To Make Love With Your Eyes Closed

  Copyright 2015 by Kyle Lipthorpe

  Smashwords Edition

  To Make Love With Your Eyes Closed

  This novel was written in Australia, Germany, Ireland and Scotland.

  This one is for you.

  Thank you for all that you taught me.

  The Buddha taught, “Believe nothing, no matter where you read it or who has said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.”

  1

  I’ve always believed that I have a soulmate in life. Just the one.

  One person to whom I am destined to spend the rest of my days with. One love for all of eternity.

  It’s such a ridiculous concept, I know, considering that I’m 21 and that I’m gay, but trust me, with every inch of my inner being, I have always known.

  The belief in the idea of someone being designed specifically for me made the idea of love full of simplicity and assertion. This occurred almost to the extent of me never worrying that I would ever end up alone.

  It would have never crossed my mind that it would be so difficult to have and to hold love for all of eternity.

  Why would it? Love always seemed so easy in books and movies.

  My faith in love has always been a hard thing to shake. I’ve met quite a lot of people in the last few years, some of whom have been my age and some older, who were cynical about true love.

  They would tell me to just give up already, as they had. I had no idea why I didn’t listen to them, maybe it was that powerful thing I had deep inside of me that I liked to call faith.

  I would hear almost every second of every day that love and relationships take a lot of work. I would hear it so often that I accepted it as gospel without truly questioning what it honestly meant, but in time, it became an unavoidable fact.

  Love, just like all other feats in life, take’s a lot of work.

  I’m sure that you, you reading this right now, can remember the first time that you ever thought that you loved someone, in a way more both terrifying and exciting than ever before. I’m sure that you’ll remember the feel of discomfort you had in being faced with something so confronting and to have absolutely no idea how to handle it correctly.

  The man I believe that I truly loved in this story, the one that you’re going to meet for yourself, taught me many things about life and about love. Many, if not all, of these lessons are now the pillars on which I stand. These lessons have shaped and defined me.

  Love isn’t glamorous. It’s not like it is in the movies. It’s not all kisses in the rain and runs through the altar screaming, “I object.” You won’t always be able to rely on your Prince Charming to stop you from boarding that airplane or to tell you everything’s going to be okay whilst your world is falling apart. Because love isn’t a fairytale.

  Both characters in the story of love need care and affection. Both people have their own individual wants and needs. Love is as much about giving as it is taking, and as I learned, sometimes the decisions we need to make for the people we love are not the ones that we want to take, but are the ones that we must take in order to truly respect them.

  I learned a lot about love not from my parents, who seemed to possess a good image of how simple romance can be, but from the people in my life who weren’t granted it immediately and thus required it the most.

  In primary school I took quite a few hits and kicks being bullied for who I was, in high school I struggled with the hope that there was someone who could meet my escalating expectations, and then in college I learned about love from the first man that broke my heart and had me torn apart in order to accept who I truly was.

  But it wasn’t until what happened next did I truly come eye to eye with the power of connection.

  Some of my experiences with love were dark and lonely and had almost killed me, but they have been necessary for me to travel to the place at which I am now.

  In my journey I too began to become cynical and disbelieving in the existence of love. But just as I began to give up on dreaming, there was a knock on my door.

  I was always told that you end up with the last person that you expect to, and for me, I can’t find a statement more true.

  Love walked into my life in a way that I would never have seen coming.

  The way that love transpired for me wasn’t the same way in which it happened to my parents, to my friends, to my cousins or even to my celebrity idols.

  The story of my life so far has been unconventional. It’s messed up, it’s back to front and in almost every way imaginable, it makes absolutely no sense. But it’s my story and I feel nothing but pride in sharing it with you.

  I truly hope that in this tale you feel a wave of comfort in the magic and unconventionality of love.

  Whatever you are going through, you are not alone, and as much as you have been told that you have something to live up to both, in yourself and in your relationships with others, you really don’t.

  If you love someone and that’s real for you, then that’s all that matters in the end.

  2

  A blank canvas, a bed of clean white sheets.

  I find that the best way to express my deepest and darkest feelings is by tainting something new. Every time I start a new painting I promise myself that I will look after it, and that it won’t be like the other times. I promise myself that this new painting will be my masterpiece and that I will take time and care in developing something worthwhile. I never start a painting with the intention of it becoming a massive waste of my time.

  But then a thought crosses my mind and my rage swells.

  Yet isn’t that the purpose of art? To express the parts of the human spirit that words and thoughts alone cannot understand. Where then is the purpose in art, if it is not to explore ourselves?

  We all make mistakes in our journeys.

  Carefully I trace my ink in sweet circles and fading shades in order to carve out my original idea.

  I really wanted to paint a phoenix. I thought that would help me to feel free and to be expressive. I faintly sketch the outline and blur together a few different shades of yellow and red until I get a burning orange. I start with the body. That I master. Then I try really hard to add detail with blocks of black.

