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Plus, don’t we all, deep down, carry an inextinguishable longing for our parents to be proud of us? Even long after we’ve given up?
“There’s no such thing as too meant to be,”
But I wasn’t like most of humanity. I didn’t like being helped. Is that a crime? Surely I’m not the only person on this planet who prefers to handle things on her own.
But I didn’t know. The same way none of us ever know. The same way we all just move through the world on guesswork and hope.
Just the fact that men like this existed.
No matter how alone you ever are in life, you always have yourself, right?
And the idea that anything could just disappear at any moment is something you suddenly understand in a whole new way. The way I did for a long while after my mother died.
“Our thoughts create our emotions. So if you fixate on your worst-case scenario, you’ll make things harder for yourself.” “You want me not to fixate on the worst-case scenario?” “I want you to start practicing the art of self-encouragement.”
I never needed anyone. Ever. For anything.
Holy shit. It was love at first sight—and I couldn’t even see him. Okay, I take it back. It wasn’t love. Love requires actually having spoken to a person. At the minimum. Maybe it was infatuation at first sight. Or preoccupation. Or obsession.
our thoughts create our feelings.
Our thoughts create our emotions.
“You’re very in your head,” she said. “I’d like to see you dip into your heart.” “I like it in my head.” “But that’s not really where we live.”
“Are you trying to tell me I’m emotionally closed off?” I said. “Because I have lots of emotions. I’m great at emotions! I’m a huge fan of you, for example. I just fell madly in love with my brand-new veterinarian. I cry at life insurance commercials.” “Real emotions, I mean.” “Are you telling me that love isn’t real?”
“What’s confirmation bias?” Dr. Nicole paused for a good definition. “It means that we tend to think what we think we’re going to think.”
“Basically we tend to decide on what the world is and who people are and how things are—and then we look for evidence that supports what we’ve already decided. And we ignore everything that doesn’t fit.”
“I need his number.” All I could think to say was “Why?” “Because I’ve decided he’s my future husband.” Hey. That was my thing. I was the person with a future husband.
“It’s nice to have a reason to do something nice.”
“I’m fine,” I insisted. I was always fine—whether I was fine or not.
“I’m probably a good friend for you,” I said. “Because I never need help.”
“I am now—and will continue to always be—one hundred percent okay,” I insisted, forehead still pressed to the concrete.
Maybe he hadn’t gotten the memo? I knew of course that people weren’t perfect. Life was messy. He didn’t even know how much I was counting on him to be the fantasy-man mirage that kept me moving through my personal emotional desert. I couldn’t legitimately resent him. But I resented him, anyway. Illegitimately. He was just so disappointing.
This is good, I kept telling myself. This is emotionally healthy. You’ve got to feel your feelings.
Because when you have to do something genuinely scary, it’s nice to have a friend.
That’s the dark underbelly of hope that nobody ever talks about. How it can skew your perspective. How it can keep you in long past when any reasonable person would’ve been out.
YOU KNOW THOSE days when it just feels like the universe is out to get you? And even though you know intellectually that the universe is way too busy to sit around planning your personal destruction, it still feels that way, anyway?
Canceled. That felt surprisingly good. I didn’t have to do any of this. The idea misted me with relief. I didn’t have to just endlessly suffer and suffer and suffer. I could just … quit.
“How could you think that?” Joe said. “I don’t know. People are terrible.” “People may be terrible,” Joe said. “But I’m not.” He really felt kind of hurt.
“If I told you,” he went on, “that I can’t remember the last time I met someone who woke me up like you do … That there’s something about you that I can’t get out of my head … That I keep thinking about you and wondering if we might be … really right for each other…” He looked up. “What would you say?”
“I still can’t see faces. I submitted a portrait to this competition that I should have won—handily—that’s guaranteed to come in dead last. I’m being menaced by my evil stepsister. I’m embarrassed to go back to my favorite coffee shop. My best friend eloped to Canada and left me dateless for what’s sure to be the most humiliating event of my life. My stepmother wants to build a relationship with me and she’s coming to the show over my vociferous objections. My dog is a thousand years old. I broke up with my fantasy fiancé. And the very cute guy in my building who I might genuinely be in love
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That’s what I loved about her. Not just that she was a great mom or a great wife or a great dog rescuer. She was a great person. She knew some divine secret about how to open up to being alive that the rest of us kept stubbornly missing. She’d wanted me to know it, too. She’d wanted me to say yes to everything. She’d wanted me to go all in.
But I guess that’s the great thing about life—it gives you chance after chance to rethink it all. Who you want to be. How you want to live. What really matters.
I decided to try to text him one last time. This would be it. My final attempt. And then, when he didn’t reply, I’d call it: Time of death for my thing with Joe. Saturday night, seven P.M. Then I’d go ahead and let myself mourn.
“The thing is … I’m scared to go alone. And I don’t know why, but it feels like you’re the only person I can say that to. You’re the only person I want to say that to. I just want so badly to have somebody with me. Anybody. And so I just have to ask if you might stay tonight. Despite everything.” I took a step closer, like that might seal the deal. “Can you postpone your plans,” I asked, “and come with me?”
And I think I’m in love with you, by the way—or at least I was. Before you ghosted me. But don’t worry. I’ll get over it.”
Had I really just called the guy who ghosted me—and thanked him? Thanked him? Where exactly was my self-respect? You don’t thank people who put your heart in a meat grinder. You don’t thank people who abandon you. You don’t thank people who stare at you cold as ice and then turn away when you beg them for help. That was my plan? To absolve him of all responsibility and then pleasantly move on?
Seeing Joe was like being struck by emotional lightning.
But can we also appreciate how I was racking up the triumphs? I wasn’t weeping. Or hyperventilating. Or vomiting. I was handling myself. Poised. Gracious. And ignoring my hemorrhaging heart like a legend.
“You can’t see when you’re not looking, I guess.”
It takes a certain kind of courage to be brave in love. A courage you can only get better at through practice.
Isn’t it lucky when we’re drawn to people who can teach us things we need to learn?
Seeing the world differently helps you see things not just that other people can’t—but that you yourself never could if you weren’t so lucky. It lets you make your own rules. Color outside your own lines. Allow yourself another way of seeing.
But I find the antidote to that is just keeping a sense of humor. And staying humble. And laughing a lot. And doubling down on smiling. We’re all just muddling through, after all. We’re all just doing the best we can. We’re all struggling with our struggles. Nobody has the answers. And everybody, deep down, is a little bit lost.
Sometimes we really are the best versions of ourselves. I see that about us. And I’m determined to keep seeing that about us. Because that really might be the truest thing I’ll ever know: The more good things you look for, the more you find.
