Roe McDermott: ‘We didn’t work out, but I wasn’t left with scars. For me, that was a revelation’

Dear Ireland,

My last boyfriend and I called each other “Home”, though he never knew that I wasn’t fully committed to the idea.

When we met two years ago, I had just arrived in San Francisco and he was just about to leave it. I was running away from a place with too many ghosts on street corners and too many roles I could no longer play; while he was hoping that his long-distance seances and newly written scripts would earn him safe passage back to his hometown of Chicago.

In our state of upheaval, we declared safety in and belonging to each other, sketching ourselves onto each other’s personal maps. But every time we called each other “Home”, Richard Siken’s words echoed in my head: “Everyone needs a place. It shouldn’t be inside of someone else.”

So, unbeknownst to him, I didn’t place him at the centre of my map. Instead, he was off to the side, on the extra scroll, in the spot that used to say “here there be dragons”. I actually preferred it that way; recognising that he turned out to be a great, wondrous unknown.

We weren’t supposed to fall in love. Because I had just arrived, because he was just about to leave, because we were both recovering from toxic relationships, because I didn’t believe in that unexpected rabbithole kind of love, and because – not unimportantly – I had really been looking forward to unabashedly sleeping my way around my new city.

Even how he said it was an accident, an involuntary slip during a giddy giggling grasping of each other’s flesh and laughs and affection.

“This is love, isn’t it?”

He looked surprised at his precocious rebel wordchildren sneaking out without permission, but how could we do anything but let them? We had insisted on escaping, too.

I had thought I might fall for him the first time we had sex – or, more specifically, the first time he saw my naked torso. I have a scar across my stomach, a sepia-toned spread like a Friesian of bruises, or a smudgeness of fingerprints, or a blooming of internal bleeding.

It’s just a burn, a heatmark, a relic of a time when I held on too long to things that scalded me. When I thought concepts such as “love” and “home” needed to brand you to be real; that to be take root, emotions had to leave a permanent mark.

We didn’t work out, but I wasn’t left with scars from our relationship. For me, that was a revelation.

The first man I said “I love you” to stole my sense of home from me. A man I met in Dublin, he quickly saw the cracks in my self-esteem and took it upon himself to abuse me, to reduce me to shatters and splinters over the course of two years.

Of course, I didn’t know that it was abuse then; I just knew that the older, handsome, popular man was showering me with attention, and so of course I loved him. Not in the good way, but in one of those dangerous subcategories that the movies and Hallmark cards never warn you about.

Abusedlove. NoOtherOptionlove. I’mTerrifiedofYoulove. You’veBrokenMelove.

When I finally left my abuser, I also left Dublin. I went to stay with my brother in London, my home having become dangerous. When I returned, I discovered that my ex had turned all my friends against me, had spread enough lies that my career took a hit.

Suddenly everyone who knew about the relationship was an enemy. Those who didn’t know about it no longer understood me, and I no longer understood how I fit into Dublin, and Ireland by extension. So I applied for a scholarship to study in San Francisco, and left Ireland without a second glance.

And for two years, I didn’t miss it once. Wrote a thesis about its barbaric laws towards women’s bodies, how it forces so many of us to leave to regain control over own lives. It cemented for me that I didn’t belong in Ireland, that merely having grown accustomed to it and owning the passport wasn’t reason enough for loyalty to my landparent, that cagehome.

Recently, however, something has changed. After two years in San Francisco and a least one more ahead of me, I’ve had the benefit of space, literally and emotionally. I got to examine why I loved people and places: if they were good for me, if they were what I wanted – or if they were merely there.

I began to slowly recognise when I was settling because it was familiar, or convenient, or known, or simply offered. I started realising that when you’re desperate, when you’re starving, when you don’t think you’ll ever be offered love or affection or touch, you grab on to any gesture, any person, any place that offers it; no matter how small the scraps, no matter how many conditions are attached.

But I’m not starving anymore. By moving away from my abusive relationship and the origins of it, I learned how to sustain myself. Learned how to rebuild without depending on others for my foundations. Learned that I might even have something to offer a person, or a place. Learned that I have a choice.

I’ve also seen how the women of Ireland are banding together to fight for each other’s choices, are protecting each other’s bodies and safety, supporting each other on personal and political levels. They are refusing to let powerful men define them, abuse them, exile them from their own country, take away their sense of home.

And it's only after realising this, that I've begun to miss Ireland. Started to think that by next year, I'll be ready to return. Strong enough to fight with them. Free enough to not feel trapped. Heart-healed enough to fall in love with Ireland again.

Respectfullove. Mutuallove. I’mChoosingThislove. ThisCouldBeHomeAgainlove.

Love,

Roe