8. Lonely Hearts Club

One thing that I’ve learned about trauma, is that it makes you fall in love with the idea of love. Now in a new environment, I was vulnerable to latch onto anyone that would give me a sense of self-worth and stability. A mutual friend’s mother kept pushing that I would be a good girlfriend for her son, since we were both going off to the same university. Drew was on board with the idea since in their eyes he also came from a good, accomplished family. I thought it was hypocritical how Drew was emphatic that my future spouse couldn’t come from a broken family, when in my eyes, our nuclear family was in shambles. Many thinly disguised get togethers would be arranged for us to get to know each other better. But frankly, the poor sap just wanted to figure out his own life first. When my heart was inevitably broken after I confessed my feelings to him, my head was on fire, compulsively flooding my mind with thoughts of submerging myself in the nearby ocean waves. I told myself that I wasn’t going to be that person anymore and gritted against what my body was screaming for. Fearful that I would become suicidal again, Drew preached that they looked down upon women who killed themselves over heartbreak. I vowed to myself that I would never confess my feelings ever again, since I never wanted to feel the shame of unrequited love consume my identity to the point that it would leave me incapacitated. In the span of two months, I had lost thirty pounds due to a complete loss of appetite and decided I needed to drop my course load significantly after being zonked out on life. I was so ashamed of how my body and mind was responding to what was considered a normal part of life, that I refused to get professional help for what I was going through.

That summer, since Drew was at their wit’s end due to my mental state, when we traveled abroad to tend to Drew’s bedridden mother, they consulted with another family member to see if there were any remedies for what I was going through. An auntie invited Drew and I to a Buddhist psychic she often frequented when she felt overwhelmed with her caretaking duties. As we walked up to a door after four flights of stairs, a non-assuming old woman greeted us.

“Please tell me your name and date of birth.”

Drew hastily put the information down on a sheet of paper and handed it to her.

“Let me take a good look at your face, dear.”

Nineteen-year-old me looked back into the eyes of the old woman sitting across from me. Encased within the privacy of a quaint apartment, Drew and I sat close to each other on a soft, worn-down bed, listening intently to what the fortune teller had to say. Given that my heart was just broken a few months back, and my first year of college was a bust, Drew didn’t want to see me waste away any longer. They needed to be a part of this pivotal, life-changing moment as the old woman read what the stars had in store for me.

“I see now. You don’t need to worry about the guy you are currently pining for. I see that in your future, you will be chased by many men, but the one that will be for you will be relentless in his pursuit. He will have a very outgoing personality, wear glasses, and will be the only person who will truly see you and understand you. It also seems like he will be quite tall and may come from a different cultural background. But most importantly, he will come from a good family, and he will treat women with respect.”

“For some unknown reason, you will reject him numerous times. Yet still, he will always come back to you. Though you may find him distasteful, eventually, you both will share a happy union. I wouldn’t recommend dating until you are 23 years old.”

“What about her future career?” Drew chimed in.

“She may choose to pursue singing at first, but eventually, she will study medicine. The work that she will do will help many people. I also see that your relationship will improve greatly, and she will take good care of you in your old age.”

I couldn’t believe that my future could be so bright when all I had ever known was the same depressing routine of my daily existence. I pondered how someone as hopeless and helpless as me would ever be worthy of love. However, if I wanted that bright future for myself, I needed to forge a new identity, a version of me that was easier to love. At that moment, I subconsciously decided I would take the prophecy that was handed to me and bury it in my heart for years to come, letting it serve as my inner compass.

Once I began my sophomore year at university, I started participating in my life. I would get up at 6 am to go to the gym and keep myself on a strict sleeping schedule so I wouldn’t miss any of my classes. No more pulling all-nighters or taking afternoon naps to escape my life. I was going to be proactive, and only rely on me, myself, and I. I’ll finally become the driven student Drew had always wanted me to be, eager to please my professors and mentors. I made myself sit at the front of certain classes to hold myself accountable and pay attention. As I gained more confidence in myself, I petitioned to double major so that I could still keep up my singing. I wasn’t going to rely on my dear caregivers to fix my life anymore, and it wasn’t like they could from hundreds of miles away. I pitied my poor roommate whose mother would frequently stay overnight at our dorm since she HAD to cook and clean for her daughter as she began her new, scary college life. My social circle quickly expanded, which helped make my undergraduate experience so much more freeing as I finally started to spread my wings.

When the Varsity Blues scandal broke out, many of my peers cried out in outrage at how they worked hard to get to where they are, while privileged families were bribing their kid’s way to college. A tinge of guilt and shame emerged in the back of my mind. I wished I could tell them how sorry I was for being a part of the problem, but I felt that I couldn’t do that without offering myself on a chopping block to be beheaded.

Because I had lost all that weight, I was now much more conventionally attractive and started getting more attention from the opposite sex. Even though I knew it was fucked up, I was also happy to finally be seen as appealing. One of my friends asked me how I did it, to which I bluntly replied,

“I got really depressed and lost my appetite.”

“Really?! Golly, I need to get depressed too!” Of course, that induced a disgruntled sigh in me. I had heard enough from Drew commenting how the previous state of my body was embarrassing and claimed that the boy who broke my heart did me a favor.

Despite having many opportunities to date, I didn’t feel that instantaneous spark that told me it was true love. They were all so nice, friendly, and boring. Any small talk would make gray matter evaporate out my ears, and I hated watching myself eagerly feign interest when I was mentally so out of it. Then, I would abandon them and leave them in their disappointment once they confessed their feelings to me. It’s better to do the abandoning than be the abandoned, I’d tell myself. I could only truly feel connected if there was my trademark emotional intensity, the kind that would subdue your appetite for days as your head spun in circles. The emptiness in the pit of my stomach made me feel pretty. I both loathed and indulged in my lovesickness, because at least I knew it was me, my special brokenness. How could love ever be easy? Love required engulfment, and I wouldn’t want to be engulfed in small talk for the rest of my life. Didn’t I need to work for their acceptance for it to truly be meaningful? They wouldn’t be able to understand me, a “complicated, high-maintenance gal” with loads of hidden issues. They’d probably run for the hills if they ever saw me for what I really was, a monster.

I was still holding out for someone that fit the profile from the fortune teller’s prophecy, my knight in shining armor. He had to be out there, somewhere, probably working tirelessly in some lab pulling all-nighters. Though I may have appeared to be present, the counter-dependent in me was escaping yet again, but this time into a future that didn’t exist in order to avoid my pain. I was still hiding from the world and from myself.

7. Buy the Stars

9. Hermit the Frog