"A los quince años se sabe lo que es bueno y lo que es malo"
Muchas veces en mi vida he tenido que escuchar esto. Y no lo entiendo... Me recuerdo a mi misma con quince años, con muchos sueños y con los zapatos rotos. Deseando un futuro próspero sin saber qué quería, apenas cumpliendo un año de haber dado mi primer beso...
Sabía que estaba mal mentir, pero no podía dejar de hacerlo, a veces era más fácil poder esconder mi trastorno de la conducta alimentaria. A veces era más fácil decir que no me pasaba nada cuando el mundo se me venía encima.
Sabía que estaba bien ser estudiosa, pero no era mi prioridad. Era desordenada, no podía hacerme un hábito. Pensaba que podía aprobar mis materias sin mucho esfuerzo.
Sabía que estaba mal ser grosera, pero era mi mecanismo de defensa ante las crueldades, ante las humillaciones, ante cualquier tipo de abuso en mi contra.
Sabía que estaba bien tener una buena comunicación con mis padres, pero simplemente no quería contarles cosas sobre mi. Me sentía juzgada, sentía que no iban a entenderme.
¿Realmente sabía lo que era bueno y lo que era malo?
Muchas veces me sentí una mujer capaz de muchas cosas, y la realidad era que ni siquiera podía ser mujer. Vivía la vida de una rebelde inocente, una niña que apenas descubría el mundo y no sabía qué tan cruel podía ser. No pensaba en política, ni en religión, ni en sociología. No pensaba en pagar deudas, ni en cuidar a mis padres, ni en trabajar para comprar mis cosas. Vivía en esa bella burbuja en la que los adolescentes viven, un lugar seguro, pero no tanto...
Y es que, ¿cómo saber lo que es bueno y lo que es malo, si te pasan un comercial de lo mucho que te vas a divertir fumando en la playa? ¿cómo saber lo que es bueno y lo que es malo, si siendo una muchachita, te hacen pensar que eres una mujer, y que por lo tanto, puedes estar con hombres? ¿cómo saber lo que es bueno y lo que es malo si te venden la idea de que el físico te valida como persona?.
A mis quince años, apenas había dado mi primer beso cuando conocí a un hombre. Siendo yo una niña... Una persona que me hizo sentir segura y especial. Una persona que me enseñaba su sapiencia sobre el mundo, y yo la tomaba con una palabra santa. Me había enamorado, y era un amor oscuro, pervertido, escondido... Dejé de creer en lo bueno y en lo malo, dejé de pensar en consecuencias, porque así pasa con aquellos chicos que a esa edad "saben lo que es bueno y lo que es malo" para ciertas cuestiones, no lo entienden y no les importa.
A mi nadie me dijo nunca que una persona así podía representar un peligro. Y si hubiese sido así, no me hubiese importado, porque estaba perdidamente enamorada...
Empecé a escribir cartas, canciones, poemas. Y a pesar de que era un amor a escondidas, yo sentía que era real, que era sincero, y era hermoso por su complejidad... Y bajo esa premisa, hice cualquier cosa. De repente la individualidad de mi cuerpo se desdibujó, y aquellas partes del mismo que apenas estaban en desarrollo, ya no eran nada más mías... Sentía una cosa por dentro que no entendía, quizás porque no era simplemente una sola cosa... ¿cómo saber lo que era bueno y lo que era malo, si apenas podía comprender que eso que me revolvía por dentro era la culpa? Por un amor no correspondido, uno suele regalar el cielo. Y al final quedas en una absoluta penumbra...
Me encontraba pervertida, despersonalizada, absolutamente sola... Y nadie veía nada raro en eso, y yo no veía nada raro en eso. Era una "mujer afortunada" una muchacha apadrinada por un sabio, una muchacha sumergida en un romance espiritual, esotérico, bañado en adrenalina....
Era dependiente, como si se tratase de alguna droga. Era una niña que quería correr, que se tomaba muy literal la historia Lolita de Nabokov, que creía tener la situación bajo control... Me vi a mi misma decir lo que todo adicto dice para negar su problema: "Cuando yo quiera, puedo dejarlo". Y me sumergí en las profundidades de lo prohibido, tentada por promesas, por palabras, por una refinada manipulación...