  But as my heart grows heavy with a need to express myself further, my hand loosens, flicking my fingers wildly. Black ink is sprayed across the blank canvas like wild horses in an open field.

  The cold winter winds blow through my apartment.

  I leave the easel to close the window and in the breakaway I feel my creativity fade into the light.

  I go to wash myself up and prepare for work.

  I enjoy my job. Granted it was never really my higher calling in life, or so I have always had myself believe. But it pays the bills, it’s somewhat easy and it gives me the time to do the one thing I honestly believe I was born to do - paint.

  Painting has always been an integral part of who I am. I don’t know how to explain how or why but it just is. I may never be the next Picasso - as much as I’d love to be - but nonetheless my love for painting is something I cannot ignore when it comes to defining myself.

  When I was a child I used to sift through my parents photo albums and sketch out the Wicklow Mountains and Carrickgollogan. They would always encourage me not only to continually work on my passion, but to also have a sense of a ‘real career’ at the same time.

  As my fragile soul evolved through puberty and hard times, my creativity was shaken and it took a really long time for me to find the courage and motivation to pick up the paintbrush again.

  When I turned eighteen I met a man who shattered my heart into a million pieces and the only way for
me to heal my hurt was with the paintbrush. It’s difficult to explain to someone who isn’t an artist how truly therapeutic it is to be able to express through art that which cannot be said with words. Art is a powerful way to truly understand what goes on in our own heads.

  I studied art in college for a few years, much to the humour of many of my friends and family members. But it was never to form a career, I knew that studying art would have never lead me to the big paycheques or to a mansion on the French Riviera. I just wanted to really spend my time in life feeling like I was fulfilling my potential.

  My job at O’Byrnes was there to help me to provide for myself during my studies, at first I really hated it and told myself it didn’t matter because it wasn’t forever, but somehow my walls came down and I stopped wrestling with the job and really began to enjoy working as a bartender. Maybe it’s not forever, maybe it’s not what I was born to do but I can honestly say that today I am happy with the balance I have in my life and that I wouldn’t change it for a thing.

  I fit on my black pants and laced up shiny shoes. My workmate and close friend Tripp, to this day, continues to make a sarcastic comment or two a day about how my shoes are far too classy to wear to a shift at O’Byrnes. I don’t care though.

  When I turned twenty one I did perhaps the opposite thing any twenty one year would do. I hung up my partying shoes, yawned ridiculously loudly and focused on being alone in my room painting. That became my youthful high and happiness. I didn’t need those shoes to wear to nightclubs if I never left my house on the weekends.

  I’ve always been a bit of an introvert but I compromised a lot during my youth to feel like I fit in. I was always out partying, three, four, sometimes five nights a week with people I didn’t like the company of smoking, swallowing and snorting things that perhaps didn’t make me feel so good either.

  Twenty one though, that was the age where somehow I found the courage to say ‘no, that’s not who I am’ and retreat back to my cave. I’m a lot happier with where I am now. People don’t get that.

  O’Byrnes is a half an hour bus ride from my apartment. The bus depot is literally a five minute walk around the block. It’s perfect. I just stick my headphones in and let the rest of the world fade away for that half an hour. Of course I have a small sketchbook sitting on my lap. You can’t be an artist and be unprepared for those random lightbulb moments!

  I push open the old oak door to the pub. I can tell the door’s getting old now because it takes quite a push to get it to open the whole way. I slither in through the gap and smile at the common customers. I know them well and they know me quite well too. I love the fact that O’Byrnes is social yet quiet at the same time, I have such an opportunity to get to truly know and to love my regular patrons. For that, I am glad to not be working in Temple Bar.

  I tie up my apron and give an enthusiastic hello to Rory and Tripp. Those two are definitely another plus to working here. I’ve been working here for four years and between them there’s around 2 years worth of time at O’Byrnes.

  Rory is comedy gold, he’s loud and blunt and completely unpredictable but I love him like a brother, I always feel safe whenever he’s around. I feel like he is the one hundred percent version of half of my personality.

  Then there’s Tripp. He’s one of those guys you meet who has a beautiful white light shining from within him, you never feel sad in his presence no matter the situation, even when crap really hits the fan in his life he always has a smile on his face. I really admire the man that he is even if he can be stubborn at times. In some ways I feel like he represents the other half of my personality.

  The three of us are really close. I’m sure it helps when you are forced to spend so much time together day after day.

  Last year, for example, we went to see Mumford & Sons at Phoenix Park, it was one of the best nights of my life!

  Now, most nights when the store closes we crank The Cave or Babel and rock the air banjo, screaming the lyrics at the top of our lungs.

  You’ve gotta have some kind of relief working in hospitality at the end of the day!

  “Hello mate,” roars Rory as he does every other day. He never seems to get bored of seeing me, a true friend, I guess.

  I slam him a masculine, rough hi-five.

  “How are you?”

  I’m in a great mood. I did a lot of painting before I came in today.”

