of passion in my life. I needed a drastic change.
On top of all of that—a few months after I started graduate school—an opportunity to work part time for NBC as a daily health columnist was offered, and I jumped at the chance, knowing that the exposure could open many doors. I wrote early in the mornings and late at night, after my classes and assignments, and I worked even longer hours during the weekends.
I maybe slept four hours a night and managed the best that I could. Every Sunday evening, I meal planned: I ordered a week’s worth of takeout at Wendy’s at once and, for the rest of the week, I dined on containers of chili, hamburger patties, and cold, soggy fries. I took naps in my car during lunch breaks, and I was frantic but organized. During that period and, most important of all, I only had time to focus on one thing: myself. I quickly became self-aware of my capabilities as a writer, and my confidence flourished.
That mindset soon began to permeate the rest of my life.
Over the course of the next two years, I dated off and on, for periods of six months or so at a time, and no one ever seemed to stick. If the chemistry wasn’t there, I moved on. Instead of spending time on mediocre date after date, I finally acknowledged that I had the power to control my own dating life and denied easy, available opportunities to free myself up for more substantial individuals—a direction that I had been traveling all along in my writing career. Not only was I redirecting my mindset in all aspects of my life, but I was finally taking control of it.
Of course, along with this revelation, I also came to disdainfully realize that dating is a roller coaster of hopeful expectations and realistic disappointments. Countless first dates were last dates. On one date, a guy proceeded to text and take calls throughout dinner. When the date was over and he dropped me off, I was surprised by his quick sleight of hand, which happened to find its way to my left boob for an uninvited tug.
I even exhausted my favorite spot at meeting men, which was a little Mediterranean restaurant that seated twenty, located down the street from my apartment. I loved their pumpkin hummus and their spiced sauces drizzled over quinoa, but I had to stop going after the cook commented on seeing me all of the time “but with different men.”
Then, when I was 28 years old, I met Mark.
He was exactly what I needed: a trustworthy, genuine source of comfort. We shared mutual friends, and so I felt safe with him. He seemed motivated with a competitive job in business management and well educated with his MBA.
By that time, I had also completed graduate school and my contract with NBC had ended. I was explosive—I needed to experience a proper social life, and Mark happened to be quite the socialite. We became inseparable over trivia nights and cocktail specials, and he showed me the corner bars that looked like dives but were really among the area’s top-rated restaurants. We spilled secrets over happy hours and drank until the bars closed, and even then we were invited to stay after hours. We broke out into slow, romantic dances in public whenever we felt like it, and we were fun and intoxicating. Mark and I made so many friends. We just drew people in.
Never one to be impulsively led by my emotions, I was surprised when I found myself madly in love with Mark. He developed into someone who was more than just fun. He listened and cared about my insecurities and fears, and I could openly vent to him about anything. He always responded that my personal issues were ones we’d work on together as a team, and he always said “thank you” whenever I kissed him good night on the cheek. Mark was a WYSIWYG type of guy—you know, the What You See Is What You Get—which to me was an attribute, because he was comfortable with being himself and by being honest. I couldn’t have asked for more.
From a career standpoint, I had been planning on moving to Washington, DC, before I had even met Mark. Right when we had begun dating, I had ecstatically quit my old job and was beginning a new one at a startup in DC—it was the next self-proclaimed big chapter of my career. I had been in the midst of scouting out neighborhoods, but I listened to my instincts and paused the hunt, because coming home to Mark offered me more of a promising future than even my career at that time. For that year, I commuted back and forth from Baltimore to DC, three hours a day on top of ten-hour days. I saw Mark as an investment worthy of prioritizing.
Unfortunately, I wish I had listened when my instincts flagged the bad parts of him, too. Like with my bed, for instance. The bed I was using at the time was handed down to me by my grandparents, and it was a queen-size wooden frame with a thick footboard. During the first month or two of dating, Mark and I spent almost every day together. He slept over as many nights as I slept over his house, and he made out just fine in my bed. It was a compromise, as any relationship should be. It certainly was easier on my schedule whenever he slept over my apartment, because I came home relatively late, near 8:30 p.m.—unlike Mark, who was home by 4:00 p.m. and able to run errands, go to the gym, and eat dinner before I even made it back. On the nights we stayed at my apartment, I could simultaneously do laundry and other little things, like take out the trash.
On the nights I stayed over his house, however, my schedule was even more cumbersome. I needed to pit-stop at my apartment to eat dinner, get any late-evening errands like grocery shopping done, shower, and then pack an overnight bag. When I actually had time to do things like grocery shop, it was always rushed and like watching a contestant on Supermarket Sweep having a seizure over the produce aisles. By the time I finished and found street parking at Mark’s place, which was often near 10:00 p.m., I was ready for bed, but fully aware that if I were going to spend time with him, I would need to stay awake for a couple hours more.
After a few months (as it so often goes with the post-honeymoon stage), Mark began to complain about the footboard of my bed. He was tall and his feet extended over it, which he said bothered his ankles and caused him to have a hard time sleeping. I threw blankets and pillows over the edge, so that he could rest his ankles more comfortably, but he insisted it was easier for me to spend the night at his house and that we could both sleep better in his bed. The new arrangement was, of course, easier for Mark all around—he never had to wake up earlier for work, miss watching a game with his roommates, or worry about packing lunches the night before.
I eventually ended up giving in, because I loved Mark and because I wanted to spend all of my time with him, no matter whose house we stayed at. Sure, the footboard of my bed cut into his ankles, but our new arrangement cut into my time, and I never pushed back. At that very specific moment, I had begun to de-prioritize myself and my own needs, and I only had myself to blame.
By the second year into our relationship, the good still far outweighed the bad, and I continued to love, hard. We moved in together and our relationship became true bliss: bye-bye overnight bags! Now, I could walk five feet to my own dresser and open a drawer to pull out clothes. I could rummage through shelves of cosmetics instead of travel bags to get ready, and I even housed all my food under one roof—in the fridge!
Man, I really had it made.
Mark and I even routinely cooked dinners together and sat outside on the deck and, on one night, I lit more than fifty tea candles and sprinkled them out by our feet, so it was like we were looking down at a sky full of twinkling stars. I finally had what I always prayed for and planned for, a home and my prince charming. Everything was finally going my way. Everything felt perfect.
Speaking of homes, Mark and I lived together in a small neighborhood in Baltimore City, known for its crime—but also its quaint, historical row homes, paired with a horrific lack of parking. The joke is that there’s either a bar or a church on every corner, and I’ll just say that my faith was lacking in the attendance category. When Mark and I should have been sharing values, we were sharing mimosas over brunch. We lived in-the-now, and we were the fun couple that everyone wanted to be.
Eventually, I began to see my finances take a hit, and I begrudgingly
