Vissi d’arte, vissi d’amore, non feci mai male ad anima viva!

I had a nightmare two nights ago that shook me to my core. My body responded to it as thought it really happened. My hands are still shaking and I broke out in hives. My flight or fight response was set off, as though this had really happened. I can barely calm my nerves down.

TW/CW: this essay will talk about abuse, assault, and stalking, as well as digital self harm. If this conversation isn't for you, see yourselves out, and I will see y'all next time. 

I was assaulted on two separate occasions by two close (obviously) former friends. I came to find out years later that they are both friends; I've often wondered about this, if what they did to me has ever been brought up between them. These incidents have haunted my nightmares. In both cases, this person would use their position as my friend to manipulate me. They would coach their position as my "friend" to say horrible things to me. Both of the animosity towards me for not returning their feelings for me I wasn't aware they had would turn to violence. This is one of the reasons why I am so uncomfortable with people who are supposed to be my friends feeling so comfortable saying nasty things to me. It brings my brain back to that space.

In my nightmare, one of them tried to lure me back into being their friend, using the same isolation techniques they had used to emotionally and financially abuse me before. Just as before, their perceived "good looks"  was used as an excuse to let them get away with things, a pressure that was put on me from other people. Again, there have been so many instances and examples in my life of times when my gut told me one thing, and had I listened to that gut instead of peer pressure, I wouldn't have been in literal danger. They lured me, in this dream, into falsely thinking that we were friends again or that they had changed their ways and I could trust them. I was lured around a dark corner to see the other one waiting for me. A dark, looming figure silhouetted with just their eyes glowing. 

I woke up from the nightmare like I had been struck by a bolt of lightening.

Both assaults have been playing over and over in my head like flashes of lightening for the last couple of days. I see them in my mind's eye like an artistic flashback in a film. I am covered in hives. I relive the moments in my head over and over again--they knew what my father had done to me, and they didn't care. I feel the moment when my heart broke over and over--I loved you so much, how could you of all people do this to me? For one of them, I was so desperate to be loved, I was so lonely; the person whom I loved so deeply wasn't... just wasn't, and here was someone who was using that to manipulate and isolate me, which turned into jealousy manifested as rage and violence. I didn't want to believe it was true. The other was less subtle, and increasingly aggressive. That was the one as the shadow figure waiting for me around the dark corner. 

Yesterday, a suggestion came up on YouTube for something I absolutely knew I should not watch. I knew it. I knew I should not have watched this, and I did it anyway. Like in that one Hobbit/ Lord of the Rings meme where Bilbo has the ring and says, "why not, I should keep it" (or something like that), my brain was like, "you're already severely triggered, why not just tank the whole damn brain?" I felt my entire body shaking with rage seeing yet another Karma Houdini get away with that they had done, and how they seem endlessly rewarded. The whole world loves them, even after what they have done. They are untouchable, and here I am completely undone.

There has been a lot of discussion around Fach floating around the internet "discourse" (although I hesitate to  dignify it by calling it that). I might essay more on this another time, but there has been rep I have never even dreamed of touching because it wasn't in my Fach. 

I finally decided to look at some of those pieces, just to see, just to get my mind on something else. Anything else.

Per the request of everyone's Italian grandpa and/ or dad, I am learning more Puccini, specifically "Vissi d'arte." (The fastest way to have your desk look like the judge's desk in 'Miracle on 34th Street'-- only with sheet music instead of Santa letters-- is for Italian dads and grandpas to learn their daughter's friend is a soprano. Bless, honestly.)  Tosca was never on my  vocal radar (although, apparently, there are several prominent coloratura sopranos who have played her?!). "Vissi d'arte" has been suggested to me several times, most recently in the last few weeks by my vocal coach. 

For context, Floria Tosca, the most beautiful  and celebrated opera diva in all of  1800 Rome (back when Italy was a bunch of smaller kingdoms), sings "Vissi d'arte" right before stabbing her r*pist who tried to have her boyfriend executed. She's pleading to God, because she has seen that nothing--not her devotion to her faith, her art, or to love can protect her and the people she loves from human evil. This aria has been called "a Job-like prayer questioning God for punishing a woman who has lived unselfishly and righteously."

An aria I had never even considered, looked at, or thought about for myself became in a matter of minutes healing for the soul. Hits you right in the "alternative to therapy."

My heart is still beating faster from a few nights ago. My hands still shake a little bit. I do my best to maintain some normalcy. I listen to this aria over and over again to learn it through osmosis. I try to be kind to myself in a world that does not pause for moments, or lifetimes, of unwellness. That lyric,

 

Nell’ora del dolor

perchè, perchè, Signor,

ah, perchè me ne rimuneri così?

playing again and again in my head. 

I am sad.

I am tired.

But at least now I have something to hyperfixate on to take a little pressure off. 

Sometimes, that's all we can do.