Chapter 46
Autumn
Obviously I was lying to myself when I told myself that having sex with Tucker one more time wouldn’t make the goodbye worse.
Because every time we have sex, I feel closer to him. I feel more like our bodies—and fuck it, our souls, too—were made for each other. I feel more like it’s going to rip me apart to say goodbye.
But we do it anyway.
He watches me pack my stuff in the morning, and he doesn’t say, Don’t go, and I don’t beg him to ask me.
We make it through the brunch as fake-real boyfriend and girlfriend, and then he walks me to the lodge’s loading zone to where my rideshare is waiting. He lifts my suitcase into the trunk and opens the door for me.
I turn and throw my arms around him, give him a huge hug. “Thank you,” I say. “Thank you for keeping me safe and saving my life—”
“You saved your own life,” he says.
“Debatable, at least the second time—”
“You saved your own life,” he repeats. “I just helped out a little.”
I bury my face against his chest and squeeze harder, not wanting to let go of his warmth and bulk and strength.
But the rideshare driver honks the horn, and I finally release him and slip into the car. As we pull away, I watch him the whole way, and he watches right back, our eyes locked until the very last minute when the distance pulls us apart.
While I wait at my gate at the airport, I send two texts, asking permission.
I explain what I want to do and why I want to do it.
I say there’s no pressure to agree and that they can read what I’ve written before it goes public but that I think it’s important.
It’s important to me, it’s important to the rest of the world, and it might even turn out to be important to them. I’m not sure.
They both say yes, because those are the kinds of people they are.
And then I write.
Here’s a history of how I got happy.
When my mom died, my dad fell apart. And I did everything in my power to hold him together.
I decided that if I were a ray of sunshine, I could shine enough light to keep both of us lit up.
I cooked and cleaned, took care of my little sister and brother, and kept my own spirits up.
I flitted around the house, doing what needed to be done, looking on the bright side, pointing out everything that could possibly bring us joy.
I joked and teased and made the world okay again.
I thought I was doing it for my father, but I was also doing it for myself. Because if I was the happy one, then I wasn’t like him.
Later, when my sister grappled with depression, I did it again. I performed happiness with the energy and dedication of a prima ballerina. I nursed and nurtured, teased and wheedled, drew her out of the darkness and into the light that I was sure I was the guardian of.
It did it for her, but I also did it for me, because if I was the happy one, then I wasn’t like her.
I wasn’t my father and I wasn’t my sister. I would never be dark.
I started How to Be Happy to prove it to myself.
But here’s the thing. If you push the dark away, you push so many other things away, too.
You push away grief that needs to be felt.
Resentment that needs to be dealt with. And most of all, you push away fear that will hide in a closet and double and redouble like sourdough starter until it has a power over you it never deserved.
I was so afraid of the dark that I wouldn’t let myself so much as peek at it.
But that’s not me anymore.
Here are my promises to myself:
To look the dark in the eye and to explore the grief and resentment and fear there.
To get a therapist who will help me do that safely.
To continue to explore how to find happiness—and also how to balance happiness with the whole range of human emotions.
To write about the process here, in my newly renamed Poststack, How to Be Human.
If you need to go, I totally get it. You came for the happy and stayed for the happy. This might be a little shock to the system.
It is for me.
But I want to figure out how to be human, and I’d love to have you with me on my journey if you want to come along for the ride.