The Lone Star

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Last weekend I had an opportunity to see a singer songwriter perform at a nearby venue. The experience reminded me so much of my yesteryears that included an obsession with Austin, Texas and all things Americana. Since that night, I have been taking a deep dive into the sounds of my life in the early to mid-2000s. I have old school Wilco and Rhett Miller running through my head. It’s bringing me back, in good ways and bad. I never did pick up my life and move to Austin, as once planned. Given how the state has become a reenactment of The Handmaid’s Tale, I guess that’s a good thing. But, my memories of that time in my life are supercharged with pain and confusion, and joy and recovery. Does that sound like a lot? It should, because it was.

I finished my first graduate degree in Media Studies in 2002. I stayed in school for a lot longer than I should have because student loans were my only source of income. It was during that period in my life that the floor collapsed beneath me. I had always been kind of frail and sickly. I was just told I was weak. That’s the message I lived with my whole life. When I couldn’t run track in high school, nobody thought to consider asthma. That diagnosis didn’t come until I was in my early 20s. When I constantly passed out, I was labeled dramatic. Nobody bothered to talk to me about dysautonomia. I spent every month curled up in a fetal position for two days straight from severe menstrual pain and nausea, but nobody mentioned endometriosis. I was told I couldn’t handle pain. My bad stomach was blamed on a bad diet when my bad diet was a consequence of not having much of an appetite. I somehow got through college and an alcoholic fraternity boyfriend. After college, I moved to the East Village in New York City to start my adult life. I enrolled in graduate school when I wanted to take a second shot at being the storyteller I have always been in my heart. By that time, I was feeling incredibly ill and blamed it on a career that wasn’t allowing me to be the artist I was meant to be. I thought my medical issues were metaphysical. Sure, I was writing songs in my bedroom but that just wasn’t enough to nurture my soul. I expected that I would magically heal upon deciding to honor my true self. I didn’t. I just got sicker. My boyfriend at the time tried to be there for me but he was actually the weak one. My suffering was too hard for him. It wasn’t long after that I endured surgery for appendicitis that wasn’t. A year later, I diagnosed myself with endometriosis and got another surgery to prove it. But by then, my twenties had gone up in smoke. There was no going back. I celebrated by 30th birthday by performing songs I had written in front of a group of friends. The weak but talented boyfriend performed the songs alongside me. It was shortly after that he left NYC for his new love, but he left behind professional recordings of some songs we worked on together. I guess that’s something.

While in graduate school I started production of my documentary to raise awareness of autoimmune disorders. I had finally navigated to a very well-known and respected rheumatologist who diagnosed me with Undifferentiated Connective Tissue Disease. That’s a very fancy way to say I wasn’t dying but my immune system wasn’t being very kind to me. It’s a badge I wore with a mixture of pride and shame. It took a long time to finish that documentary and it hung over me for years; it also filled me with shame. At that point, I had a (very expensive!) master’s degree in existential crises and realized that the artistic community was full of shit. I needed to refocus.

In the aftermath of 9/11, there were rental incentives to revitalize the area around Ground Zero. I took advantage of those incentives and found myself a studio apartment in a luxury doorman building on Greenwich Street. My motivation was a mixture of selfishness and patriotism. I wanted to play a role in rebuilding the city, but I also wanted to ditch the fourth-floor walkup that came with a series of roommates I couldn’t stand. I had nothing to my name but took a leap of faith that I would make it work. And, I did. Shortly after moving into my new apartment, I ended getting a job as a pharmaceutical rep. That was my way of still being a subversive artist — I capitalized on the knowledge I gained through years of absolute hell. I cried for the first few months of being a rep when doctors dismissed me, playing out the very experience I encountered as a patient. I got into multiple car accidents in that ridiculous boat of a Ford Taurus I was made to drive around New York City. I dropped off cases of Vioxx samples to doctors in the Upper East Side, only to go back into those offices a year later and tell doctors to throw the samples away. I made some friends, and I made some enemies. I wasn’t fulfilled but I had indeed gotten my life back. I was functioning at least, and learned I was an effective salesperson. That’s more than I had been able to do in my twenties. 

