#7 He loves me, he loves me not
A teenage heartbreak, a father’s absence, and the long road to raising daughters who know they’re already enough.
He has brown hair and blue eyes and a presence that makes my heart flutter. I am crushing, hard, as all teenagers do. I’ve already had my first kiss, but I want his kiss. The only problem is he doesn’t want anything to do with me.
It is 1998, the summer after I graduate high school and I’m trying to push Davis out of my thoughts as I twirl my lifeguard whistle over and over again. Red bathing suit, sun-kissed skin, dark sunglasses. Surely he likes what he sees.
Round and around I twirl the whistle attached to a rope that grabs hold of my finger. One way, then the other.
He loves me. He loves me not.
Walk! I yell for the hundredth time that day to kids racing from one end of the pool to the other.
Round and around. First to the right, then to the left.
Children splash in the shallow end yelping with excitement as mothers hold tight while older kids cannonball into the deep end.
He loves me. He loves me not.
By this point we’re half way through the summer while on the youth staff at the Monteagle Sunday School Assembly (MSSA), but we’ve known each other for decades, each having come to the mountain since we were babies (and we’ll each bring our babies to the mountain decades from now).
Then, one night I knock on his door in the house where we’re both living, along with a dozen other staff members. He comes out in a rumpled yellow Polo shirt and khaki shorts.
What’s going on? He asks.
Nothing. I just need you for a minute. Can you come downstairs?
I don’t know what time it is but no one else is awake in the house. The fourth of July fireworks have long burned out. It’s just him and me and the letter I wrote.
My heart is racing.
I wrote this for you.
He’s quiet the entire time I’m reading. Lord knows what he’s thinking. Lord knows what I say. But I remember how the letter ends.
… and I love you.
There, I said it. For the first time. Ever. I can’t breathe as I wait for his reply.
Thank you, he says. And not much else.
I know in those first few seconds this love is unrequited. He gives me a graceful but painful letdown.
My heart shatters.
Ok, goodnight, I say. And race to my room.
I won’t tell anyone and I’ll spend the rest of the summer convincing myself there will be many more boys to meet in college. Some day years from now I’ll understand why we didn’t end up together, but that longing for a partner will remain ever-present. It will lead me to date a dozen guys in college, and several more before I meet my husband. It’s a gaping hole that needs filling. A bottomless pit originally carved by the absence of my father.
It’s such a cliché – dad isn’t around so daughter seeks out the male gaze for validation. Of course, now I can look back at everything and laugh, but in those long nights of heartache, it was anything but funny.
My dad is a wonderful human being. The first word that comes to anyone’s mind is kind, followed by gracious, even if he is a bit nerdy. His love is unconditional and he is truly everything a daughter could ask for. But the lack of his presence all those years growing up was palpable.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be around – of course he did. It’s just that his very demanding job as a surgeon kept him at the hospital more often than not. It must have been hard on him – missing the afterschool conversations, the tears when I didn’t make the junior high cheerleading team, or the celebration of good grades. But he tried his best in the moments he was there to be fully present.
Still, we are shaped just as much by the absence of someone as their presence. By their lack of attention as much as their unconditional love.
And so, when I dated I tried on different hats to see what fit best. There was the frat boy, the jock, and the hippie. The nerd, the cyclist, and the writer. I’d play the part for weeks or months at a time, and inevitably one of us would end the relationship. Of course we did; we weren’t a fit. We couldn’t be a fit until each of us figured out who the hell we were separate from anyone else.
But there was something else at play having been raised in the south. An ever-present but never discussed pressure on a woman to be identified in part by the person they are dating.
At parties with family and friends, it was never What is lighting you up right now? It was always, Anyone special we should know about?
And if I happened to be dating, it wasn’t if but when are you getting married?
As if the pinnacle of life was becoming a wife. That’s where true happiness lies. That’s success - being able to pin down a man. Yeah, right.
The Disney movies of my youth certainly didn’t help. Cinderella marries a prince, Snow White is awakened by a man’s kiss, and The Little Mermaid surrenders her voice. No wonder I was surrounded by restless debutantes promenaded into society with great expectations only to come crashing down.
The worst part is the shame. Shame if you never get married or if your marriage ends. Shame on the hardest days when you and your partner are like oil and water. Shame when the music stops and the boy you thought you were destined for says thanks, but no thanks.
And so today I ask my two young daughters, What tickles your imagination and lights you up? How does it feel when you choose a path different from everyone else? What new thing did you try today?
Because there is strength in failure.
Because they must learn to stand on their own two feet.
Because they are already everything they were meant to be.