A Lesson in Love

I experienced my first real crush at 12 years old. A neighbor who lived a street over; we shared the same backyard fence. He was a year older than me, which in middle school meant a lot. At the age of 13, he was already handsome and charming, the star of the basketball team, and I, on the other hand, was an awkward, shy preteen. No amount of Abercrombie and Fitch jeans, black eyeliner, and drugstore lipgloss could turn me into someone he'd ever be interested in.

I was a wallflower. The kind of girl who notices everything and everyone, but never gets noticed. I kept to myself. Already feeling like an outsider for as long as I could remember, with my fiery red hair that demanded to be seen, all I wanted to do was stay hidden. I didn't like being different, and no matter how much I studied others to learn how they so effortlessly fit in, I just couldn't figure out the formula.

He was everything I was not. Loud, blunt, and good at everything he touched. Sports, friends, girlfriends, good looks, he had it all. Even though we lived mere feet away from one another, I never dared to speak to him. I didn't want to suffer the humiliation of finding out that my deepest fears might come to be true after all - I wasn't good enough for the person I admired.

I often spent my days daydreaming romantic scenarios in my head - motion pictures in my mind of what it would be like for him to notice me and make me his girlfriend. Surely life would be wonderful. If only he knew who I was, and if only I could become prettier and popular, we'd be perfect for one another. I was convinced in my young heart that I loved him. I prayed that someday I'd grow up and become beautiful and get a chance with him, living my own happily ever after.

I sent my wish off to the universe and lived life in the meantime. My parents got divorced, which meant moving across town. Life forced me to move on. Thankfully by the time I was in high school, I'd come out of my shell enough to speak to boys, learned how to do my makeup correctly, and made friends with girls who liked to go to parties. I even managed to have a few boyfriends here and there. I was always looking to find "the one" in each guy I met - never mind how young I was at the time. I wanted someone to love and be loved by, someone who'd make everything better. I searched and searched and never quite found it, but I didn't give up hope he was out there, somewhere.

One hot night in mid-July 2012 during my sophomore year of college, a friend invited me to a party. I was on the fence about going. I didn't know the host, and I had a job interview the following day, but my friend wanted to go, so I promised her we'd make a brief appearance. I was given the address and immediately recognized the street, as the house was in my childhood neighborhood. As we pulled up to the party location, my heart dropped upon realizing exactly which house it was. After all those years, I hadn't forgotten my long-lost crush. Was it possible he still lived there?

It was, in fact, my former crush's house, and he was the party host. His family was currently out of town; I'd find out later. I knew quite a few people there, so I grabbed a beer and socialized, all the while realizing how surreal this moment was. Years ago, I'd dreamed about what it would be like to be in the house I was now standing in. As I took in my surroundings, I realized it looked nothing like I'd imagined it would. The house was cluttered and dirty. Dishes were piled up in the sink, stains covered the carpet and walls. The smell of stale beer and dust permeated the home. I quickly brushed those thoughts aside as I took another swig of my beer, deciding to mind my own business. Just because their house was messy didn't mean they weren't good people.

I sat on a couch casually chatting with an old friend of mine and, as I did, felt a hand brush against my shoulder. I turned around to see who it was, and it was him. He introduced himself and, with a beaming smile, said he was glad I was there. I told him how I had once lived on the street behind him; he had no recollection of me, but thought it was a funny coincidence.

He came across genuine and sweet as we spent the whole time talking until there was just us and a handful of people left. The sun rose and reminded me I needed to be getting home soon.

He liked me and thought I was funny, he told me so. He wanted to get to know me better, so he invited me to come on his trip to meet his family; he was leaving in the morning to meet them. I insisted that I couldn't impose. When I told him no, he insisted that I come to his house the next day after my interview to say goodbye. He also asked me to watch over the place while he was gone. He was having friends stay over, and he didn't want them to steal anything (we hung out with a sketchy crowd in those days). I thought it was sweet that he already trusted me. I promised him I'd keep watch.

A few weeks passed of hanging out daily and drinking with friends. Within a month, he was my boyfriend, and I was in heaven. For the first time ever, fate seemed to be on my side. I remembered my wish from all those years ago as a young preteen girl, and now here I was. I was the lucky girl who'd found the one I was always meant to be with. It was like something out of a movie.

Just a month in, and he was already in love with me. Two months in, and he'd convinced me to move into his parent's basement. He could tell my family was toxic and unhealthy for me. I didn't need to be in an environment that was so unsupportive. He'd take care of me like my parents had failed to do.