I broke up an on-again, off-again codependent relationship with the neighbor in my former walkup building and got back on the dating scene. I was surprised by how it came so easily to me. There was an Ivy League educated, interventional cardiologist and hobbyist surfer who followed me out of his outpatient clinic waiting room to ask me out. I briefly dated an a/v guy who helped to set up a screening of my film clips to a support group. There were men from other countries who chose me as the partner with whom they spent time during extended stays in the U.S. Every man I was interested in reciprocated on some level. I had a friend at the time who remarked that men made a U-turn when they walked past me. In fact, when friends randomly met someone in a line at a store or in an airport, they told me they “pulled an Andrea.” So, I didn’t realize when I started dating someone named Daniel that our encounter wasn’t serendipitous. 

Daniel and I met on the southbound #4 train. Dan watched as I jumped in to help direct a family of lost tourists to their next destination. He smiled at me when another set of tourists ran towards me to ask if I could help them too. Dan and I both exited the train at Union Square station and struck up a conversation. He made some snarky remark about the perils of being an unintended tour guide. Snark is my favorite form of expression, so I happily provided my phone number when Dan asked for it. I didn’t learn until much later that Dan was headed elsewhere but chose instead to follow me off the train. 

Daniel was a tall, witty, and handsome architect. We hit it off instantly. We learned of a mutual passion for politics and scheduled dates to order in Thai food and watch Democratic primary debates together. We watched when Al Sharpton said he would pick Dennis Kucinich as his running mate. We disagreed about John Edwards. (For the record, I was right about that guy.) We both agreed that George W. Bush was the worst thing to ever happen to our country. Back then, the idea of having an authoritarian leader like Trump didn’t even register as a remote possibility. We thought we had already seen the end of the world as we knew it. We also listened to music together. These were the days before the emergence of Spotify, so we just sat there and listened to CDs while eating our Thai food and hedging our bets about the future of America. I remember not wanting to tell Dan about my health struggles, and the multiple surgeries and treatments to control endometriosis of the gut. I wasn’t well, but I had managed to nurse myself back to some semblance of purgatory with dietary restrictions and hormonal treatments. I didn’t want Dan to know that these hormonal treatments meant I probably couldn’t have kids. I only told Daniel of some chronic back pain and allergies. I didn’t want to risk the first relationship in years that had meant something to me. It turns out, Dan did a perfectly fine job of that himself.

About a month into our relationship, Daniel told me had something to confess. Prior to meeting me, he had been set up with a woman in Germany. They had planned for her to come visit him over Thanksgiving. She already had a nonrefundable ticket, and neither of us could afford to reimburse her. Dan said he didn’t want to tell her about me because he felt it would be awkward, and just wanted to get through the week of her visit. I thanked him for the honesty and tried to move on. The next day I peppered Dan with questions. Did he have feelings for this woman? Was he trying to choose between us? He assured me that he was interested only in me. I said I understood if he needed to determine whether there was anything worth pursuing with the German woman. He again insisted that wasn’t the case. That meant he was planning to lie to another woman. I wasn’t OK with that either, even if I came out as a winner. We agreed to part ways during the visit of his out-of-town guest and see where we were on the other side of things. I couldn’t commit to still being there for him when the week was up but said I’d try.

That week was hell. Although Dan and I had only been dating briefly, I already knew I had chosen him. On the morning of Thanksgiving, I was late getting on the road to New Jersey to spend the day with my family. When I finally got to my parking garage to retrieve my car, I learned that the garage staff couldn’t locate it. I hung around waiting for my car, nervously checking my watch and trying not to get stuck in my head wondering what Dan was up to. Finally, I got my car and hit the road. I didn’t do a great job of getting out of my head. I missed my shortcut to get in the Holland Tunnel queue and had to take a different route. I then almost drove through a red light. I stopped just short of the crosswalk. The very first two people to walk in front of my car were Dan and the woman from Germany. She was walking with her arm threaded through his. I think I honked and waved but Dan didn’t see me. He just assumed that the person who honked was an impatient and angry New Yorker, and at that moment I most certainly was.

