Clandestine Confessions

“I am scared to let you return home,” she said to me. We were sitting on the porch swing of her AirBnB. Three hours ago we were embracing one another for the first time in over ten years. This was not the version of me I wanted her to see after all this time, but I knew she would meet me where I was and as who I was with no judgment.

We had walked through hell together already. I knew there was no struggle I could present to her that would make her run.

I cried the second she wrapped me in her arms.

Held by understanding.

Seen by empathy.

Kept safe by love.

It was the medicine my soul needed; one starved of affection and made sick with neglect.

It had not even been 24 hours since this reunion was organized. She added it to her trip itinerary at the last minute.

“I am taking a small detour on my way to Florida to see you. I am worried about you.”

This concern was not in anything I said to her. I kept the war happening within myself and the relationship to myself. I vowed to fiercely protect him, his reputation, and not just our love but the beauty of love in general. Always.

No exceptions.

But she observed what I was not speaking to the world. She saw through what I displayed through the perfectly written social media posts and strategically edited photos to showcase the greatest of love stories.

And she refused to let me sit in this grief alone.

•

It would be very early into our time together that I let the truth slip out.

I could conceal the wounds on my body well but the ones on soul, to someone who bore them herself, were impossible to hide.

My eyes expressed the evidence of a shattered heart and a mind searching for relief from the pain.

With this disclosure of my situation came her fearful confession.

Her response was déjà vu. We had been here before.

As I packed my suitcase after signing my 48 to leave against medical advice a decade ago, she sat at the edge of her bed visibly flooded with fear, pleading with me to change my mind, trying to convince me I was deserving of life, but it was evident her heart and my mind had very different definitions of worth.

That scene from a life that felt physically so far yet emotionally so close played out in my mind.

“It’s okay. I’ll be okay. You and I both know I have survived through much worse.” It was a gracious dismissal of reality as a valiant attempt to minimize her fear and maximize her faith in my fate. Call her back to the evidence I have risen from the grave many times before.

“Jenna, this isn’t an eating disorder. This is love. It is not something you should have to survive through.”

But truthfully, it all felt the same to me.

•

Her daughter was in the backyard playing soccer with her fiancée. Right before my eyes I was witnessing a once deemed impossible phenomenon.

When the lights of our bedroom would turn off, and it was just her and I together decompressing after another emotionally jarring and mentally exhausting day on the eating disorder unit, these were the dreams she shared with me.

As I did with her.

Perhaps it was the effects of the sleeping medication, but our conversations were unfiltered and unguarded. They were drenched in hope, such a stark contrast to the pain laced words we spoke throughout the day in therapy sessions and groups. But also, the fear we normally suppressed in our efforts to maintain a level of perfection, we allowed to rise to the surface. Accompanying our dreams was this vulnerable awareness it may never come to pass.

We held both. We lived in the “and”.

To dream big AND hold them loosely.

To cling to the faith AND sit in the fear.

•

For the last couple of years, I watched her doubt supersede her dreaming. And then that precious little girl miraculously arrived – after being told by countless medical professionals she did too much damage to her body to ever conceive a child of her own. Her hard fought for fantasy was made real.

I was not jealous. I was not bitter.

Not in the least.

I was grateful. I was blissful.

This view had just enough hope in it to sustain me a bit longer.  It felt like an intentional act to save me amidst living in my own nightmare.

One that I once saw as anything but. It was intended to be my “happily ever after…” – not the dragon I would need to slay.

I thought I was writing an ending but found myself in the midst of a plot twist that added a chapter to the story I always had told myself would “never be me”. The character development took a catastrophic turn.

I would sob on the floor of my closet screaming to God, “it was never supposed to be this way.”

But no amount of tears or pleading saved me from the castle tower.

They actually appeared to be adding more obstacles to a rescue mission.

•

I held onto this tremendous hope that he was the love for which I waited.

It felt different from the start. Deeper. More profound. Not defined by desperation or obligation but choice.

Choosing to hand over my heart to him unguarded, trusting he would know how to hold it and care for it.

Choosing to step into an unpredictable future with him, fully knowing the odds were against us but taking the risk regardless. Because he was worth it. Love was worth it.

Choosing to lay down all my mental defenses and let him into my mind, to intimately know my thoughts and why they exist, and give him permission to challenge them.

I will forever remember that night at his apartment. Bryan Adams was playing on YouTube on his TV. My head was on his chest, my left arm resting right below. My finger traced hearts on his ribcage.

I looked up at him feeling a intensity of love I never experienced before.

“Everything I do…I do it for you…”

The lyrics matched the desire of my heart for this man. It immediately evoked tears. Becoming the first time I would stain his shirt with one.

“No, don’t cry. You okay?”

“Yes, just really insanely happy. And grateful for you.”

He leaned slightly down and kissed my forehead and used the sleeve to wipe the tear away.

“I love you Boo,” he said. It would be the second time he would express the sentiment to me. Earlier that evening was the first.

We were sitting in his car in the office parking lot preparing to go to dinner with another coworker. We had some time to kill before the reservation, so he took that as his opportunity to give me a belated Christmas gift – a Starbucks cup he noticed I was looking at the week prior.

“Oh my goodness, this is the one. You saw me?”

“I did. I promise to see you always.”

I leaned over the center console, letting nothing obstruct my expression of adoration for him, and gave him a kiss. The kind that leaves no room for misunderstanding over just how intensely I care. How much I would willingly, without hesitation, give him my entire world if he asked.

My eyes lingered on him longer than my lips – the look that captivated him on our first day meeting but now accompanied with love. I was seeing him this time.

“What is that French phrase you love so much?” he asked.

“Je t’aime beaucoup?”

“Yes. Je t’aime beaucoup J,” said in his accent. Imperfect but endearing. I loved him more for making that moment so curated to me. It was intentional, planned.

How long had he been holding those words in?

I will never know but wish I asked.

•

I never doubted he loved me. He just did not know how to love me.

He tried though. In his own way:

Serenading me on his guitar, always cleaning my utensils at restaurants, the daily trips to Starbucks for my cold brew (even when he was giving me the silent treatment), surprising me with my favorite ice cream, joining me in my kitchen dance parties.

Another person’s bare minimum was his maximum. And I always wanted to meet him where he was. I never wanted him to feel any inkling from me that I thought he was not enough. That he could be “more” for me. I did not need him to prove his love. I only ever asked for him to keep me safe.

But maybe that was the wrong approach. Maybe that is what killed me.

Perhaps it is what laced the poison with more bitter than sweet – a potion I drank like my life depended on it.

Because it did. Just in the opposite way I envisioned.

For it was my death in this relationship that would one day resuscitate my spirit.

To lead me home…with a body more scarred and a patchwork quilt of a heart, but even more of a hopeful romantic than ever before.

Because pain can never be strong enough to obliterate purpose.