And I wrote an essay about him in a creative nonfiction writing class. It wasn’t only about him. I didn’t mention his name. But it was about that party and that feeling of connection and my hopefulness, even weeks later, and how I’d take the long way to class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, because I knew I’d run into him. It was about how I never knew the right thing to say or what to do with my hands, and it was about how those tiny moments could make or break my day. It was painfully honest, more so than I’d ever been. I didn’t try to publish it or put it on the Internet—I would rather have died. But even submitting it to my professor was like handing over my heart.
The semester went on. I worked up the nerve to invite this boy to a party, and I’d obsessively rehearsed the whole encounter. I was still maneuvering to bump into him between classes, so that’s when I planned to make my move. I’d mention the party casually, like I just happened to remember it. I’d ask for his email address—because I’d never let him know I’d already memorized it. Then, I’d forward him the info for the party, and when he showed up, I’d miraculously look like a nineties rom-com love interest. He’d ignore everyone else, and we’d talk for hours, just like the night we met. And then we’d kiss and have lingering eye contact, and he’d be my boyfriend. I’d have a boyfriend. And since me with a boyfriend was incomprehensible, there would obviously be some kind of transformation montage. I’d become the kind of girl who inspired grand romantic gestures. This was finally about to happen.
Anyway, I found him after class and asked him. Super casual, no big deal. There’s going to be a party. You should totally stop by.
He was nice. I remember that. He smiled and told me the party sounded cool. He asked me to keep him in the loop about it.
And then he gave me the wrong email address.
It was a strange mistake for him to make. I knew people sometimes gave the wrong phone numbers on purpose to reject overly persistent suitors. But I didn’t think I was overly persistent. For all my pining, I’d barely talked to this boy. And I’d structured the entire interaction so it wouldn’t look like I was asking him out. Of course I wasn’t asking him out. Not asking him out was my only move, really. I was the best at never putting myself out there, and I was the best at never getting rejected.
I didn’t think I was being rejected.
It had to be a mistake. A rom-com moment. And wasn’t it so like me to fall for a beautiful English major in glasses who couldn’t remember his own email address?
I emailed him about the party. I used the correct email address, of course—the one he must have thought he’d given me. I even had a story ready to go, about how I got a Mailer Daemon from the email address he gave me—HILARIOUS, RIGHT—and only then did I look Mr. Mailer Daemon up in the campus directory. Of course. It’s not like I’d ever think to look him up otherwise.
Anyway, he never wrote back. He also never showed up to the party.
A few days later, I ran into him outside my creative nonfiction classroom.
A few days after that, I learned he was my writing professor’s teaching assistant, which means he’d read all my essays.
He’d read that essay.
To his credit, this boy never called me ugly. He never said I disgusted him. He was kinder than Sir Shitstain—but holy shit, did I feel ugly and disgusting. I finally got it. This boy didn’t have any difficulty remembering his own email address. He was passively, politely rejecting me. I hated the thought of him pitying me—but even worse, I hated being something he had to deal with. My love was a burden, like I’d always suspected.
I was unworthy, like I’d always suspected.
You’re a more generous person than me, UL, because you don’t hate Sir Shitstain. I definitely hated Mr. Mailer Daemon. My best friend and I stopped speaking his name. We literally called him “The One We Hate.” And, fifteen years later, I still cringe when I think of him. I especially cringe picturing him reading this letter. “Jesus,” he’ll say. “This girl is writing about me again?”
Or maybe (probably, hopefully) he doesn’t remember me at all.
My dearest UL: I’m so sorry to say you’ll probably always remember Sir Shitstain. You may forget his face or even his name, but you’ll remember how he made you feel. And I hate that. This kind of moment sears you. I wish it didn’t. I also wish I could say this pain will make you stronger or braver, but I don’t think that’s true. There’s nothing good or redemptive about what he did to you. And if there’s a lesson there, he’s the one who has to learn it. Not you.
But here’s the good news: This experience doesn’t need to be a lesson. It doesn’t need to make you strong and brave. You’re already strong and brave. So was I. We just can’t always see it.
I’m thirty-four years old as I write this. I’m in love, and I’m married to the person I’m in love with. I have two children and a career I adore. I’ve held copies of my books in languages I can’t read. I’ve visited the set of my book’s movie adaptation. Do I feel unworthy sometimes? Absolutely yes. Am I confident and self-possessed? Not always. Not even usually. But I’m proud of what I’ve done and how the years have transformed me.
The years really have transformed me. I think the same thing will happen to you.
But here’s the part that surprised me: Finding love wasn’t the transformation. My first kiss didn’t transform me. Neither did my first relationship, my first breakup, or my big summer wedding. The transformation wasn’t even about me beginning to feel worthy—or, more importantly, understanding the difference between finding love and being worthy. I’m worthy now. I was worthy then. And I see that now, but that’s not the thing I’m most proud of.