When I got to New Jersey I sent Dan a text and told him we needed to speak. Later that day, he snuck away from the German woman and called me. I told him what I witnessed. I could feel his heart sink on the other end of the line. He said he ended up telling the woman about me. He explained to her that he wasn’t entirely available but played down our relationship to spare her feelings. I protested, “What about my feelings?” “You weren’t supposed to see us together,” he replied.  

We did manage to reunite after the woman departed. He came straight to my apartment the moment she got on a plane headed back across the Atlantic. I tried to get back to the wonderful, exciting place we had been only one week earlier, but my trust was damaged. Dan managed to rebuild my faith in him, and our connection grew. We continued dating for another few months and all seemed to be going well. I didn’t admit it to myself at the time, but I was in love. It came as a shock when Dan betrayed my trust again. He told me he didn’t want there to be any miscommunication or surprises. He had heard from an ex-girlfriend and was meeting up with her the following Saturday night at the place in Park Slope they used to visit together. I recalled Dan telling me about her shortly after he and I met. He said the two had remained friends, but when he mentioned meeting me, she shut him out and said she didn’t want to hear from him again. When she contacted him to say she was ready to patch up their friendship, she set ground rules that they wouldn’t discuss whether they were dating other people. “So, you’re going to lie to her?” I asked. “No, I’m just not going to mention you. I don’t want to hurt her feelings.” Again, I said, “What about my feelings?”

Dan and I split up a few days later. My trust in him to protect my heart was shot, but that was mainly because he didn’t understand why I felt that way. He thought he was being open and honest. I thought he was being cold and insensitive. I didn’t think he was capable of putting my feelings first. We tried to talk this through, but at that moment Dan told me it was all probably for the best because his company wanted to send him to Seoul to work on a special project. We said our goodbyes. When my door closed behind Dan, I heard him say to me from the other side, “I’m sorry.”

I didn’t recover from that for a long time, but it seems neither did Daniel. He still had some of my records. He offered to return them to me but not until he finished making me a mix of songs he wanted me to have. A month went by, and I texted to ask if he could just drop off my stuff with my doorman. He texted back, “I’m still working on your mix. It’s not quite coming together the way I want it to.” I asked him, “Are you making me a box set?” “Yes,” he said, “I’m making you a set of five CDs.” Perhaps another month went by, and I finally got that box set. By then, I had been to London and back to try and clear my head. I performed some sad songs I wrote at a random open mic night I found near Piccadilly Circus. I ran into an old professor in Heathrow airport. I managed to convince a pompous ass that I found him interesting, only long enough to weasel my way out of the conversation. I wanted to move on with my life and try to heal my massacred heart. I wrote to Dan, telling him it was time to return my things. He agreed but insisted he could stop by rather than just drop off those things with my doorman. We set a time and I nervously awaited his arrival.

When Den showed up at my door, he had with him that five CD boxset that contained a perfectly lush Americana soundtrack. He even created title art for each of the CDs. We spent an hour chatting on a small loveseat in my fancy studio apartment, listening to the soundtrack he created for me. Dan told me that over the prior couple of months since we stopped seeing one another he hadn’t gotten any clarity about his timeline to move to Korea. He said he had been suffering from insomnia and breaking out in hives from the stress. When I told my friend about this odd encounter she said, “Shit. This is ridiculous. This isn’t about Korea. He’s still in love with you too.” Among the songs in that boxset was Matthew Ryan’s “Return to Me.” In it, Matthew Ryan utters those very words I heard Dan say from the opposite side of my closed door, “I’m sorry.” I listened to that song on constant replay for months. It still makes me cry, nearly twenty years later. It’s amazing how our past never really leaves us. And now I know why I stopped listening to Americana.  