Sentía que ardía en el infierno y no me importaba. Era "la otra" y tampoco me importaba. Estaba junto a un hombre que estaba haciendo su vida de adulto, no era nada más que una aventura, pero sus acciones y sus palabras me decían lo contrario... Sentí que podía salvarlo, o que podía ser salvada. O quizás nos podíamos salvar mutuamente. Porque a esa edad, tú piensas que el amor es un boleto de ida al paraíso, la cura a las enfermedades, la solución a todos los problemas...
Como era de esperarse, fui desechada, descartada, abandonada. Y el vacío fue enorme. Me sentía sin identidad, sin credo, sin palabras... No era nadie. Y entonces, mucho menos me importó lo que era bueno y lo que era malo. Sentía dolor, estaba confundida...
Empecé a beber, a pesar de que sabía que era malo. Dejé de comer con más fuerzas, me encerré cada vez más en mi propio dolor. Alejé a mis padres: ya no era la niña de papá, y mi mamá lloraba porque ya no era la misma, porque me exilié de mi propia familia, mi propia sangre. Sólo pensaba en hacerme daño, no en lo que podría ser bueno para mi. Eso era impensable, no lo merecía...
Sí, yo a esa edad sabía lo que era bueno y lo que era malo. Pero no lo entendía, apenas estaba viviendo las consecuencias. Pensaba que tener una mano marcada en mi alma no iba a representar un problema, pensaba que tenía un romance... Me sentí sucia, me sentí culpable, me sentí mi propia victimaria. En parte lo era...
Pero, ¿los adultos sabrán lo que es bueno y lo que es malo? ¿sabrán que es malo mentir? ¿que es malo robar? ¿que es malo sucumbir al placer pasajero de las drogas? ¿que manipular a los demás está mal? ¿que dejarse manipular por los medios y los políticos también lo está? ¿acaso todos sabemos lo que es bueno y lo que es malo?
Si hay algo de lo que no me cabe la menor duda, es que ser un adulto, y desear a una niña no es sólo algo malo. Es inmoral, es nocivo, es condenado por la ley. Y he visto muchos hombres que piensan que una muchacha a cierta edad ya es una mujer, ya está lista para experimentar cierto tipo de cosas. Mucha gente pacta un gran silencio frente a estos actos...
Sabía lo que era bueno. Hacía caridad, hacía arte, era una amiga fiel, tuve consciencia sobre el animalismo, sobre el feminismo, sobre los derechos de la comunidad LGBTQ+... Pero la gente sólo veía una niña destruyéndose, tenía las esperanzas muy bajas, me costaba creer en la vida, en los sueños, en la felicidad plena. Pensaba que valía lo que un hombre me dijese al verme sin ropa, al verme coqueta. Perdí el norte, y luchaba por restablecer mi camino.
Sigo siendo adulta, y a veces creo que no termino de entender qué se supone qué es bueno y qué es malo... Solamente sé que sobreviví. Sobreviví como miles de adolescentes de mi generación lo hicieron, al estar expuestos a miles de peligros. Sobreviví de mi misma, y de la perversión que había en mi entorno.
Perdí mi inocencia, pero gané mi libertad, mi fuerza...
"At fifteen you know what is good and what is bad"
Many times in my life I have had to listen to this. And I do not understand ... I remember myself with fifteen years, with many dreams and with broken shoes. Wishing for a prosperous future without knowing what I wanted, barely a year after having given my first kiss ...
I knew it was wrong to lie, but I couldn't stop doing it, sometimes it was easier to hide my eating disorder. Sometimes it was easier to say that nothing was wrong with me when the world was upon me.
I knew it was okay to be studious, but it wasn't my priority. It was messy, I couldn't make a habit of it. I thought I could pass my subjects without much effort.
I knew it was wrong to be rude, but my defense mechanism against cruelty, humiliation, any type of abuse against me.
I knew it was okay to have good communication with my parents, but I just didn't want to tell them about myself. I felt judged, I felt that they would not understand me.
Did you really know what was good and what was bad?
Many times I felt like a woman capable of many things, and the reality was that I couldn't even be a woman. She lived the life of an innocent rebel, a girl who barely discovered the world and didn't know how cruel she could be. He wasn't thinking about politics, or religion, or sociology. I didn't think about paying debts, taking care of my parents, or working to buy my things. He lived in that beautiful bubble that teenagers live in, a safe place, but not so much ...
