My Love was a musician and studied biotechnology.

Smart, gentle, peculiar, responsible, the bravest Man I know—and I met all the men you can think of.

I was raised in a conservative environment, so in my early twenties I decided: “It’s time to get married.” So I dated… First disappointments were with young men my age, unable to show me respect because they had no real self-esteem and self-respect for themselves. I thought, “I have to be with a successful man, because he will be satisfied with his life and will be happy for my success!” How wrong I was… International ceos in various industries and countries, a Formula 1 driver, accomplished artists, all different ages… They wanted me to be easy to control, dependent, for me to feel insignificant. Not rarely, they tried sabotaging my projects—even on first dates (here I was grateful, at least I didn’t waste more time and energy). After a few years, I was drained and done. I decided never to compromise my projects and future for any insecure loser.

I carried so much disappointment and anger from these interactions, I decided to change my last name to Tofana, from Aqua Tofana.

And this is when, by accident, I met My Love.

The most helpful and responsible person I met in a long while… A feminist, standing strong for human rights in every possible aspect. Never loud about it—simply true. He was controlling himself not to burden his insecurities onto others—strong character. He was always the highlight of my days, his intentional presence soothing and reassuring. We spoke about many things; smart and silly, we laughed together innocently, made art together, cooked together anything I wanted, danced together and mourned together, because we both understood the complexities and paradoxes of this world deeply—too deeply. My Love carried in himself a lot of darkness passed down to him from his religiously fanatical narcissistic father, as he sometimes confessed bitterly. It clouded his self-appreciation and ability to experience infinite joy in the simplest things in our vast world. Not fully—but enough to make his suffering unbearable, as he wrote in his goodbye letter. I noticed it by listening to him and by his reactions to some things. Sometimes, when I enjoyed the smell of fresh spring wind, he lovingly stated that he was jealous of my ability to enjoy it so easily.

He loved nature—especially animals and flowers. That’s why he chose to study biotechnology.

When I had the privilege of meeting him, I wrote a song to the Universe, almost begging it to save him, as this world needs more men like him. But as I wrote in the song, the Universe is a gambler.

I wanted to surround myself with My Love’s gentle and wise presence for all the time possible. Now I am left with His Love and endless yearning and rage.

We were spontaneous together. If I wanted to go for a walk very early in the morning, after beautiful fresh white snow surprised us, he—with joy in his eyes—was ready in ten minutes to accompany me in the park. And after we came back from playing in the sparkling snow, he prepared hot chocolate. I hoped I could protect this incredible human being from the darkness chasing us in the meanders of our minds. He did the same thing for me… Our birthdays were one day apart. I hoped so fiercely to celebrate the next ones with him. I want to exchange thousands of the cancerous losers roaming this planet for Him… They would do the world a favor by disappearing… My Love thought he took the Gift of his Presence and left… But I safely treasured it and made sure it will nourish our world multiplied.

My Love was living, breathing Music. He still is. He played multiple guitars—my favorite was his black bass one. He sometimes left it in my bedroom to keep me company during nights when he couldn’t. While running errands, we often listened to the same music, playing it simultaneously on our headphones. Usually, I chose the music—he wanted it that way. But once he proposed a song—it is a poetic song which changes its message as life goes on, but one thing remains: it is filled with the powerful Love he embraced me with.

Once, during one of our walks through one of the biggest cemeteries in Europe, eating ice cream and enjoying the silence and nature, My Love spotted an incredible tombstone—a huge angel playing… an accordion?? This is how we discovered our favorite secret place there: a monument of Celebration of Life. The man in the picture, looking at us wisely with piercing eyes from the tombstone picture, hugs a tiny, fluffy puppy to his chest, resting in leisure time in the picture. This is where we spoke about how incredibly inspiring it is to grieve someone, yet not dwell in destructive sadness, but to celebrate the joy and love—the qualities of this person alive in what he left behind. And this is what My Love referred to in his goodbye letter—that it would make him happy to be remembered with joy and gratitude for what we have shared.

