells Gema – who’s just come down from putting their baby boy to sleep – the What, is that it, question mark, exclamation mark, yes, part. Listen, it’s our only twenty minutes we’ve got today to have an ice cream and hold hands before actually going to bed, says he. It’s the first time he’s ever said it like that, that’s how exhausted he must’ve been. In a good way. We’d laughed about it just before. Laugh at the exhaustion, I don’t see a better option anyway. Laugh and then sleep. He literally said that – ! – it’s the honesty he knows I’m mad about, one, he is, too, two, and the honesty he knows makes me happy, also, whooh. Well, can’t argue with that, I’m happy to just know that, me. See, that’s why we should be able to see each other as much as we want to, I tell him. Love you, love you, too, mwa! It’s the time that makes you fly.
All these lines and brackets feel too natural not to be here. It’s why they are here.
If I was listening to someone singing that now and I knew that they’d written it, produced it, and sung it, I wouldn’t be taking the piss out of them because they wore terrible clothes. D’you know what I’m saying? For a f*cking 20-year-old. Why the f*ck would they be taking the piss out of me?, said George Michael in the Wham! latest documentary. And George Michael is a style icon, hallelujah! And this is why I’ve always said that style is not ever just about clothes and that clothes are not just clothes. Plus, it was none other than – drumroll – Emmanuelle Alt – drumroll – herself, 20 years or so later, that – dazzlingly – covered the Wake Me Up Before You Go Go thingy. Love all over the place! Be the light anyway. Love and only f*ck extraordinarily (off is so passé), is there any other way? Hell no. Just an effervescent, unspoken but felt ‘yes’ in perfect timing, d’you know what I’m saying?
Authenticity only hurts someone who might find it hard to be authentic – we all might’ve been there, sister, it’s alright, don’t panic – or who might not even be familiar with the term itself. I’m sure, however, that everyone, everyone knows what love is. At least as a metaphor. Rocket. Rocket. Rocket. Real. We’re all born with it, newsflash, we all are it, it’s why life is non stop poking us to be it. But hey, you choose whether you are or not it. Metaphooor. It’s why we’re all on the phone right now choosing to just be. It. It’s why we’re all home. Metaphoooor.
On the morning of the Saturday following the Friday above, bestie sent me a song. Have been listening to it non stop, listen to it, she texted me. Oh, I know it, I love it, am going to listen to it now, I text her. It’s us, she tells me. We high five in our texts. Sometimes next to a heart. It’s next to the ever growing pink heart this time. It came in perfectly. Just as it does right now, as I’m walking to the McDonald’s I can see the sign of from my apartment and I’ve just recently realized it was the only one in the city that used to be called Rock and Roll, aw, isn’t that cool. Adorned with guitars and everything. The rhythm of the song is perfect for walking and stuff. Noise cancelation on. It’s Electric Love – Børns.
Love is, really, the one thing each and every one of us wants, so chillax, we’re all together in the same boat, look fear in the eyes and do it anyway.
When your cheeks or belly hurt from so much laughing, that’s when authenticity “hurts” and it’s the best. Just like love does. Yes.