Author Cassandra Grodd: The archaic narrative and pressure to settle down
It is the night of my twenty-sixth birthday, and I’m sitting buck-naked on a couch at 3 am.
A man so beautiful that he could be carved from the gods himself is sitting beside me and rolling a blunt. “Do you smoke?” he said as his silhouette lit up just enough for my heart to skip ten beats. “Only to impress cute boys”.
He laughed; “You don’t have to.”
I’m terrible at smoking, like bad. It’s one of the vices that has never made sense to me. Every inhale feels like the whole world is collapsing, and I have nothing left to offer. In one of the more bizarre sensations of my high experience, my eyes often feel like glass is falling into them. My world becomes some form of a distorted kaleidoscope, and to finish it off, there is simply nothing I can do to stop myself from spluttering and then rapidly falling asleep.
I smoked it.
(he was cute)
As soon as I inhaled, I was transported back to being in LA when I was barely twenty-two with the now ex-love-of-my-life who became obsessed with weed as I became obsessed with him.
Looking at it now, my entire soul cringes at my lack of a sense of self in that relationship. Everything he liked, I decided I did too, emulating his personality as much as I could. Any shoes he wore, I’d buy them. Shows he liked; I’d watch them. An emoji he used; I’d use it. I Shazam’d the songs he would play secretly when we were in the car, holding my phone under my jacket so he couldn’t see my desperation flashing across the screen. Adding them to playlists I could play on repeat in the hopes to transmute myself into him as much as possible. No part of me wanted to date him; I wanted to become him.
Love to me has never been safe or slow or gentle or gradual. Love to me is intoxicating, it is manipulative and dark, like a prehistoric fish that swims along the very bottom of the ocean, never seen but always there. It is something that can be used against you or to you, a weapon of mass destruction. A needle straight to the vein. I like my love to be razor sharp and to come with a cut, if it doesn’t hurt, then it’s not worth it.
I like to bleed my love.
Subsequently, I have chosen men that are as addictive as drugs, and I just want to do them.
There is nothing more fascinating to me than people. I’m easily captivated by diving off the deep end into their minds becoming fixated on learning the tiny details and drinking in their essence. My kryptonite is understanding what motivates them, what they like, how their body moves, what turns them on, what they hate, and what they love. The more mystifying they are the better for me. Out of everything in the world, I adore nothing more than being someone’s fantasy. The thought of them waking up with only me in their brain is my salvation. I want to be someone’s ideal woman, a character they meet and fall so madly for simply because I mirror everything they’ve never had back to them. A part of me thinks I’m built to be the woman you dream about when you’re fifty years old and lying in bed with your wife, who you haven’t touched in five years, the girl you met in a bar lit by disco balls with red nails and a lace leopard print dress without any underwear on who danced like no one was watching. The one who made you feel something you’d never felt before.
“You’re like a vortex; every time I see you, I slip deeper and deeper into this. You’re intense, you feel like running in the rain”
In my twenty-six years on Earth, there is only one thing in the entire world that I am truly in love with, freedom.
And I can’t lose it.
I can’t lose it for anyone or anything, it keeps me up at night just the very thought of it.
Staring out at the rolling hills of Queenstown, my mother, our family friend, and myself took slow sips of coffee, warming our hands on the feeling of having nowhere to be. The words my mum spoke next cut the silence and sliced me in half simultaneously.
“Cassandra needs a boyfriend.”
She stated this like it was her Presidential Inauguration, and she was convincing the entire country. Her tone was factual, with almost no emotion in it other than the faint slither of hope that twisted around each word. It’s always important to read between the lines with my parents and to translate for you; what she meant to say was, “Why on earth hasn’t she chosen someone yet?” or “Why is it so hard for her to settle down?” or even “Will I ever have grandchildren?”
If God came down to earth and asked my mother what her greatest wish for me was, I can guarantee it would be for me to have a boyfriend. The nice kind, the kind who would come to Queenstown with my family and play golf with my dad and drink wine with my mum until the sun sets. One with a solid job who could discuss the political landscape but, most of all, one that loves me for who I am and not who I pretend to be. I think that would break my mum’s heart the most, that for me to find a man who loves me for me would mean that I would have to be myself. An impossible task for the chameleon queen.
My mum and our family friend began to dissect the perfect times in a woman’s life to meet a partner. “University is crucial, it’s when you have the most access to people your age” “Yes!” my mother pipes up “It is when the majority of people meet their partner!" My brain scans over the guys I met in university, most of them half-wits who cheated on me with their girl-best-friends and the other half are still some of my closest friends who would essentially make me feel like I was fucking my cousin. “A woman only has one window, and it’s your twenties, then it comes MUCH harder...”