And, how do you know what is good and what is bad, if they give you a commercial about how much fun you are going to have smoking on the beach? How do you know what is good and what is bad, if being a girl, they make you think that you are a woman, and that therefore you can be with men? How do you know what is good and what is bad if they sell you the idea that the physique validates you as a person?
At fifteen, I had barely had my first kiss when I met a man. Being a girl ... a person who made me feel safe and special. A person who taught me his wisdom about the world, and I took it with a holy word. I had fallen in love, and it was a dark, perverted, hidden love ... I stopped believing in good and bad, I stopped thinking about consequences, because that's the way it happens with those boys who at that age "know what is good and what is bad "for certain issues, they do not understand and do not care.
Nobody ever told me that such a person could represent a danger. And if it had been like that, I wouldn't have cared, because I was madly in love ...
I started writing letters, songs, poems. And even though it was a secret love, I felt that it was real, that it was sincere, and it was beautiful because of its complexity ... And under that premise, I did anything. Suddenly the individuality of my body was blurred, and those parts of it that were barely developing, were no longer mine ... I felt something inside that I did not understand, perhaps because it was not simply a single thing ... How to know what was good and what was bad, if I could barely understand that what was turning me inside was the fault? For an unrequited love, one usually gives the sky. And in the end you are in absolute darkness ...
I was perverted, depersonalized, absolutely alone ... And nobody saw anything strange in that, and I did not see anything strange in that. She was a "lucky woman", a girl sponsored by a wise man, a girl immersed in a spiritual, esoteric romance, bathed in adrenaline ...
I was dependent, as if it were some drug. I was a girl who wanted to run, who took the story Lolita by Nabokov very literally, who believed she had the situation under control ... I saw myself say what every addict says to deny their problem: "When I want to, I can leave it." And I plunged into the depths of the forbidden, tempted by promises, by words, by refined manipulation ...
I felt like I was burning in hell and I didn't care. It was "the other one" and I didn't care either. I was with a man who was making his life as an adult, it was nothing more than an adventure, but his actions and his words told me otherwise ... I felt that I could save him, or that I could be saved. Or maybe we could save each other. Because at that age, you think that love is a one-way ticket to paradise, the cure for diseases, the solution to all problems ...
As expected, I was discarded, discarded, abandoned. And the void was huge. I felt without identity, without creed, without words ... I was nobody. And then, much less did I care what was good and what was bad. I was in pain, I was confused ...
I started drinking, even though I knew it was bad. I stopped eating with more force, I locked myself more and more in my own pain. I pushed my parents away: I was no longer my father's girl, and my mother cried because she was no longer the same, because I was exiled from my own family, my own blood. I was only thinking about hurting myself, not about what might be good for me. That was unthinkable for me, I didn't deserve it ...
Yes, at that age I knew what was good and what was bad. But he didn't understand it, he was just living the consequences. I thought having a marked hand on my soul was not going to represent a problem, I thought I had an affair ... I felt dirty, I felt guilty, I felt my own victimizer. Part of it was ...
But will adults know what is good and what is bad? Will they know that it is bad to lie? What is bad to steal? What is wrong to succumb to the fleeting pleasure of drugs? That manipulating others is wrong? That being manipulated by the media and politicians is too? Do we all know what is good and what is bad?
If there is one thing that I have no doubt about, it is that being an adult and lusting after a girl is not just a bad thing. It is immoral, it is harmful, it is condemned by law. And I have seen many men who think that a girl at a certain age and a woman is ready to experience certain kinds of things. Many people agree to a great silence in the face of these acts ...
He knew what was good. She did charity, she made art, she was a faithful friend, I was aware of animalism, feminism, the rights of the LGBTQ + community ... But people only saw a girl destroying herself, I had very low hopes, I had a hard time believing in life, in dreams, in full happiness. I thought it was worth what a man told me when he saw me without clothes, when he saw me flirtatious. I lost the north, and was struggling to reestablish my path.
I'm still an adult, and sometimes I don't think I fully understand what is supposed to be good and what is bad ... I just know that I survived. I survived as thousands of adolescents of my generation did, being exposed to thousands of dangers. I survived from myself, and from the perversion that was in my environment.