  “Nice! The phoenix?”

  “It’s a work in progress.”

  Tripp finishes up with a customer and half-skips over.

  “How are ya?” He says with an attitude that almost doesn’t ask for a response. He lowers his head and fiddles with an iMessage. I assume it’s Casey, his on and off again girlfriend. She’s a great girl, from the few times I’ve met her but she does muddle him around a bit. Tripp is the too-nice-for-his-own-good kind of guy.

  At the last christmas gathering they had a public tiff which kind of tainted everyone’s opinion of her. She doesn’t show her face around O’Byrne’s much these days. I still think she’s alright though. Perhaps not the kind of girl I would invite out to dinner if there were any less than six of us at the table but an alright lass nonetheless.

  I can tell by the look on Tripp’s face that they are having one of those scheduled down times again where they go into the blues about their future. I want to say something about cutting the girl loose but they always seem to work it out in the end, and Tripp knows where I stand. I’m a good friend to him, he knows I care and can talk to me if he wants to.

  I smile and slap him on the shoulder.

  “Oh hey,” he says looking up at me, “did you hear the news?”

  I look at him puzzled.

  “Toni has officially announced her pregnancy.”

  “Pregnant? Wow, that’s crazy! How did I miss that one?”

  “You’d be the only one in all of Dublin without an inkling!” Added Rory with a laugh.

  “How far along is she?”

  “Only a few months, but she’s not mucking around. She’s away on maternity leave on Thursday.”

  I choke up.

  “So fast. That’s a bit of a rock the boat. What will we do about the store? Is she still going to manage the admin from home?”

  “‘Ardly,” says Tripp.

  “I think searching for her replacement started the day before her announcement, can’t wait to see who we get.”

  I smile fittingly. I do like Toni, she has her good moments. She gets on at me a lot about being messy and seems to have much less patience with me than the other workers but we could definitely be working for someone worse. The job I had before this one, at the burger joint, I felt the need to resign because of the borderline sexual harassment that was on offer. You shouldn’t feel uncomfortable walking into your own workplace. Toni was definitely one up to my last boss. I can only hope that the replacement she finds will be just as good, if not better. It’s Toni though, she never does a half arsed job of anything… ever.

  “Is she in tomorrow?”

  “Aye,” says Rory.

  “Well at least I’ll have the opportunity to say goodbye to her.”

  “That’s true. We’ll go and buy some flowers and a card tomorrow.”

  I can see it now. The biggest, gayest card of them all. One with a massive teddy bear on the front and bold writing read ‘Congratulations!’. Sure we’re all happy for her but she’s just our boss and it’s just a work relationship. She can be a bit of a bitch at times too. We have our laughs here and there but in a way there’s probably more good than bad in her leaving. I internalise these thoughts. I don’t want my mates thinking that I don’t give a crap about her leaving.

  Tripp’s phone vibrates and he looks down again.

  “Anyway, I’m off, I’ll see you tomorrow yeah.” He points at me and clicks his fingers before walking out the door.

  “See ya,” says Rory hitting me on the back and following Tripp.

  I shake my head and return my thoughts to the bar. />
  “Hi, how can I help you?” I greet the old man clicking his walking stick against the bar to get my attention.

  At this point I don’t really care too much as to who our new boss is. I’m going to do my job all the same either way.

  3

  My alarm buzzes with that ridiculously annoying generic alarm sound. I slap it hard. Every God damn option on that iPhone alarm option list sucks balls. I tell myself that I must change it to something much more delicate when I am fully awake and the grumble of sleepiness has washed away. Perhaps a nice old tune from my childhood. My alarm tone needs to be soft and sweet, yet positive and happy. Ronan Keating’s ‘When You Say Nothing At All’ could probably do it. I laugh to myself before shivering and ripping my winter robe from the door handle next to my bed. My room isn’t very big. My friends tell me that a lot when they come over. I have a queen sized bed and it uses up the little floor space I have in here. I don’t have much on my walls minus my Tom Hardy 2015 calendar and a map of the world that’s covered in folds, pins on the map where the cities I’ve been to are, and a mild coffee stain or two. Not sure how the coffee stains got there. They add a nice touch though. I’m not allowed to nail things to my walls so it took me a while to come up with the idea that blue tack would do the trick. Duh. Before that most of my stuff was just lying on the floor. That probably explains the coffee stains.

  Wednesday morning. Hump day. It’s not my least favourite day of the week but neither is it my total favourite. Ever since I was a kid I had a ridiculous despise for Sunday’s and Monday’s. I don’t know why. I feel like I’m allergic to them in some strange, abnormal, supernatural way. I wake up every Sunday morning hating on life. Wednesday’s are okay though. They’re bearable. I reach over and grab a cigarette and light it up. It’s a terrible habit I know. Not many people I know would choose tobacco over Weetbix at seven in the morning, but I’m one of those odd few. I take a drag then push myself up off the bed. I tug my robe in tight.