They both nodded.
I felt like the board game operation, you know, the one you used to play growing up. Where everyone sits around the table and takes turns to fish an organ out of an angry body as carefully as possible. If you touch the sides, the alarm goes off, and the warning light flashes red.
A part of me felt destroyed, as if I had failed an exam I never knew I was sitting.
Nothing is more fun to me than telling stories, leaning my body over the table as I watch everyone's face around it peering at me, their eyes darting left and right, their jaws hanging open, and their eyebrows raised. “He did WHAT TO YOU? IN PUBLIC?” They gawk with laughter trickling out of their mouths. Whether it be my colleagues on a Monday morning or my best friends over dinner nudging a new acquaintance of ours saying, “You’ve got to get Cass to tell you about this guy she was seeing over Covid, it’s crazy”.
You see, I like the boys that my parents would hate. The ones with fast cars and cheeky smiles with necklaces of girl’s hearts swinging around their necks. The ones that feel like a season – skin warming like the summer or icy like the winter. Who have about as much intention to stick around as I do to stop playing games. For a story collector, my situationships are some of my best content. They never last long enough to make a permanent impact, but I learn something special from every single one. Whether it be the tactics of a sports game, business tips, great music recommendations, or adventures, each man who has signed up to fight in my fencing game in some weird way or another has left me better than they found me.
I’ll always be the crazy one. There is a very strong case for me turning into the drunk Aunt, aged sixty-nine and completely alone, drifting around a huge marble mansion with a diamante kaftan on and massive sunglasses. Buying my friends' kids their first vibrator, and a bottle of gin, talking about the time I banged a rapper from the UK.
Of course, there is a part of me that craves connection and wishes for a nice boyfriend who my family would adore and who would adore me. My soul aches at the thought of someone touching me with care or just enjoying my presence rather than wanting to sleep with me. It would be a total lie to ignore the small voice inside that screams that it wants more.
Perhaps I am completely wrong, and commitment doesn’t mean boredom. Maybe one day I will meet the man who makes safe love feel like an adventure.
All I know is that he’s not here now.
When I see my friend Hannah’s name flash up as an incoming call, I know it’s going to be a great conversation. She’s a libra (and so am I), and we relish in the discussion of tiny details and our perspective on life. “You know, Cass, relationships aren’t meant to be easy” her tone informative. “Yeah, they are kind of disgusting” I squirm “I sort of thought one day I was just going to meet someone and they were just going to get it”. Hannah agrees “Yeah that’s the Disney princess shit we get sold, but in reality, it’s about finding someone who has a good heart and adores you. Someone who sees all your bullshit and wants to stick around and work through it for you… I heard your person is meant to be your mirror”.
Your mirror.
The idea of staring at myself seems more daunting than when my friend Albert made me go skydiving hungover. It feels like I’m standing on the edge of a cliff and waiting to fall into jagged rocks, truth be told I’m not sure if I want to see myself in all my worst moments like how anxious I get when the guy I like is talking to another girl or watching my insecurities chatter amongst themselves like characters off gossip girl.
To my story seekers, fun makers, my wildly unapologetic souls who refuse to be defined – let this be your permission slip to never play it safe. To shatter any label or glass ceiling you feel confined to, to ignore society and the generations above pleas to settle down. This is your letter of acknowledgment that you are allowed to be experience-based rather than outcome based. Do not sit in your bedroom because the last time didn’t work out. Go to his house at 3 am and then come home to yourself repeatedly.
When your love is unrequited or lost and when your love is not welcomed or even pushed away, promise me you will keep showing up to the fight just in case this time it’ll be a draw instead of a knockout. Commit to feeling rather than not feeling at all, and when it hurts so badly that you are scream crying in the shower because of the betrayal.
Remember, it will be a fabulous story one day.
It turns out I am committed.
I am committed to showing up for my best friends and remembering what’s important to them, to dancing together as tequila sloshes around us. I am committed to my quests in life no matter where they lead me, I am committed to seeing the world and becoming my absolute best self. To one day look in the mirror and confidently know I am exactly what five-year-old me always wanted me to be. I am committed to biting off more than I can chew, failing, and falling for people who don’t deserve me. To become my strongest self and to finally trust that voice within me. To achieve every dream on my stupid vision board. To provide the best work I can and to always develop my skill set. I am committed to burning myself to the ground just to rise again until I realize that I am not waiting for the one, rather I am the one I have been waiting for.
I don’t think Cassandra needs a boyfriend… I think Cassandra needs a life.
Written by: Casandra Grodd
