Teaching Myself My Biggest Lesson

I’m in the midst of a quiet heartbreak, and it’s probably my fault. I was the one who got moths in my belly instead of butterflies whenever I spoke to him.

(Or maybe it was the love bombing, the large promises, the empty small talk, the days he asked me to be his therapist instead of asking how I was—how he rarely called me pretty but sent countless photos of himself instead.)

After days of my stomach churning I said to him that I wanted to be friends (and I meant it), and I got ghosted instead of a slow burn. Now he’s “the happiest he’s ever been” with a live-in girlfriend and I’m cradling a Vans shoe box asking my younger self for romantic answers. Maybe I’m the fucked up one for wanting healthy communication and emotional distance.

As a woman in my late 30s, I’m worried that all I will have are clever lines for songs or novels. That I did “miss” the mark for romance. Or maybe I did manifest my solitude so many years ago because I prayed to god every night asking him to keep my family alive instead of a partner.

Did I make a deal with the devil? Am I lovable?, I ask the Fall Out Boy ticket stubs, the crumpled wristbands in the box.

—

If I’m being honest with myself, my past reveals the answer: yes.

In my 20s, I had countless romantic encounters with people I asked the universe to send me. One of them was an actor I saw on TV. He was in one of those famous emo music videos on Fuse—dark brown hair, bangs strewn across his pale face with piercing Pacific sea green eyes emboldened by black eyeliner.

“He’s the kind of person I want to marry,” I said to the screen.

Then, I did what anyone would at that age: I added the actor on Myspace. We didn’t interact, of course. Why would he want me? I was a scrawny Latina with dark brown hair and eyes— a far cry from Los Angeles’ beauty standards.

At least I knew the actor’s first name: Daniel. Our initials looked cute together. But again, how would I compare to countless other women also after him?

A month or so after telling the universe who my ideal partner was, he materialized at the Knitting Factory in Los Angeles. Yes, the exact actor. He stood tall amid all the other boys with skinny jeans, but I was too busy wondering why the bassist of the opening band ignored me all night even though he had sat on my porch the weekend before and asked me to come to his show. Frustrated, I asked my friend if we could leave early. There was no use being somewhere I wasn’t wanted.

We were steps away from the parking garage when my friend blurted out: “I saw Daniel there.”

“Are you sure you saw him?” My heart raced. I looked down at the Xs on my hand; we were not going to be let back into the club, now.

“It was definitely him. Too late. I have a headache, anyway.” The one who drives the car makes the rules.

“We have to go back,” I was glued to the sidewalk.

“Even if we got back in, I know you. You won’t talk to him. You’ll stand there and do nothing.” My friend dug through her band tote bag for her keys, then sighed. “Shit. I think my phone is still in the venue.”

Now we have a story to tell our children, Daniel, I thought in the back of my mind as I made up half truths to the bouncer at the front entrance where we’d only exited moments ago. My friend’s headache had grown immensely over misplacing her phone that our story was believable enough to merit us a five minute pass back into the venue.

Inside, Daniel sat on a couch alone. His eyes were focused on his drink and the stage. My friend began her motivational speech: “If you don’t make your move…”

I pushed my way through the crowd and took a seat next to him. Not something I would normally do, but I wanted him, and I was determined to please the universe for this once in a lifetime happenstance.

“Hey, are you Daniel?” I asked. “We’re friends on Myspace.”

He flashed a smile. “Hi, I am.”

Because we were on borrowed time, I pulled out my digital disposable camera (an honest to god amazing ice breaker of an item) and asked him if we could take some photos. He put his arm around my small frame, pressed his cheek against mine and grinned. We took a few, deleted the ones we didn’t like, and repeated the process until we had at least three good ones.

“You’ll have to send me those when you develop them,” Daniel said.

I wasted no time filling up the camera over the next few weeks so I could develop the photos immediately. Weeks later, I had the digital and tangible copies. I hung the physical copies of us on my wall next to my bed, and delivered his as promised. With that one message, I got an invitation: “Do you want to go on a date?”

I was only 19 and Daniel was in already halfway into his twenties. Our first date was nothing short of perfect. He took me to a movie at the fancy movie theatre at the Sherman Oaks Galleria and picked out all of the red Sour Patch Kids from the pack (my favorite), handing them to me through a Ben Stiller comedy. By the end of the night, we were sharing red velvet cupcakes and making wishes in the mall fountains. (His idea; he brought a pocket full of pennies. We used them all.)