I’m proud that now, in my thirties, I’m finally talking about this. All of it: these feelings, these experiences, my insecurities, my shame, and the fierceness of my longing. Now when I write, I take my armor off first. Sometimes I write about people I love, and sometimes those people read what I write. It’s never easy. It’s terrifying. But I’m more proud of the honesty in my books than anything else about them. I’m proud of my honesty in my personal and professional relationships. I’m proud of my honesty on social media, and I’m proud of my honesty with myself. This is how I put my heart on the line. This is the way I know how to be brave.
And this is what you did in the letter you sent me. I’m in awe. You’re sixteen years old. I know you think Sir Shitstain broke you, but you are so far from broken. You wrote to me, holding the door of your heart wide open. You amaze me. You inspire me.
You’re so brave, and I love you.
There’s nothing stupid about wanting to be loved. Believe me.
—Everything Leads to You, Nina LaCour
Dear Heartbreak,
I’m scared. I’m scared that something’s wrong with me, or that people don’t find me attractive or don’t like me or something like that. I’m a senior in high school, and I’ve been in two relationships, one in ninth grade that was with a friend—we never actually ended up going on a date. The other was last year, and lasted a whopping three days. Besides that, no one’s ever come up to me and asked me out, or told me that they like me, or even asked if I’d want to sit with them at lunch or something. A lot of my friends have had relationships before, even freshmen that I know are more experienced or lucky than me. I think I’m pretty, but I just don’t know what is wrong with me that no one would want me. My mom tells me that things will be different in college, that I’ll find someone there, but I’m so scared that it will be just like high school all over again. Last year for junior prom this other girl asked me to go with her, and asked me if I wanted to date her, too, and I said yes. She got a different girlfriend around a week later. I just want to know what’s wrong with me, because I’m trying to do everything right, but nothing is working. I know that high school relationships usually don’t work, but I at least wanted to try. I’m graduating in a couple weeks, and I’ve only ever been on one date. I know that things are supposed to get better, but I’m scared tha
t nothing is going to change. I’m scared that I’m not good enough.
Love,
Scared, 17
GROW WILDLY
Dear Scared,
You are good enough.
I’ll say it again, because I know that this statement is a tricky one to believe sometimes. So much around us and inside of us says, in so many overt and covert ways, that we are not. But believe me: You are good enough.
The summer after my senior year of high school, I worked in a bookstore. On weekend mornings, we would pick up giant thermoses of coffee from the café a few doors down so that our customers could sip while they browsed. It became my job to pick up the coffee, and when I walked into the café on my first morning shift, a cute boy just a little older than me was working there alone. He wore worn corduroy pants and hemp bracelets. He had a deep laugh and a slender body. He listened to music I’d never heard of. I remember wondering if he found me attractive. I remember thinking, Will he choose me? When he asked me out to dinner a few weeks later, I said yes. I rode in his car through the tunnel and over the bridge and into San Francisco, lit up and brilliant on a Saturday night, and we sat across from each other at a Chinatown restaurant and made flirtatious, tentative conversation. And so we began.
It sounds familiar, right? A little like the plot of a predictable movie? It’s what we picture for ourselves because we’ve been shown a million versions of it. We are tricked into thinking that this story is true for everyone, and then when it isn’t true for us, we wonder why. You wanted this in high school—a person who would find you attractive, who would ask you out. I can feel the sadness in your letter—your sadness—and I want you to know that it’s okay to grieve that high school relationship you didn’t get to have. In all fairness, you did have a little bit—the thing with your friend in ninth grade, the three-day fling, an invitation to junior prom. These are more than what a lot of teenagers have by the time they finish high school. But still. You wanted something more than that. I’m sorry that you didn’t get it.
Why don’t you imagine it now, what it could have been like? Picture the person who would have asked you out. Maybe you two would have gone out on a proper date, to the movies or for ice cream in a park while you watched the sunset. Maybe you would have stayed out until your curfew, telling each other about yourselves. Maybe your first kiss would have been awkward at first and then passionate, and maybe you would have found ways to be at your houses when your parents were gone so that you could do more than kiss. You would have shown up at parties together, arms around each other. You would have slow-danced and made out in a corner. You would have taken up entire pages in each other’s yearbooks. Or maybe you would have done none of these things—you’re the only one who knows exactly what you wanted. Close your eyes and imagine it. Let it all play out.
It could have been really great.
Now, when you’re ready, go ahead and let it go.
Scared, I want to tell you a secret. I’ve spent so much of my life trying to make myself a blank slate for other people. Nodding and smiling and saying yes. Waiting to be chosen. Wanting to be liked. Trying not to take up space, to never inconvenience, to read the mood of another person and alter my own to match them. I’ve spent so much of my life saying, “Me too,” “It’s up to you,” “I really have no preference.” The people who’ve grown to know me have done so in spite of this, not because of it. They’ve had to work harder. I know now that it’s okay to be messy and difficult and angry and sad. It’s okay to want things and to go after them. It’s okay to end friendships or relationships that aren’t working. It’s okay to be inconvenient, to need something from someone and to ask for it. But it took me thirty-four years of living and a good therapist to get here. I still doubt myself far too often. I still marvel at how simple and true and freeing it is to say, “I disagree.”
