Flicker (feat. Out Magazine)

What I’m Wearing: Vest and Sweater- Good Fellow, Jeans: Levis, Boots- Apt 9 

“Flicker”

Dear readers,

Isn’t something when your writing the story of your life in real time and you think it’s going to go one way but it ends up going down a completely different path. I had been pre writing this page for months and then a few weeks ago something happened that I deleted that draft and wrote this instead. This was supposed to be a completely different kind of love story. Last month OUT magazine sent me a free year subscription. The first issue I received features Armie Hammer on the November 2017 cover to promote his new film “Call Me By Your Name”. I have been dying to see this film all year after watching the trailer and hearing rave reviews about it. I picked up the audio book last month and balled my eyes out. It’s a story about love, not just any love, first love. I leave hints and easter eggs regarding my personal life in everything I do. This will be the first time that I bare most, but not all of my raw emotions on that subject matter. 

1 year ago, I fell in love. For the first time in my life I let myself fall. I figured I have been through so much hell with my disease that i’ll just let myself have someone/something for once. I deserved it, I still do. I don’t name names so I won’t be listing that here. But I did/do call the person I loved/still love, P. November 22, 2016…. ring ring ring…. my dm’s blowing up from some random dude that I have never met in my life. We became friends that day. I remember we ended up talking for hours upon hours that week. I figured oh, i’m going to make a new friend that is on the same level of the people I can’t live without from the previous page of this story… boy was I wrong. Friendship turned into flirting, into dating, into love, into sharing a business together, into doubt, into falling out, into this state of life that i’m in right now. Being in a long distance relationship is hard. P and I were determined to make it work from California and Paris. If i’m being honest it always felt like the world was trying to pull us apart and we would have to glue ourselves back together. I have only been in 3 relationships prior to this and I don’t like to undermine woman, but the first 2 girls were horrible, those ended badly and i’m glad they are out of my life. Then along came “September”, I call my ex that because I wrote a song about this dude called September for my first record. We ended around that time, the month of September… I moved to LA a year later and I was truly married to my career by that point. Then along came P and suddenly I had 2 loves of my life.  P stood above my last 3 relationships and really changed me in so many different ways. When I say I fell in love, I mean it with all my heart. For a year I let myself get consumed with my relationship for this person that I loved. I pushed my own career and aspirations aside to prove to P there was nothing that I wouldn’t do. Having that gratification of my making my partner happy, made me happy. I learned from P that I could be even more than I already was. I knew that all along, but P showed me things and opened up my heart in a way that I never thought I was possible. I let my walls completely down. I was always aware that someone could try and come in between us and demolish the bond we have built. When you add in business to a relationship things get complicated. This past year I worked on a business that I do love, but I set aside what I love the most to help make my partners dreams start to see the light of day. I have no regrets about that. We did it as a team, but sometimes too many team mates want to join in the game  and that just sinks the ship. P loved me in a way that I really needed. I will never forget that rainy January evening that I heard I love you for the first time… or how I was sung happy bday in Japan because P couldn’t be here with me due to a work trip, or how we would always sing each other songs to let the distance feel less, or how P picked out these beautiful flowers for my mom on her 60th birthday. I felt I had saw the beautiful soul behind the Beast. I always saw a contrast between the beast from Beauty and the Beast and P.  P has these walls that are built up and won’t tear them down, but I saw the beautiful soul within. This week is supposed to be our 1 year anniversary. I don’t really know what to call it now. I guess it’s a 1 year anniversary of some sorts. Our relationship is at a complicated phase, but we are still very close. I love P, I always will. I planned to leave behind my life and move to Paris for awhile in the new year. After these very confusing past few weeks, I have decided not to. I will not be going to Paris. What would Paris do to benefit me besides my relationship? Sure, I would be with the person I love, but it wouldn’t be the right choice for me to go there when I know I’m meant for so much more, P knows that too. I have been asleep for a whole year, mesmerized and enthralled by love and being in love. It took one huge fight and many unanswered questions for me to wake up. My loved ones wanted me to keep dreaming because I honestly was so happy. I’m still happy. You would think I would feel depressed and alone, but P and I still talk everyday and I have gotten a lot done for myself these past few weeks. When you love someone you always put them first, but if the person loves you back, they should always give you a chance to do what you love, to put your own needs first. 

Falling in love with P as the leaves fell down a year ago, will always be one of the most special memories of my life. Just like the film “Call Me By Your Name”, Elio had Oliver as his first love, P  is mine. That ending in the book and film is bittersweet, but it does leave the door open for more stories. If P is meant to be in my story, then wouldn’t that be beautiful. But if it doesn’t work out in the end, it doesn’t mean that it wasn’t already beautiful. Life is a revolving door and people come and go. You never know what will happen when you reach the last page of the story. P showed me and gave me a flicker of hope that all that has been taken from me will come back to me. We loved each other and still love each other whole heartedly. I don’t know what the future has in store for us, but what I do know is because of this year spent deeply in love, I know that “I Will Find You”. I will find what i’ve been searching high and low for. The lesson of this story within in a story is that love gives you even more hope than you can imagine. I don’t regret falling in love. For the first time in my life it felt good to feel loved, to love someone and to create a different kind of bond that you can’t have with others. Learning to love and letting myself fall in love has made an even better version of myself. I will forever be eternally grateful for all the inner heartbreak and inner uplifting P has given me.

To you - I always say, If the person is meant to be yours they will come back to you. I need to go live my life now and if you come back and it works, then it was meant to be. We have to keep moving forward, no turning back.  For now, thank you for giving me the flicker of hope that I needed so badly. We are still best friends and that’s a good place to start. We are off to a good restart. Thank you for loving me like you did and still do. With all this love in my heart, I will take that and create something beautiful to share with the world. Hopefully they feel a little of what I felt, falling in love with you. 

Forever grateful. 
Love,
Dom

Photographer: Joanna Wheeler  


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Every post I will include the song that inspired me to build a post around it's title

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Stories From My Life - Chapter 3