How to Grow Up (12 page)

One standard that took me a while to wake up to was no depressed people. It was tricky in many ways, the deepest being that depressed people were my
type
, and for a long time I didn't even know it. Depression is like a haze, a cloud or an aura that surrounds certain people. It prickles my skin—a slight anxiety, an
attraction-repulsion combo that drives me sickly toward them. It's in the folds of their faces, no matter how youthful they may still be. It's in the slump of their shoulders. For so long I thought it was emotional depth, a refined sensitivity that had left them wounded. Chalk it up to having a depressed dad who came home from his long nights at the labor union full of bitter cynicism about the world. If he was my default romantic ideal, I was fucked. There was a bit of opposites-attract going on, too; though I also suffered from depression, mine was of the weepy, bleeding-heart variety. The depressives I sought were more hard-hearted, sarcastic. Their humor was a biting sort that kept me on my toes. I didn't know if I liked it or not, but I
wanted
to like it. I also, in my bleeding-heart way, wanted to take care of and ultimately
cure
my depressed lovers. It's all so textbook it grosses me out, but it's real.

For instance, take the boyfriend who took me on a cruise, on a yacht that sailed down the fucking French Riviera. I thought this gentleman was a Dating person, with his advanced age, regular income, and civilized manner. The ship was tipped with a row of stunning sails, and it slunk through the deep blue waters, docking alongside ancient castles whose beaches we were invited to splash upon. I could not
believe
my good fortune; I thought it would be the time of my life. Instead, I spent my days running bow to stern, dashing into bathrooms to cry tears of anxiety and disappointment. My moody boyfriend was no fun to be on a luxury cruise with. He was snippy and mean, a power grouch. Had he been like this before the cruise? Of course he had. Had his moods already raised the red flags of anxiety in my belly countless times? Yep. Did I ignore them always? Of course I did. Did this
guy come with a list of prior offenses well known to me, a strand of excellent girls whom he'd treated carelessly, breaking their hearts? Yup. Did I think none of this would happen to me, that I was somehow different? Uh-huh. Can I even believe I fell into such a classic lady relationship trap? At this point, yes. Yes, I can believe it.

By the time the ship docked in Nice I was such a nervous wreck, all I could do was frantically e-mail my friends back in the States, and try to wring some soothing chemicals out of my brain by buying a way-too-expensive Isabel Marant sweater with round shoulder pads, a trend that would pass by the time I returned home. Even after the most miserable experience of my life, I still thought if my date would just
open his heart to me
we could be happy together. But depression is a disease as surely as alcoholism or cirrhosis of the liver. You can't cure it by dating a happy person. All that happens is the happy person gets depressed, too. The week we returned from our miserable vacation he broke up with me, dodging my desperate seduction attempt by claiming to be sick with diarrhea.

Rebels without causes look sexy and romantic when they and you are young, but as you get older and wiser it all just looks like mental health issues. Cruise Dude had me always walking on eggshells, obsessing over what I did and didn't say because I didn't want to sound
stupid
, because I was dating someone mean enough to think I could even
say
something stupid. Relationships like these siphon your self-esteem. I left my time with Cruise Dude rattled by how I'd once again let a lousy romance linger long enough to eat at my sense of self. Freshly single, with
that extra time on my hands, I delved into some extreme self-care.

My self-care regimen postcruise looked like this: a sliding-scale therapist to hash it out with; a couple of 12-step traditions to keep me scribbling in notebooks and forging a relationship with that mysterious higher power (aka Stevie Nicks); going to the gym and outrunning my anxiety on the elliptical machine, taking advantage of the free yoga classes when possible; a shabby on-again, off-again relationship with the Zen Center down the street, bingeing on inspiring dharma talks and then not even bothering to attempt a pathetic five-minute meditation from the comfort of my own home. Despite these noble efforts, the hoopla with Cruise Dude left me at a new low. Normally, I'd brush myself off and get back on the mechanical bull, but now the dating world looked über-pathetic and depressing. If the best indicator of the future is the past (yet another 12-step aphorism), then all I had to look forward to was more head-fucking losers. Try as I might—and I had been trying, hadn't I?—I was going to keep trusting my heart to the wrong cad.

