i fell in love with reading through the clique series and my call to writing came from so sad today. drama and mental illness, the two frameworks behind my practice. the essays i wrote in training often exploited my troubles in dating, in sex, in depression. oversharing was second nature, more easily done with juicy, never-ending content. and then i got in a relationship.
six years ago, sometime around midnight, one drink away from blacking out, i sat in a passenger seat outside a club in brooklyn. although only moments earlier i screamed-sang joyce manor on the drive over from new jersey, i was now crying, somehow changing the conversation to investigate if the person in the driver’s seat wanted to be my boyfriend. they said they wanted to.
in the next morning’s haze, after they walked to their apartment a few blocks away, i told my roommate i think i have a boyfriend. i think because i was still foggy from the darty’s binge-drinking. the following day they came over to confirm our relationship status. i went on to tweet i have a boyf now.
my ex-boyfriend remained a character in my writing, a way for me to process our on-again-off-again-turn-best-frenemies storyline, which only came to a complete halt at the beginning of that same summer. i remember feeling guilty, scared my new boyfriend would consider this a betrayal like adam did when he read passages about sebastian in carrie’s diary. i chose to believe that soon my new boyfriend would become their own character, an unspoken clause when dating an artist like me.
here we are now, and they have yet to really become one. part of it is because my writing has changed. i went from an aspiring memoirst to an aspiring cultural critic. a standard path for writers who also happen to be a twenty something years old woman. an even easier evolution when the alcoholic party girl retires for a healthy long term relationship. cant write an entertaining piece with no latina girl wasted to stir the pot.
the beginning of this month marked six years of us together. the one milestone haunting me ever since i saw 6 years in high school, an indie low-budget stripped-down look at a young couple’s demise after 6 years. its more complex than that. she was abusive, he cheated. she asked if he still loved her, he couldnt look her in the eyes and say it. their story is such a far reality from where we are, but for the longest, ive based my entire identity on (500) days of summer, eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, and blue valentine. movies about yearning, longing, broken relationships. a pessimistic romantic through and through.
so when my boyfriend and i got together, i didnt think about the future. i didnt think about marriage or kids or careers. i was twenty and they were my dream boy. i assumed we would eventually end as everyone seemed to do. a natural cycle of life worth experiencing with them. made even better with the chance of new material. then three years passed, four, five.
its almost like our relationship accidentally lasted this long, which holds up as we fucked the first night we met without swapping numbers or socials. i had sworn off boys the night before, a half-baked decision after a year of throwing myself at boys who never wanted me. luckily for me, this one did, and no choice has been more effortless than loving them.
our time together has made me reconsider what i had believed before. as i pass by old people slowly walking hand in hand, i imagine us. we’re grey-haired, still trolling one another. im no longer scared of us running our course. i know its still a possibility, but its one that becomes smaller every day - one i hope never comes.
xoxoxooo
