6. If Music be the Food of Love

I bought a ticket to go see John Mayer on his acoustic tour. Just him alone with a guitar. He’s coming in April to Phoenix and I will drive up to see it. Why did I do that? Because I am an emotional cutter.

I always liked John Mayer, but Bret loved John Mayer and early in our relationship his music became “ours”. There’s a line in ‘Your body is my Wonderland’ which I think is the sexiest fucking thing on this earth. It says “I’ll never let your head hit the bed without my hand behind it”. How can you beat the imagery of that? And Bret would often say that to me to remind me how much he loved me and remind me of our time together alone to remind me that he would always be there for me. Then he wasn’t.

When Bret first died I could not listen to John Mayer. I couldn’t handle it, and have it remind me… His daughter came over when in Phoenix dealing with the mortuary (the same one I used when Brian died) and said she listened to it all the time because it made her feel closer to her dad. After that I would listen to John Mayer all day as loud as possible to try and feel that - and I would vacillate between weeping uncontrollably and cursing Bret’s name for leaving me. After Ian went off to college and I was in the house by myself the music of John Mayer continued to be my constant companion, and when I had to leave the house and move into the first Airbnb, I couldn’t listen to it anymore. I felt so disconnected from the universe being transient in everything in my life. I had left the house where we were a couple and where he had died…I cut myself off from everything that was familiar, helpful, supportive, warm. I stopped listening to music. I stopped doing anything creative. Now I am ensconced in another house where I will live for at least a year, in a new job, in new surroundings but his music still continues to elude me. I have Alexa play music for me, but anytime John Mayer comes on I tell her “next” with such rage in my voice. His music haunts me now and does not offer comfort or remind me of lovely times… as I live in the city we planned to live in together and we are not together. Instead it crushes me.

So of course, going to see him live in concert is the perfect thing to do. Because I am an emotional cutter.