Finally, I had what I wanted. I was living with the guy of my dreams, partying every night. But maybe I started drinking too much because I couldn't think straight anymore. I thought I was catching him in lies, lies about his job, lies about his age, lies about his times in college and why he'd left. Still, when I asked for clarification because I was confused about details he'd given, he'd tell me he never said what I so clearly remembered him saying. Was I going crazy? It was then that I decided to put down the bottle.

But despite quitting drinking, my anxiety was super high. I was experiencing panic attacks anytime I left the house. I was short of breath, shaky, and felt sick for unknown reasons. He didn't understand why I was acting out. He'd get upset when I was anxious because he thought I was faking it. Anxiety isn't real, he told me. And what reason did I have to not feel good? It was an insult to those in this world who had real issues and real reasons for suffering. I needed to suck it up and get over it.

Meanwhile, thanks to his wise insight, I realized that most of my friends weren't good people. They lied to my face. Everyone knew I was a nasty person, but they weren't telling me. Therefore they must be bad friends since they could just go on letting me live with my awful attitude. At least I could count on my loving boyfriend to be truthful because he actually cared and wanted to help me. He knew I could do better. That's why he had to be hard on me; otherwise, I'd never change. I thanked him for looking out for my best interests.

My anxiety worsened. I had dizzy spells all the time and was experiencing intense bouts of derealization. I felt completely out of my body and out of touch with the world. Each episode would escalate my anxiety and create a cycle of panic attacks. I couldn't tell my boyfriend because he had enough stress on the table already. He'd lost his job because of his incompetent boss, and now he had no money for alcohol. He needed to drink because his wisdom teeth were growing in, and he couldn't afford the surgery because he didn't have insurance. Also, we couldn't tell his parents, whom we lived with, that he had lost his job. It'd only upset them, and I didn't want to be the one responsible for making them worry, did I?

I realized my boyfriend had a drinking problem when he walked to the liquor in a nighttime snowstorm and paid for alcohol with spare change he'd found in the floorboard of his mother's car. When I called out the seeming absurdity of his actions and told him to pour the liquor down the drain, he screamed about my insensitivity. He could easily stop drinking if he needed to, but it was the only thing that took his pain away. How selfish could I be? Did I want him to be in agony? Of course, I didn't, so I apologized and went to the liquor store to buy him another drink.

One summer evening, we went to see a drive-in movie. He drank the entire time we were there. Halfway through the film, realizing one of the characters would die, he rolled up the windows and began screaming at me. How dare I take him to see a sad movie? I should have known he didn't want to watch that kind of move. How selfish of me. He made us leave before the film ended, aggressively swerving down the old country road that led back home, yelling right in my face the whole way. Tears streaming down my face, I apologized. I didn't mean to upset him, I swore. But he couldn't believe me after so many lies. In response, he yelled more, calling me selfish and incompetent. I pleaded with him, trying to convince him I loved him and that I meant well, but his sympathy for me had run its course. I prayed he'd get pulled over and arrested for a DUI. I didn't get my wish.

Soon after I came to understand that I was in love with an addict and it was killing me slowly. But what else could I do? Leaving him wasn't possible. We lived together, and I had nowhere else to go. Plus, he needed me. I couldn't abandon him because he'd drink himself to death or kill himself. He told me so. He loved me, and I was the only thing that kept him going. So I stayed, praying for things to get better.

He was forced to quit drinking by default. He was scheduled to have a surgery which required no eating or drinking for 16 hours before the operation. His last drink was around noon the day before the surgery. By five pm, he was pacing around the basement, telling me he felt strange inside his body and extremely paranoid. He kept walking out into the garage because he thought he heard someone taunting him out there. By the time night fell, he was completely gone from his mind. He was trembling and crying and having full-blown conversations with people who weren't in the room.

He was so far gone that he didn't even notice that I left the room to go upstairs, where I finally broke down to his parents and told them what was happening. Soon after, he was rushed to the emergency room. The nurse told us his situation was so severe that if we hadn't got him there when we did, he might not have made it through the night.

He spent two weeks in the hospital detoxing and, from there, went straight to rehab. Finally, he'd admitted to everyone that he had a problem. I promised to stay by his side as he committed to his newfound sobriety journey. He thanked me profusely for being there for him during all those times. I was relieved and grateful. Once he got sober, I knew that we could finally make things work and be happy like we were always meant to.

Once he got out of rehab, he dutifully followed his 12-step program, attending meetings weekly, speaking at church events about how God, and I, his wonderful, loving girlfriend, were the reasons for his survival and redemption. Everyone looked at me like a saint and told me how fortunate he was to have me by his side.

