By this point, I was a quarter mile past the gun shop. I considered turning around and going back. I could feel how cold the muzzle would be against my temple, could feel the relief of the moment, the total calm. I knew I could do it. But I forced myself to keep driving. I checked into my hotel, charmed as always by the porch swing and the view of the horse paddocks and the vast desert, which seemed so clean and empty and inviting. When it was time for the show, I got dressed up in a pretty blue dress and a pair of vintage country boots.
But as I entered the crowded venue, my mood darkened again. I felt the futility of it all, of trying to think or feel or do anything original in a world clotted with people. I pictured my hotel room and wondered whether I could hang myself in the closet, or whether I was too tall or the bar wouldn’t hold my weight. If it came to that, there would be time. But first, I was here for the show. I looked around at all of the other kids who had driven out from Los Angeles with Bright Eyes in their gazes. I sighed and gave up: I went to the bar and ordered a Cazadores tequila with lime. As I sipped the booze, I felt the tension leak out of my neck and shoulders, and I stepped up to the edge of the throng in front of the stage. Conor came on, backed by the Felice Brothers. Seeing him wince at the catcalls from female fans with crushes, and rush his lyrics, seemingly because he hated it when everyone sang along, I felt a little better. Here was someone who had released a half dozen albums in the years since I’d interviewed him at a booth at the Life Diner in New York’s East Village. His songwriting had improved with every one. He had earned more money than most indie-rock musicians dared to dream of, and without ever having to compromise his vision or make nice. And he was totally uncomfortable with everything—his fans, his fame, his own existence, really—except for the music itself.
And yet, he had gotten up this morning and put on his boots and gotten on with it. I thought of his song about waking up in the hospital with his father beside his bed, and how his father had made him promise it would never happen again. He sang about the great pain some of us are in, and the pain we cause those who love us. Just as I’d never been able to make it better for my father, or any of the other men I’d loved. The bloodletting we do to alleviate this pain, just enough to survive—in prose, in film, in art, in song—is probably the most beautiful thing about being alive, because it can’t lie.
I pushed through the crowd and ordered another tequila. Instead of holding on so hard to my need for control, I let go of everything—fixing my father, making Leo love me, making it big in Los Angeles, being perfect in every way possible. I let life blur a little around the edges, and I let the music be my interior world in place of my own feelings, which had become such a burden. At the end of the show, I went back to my hotel room, the music still in my veins, the sound of drunken revelers shouting back and forth to their friends outside, and I didn’t go out and join them and get drunk, and I didn’t tie a noose and drape it over my closet. I took a coffee mug down from the mini kitchen, and I filled it with a few fingers of red wine, and I pulled out the new novel I’d begun, and I gave myself over to it completely. Caught up in the safe bower of words, I felt a sliver of light crack through the darkness inside of me: I was happy. When I was writing, I was happy. And if I could be happy when I was writing, then maybe I could find happiness in my life. My love of the act of writing, my one steady companion during all of these years, brought me back from the brink. I survived the night.
When I loaded my car in the clear desert air, I felt just the tiniest bit better, but I knew I had to once again climb out of the abyss. As I drove back to Los Angeles, I thought about calling my dad and the friend I had promised I would alert if I ever became suicidal again. I knew they would probably try to get me to come home, to maybe check into a clinic. I didn’t want to do anything to make my world small. I wanted to crack it wide open.
Four days later, I was again behind the wheel of my car, this time on my way to Nashville to see my friend Traci, who was also going through a rough time. On my first day’s drive, I saw seven rainbows. I listened to nothing but Conor Oberst for four days as I traveled across the country, indulging myself because there was no one else there to complain.
While I was driving, my dad called me. “Sarah, I don’t want to worry you, but I read this article in the newspaper today about rest-stop serial killers.”
“I know, Dad, I saw it. I never pull over at rest stops anyhow.”
“I know but I saw this horror movie once where the woman was driving alone, and she needed cigarettes, so she got off the highway in this small town.”
“Good thing I don’t smoke anymore,” I said. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”
Instead of getting irritated at my dad for worrying about me, I felt good about it this time. It felt like having a dad who cared. Maybe I could get used to it, after all.
From the moment I arrived in Nashville, I was in heaven. I loved the drowsy, honeysuckle-dusted humidity and the lazy drawl of everyone who greeted us everywhere we went, and the pork belly, and the music, oh the music, and the moonshine. As I relaxed and let myself have fun, I understood that maybe my perfectionism was my most dangerous compulsion of all, and that enjoying myself a little bit here and there might be better than running and meditating and eating mostly healthy and not drinking every day. A female musician taught me how to play spoons outside the club where she’d just performed—and where I’d seen a dozen pedal steel players and fiddlers and banjo players remind me that no matter how many times I had my heart broken, there’d always be someone new to come along and give me something to sing about. Drinking moonshine by the fire pit behind Traci’s house, sitting outside with my computer on my lap, working on my novel in the dulcet Tennessee sunshine—it was like a Band-Aid for my soul. My agent called to tell me that I’d landed a new ghostwriting job in Los Angeles. I got into my car and made the long drive back to the best home I’d found so far, feeling wobbly but restored.
