Be Better, Brielle —Chapter 1: Balagan.
Within the realm of normalcy, the beginning starts with a resonance; a sense of peace and calmness through the air when you arrive at the starting point. Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen in real life. Especially when it comes to Brielle. It had already gone tipsy-turvy the moment she came into your life. The theme of this chapter essentially, escalates in the middle of a so-called “situationship”. If you know what it means, you get it, but if you don’t, essentially it’s when two people don’t want to start something they can’t finish, so they juggle about in bed and play on heart strings until it ultimately fails. Both have a part to play, like a tennis game that drags on until the other one loses. It feels like real purgatory hell with the element of confusion, intensity and waste.
Brielle has been quite vocal about her life, especially with dating, she is obsessed with it. She adores the idea of dating men, even if she doesn’t say so herself. She markets herself only to find true love, as she says so herself, but evidently puts herself on a pedestal from the claims of ‘so tired’ of not being treated right. However, she goes for those who take a peek at her then ignore her for the rest of her life because she has this delusion of “getting anyone she wants”, it’s a tale as old as time; many call it a self-obsessed disease. The cycle of entrapment and fostering yourself to be small. Sometimes to be associated with replacements such as a purse traps our girl Brielle into this catch-22; she can’t escape from being left time and time again. She wants to get picked so bad, we wish for the same as she won’t drop it. It’s obvious how much it affects her sadly, she cares too much about what others think, unfortunately. The feeling of being desired gets hungry. However, you can tell this can’t be stopped because from a young age, you discover that you are in control of your own body, your own mind and matter of fact, your own life, unfortunately, Brielle doesn’t agree.
An echo of this conversation with Brielle sparked a memory with your mother. She had heavily pressed on the idea that the only important thing you have, is yourself. Sadly, it has come true. You have been so stuck on past ideals that have faded with the wind. It haunts you, being stuck but you remember that you are strong, but never alone. Brielle, unfortunately, does not care to listen or to signal that she needs any help. She only gets emotional about the people she chooses in her life but there was a past trail of tears as they all lead her to sadness. It’s so heavy you start to feel sad about her lack of respect and love. But, you carry on with a fake smile and sympathy that you can’t feel as much as you did before.
As time progresses, your relationship with Brielle gets aggressive over this on-going ideal of her having a happily ever after. It won’t stop, her whining really does hit you as you can’t help her. Her blatant lack of respect has taken over. A saviour wouldn’t know how to help as much as the next one. You know she has joy in men wanting to sleep with her, but never takes her seriously. She idolises men who ignore her constantly and yet, you’re the one who’s to blame. Because it’s easier to kick the dead horse or the apparent “boulder” that’s keeping her from her supposed happy ever after. The sudden changes from being happy alone to being miserable don’t make sense as there’s nothing else you can do. You’re not her mother, you’re apparently her friend but she treats you like a lifeline you can’t comprehend.
One night, she opens up about her feelings. She miserably talks about her longing again but this time it’s worse. As you’ve experienced before, the ‘normal’ way of how this goes is when a girl cries over a guy, you help them by telling her she’s so beautiful and any guy would be lucky to have them. Despite this, her tantrums are as vicious and volatile, and her motives are clear-cut. There is no way you could tell Brielle this without sounding like a liar. The constant repetition of ‘he’s just not good enough for you’ or ‘you could do so much better’ gets tiring after the millionth time because you’re starting to notice the cracks underneath it all.
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So where does this go? Your state of mind, no matter, should be protected. You’ve realised that it’s always been a problem, a never-ending game you always have to lose for her to have the upper-hand. Because who wouldn’t want Brielle? I hope you don’t experience this. In your own comfort, perhaps even in your own bed, Brielle comes up to you about her pretty boy she’s been speaking to, it sounds as if you’ve got taken back to when you were 14, but worse. You’re an adult now, so your energy and your priorities aren’t focused on some guy she hasn’t even met. She exposes the amount of weak flirting that has been going on, but interferes with a constant whirlwind of ‘what the f*!% does he want now?’ comments until you can pin-point her reaction. After an hour or two of constant conversation, annoyance struck as much as he did. He finally asks her out. Then, without a second, she pushes him by insinuating he is forcing things too far, completely refusing to understand what happened due to his words not sounding sincere. You hear it turn nasty, them getting into a shouting battle about not wanting to see him anymore, which makes him feel guilty enough to back down, not that he had a backbone anyway, to ask her out. You are astonished with no words but it calms down after a few minutes. She finally agrees.
You think it’s done, with your fingers crossed, pointing to the sky. Questioning yourself: “So where does this lead to?”
At that moment, you get confused about the whole situation, like Brielle said she hates him and never wants to see him again; you’ve already got your opinions about this guy. He’s obnoxious, quite immature and rather misogynistic, however if it made her happy that someone finally chose her, then so f*%!ing be it.
You finally get her ready, did all of the breathing exercises with her so she’s calm. She asked you to dress her up, doll her up and compliment her. You do, at this point, you just want her to be happy and comfortable, because you want her happiness more than anything. She looks at herself in the mirror, her face brings you concern as she scans everything with those dagger eyes before she is adamant that she looks perfect. She looks down and gets quiet for a second, she played with her jacket zipper, mentioning she still looked like a mess under her breath before getting smug about herself. It bewilders you how she can get insecure but you accept she was negative for once.
Finally, the door gets a knock on. You freeze as you realise it’s time for her to shine. You’re so proud of her and you can’t wait for her to return with the news. Perhaps, she will find love, not traditional as she wanted but at least it’s something. Where will this lead?
Thank you for reading this, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. See you next week. Light and love, Jo.