You would think this was the end of the chapter for Dan and me, but it wasn’t. Months later I was preparing to go vote in those primaries he and I had been tracking together. I remember rushing out the door, but something told me to take my time. I never wear makeup but was compelled to put on lip gloss before I left my apartment. I was chatting on the phone with a friend as I walked towards my polling site. The line suddenly went dead. I glanced down at that old flip phone to press redial. But I walked right into someone in that split second that I took my eyes off the horizon. There, looking down on me, was Daniel. We walked right into one another. He was also on his way to vote. Yes, we lived in the same polling district in Manhattan, but we lived on different sides of the neighborhood. What were the chances we would walk right into one another? Dan and I walked towards the polling site together. He told me of the many different things over the past few months that had reminded him of me. Among that list was his discovery that his aunt suffered from endometriosis. He didn’t know much about it when we had dated and my education about it was limited to telling him that certain sexual positions hurt. He had since educated himself about it and asked how I was feeling. He also spoke of how he finally got the green light to relocate. I don’t remember much else about that conversation. I just felt we were somehow meant to keep running into one another. We clearly had unfinished business.

That spring I booked myself a ticket to Austin for the first time to attend Austin City Limits. I decided it was time to leave NYC, the city that had been my home but had treated me harshly. On my first day at the festival, I stumbled upon a local country band that I immediately loved. I asked some random guy who they were. He shot me a surprised look and then concluded I must not have been from around there. I confessed I was not. I’m sure you know what happened next. It was hot as hell. I was young. I was wearing shorts and a bikini top. The stranger, who I came to know as Mike, was originally from Portland and living in Austin while working on a PhD in music theory. He was gorgeous and available to be my personal tour guide. He also took care of me when I learned that heat stroke and Tito’s vodka were a bit of a lethal combination. On the last night of the festival, Mike and I stripped down and jumped into the Barton Springs to cool off. Coldplay, of all fucking things, was playing in the background. I wouldn’t have expected Coldplay to be the soundtrack for this incredibly romantic moment, but it was. It wasn’t exactly Matthew Ryan pleading for forgiveness, but we don’t always get the luxury of a great backdrop. Mike and I made plans to stay in touch after I left to return home to NYC. I told him that Portland was also on my list of places to check out, and we agreed to meet up there that following Christmas.

In November of 2004, George W. Bush was re-elected. I thought of Daniel and wrote him a note. I said that I didn’t know where in the world he was, but that I was sure he was as devastated as I. Dan was in Korea but wrote back immediately to commiserate. He also wrote a list of the things that had reminded him of me. I should have saved that email. It was a bullet pointed list. Seriously, who is a better match for me than a man who sends me bullet points with explicit details about things that made him yearn for me? That’s about as romantic as it gets! Dan asked if I was still thinking of leaving NYC. I told him I had been to Austin and was planning a trip to Portland over Christmas to check out other options. Dan left me on read, but two weeks later he sent me a note. In that note he wrote he wasn’t sure whether he ever told me that he had family in Oregon. As luck would have it, he was also planning a visit there over the Christmas break. I realized it took that two-week pause for Dan to get up the courage to ask me out. I gave Dan my schedule, which included a stop in Seattle first. Dan wrote back that his parents lived in Seattle, and he would also be there first. We agreed to meet on December 26th.

At this point, I hadn’t yet heard from my flaky but gorgeous Austinite friend. I packed my bags a few weeks later without any idea about what to expect. I nervously toured Seattle upon my arrival. I decided to visit The Experience Music Project (now known as, MoPop). I had not yet heard from Dan or Mike. I felt the whole trip going to hell. Finally, my phone rang and there was Mike. “I wasn’t sure if you still wanted to meet up,” I said. “Jesus, yes,” he replied. As he and I began making plans to meet my other line rang. I put Mike on hold to take the other call. Yeah, do I even need to tell you? It was Dan, of course. I asked to call Dan back, firmed up my plans to meet with Mike in Portland the following day, and then back to Dan I went. Dan and I arranged to meet for dinner. I don’t remember if he picked me up at the hotel or if I took a cab or what. I only remember washing my hair twice because the Seattle humidity brought out the Jewfro that no amount of product seemed to remediate. I didn’t feel as pretty as I wanted to. I was caught off guard when Dan and I sat down at the restaurant and he snapped a photo of me. He told me his family wanted to know what I looked like. He also said his mother asked him to bring me to the house to meet the family. Oh, for fuck’s sake. Even his family knew he was in love. 