During my first week back in Los Angeles, I met a bookishly charming guy, Robert, at a friend’s birthday party and talked to him all night. I didn’t give him my number, but he found my contact info and sent me an e-mail that weekend asking me out. Here, finally, as multiple friends reminded me, was the kind of guy I should be dating—a writer who managed an independent bookstore and came from a close-knit family. And he seemed to really like me. We e-mailed throughout the week leading up to our first date, and he was thoughtful and clever. When I sent him a line from a screenplay, he responded with a song and a poem that expanded upon the theme. I was cautious after having just pulled myself out of my first major heartbreak in a decade, but excited going into the weekend.
After dinner, Robert took me to see his great-uncle play show tunes at an old-school restaurant with a supper club vibe. When Robert stood to use the men’s room, he put his hand on my back and held it there a long moment. I felt something that made me ask: What would it be like to belong to this man?
When we got back to my house, I went with my instinct.
“I’m going to go inside and have a cup of tea,” I said. “And you’re welcome to come in, but I’m really just going to have a cup of tea.”
“You’re inviting me in?” he asked, his voice lifting with happiness, his hand already pulling the key out of the ignition.
I laughed and led him inside.
On my little maroon love seat, mug of tea in his hand because there was nowhere to put it down, he took a deep breath.
“I have to tell you something,” he said.
My insides shifted with anxiety.
“When I was a teenager, I was a really bad drug addict,” he said. “Like I didn’t have a plan for my future. I thought I’d be dead. When I was seventeen, my parents put me in rehab, and I was sober for eighteen years. I used to do the speaker circuit and everything. I used to say, ‘My mom told me to find something I was really good at and do it a lot. I was really good at being drunk.’ When I was thirty-five, I felt like I could try drinking again. I talked
to my therapist about it, and he agreed. And for a little while, I went wild. I mean I was really wild. But now it’s just something I do sometimes.”
That wasn’t so scary. In fact, that sounded pretty great to me. He’d done the work to be healthier, to be happier. He’d made changes that had improved his life. He’d assessed the outcome of those changes and changed again. That sounded like growth, like how I was trying to live my life.
“I guess I should tell you that I have some abandonment issues,” I said. “My dad and I were estranged for ten years. We’ve been repairing our relationship, but it’s a work in progress. And I can be a little passive-aggressive sometimes. But I’m trying not to be. And I’m always open to being called on it, because I know that’s how I can change.”
He didn’t seem any more put off than I’d been by his revelation, and we were both a little giddy with that high of having revealed our worst secrets and finding that they weren’t dark or scary enough to scare the other person away. He used the term “emotional intelligence,” which was one of my catchphrases, the real quality I was looking for in a man. I felt myself swoon a little even before he leaned over and kissed me, and the kiss opened up and lasted until nearly dawn. When we agreed that he should leave for the night, I made him inscribe the book he’d brought me. As he sat at my table, I stood close to him. He wrapped one hand around my hip and wrote with the other while I ran my fingers through his hair and examined the particular flavor of my fear.
Really, truly, I’m afraid he’s going to break my heart. But he seems like a nice guy, and like he’d probably do anything in his power to make me feel comfortable enough to date him. So what if I got him to promise me that he wouldn’t break my heart?
As he stood, and I walked him to the door and kissed him good-bye on the little front porch of my bungalow, I was still mulling over the idea in my head, which felt gauzy and light from all of that good conversation and kissing. In the morning, I woke up to find an e-mail from Robert with the link to a song: a gorgeous lo-fi gem by Dion with a pulsing drum, a throbbing intensity, and an apt title, “Daddy Rollin’ in Your Arms.” All morning, as I listened to the song and got my new script ready for a table read that week, I contemplated my solution. I decided to write a contract, laying out everything I hoped to give and receive:
I promise to behave with integrity, humility, and grace to the best of my ability at all times. I promise to be generous and kind. I promise to listen. I promise to be honest, even when what I have to say might be unpopular or uncomfortable because it is better to cause a small pain in the moment than to allow untruths to fester. I promise to ask for help, and when I don’t understand something, to ask for clarification, rather than to assume. I promise to not hide behind past disappointments and hurts, but to embrace the pleasure and possibility of a new beginning. I promise to take responsibility for myself, my needs, and my writing. I promise to compromise without resentment. I promise to be a sweet sweetheart.
As I read the final version of what I’d written, I realized that I was not just terrified of being abandoned again, which was how my system registered each breakup, but of doing something unkind to Robert. I knew that if Leo were to want me back, even for one night, I would be powerless to resist him. I knew that all of the ambition and self-interest that had caused me to put my writing before Scott was even more present as I’d gotten ever closer to my dream of succeeding as a writer.
When Robert called me the day after our first date to ask me about an e-mail I’d sent him, admitting I felt “raw,” I tentatively mentioned the contract.
“I’m not going to have to sign it in blood, am I?” he joked.
“No, of course not, that would be crazy,” I joked back.
While he seemed a little uncertain about my methods, he was intrigued enough to bring up the contract when he came over for our second date. When he read the contract, he was moved. He signed it and suggested we each hang a copy on our refrigerators.
