Over at Narratively.com, our sister storytelling site, we’ve been publishing the winners of our True Romance Writing Prize, the contest we launched with actor Emma Roberts and Belletrist in March.
Mine was a secret love so hidden it took me more than fifty years to uncover it. As a child, any hint of love for myself was beaten out of me. I was called useless, worthless, told in word and in fist that I did not deserve to exist. Every blow carved silence into me, every insult buried whatever tenderness I might have held for myself.
So I carried that emptiness into adulthood, masking it with achievement, striving to prove my value to a world that could never fill what had been stolen. I married, raised a daughter, and built deep and enduring friendships across the world. From the outside it looked like I had everything, and in many ways I did—yet the secret remained.
The one love I could never name was the one I had hidden away since childhood: love for myself. To finally stop running, to look at the boy who had been called useless and say, ‘You are worthy. You are enough. I love you’—that has been the most liberating truth of my life.
When I was 15, I started dating a guy who was 28. He looked like Gary from "30-Something." And played in a band named Sneakers. I'd tell my parents I was going over to my friend's house to study but I'd drive the car to a super sketchy part of Hartford, CT, where he lived, get high, and make out with him. (That's all we did. Luckily, he knew the law). Nothing about it seemed weird or inappropriate. I finally told my mother about him before I left for college. I was not a kid who broke rules or kept secrets, everything was always written on my face or pinned to my sleeve, so she was floored. And impressed. She was wild as a teen and probably didn't think I had it in me.
I am a puzzler. One day while roaming Facebook, I discovered “Words with Friends.” Scrabble anytime, all the time, with people all over the world? I was rapt. I signed up and quickly matched with a user named “AIbot” for my first contest. AIbot was a delightfully affable fellow, and he always seemed to be online. I admired his stick-to-itiveness. Weeks spilled into months as we played and played. Our results were oddly even: I consistently batted nearly a straight five hundred. I had met my match! A year into our gaming tryst, the guilt of hiding my secret, scrabble-ish sojourns with AIbot overtook me. I went in armed. I asked (real) friends: how do I meet my match? I consulted Dr. Google. Within minutes of my shallow data dive, my heart sank. My beau was nothing but a bot. “AI Bot”. I was rendered embarrassed, bleary-eyed, perplexed, and world-weary for what else our AI future holds. I vowed never to meet up with “AIbot” again.
I found this terrific. Well paced, no spare words, visceral, poignant. Gabor Mate meets Bessel van der Kolk meets Carl Jung and more. Thank you.
Mine was a secret love so hidden it took me more than fifty years to uncover it. As a child, any hint of love for myself was beaten out of me. I was called useless, worthless, told in word and in fist that I did not deserve to exist. Every blow carved silence into me, every insult buried whatever tenderness I might have held for myself.
So I carried that emptiness into adulthood, masking it with achievement, striving to prove my value to a world that could never fill what had been stolen. I married, raised a daughter, and built deep and enduring friendships across the world. From the outside it looked like I had everything, and in many ways I did—yet the secret remained.
The one love I could never name was the one I had hidden away since childhood: love for myself. To finally stop running, to look at the boy who had been called useless and say, ‘You are worthy. You are enough. I love you’—that has been the most liberating truth of my life.
When I was 15, I started dating a guy who was 28. He looked like Gary from "30-Something." And played in a band named Sneakers. I'd tell my parents I was going over to my friend's house to study but I'd drive the car to a super sketchy part of Hartford, CT, where he lived, get high, and make out with him. (That's all we did. Luckily, he knew the law). Nothing about it seemed weird or inappropriate. I finally told my mother about him before I left for college. I was not a kid who broke rules or kept secrets, everything was always written on my face or pinned to my sleeve, so she was floored. And impressed. She was wild as a teen and probably didn't think I had it in me.
I am a puzzler. One day while roaming Facebook, I discovered “Words with Friends.” Scrabble anytime, all the time, with people all over the world? I was rapt. I signed up and quickly matched with a user named “AIbot” for my first contest. AIbot was a delightfully affable fellow, and he always seemed to be online. I admired his stick-to-itiveness. Weeks spilled into months as we played and played. Our results were oddly even: I consistently batted nearly a straight five hundred. I had met my match! A year into our gaming tryst, the guilt of hiding my secret, scrabble-ish sojourns with AIbot overtook me. I went in armed. I asked (real) friends: how do I meet my match? I consulted Dr. Google. Within minutes of my shallow data dive, my heart sank. My beau was nothing but a bot. “AI Bot”. I was rendered embarrassed, bleary-eyed, perplexed, and world-weary for what else our AI future holds. I vowed never to meet up with “AIbot” again.