He stayed sober, which didn't surprise me because when he did something he had to be the best at it. He continuously reminded me that just because he was sober now didn't mean life was easy for him; he'd be an addict forever regardless of the length of his sobriety. Therefore, I needed to take care of him and ensure his environment wasn't ever overwhelming or triggering. As the partner of an addict, I now had new responsibilities and sacrifices to make. He was given an unfair disadvantage in life. How lucky I was to not have to deal with the things he went through. Being a caretaker was an easy role compared to the lot he'd been given.

We'd go out in public, and he'd be holding my hand smiling, telling people how I saved his life. Then we'd get home hours later, and as soon as we walked in the door, he'd be screaming at me about something I said that evening that he disagreed with, something I didn't even remember saying. Hours would be spent interrogating me on why I said a particular word or phrase and how I was a liar when I swore I didn't know or remember. He told me I was pushing him to want to drink again. After all these years together, I should be better than this by now. I was lucky he still put up with me; I wasn't an easy person to live with. I felt an obligation to be strong for him and his sobriety, but something was nagging me inside, telling me that I didn't deserve to be treated that way.

Much to my surprise, the longer he was sober, the more depressed I became. Here I was, getting my wish, the guy I'd always wanted, and he now he was finally sober and working a steady job again, and I was falling out of love. The illusion was beginning to shatter. Maybe, I'd never actually loved him?

Eventually it got so bad that I couldn't kiss him anymore without feeling complete repulsion. When he touched me, my skin wanted to rot and wither away. I spent most nights crying after he went to bed. I realized that it was never his drinking that made him a monster. It was him. He was sober, yet he was just as angry. And now, there was nothing to cover up who he truly was, no drunken state to excuse his behavior. Reality finally hit me; the boy I had once admired from afar as a young girl was a mirage. He never existed. I saw what everyone else saw, the image he projected out to the world. All those years, I'd only allowed myself to see who I wished he was. He never was, and never would be, that person I hoped for as a young girl.

The day after Christmas 2018, he announced to a room full of people at a family gathering that he thought it was time we got married. If all went as planned, his intention was for us to get married that upcoming summer. His mother and sister were delighted and couldn't wait to start planning. I almost protested, but he looked at me from across the room, and his chilling eyes spoke for themselves, words that stopped me in my tracks. I could read his mind, and it said, "If you dare ruin this moment by making a scene, by going against what I'm saying, you'll regret it." So I sat there alone in the crowded room, willing myself to not burst into tears, saying nothing while his family began planning my life for me.

Everything in my body was telling me to run, but I was paralyzed in fear and indecision. I confided in family and friends for the first time about my situation. They told me I should go, but I knew it wasn't that simple. What if he hurt himself? Deep down beneath the tough exterior, I knew he was fragile and lonely. What if he tried to hurt me? He'd never been physical with me before, but he had a violent temper, and this might just be the thing to push him over the edge. Where would I live? I had lost almost all of my friends, and my family wasn't in the position to have me stay with them for long. What would I do about money? I couldn't possibly get my own place; he'd told me enough times already that it was my fault we'd lived in his parent's basement so long, I couldn't be trusted to be responsible with finances. I was a grown woman, but I felt like a lost, afraid child, and time was running out. If I didn't act soon, I'd be walking down the aisle in a few short months, chained to him forever.

One Saturday afternoon in February, I decided to work on my day off to get ahead for the week. At least, that's what I told everyone else, but in reality, it was the only way I could get time to myself. It was a bitterly cold winter day. I had to borrow his car because two days prior, mine had broken down on the way to work and was in the shop. He'd yelled at me on the phone when I called and told him my car was on the side of the road watching as smoke rose from the car's engine. He insisted I'd done something to cause it to break down; I could never take care of things, after all. Somehow, he'd finally calmed down enough over the next two days and had agreed to let me take his car to work that weekend. I went to work and spent five or six hours there cleaning my classroom and printing off worksheets for the upcoming week for my students. At the time, that was the idea of a peaceful weekend.

I decided to pack up my things and head home before it got dark out. Grateful for having a rare afternoon alone, I walked out to the car feeling refreshed. Unfortunately, my optimistic feeling was short-lived as I sat in the car and put the key in the ignition to start, only for it to make a loud rumbling noise before dying. Panic immediately consumed every fiber of my being. I sat still for a minute, staring blankly straight ahead, praying to God to please allow just let the damn car start. I tried the ignition again, but nothing. I went inside the building, pacing around the dark, empty gymnasium, contemplating what I knew was about to be my brutal fate before I made that phone call and told him what had happened. I knew since he'd been that mad at me about my own car breaking down two days prior, he'd be enraged about this and accuse me of doing it on purpose. Finally, I picked up the phone and confessed. He didn't speak much during the call, but his tone said it all. I knew when he arrived I'd be in trouble.