And how did we meet? I had spent all my money on traveling and growing my projects, and suddenly I also had to relocate. I found a shared apartment in a town I used to travel to when I skipped class as a teenager—running around in my black Doc Martens and smoking slim cigarettes. I had promised myself to never share an apartment again with random flatmates, but I thought it might work for a short while. I chose the best available option, although the timing wasn’t ideal – it was an academinc city and most students were moving out around summer. It was winter. The neighborhood was sketchy, many things were questionable. But it was by a park and the room was great. For a short moment I though. My Love moved in a few days after me. In shared spaces, he was shyly exchanging greetings, awkwardly sliding through and disappearing in his room. As someone who used to be painfully laid back – I understood. Surprisingly, when I organized cleaning service and shopping, he was the most helpful and responsible of all the extroverted people in the apartment. And slowly, I started to experience more and more of his qualities—his emotional intelligence and strong personality in moments when a 30-year-old police/military flatmate was losing his marbles about washing his own dishes. Darek’s caring attitude. His respectful excitment when I shared a tiny glimpse of my world with him. And he never played ego games, never creepy, never making me feel bad about myself unnecessarily. I noticed guitars in his room—we started writing a song together, about Luigi Mangione. Both of us slowly falling in love with each other, discovering more and more shared passions and curiosities. When I left to Warsaw to attend business conventions, he gave me a necklace of his I had asked him for—I wore it with my pearls the whole time there. We shared jokes together, and to my surprise, this gentle-eyed, sweetly-looking young man carried under his soft curls roaming infinities I thought I would never be able to share with anyone.

We never told each other the words “I love you” directly—I told him I don’t like caricaturally romantic motions in our conservative country, because these usually disempower women. He respected it. He wrote the funnily sacramental in our world words „I love you” in his goodbye letter and in songs he left behind. I said it for the first time out loud after the police gave me his goodbye letter, stating that I should have it.

But we loved each other in every good-morning hug… He accompanied me when I anxiously had to run errands, or when I needed to brainstorm details for my next projects. 
Every time he washed my dishes or was my music DJ while I took a shower, every time he gently kissed my forehead. Or when I woke up in the middle of the night realizing he had nightmares—trying my best to chase them away. We loved each other quirks and humor.
We loved each other every day and night we were blessed to spend together—and beyond.

Remember when I said at the beginning here how I planned to change my last name to Aqua Tofana? I couldn’t imagine changing my last name to the name of some… man! But now I am changing my last name to My Love’s name (of course). This is the least I can do… I am also channeling the qualities he passed down to me into the projects he respected so much. His Presence healed me, changed me—and now I am making sure to multiply it, nurturing it like our children, we never had the chance to bring to life.

One more thing. There was an art piece. A robot arm. Called “Can’t help myself”. Programmed to clean up the fluid constantly leaking out of itself. The liquid was fake blood. It was programmed to make it appear to have human gestures. And at first, it seemed happy and proud of it’s job, dancing around when it had visitors. Cleanig up the leaking blood 24 hours 7 days a week. But three years later, it looked tired, hopeless, and like it’s living in a never ending cycle of constantly trying to put itself back together for the entertainment of other people. After a few years it stopped working – essentially dying. The relief it must have felt… It was programmed this way, it truy couldn’t help itself. And all the visitors just watched.

This is narcissitic abuse. It isolates people.

If anything, My Love’s death – he would want for the mentally isolated by narcissist – who I also was, so that’s why I undersand – to feel the connection, the support, the respect and the nourishing qualities He carried. Narcissits make others clean blood which is leaking because they stab the people again and again. Narcissists pick on the wounds they themself created. And then they blame you for bleeding. So you clean it up, you apologize for it. But over time it’s not sustainable.

“Narcissistic abuse leaves no scars”…? Besides those we inflict on ourselves because we cannot handle the confusing terror happening inside of us. And all the autoimmune issues our bodies start to show because of the tension trapped in body. So not only that, but it also wounds in ways that steal joy from even the sunniest corners of souls. I once walked through this world with open heart – now every corner echoes with the silence of unacknowledged violence. The world often does not see the ones who endure terror silently, the ones silenced by love to their abusers, who lose their light piece by piece. This is for them – for the ones who did not make it, and for those of us who did , carrying the weight and wisdom forward. You are not unseen. You are not alone.