If the elliptical machine, the serenity prayer, and the budget therapist weren't cutting it anymore, it was time for the hard stuff. I began a course of psych meds—Lexapro samples from the free clinic to start, a switch to Celexa when I learned the Lexapro was too pricey, and then a final downgrade to a generic Celexa called Citalopram that did what no amount of booze or wild sex or luv-struck limerence (or the lotus position or downward dog) had ever done: It evened me out and calmed me down, helping me feel, for the first time in my life, normal, content. My
serotonin factory was working, and I could feel the soothing, organizing effects. I wasn't looking for dopamine in all the wrong places. I felt self-contained—serene, even. The longer the drug was in my system, the more the love affairs in my past looked like what they were—insanity. They were fun, for sure, and I don't wish them away. Part of me likes that I am (or was) the kind of person down for the thrill of chasing a sordid tryst into a New England sewing room against a backdrop of psychedelic sixties Italian horror movies. It's like being the kind of person who would run away with the circus. These dates
were
my circus. But it was time to stop giving my energy to clowns.

The meds were taking effect, brightening my mood. With newfound conviction to pursue
only
Marriage Material, dating didn't seem as scary. I had no idea who was out there, but I felt my optimism return. I'd always believed there was someone out there, someone whose standards for relationships mirrored mine, somebody capable of the same level of love and openness and kindness that I was. No more Sex Only, no more Dating. It would either be this dreamy Marriage Material or nothing at all.

A little less than a year after Cruise Dude I found myself at a fund-raising benefit for a mayoral candidate who, like nearly everyone I vote for, was too liberal to get elected, even in San Francisco. The event was a bust. I had been enlisted as a prize in a date auction, a practice I actually find humiliating and undignified, something I'd been asked to do a million times and always said no to. I don't know what was different this time; maybe because I'd been asked by my favorite drag queen, someone I had a hard time refusing. Maybe because I wanted to help the flailing
candidate. Maybe I was bored, or overly caffeinated. Regardless, that was how I found myself in a mostly empty Italian-American club, speckled with the light from the disco ball, seated in a folding chair at the far end of the room like a classic high school wallflower. The friends I had come with were talking to a sparse group of people I didn't know. One of these strangers walked over. She was striking: pale skin and switchblade cheekbones, cheekbones sharp enough to have sliced the part into her perfect 1950s hairdo. Her eyes were the color of a pair of faded blue jeans, though the jeans she wore were actually quite nice, as were her jean jacket and spiffy shoes. She looked like she'd just walked through a hole in the space-time continuum, arriving in contemporary San Francisco from Oklahoma, 1959. In fact, she looked like she'd stepped out of the pages of my favorite book,
The Outsiders
—like Ponyboy and Sodapop's cleaned-up brother. She looked
good
. She asked if the seat beside me was taken, and when I said no she folded her lanky frame into the metal chair and struck up a conversation. The questions she began to ask me were so . . .
wholesome
. How was my day. Was I having a good evening. Where was I from. What was it like there. I was charmed by her sweetness and confidence. She absolutely did
not
have that
thing
that usually drew me to the people I dated, the dark cloud I'd mistaken as deep or sexy for so long. That vibe was nowhere to be felt, and I found myself drawn to what I did feel off her—easy, good vibes. And happiness. She felt—she seemed—happy.