45 minutes later, he was at the school in his mother's car. I immediately tried to lessen the blow by saying how sorry I was and explaining my shock and annoyance at the freak accident, but he was having none of my excuses. Instead, he immediately screamed at me to shut up and get in the car. I don't remember much of the next hour except tears silently streaming down my face and my body going numb. He unleashed on me everything he'd hated about me for the past seven years. I pressed my head against the cold car window, looking up at the night sky. The only thing I remember asking him was, "Why are you with me if you hate me so much?" He ignored my question to continue screaming. It was then that I thought to myself, "anything would be better than this". His version of love did not align with mine; in fact, what he had to give wasn't even love at all; it was abuse. I genuinely knew at that moment that I'd rather be homeless and alone than take another minute of his emotional violence. It was decided: I was finally done.

I went to bed that night, the most mentally exhausted I'd ever been in my entire life. The following day I awoke early and went to my mother's place. I asked if I could stay on her couch for a week or two. With her blessing, I drove home eerily calm and utterly numb to what I was about to do. He had been sleeping still but awoke when I walked through the door. I could tell he was ready to move on from the fight the night before and pretend it hadn't happened. But I couldn't pretend the past seven years hadn't happened for one second longer.

I asked him to talk, and he looked put out. He didn't want to be reprimanded for how he'd acted. I saw his body tense as he prepared to go into defense mode. I was too numb to be afraid anymore, and with my newfound boldness, I did the bravest thing I'd ever done. I told him I was leaving, and I wasn't doing it because of anything he'd done. I was doing it for me. For seven years, I hadn't been living for me. My body and mind were wasting away, and I had to do this to save myself. I told him not to blame himself but also to please not waste any time trying to convince me to stay. My mind was made up.

He cried and apologized, begging and pleading with me to stay. Things will be different, he swore. He also guilt-tripped me. What about the wedding? What about his family? How could I do this to them? Why can't I give him a chance to change? I had no tears left in me. No ounce of strength left to empathize with him. I knew he wouldn't change if I stayed, and I also knew I would never be myself again if I didn't go.

Thankfully I felt totally disconnected from my body and all emotion. If I hadn't I don't think I would have been able to go through with it. I mechanically loaded up the car by myself, squeezing in as many possessions as possible, leaving behind anything that didn't fit in one trip. I didn't even have a bed to call my own anymore, but it no longer mattered. Sleeping on a couch in a crowded townhome with my dysfunctional family was better than being abused.

Later that night, as I was uncomfortably tossing and turning, trying to fall asleep on my mom's old and tattered loveseat, I finally cried as I came to terms with the abuse I'd suffered all those years and grieved the youth that I'd lost. It hurt, but I let it out without guilt or shame. Everything I'd suppressed all those years was finally coming to the surface.

By morning, I felt cleansed and renewed, relieved but afraid. Being 27 years old and having never been on my own before, I didn't know if I had it in me to be on my own. Despite the fear and uncertainty, I didn't ever doubt my decision. I'd finally done it, and I knew one thing for sure, I'd never go back. For the first time in my life, I was proud of myself.

A week later, I got the keys to my first apartment. I had no furniture except an air mattress I'd borrowed from my mother. When the landlord said, "It's all yours!" and left, I laid down on the bare carpet, looked up at the ceiling, and just cried with gratefulness. Turns out, I could afford to rent a place. I had nothing but a few boxes of clothes and books and an air mattress to my name, but I finally had a place to call my own. I felt incredibly wealthy.

I had no idea what to expect once I was on my own. Overnight, I'd gone from having my entire life dictated by another person to complete freedom, from having no choice in anything at all to endless possibilities at my fingertips. My newfound freedom was overwhelming and scary, but I knew that being alone would always be better than being with someone who makes you feel lonely. For the first time ever, I realized that I loved myself, and I had been courageous to do what I did, not knowing how it would turn out. It would have been easier to stay, to live a life that's safe and familar, just to have someone. But a tiny part of me was brave enough to realize I deserve better than that. And with that realization, I committed to never letting someone take my power away from me ever again. I spent my whole life looking to find love and completion in another person, only to find that my greatest love was always there the entire time. I found the love of my life, my best friend, and greatest supporter in myself, and that is more than enough.