It Began with a Crush
It all started with an infatuation. We crossed paths at a book launch, sipping martinis in the cozy corner of a dimly lit bar, our knees brushing against each other under the table. They were simply enchanting. “You’re charming,” I confessed, captivated by their presence. Towering and graceful, they possessed beautiful hair and eyes that seemed to absorb the world around them. Their impassive expression revealed nothing, which only intensified my desire for their attention. I found myself reading their horoscope, chattering about them with friends, and penning clumsy, lovesick poetry. If I come across as obsessed, it’s because I was.
This obsession led me to be a bit reckless. One afternoon, I fired off a lengthy text to my friend Stewart, detailing my grievances. “[My crush] is treating me the way I treat men, and I want it on the record that it’s incredibly frustrating,” I vented. I explained how they seemed to relish my admiration while putting minimal effort into reciprocating it. I concluded with a boastful line I would soon regret: “Like, what about me? I am still super hot.”
But I hadn’t sent that to Stewart — and by the time I realized my blunder, it was far too late. I had inadvertently sent my lengthy rants to my crush instead. That’s when the heat rushed to my cheeks; a wave of mortification engulfed me. Alone in my living room, I buried my face in my hands, wondering if I might actually be sick.
If embarrassment were a competitive sport, I would surely be a contender for the championship. At the age of 10, I broke down in gymnastics class after tumbling off the balance beam. Whenever I cried — which was more frequent than I’d like to admit — my coach would inquire, “Is everything alright at home?” The truth was, home life was fine, but the turmoil within my mind was a different story. I wrestled with an unbearable sense of perfectionism, interpreting each misstep as proof of my inadequacy. In response, I transformed into an anxious overachiever, building walls around myself to shield against embarrassment and failure.
In my last year of college, I enrolled in a workshop led by a poet and classicist whom I deeply admired. That semester, I found myself writing with an unexpected openness. I explored the complexities of my own sexuality and the embarrassment surrounding my interests. Yet, as the term progressed, I convinced myself that my professor would dismiss my work as merely confessional and lacking depth. My anxiety over imagined criticism led me to forsake the opportunity to grow as a writer. I could have received encouragement or perhaps been liberated from my self-imposed constraints. Unfortunately, I’ll never know. I never retrieved my essays or her feedback from her office mailbox. Consequently, for the next decade, my writing fell silent.
Writing became fraught with emotion, almost like touching a scorching stove. I steered clear of it, along with anything that required me to expose my true self. Instead, I found solace in a career as a graphic designer, where I adorned others’ words in magazine layouts. I kept my emotions bottled up and my friends at a distance. Then, a few years ago, as New York emerged from the shadows of the Covid lockdown, something within me shifted. Perhaps the long months of fear and isolation altered my perception of risk, or maybe age had bestowed upon me a bit more resilience. I began to wonder: what if I didn’t have to be perfect? What, in reality, did I stand to lose?