On our first date, Dashiell actually told me how important it was to be happy—that she felt it should be a choice, and it was what she chose. She loved her life so much, I was taken aback.
She'd been reared in the suburbs and was close with her mom (I'd noted a correlation between unresolved mama drama and difficulty giving and receiving l-u-v). She had a great relationship with her ex, which seemed promising. An ex vouching for your good character in spite of a broken relationship seems to me a great vote of confidence. Next, Dashiell told me that she
loved her job
. This was astounding. I can tell you for certain that I had
never
dated anyone who loved their job.
I dated artists and musicians, for whom jobs were the necessary evil that paid the bills while keeping them away from their life's true purpose. But Dashiell was not an artist or a musician. She was . . . a
businessperson
.
I had seen them on TV! They were mostly dads, or women from the eighties with shoulder pads. I tried not to hold against Dashiell that she loved her businessperson job so much. I'd just see how things went with this strange creature. We sat at this cute seafood restaurant with mermaids painted on the walls for three hours, fascinated by one another, chatting, nervous but working through it, although she did eat the butt end of a mysterious cut of fish and try to play it off like she knew what she was doing. When the glares from the waitstaff were too much to ignore we relinquished our table, and Dashiell walked me home.

Over dinner, I'd found Dashiell sweet and wholesome enough to be positively exotic. Surely I'd never dated someone so pleasant and cheerful, so satisfied and optimistic. That I liked her back seemed not only a romantic boon but a sign that all the work I was doing on myself was paying off. I'd been training myself to be attracted to someone who was happy and sweet and kind and
generally well adjusted, and it appeared that this was happening! Now I just needed to make sure we liked kissing each other. We talked a bit outside my house, and then I made the move. Improving on the “Wanna make out?” slurred seduction of my youth, I now simply went in for the kiss. It was awesome. A swoony, dizzy, knee-weakening, dopamine-releasing make-out. I totally wanted to club her over the head and drag her up to my lair, but I didn't. There was now a Rule for Love, applied to those who seemed to fit into the Marriage Material slot, which Dashiell surely did. That rule was: no sex until the third date.

Three dates? Not since I was twenty years old had I waited so long!
You need to know if you're sexually compatible
was the rational, self-help spin I'd put on my past sluttery, but really I'd just wanted to get high. And I didn't want to use Dashiell like a drug, even if I was already reeling from her kiss.

On our second date we went for pizza, and I waited for Dashiell to unzip her face. Now that I had grown accustomed to spotting red flags, I was hungry for one. Say something questionable, do something weird, hurt my feelings, come on! I was ready to walk out and prove to myself that I wasn't going to be suckered into another rendezvous with a handsome sociopath/depressive/opiate addict/whatever. But Dashiell continued to be sweet, and considerate, and interesting. She was rather serious, but I'd stalked her on Facebook and saw many pictures of her laughing wide-mouthed with her friends, and couldn't wait to see that side of her, too. I sort of invited myself over to her house, met her small, barky dog, Rodney, and made out with her on her couch. When she suggested we move it into the bedroom I said, “Fine,
but I'm not taking my pants off.” And I didn't. My red pants left pink marks all over her white comforter.

I'd never thought about pacing in a relationship before. I was always so spun out on chemical cravings, I wanted everything to happen all at once. It was sort of delightful to be stretching out our dates—no crazy texting, no seeing each other every single day, spacing it out. Having a proper courtship. Getting to know each other. We both thought our pacing—so relaxed, so gentle, as if we had all the time in the world to get to know one another and fall in love—was magical. We respected one another's independence. We'd both been in relationships with mean and/or unstable people, and wanted to take our time making sure we really were the people we were saying we were.

A little less than a year after we'd started dating, Dashiell and Rodney moved into my apartment. Six months after that, Dashiell surprised me on New Year's Day with a jewelry box. I had been looking forever for a jewelry box that was big enough to hold my cache of thrifted jewelry and that didn't have, like, a twirling ballerina or something similarly froufrou going on. This jewelry box looked like a miniature suitcase, a deep brick red etched in gold. It was perfect. We sat on the couch in our PJs as I discovered drawer after drawer-within-a-drawer.

“There's one more at the bottom,” she urged. When I slid it open, I found a fucking diamond ring sitting there. I blinked at it, as if it were a hallucination. “What?” I think I yelped. I was suddenly hot and cold and underwater, in my body and out of my body, dizzy and giddy, laughing and crying. Dashiell asking me to marry her was the biggest natural high I'd ever experienced. I
didn't even realize I hadn't said
yes
(though I had thought it went without saying) until she was like, “Well? Well?” And I said yes.