It was a grand romance. I loved reading the contract on the fridge every morning, either at Robert’s house or my own, because it seemed like such a strong example of clarity. But honesty is a funny thing. You can focus so much on the need to speak hard truths that you neglect to consider the importance of the things left unsaid.
In the first month, during which we reveled in the giddy joy of having found each other, we also established a pattern born out of my inability to ask for what I needed. I was good at big gestures—letters, contracts, gifts—but I had trouble with the small, everyday negotiations that make up a relationship and a shared life. Because Robert worked forty hours a week at a bookstore, and I worked as many hours as I needed to each week at home, our schedule became shaped by his work obligations. Every night, I waited to see whether Robert would call me. He always did, so I knew intellectually that the question itself was my own insecurity.
But no matter how many evenings in a row he got in touch with me, I always doubted him. And when he did, as he told me about his day and checked in with mine, I waited anxiously for his decree about whether or not he would be coming over that night. I always wanted to see him, always wanted him with me, but I felt that it wasn’t up to me, and I resented what felt like my powerlessness.
On the nights when he had band practice or dinner with his parents or just wanted to go home and have a drink and read a book on his own, as he was telling me his other plans, I began to shrink back from him, tender with disappointment. Because we weren’t going to see each other that night, he tried to coax more out of me about my day or my plans for the evening. I tried to act nonchalant, but my misery bled onto the phone in long, tense silences and clipped responses.
“Well, I guess I’ll go then,” he said.
“Okay.”
“Have a good night.”
“Yep.”
As soon as I hung up, all I had been holding back erupted, sometimes in tears, sometimes in profanity. I knew I was being crazy. I didn’t want to be the kind of woman who spent every minute with her boyfriend. I had work and friends and my own writing, all of which I enjoyed greatly and was fed by. But, still, there remained a huge, fraught gap between what I knew to be true and what I felt to be true: that there was not enough love and would never be enough love, and I would always be the one who was left lacking. But, of course, I didn’t tell Robert about this, fearing he’d think me needy and immature. I was trying to lead with my strong suits in the early days of our relationship. As if I could hide the insecurity from him. Honesty really is a funny thing.
After we’d been dating for about three weeks, during one of these tense calls, Robert mentioned he had a work event at a bar that night. I was already armoring myself to get through the rest of the call when he surprised me by inviting me to meet him there. I wasn’t feeling well, really. My skin was broken out, and I felt stressed about my ghostwriting project, which I was behind on because I was spending all of my time with Robert or thinking about Robert. But I was pleased to be invited, and I put on some lipstick and a short, flirty skirt and went to meet him. I savored being introduced to his coworkers as his girlfriend, as much as I had when Scott had first said it to his bandmates in Portland. He and I sat close at the bar, talking, our hands on each other’s thighs, as the group made merry at a booth behind us. Still feeling close, we went back to my house and lay on the living room floor, making out, sprawled on the rug.
“I love you,” Robert said.
“What?”
“I love you.”
“Oh, I love you, too.”
We had sex for hours that night. And in the morning we woke up and were both moved to tears, and we had sex again, and it was all a big ball of giddy happiness, talking, and laughing, and tears seeping out, and everything pulsing and beating like birds on the wing, that first-flush feeling of love. We stayed in bed all day and then went out to lunch so late it was basically dinner, going back to the barbecue restaurant where we’d had our first date. Only, this time, we sat together in a booth,
both on the same bench because we couldn’t stand to have even the distance of the table between us.
The next week, Robert was due to go away to San Francisco to see friends, a trip he’d planned before we’d met. I’d done that new-relationship thing of letting my regular healthy habits—daily meditation and runs and lots of salads and little booze—give way to indulging and being indulged by my new love. Although my period had remained regular since my epic health odyssey of 2009, and I had every reason to believe my PCOS was a thing of the past, my system remained very sensitive to sugar and junk food, and after a few weeks of being off my routine I felt fat and gross, no matter that Robert had told me that being with me was “like dating a Playboy Bunny with a brain.” And so I was looking forward to this time apart as a way to get back onto my routine a bit and also, more important, get caught up on my ghostwriting project, which was due in early January, but which I planned to finish in advance of the holidays. At the last minute, in the flush of our new love, Robert invited me to go along to San Francisco with him. I declined, trying to be strong and independent. But then I missed him terribly, and the one night he didn’t call me, I fretted and fumed at his indifference and cried myself to sleep. So I felt pretty shabby the next day when he told me he hadn’t called because his friends had gone to sleep early and he’d stayed up late reading my script.
By the time Robert returned to LA, a day early, to hasten our rendezvous, I was feeling more like myself. As excited as I was to see him, and as pleased as I was that he invited me over right away, when I stepped across the threshold of his bungalow, I felt my old fears surface. I had trouble looking him in the eye, and all of the love and intimacy I’d felt just days before was now murky with insecurity. He felt like a stranger to me. When he kissed me, I smelled booze, not fresh booze on his breath, but old booze coming out of his pores, the result of his vacation indulgences. I pulled back, just a little, but enough for him to notice. “What?” he said.
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