Dan and I caught up over dinner and I learned that when he called me earlier that day, he had just left Experience Music Project and was standing right outside the entrance. I had taken the call from inside. We had once again been on opposite sides of a wall. At this point, I felt Daniel and I were destined to be together. If not, the universe was playing a cruel joke on me. (Spoiler alert: The universe totally fucked with me.) Dan dropped me off at my hotel and I only learned later that he was upset I didn’t invite him up. But, I mean, I was kind of in that part of the world to see someone else and I didn’t think Dan had earned the right to any expectations. He clearly disagreed and unbeknownst to me, concocted a plan to take the power back.

Here's the final chapter in this story. I was back in my apartment in NYC one week later. Things with Mike had blown up a bit because I couldn’t get Daniel out of my head. I came back from my trip utterly confused. (The only thing I knew for sure is that I probably wouldn’t be relocating to the west coast. Brooklyn became my next stop before work took me to Philly. I still haven’t found the place where I feel meant to be.) I was at home doing whatever one does on a Tuesday night when my doorman called me. Dan was in the lobby asking to see me. I threw myself together and went downstairs to greet Dan. He hadn’t told me he was going to be in NYC for the week, but there he was. That time I invited him up. He left the next morning and said he would reach out while he was in town to take me out to dinner. He didn’t. I felt like such an idiot. 

Nearly a week later my phone rang but I let it go to voicemail. Those were the days of answering machines. I listened as Dan left me a message, but I didn’t pick up the phone. I stood in silence as I heard Dan explain that he was on his way to the airport to head back to Korea. He apologized for being MIA and blamed it on working nonstop. While that may be true (I have heard that Korean companies work around the clock), there was no excuse for failing to send a text message or two. I don’t understand why some men think that an occasional message is equivalent to asking for a wedding proposal. To me it’s just a basic thing we do to let others know we’re thinking of them. In his final message to me, Dan said he would take me out properly the next time he was back in town. I never responded, and the dinner invitation never came.

I don’t have a point to this story. It’s something I haven’t thought about in a long time. That country music concert brought it back up. It’s still so painful, all this time later, and it reminds me that in so many ways my life feels like a soundtrack on repeat. The last song I wrote was an ode to this memory. I haven’t really picked up a guitar since. Maybe that will change now. Maybe it won’t. But, for now, we at least have another kick ass playlist and some song lyrics I dug up from my previous life.

You look into my eyes,
But I don’t have an answer.
It always seems that I,
I can’t seem to remember.

No, I don’t have a reply, and I’ve got no reason to stand here.
I’ve gotten so good at goodbyes, but I can’t seem to do it this time.

I’ve got a set of your favorite records,
And I can’t help but listen.
I can’t help but wonder,
What you were thinking when you gave them.

I analyze every line, but still I don’t have an answer.
I’ve gotten so good at goodbyes, but I can’t seem to do it this time.

Well, I’m a member of the collection you left behind.
I’m a member of the collection you left behind.
Another story in the tragedy of my life.
I’m just a member of the collection you left behind. 

I check my email and my mailbox,
And I look through my neighbor’s pile.
These habits might seem quite boring,
But they keep me happy for a while.

I still don’t have a reply, I guess I’ll just have to accept it.
I’ve gotten so good at goodbyes, but this time I just don’t get it.

Well, I’m a member of the collection you left behind.
I’m a member of the collection you left behind.
Another story in the tragedy of my life.
I’m just a member of the collection you left behind.