First dates are easy. The next few that followed tested my insecurities, and I had plenty. My boobs weren’t big enough, my skin was full of acne scars, I sweat too much––and so on. I was also five years younger than Daniel. Being younger meant Daniel wanted to teach me things I still didn’t know how to do. Parallel parking was one of them. He forced me to confront my fears of running over a curb, and did so with kindness. There were other times where I didn’t need to learn a lesson, and he was still kind. He carried me over puddles so my feet wouldn’t get soaked, and fed me sushi with his hands so I might be more inclined to call it my favorite cuisine, or at least to expand my beige palette.

As he asked me more about myself, my favorite music, I cowered. I couldn’t be honest. That’s when my little fate-of-the-universe relationship started to unravel. It’s silly, right? To sit in someone’s kitchen arguing over an answer to a simple question: what’s your favorite band? Music was so sacred to me then, that telling Daniel was like giving them a part of my literal heart. I didn’t want him to know my secrets. Here this handsome man sat across from me with his tattoos and beautiful eyes, telling me I was pretty, and I didn’t want the realest, nerdiest parts of me to be exposed to early on for fear that loving a band like Fall Out Boy would make me ugly.

Daniel never called me his girlfriend. Daniel never said he loved me, but I knew he liked me a lot. He was the closest thing I’d had to a boyfriend and I was torn up inside when we took a break from dating. I cried harder when I saw the girls on his Myspace posting photos of each other in intimate settings.

Something kept us tethered, though.

We picked up from where we left off a few months later. This time, I sent him a message over AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) inviting him to some fancy art play about the digital age and romance, showcasing to him my academic girl side. He obliged. He had patience as I drove the streets instead of the freeway and made us late. He drank a beer. He didn’t mind that I might have been a little smarter than him.

Later, I planned spooky movie nights where we would walk to the local Blockbuster holding hands. We were moving closer again.

But when it came to singing for him at a karaoke bar, something he loved to do, I couldn’t bring myself to stand on stage. His frustrations returned. Why couldn’t I show him all of me, the truest parts of me? Share with him the thing that literally brought us together in the first place?

In my twenties, I had anxiety and depression, but was not aware of my OCD diagnosis. For years, I was an excellent actor myself. I wasn’t accustomed to falling apart in front of people. One night, I was sat in an already cramped vehicle. No way out. Losing my breath. Daniel’s friend drove us around The Valley recklessly with Daniel sitting in the front seat laughing. (I didn’t plan this date.) I tried to push through the nausea and hot flashes of my oncoming panic attack by softly singing. It turns out, singing is something I do to self soothe. When Daniel heard my voice singing along to Patrick Stump, he offered his hand for me to hold from behind. He whooped, he cheered because he finally heard what he’d longed to hear.

“You like this song?” I asked.

“You never gave me a chance to tell you.”

It turns out, we liked the same music. We were both anime nerds. We had a lot in common. More parts of me to him were pretty than ugly.

But I couldn’t relinquish the fear inside, how singing left me far too exposed. How now that he had heard me, maybe he would use it against me. Maybe it wasn’t perfect, maybe someone else could sing it better.

Maybe.

When I went quiet during a sing along to Hollywood Undead’s, “Undead,” Daniel noticed. He reached into the backseat, and placed his hand on my knee. Soft squeezes. I was frozen despite the warmth of his oversized palm. Once we parked, Daniel helped me climb out of the backseat and held me. I inhaled and unfurled. It was the first time I let him see me in such a raw state, limbs trembling. Daniel’s tender touch brought me back to the ground, and simultaneously picked me up and carried me to his apartment. He laid me on the living room floor with my head against his chest. We melted into the carpet. Daniel didn’t let me go until my breathing evened.

I pulled away, and he placed his hand on my cheek.

“Let me show you something,” but I pulled away.

He did, too. For good.

I have learned my biggest lesson. Not parallel parking, sadly. My heartache has so little do with men as a whole, and more to do with my self worth, my self perception—and that relentless record spinning in my head. For me, music means emotional closeness/distance. Sharing that a song, my voice, my lyrics is more than a product. It is my entire self in a melody. OCD has latched hard onto that knowledge and has used it against me for years.

Well, not every partner is going to judge me on some superficial scale, my playlist or whether or not my clothes and makeup match the genre. And if they do, they were not meant for me.

More room for men like Daniel––soft and patient with hard edges, a gift for music and art, someone who is unapologetically nerdy and plays more video games than I do, who definitely can cook better than me, who can teach me things I don’t know (I really do need to learn how to parallel park), force me to be a stronger versions of myself when I feel weakest, but who is gentle and grounds me when I unravel. Who wants nothing more than to listen and hear every part of me, sung or unsung.

I will lean in the next time love comes around, sing loudly in the back of a car, at a bar, I will share my playlist, and all of those deep scary parts of me when asked to open my heart. It’s he(a)re for you.

xo,

Ashley Jean