You may be wondering why I’m telling you all of this when you wrote with a straightforward problem of wanting someone to date. I’m sort of wondering the same thing. But at this point in my letter I need to confess that I did not face your particular struggle when I was younger, and I don’t face it now, either. It wasn’t the problem of not having someone to date that drew me to your letter, that made me think about you on my neighborhood walks and late at night while washing dishes and know that I needed to write you back. When I read your letter, one line stood out to me more than any of the others: “I’m trying to do everything right, but nothing is working.” I read it, and I read it again, and I worried over how much of you you must be erasing, how much of you you must be holding back, in your effort to do everything right. What do you love, Scared? What ideas fill you with wonder? Do you like to paint, or collect things, or play video games, or try out YouTube tutorials? Do you read novels, or go on hikes, or speak another language? When you and your friend fooled around in ninth grade, how did you like to be kissed? I am the kind of person who, when I want something badly, finds it difficult to pay attention to anything else. I get the feeling that you might be like that, too. That you might be postponing your happiness while you wait for someone to choose you.
Since I was thirteen years old, I have been in a relationship. I don’t think I went more than six months without one. And I know that to you, who craves romantic connection, this might sound lucky. But it means that all the growing up I did, all the learning about myself, and the figuring out who I wanted to be, was done in relation to another person. That comes with its comforts and it comes with its challenges. It often means that when you’re struggling with yourself, you jab an elbow into the eye of the person who loves you. It means that when you’re navigating the storms of your own heart, you break someone else’s in the process.
Which brings me back to that boy from the café. We had our first date in the city and I tried to act like the kind of girl he’d want to be on a date with, but since I didn’t know him yet, I didn’t know what that kind of girl she would be. I feared that I was boring. I worried over whether he’d kiss me and I didn’t know if I wanted him to or not. He didn’t on that first date but he did on the next one. It turns out that we had both been worried and nervous in our own ways. He was sweet and smart and I was lonely. We dated for longer than we should have—well into my second year of college. He had a crush on another girl.
I did, too.
I don’t want to tell you the story of how I met her. I want to tell the story of how it felt. Like the crowded room we were in became silent but for her. Like she moved in slow motion. Like every time she exhaled, I breathed a little of her in. I learned her name from a roll sheet our professor sent up and down the aisles. I learned what her voice sounded like from the smart things she said in class. I learned what it felt like to want a specific person so badly—to be so drawn to someone—that once the semester was over I never walked anywhere on campus without searching for her. I had memorized her face from countless stolen glances and one fortuitous group work session when we ended up together and I fought through my shyness to talk to her. Even after months had passed since our class had ended, I knew her face well enough to draw it. I sketched her in pencil, and then I carried the drawing of her in my journal as though it were a photograph she’d given to me. The drawing was a wish. And when, a full year later, we had a weekly class together in her very last semester of college, that wish was granted.
I ended things with the boy because all I could think of was the girl. I was still too shy to make a move, so I enlisted the help of my friends and slowly, she gravitated to our section of the classroom. Every day that wasn’t Thursday I spent counting down to it. Every Thursday morning before class began I tried on all my clothes, or went to the mall next to campus to find something that would make her choose me. I casually mentioned a show I was going to and asked if she wanted to come, my heart pounding. She couldn’t, but she smiled every time she looked at me. Finally we started hanging out outside of class, zipping through the city in her little red car. We went to parks and restaurants and bookstores and reco
rd stores and I kept waiting for her to choose me. I hadn’t figured out how to tell her. Meanwhile, more than one of her ex-girlfriends wanted her back. They called and cried to her on the phone. The boy she was best friends with was in love with her. He showed up at a restaurant where we were having lunch one day, desperation in his every gesture. I had been waiting and waiting for her to choose me but I was afraid I was going to wait for so long that I’d miss my chance. So I gathered every bit of courage I had and I told her how I felt in clumsy words that were the best that I could do. They were clumsy, yes, but they got the message across, and I remember the light of understanding flick on in her eyes. She smiled and said, “Oh,” her voice soft and surprised. A few days later, when she picked me up, there was no ambiguity: We were on a date.
Scared, it’s impossible to do everything right. Be kind to yourself—stop trying. Even at our best, we are messy and complicated beings. We are stupid and petty and mean and boring and gross. What you should try is to be fully yourself. Maybe in the past you would have gone out with anyone who asked you. Maybe all you needed was someone, and anyone could have been that person—the more-than-friend who never took you out, the fickle girl who asked but didn’t follow through—but here’s the thing: You get to choose who you want to be with. You get to do the asking, too. There is no guarantee that they will say yes, but the simple, brave act of putting yourself out there will transform you.
For every gross part of us, there is a beautiful part. I understand how badly you want to share that with someone. And I understand how, when you don’t have anyone to share yourself with, you worry that something is wrong, when really, most likely, it just isn’t the right place or the right time.
Dear Heartbreak Page 2
