For the hope of it all

Nursing a crush, shopping for therapists, watching 2000s mermaid movies

I have a new therapist, and she’s younger than my last one by a stretch. This is important because my previous therapist —Heather, she/her, 50ish, cardigans/sensible shoes— did not talk with me about relationships. Well, romantic ones.

We stuck to our strengths: dysfunctional family dynamics and boundary setting. It was a transformative, deeply beneficial few years of on again/off again bi-weekly meetings Heather and I had together.

When I moved to NYC I toyed with the idea of raw dogging life (of letting go of talk therapy) but in the end I realized I love to yap too much (and my anxiety was getting extremely uncomfortable).

I found my current emotional support listener* —Kelsey, she/they, mid-late twenties, bisexual haircut/tattoos/general drip— on a therapist Instacart website. It felt weirdly like Internet dating, and I did deeply contend with the ethics of seeking the counsel of someone named Kelsey before committing. (Just so not a therapist’s name, right?)

*I use the word “listener” because I recognize I mostly just use therapy as a place to throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks. It is not a rare occurrence for me that forty-five billed minutes pass wherein the professional in the room has barely gotten in a word. I am who I am. And I pay for the space, so I can use it how I please. (This is what I tell myself when I get anxious about it.)

How long and tangled my stories are, typically. Sourced from Pinterest.

Eventually, though, I got over Kelsey’s name and decided to give them a real shot. It’s not like she’s said anything especially profound yet, but then again I rarely give her the chance. And she’s distinctively supportive —almost defensive— of my own perception of myself, in a way that has already been quietly healing, even in the short time I’ve known her.

When I was seeing Heather, sometimes I’d jokingly repeat things she had said to me in therapy to friends and then I would have to defend her to them as a “good therapist” afterwards. What I mean to say is, Heather could be kind of harsh.

She once told me —about an uncomfortable roommate situation— that if my physical safety was not in danger, then she didn’t have much sympathy for me (I’m paraphrasing, of course). She never said it in so many words, but I could sometimes hear it in her eyes, in her body language: I told you so!

I routinely felt like Heather thought my problems were too small to take up an hour of her time. She often interrupted my gabbing to tell a story about herself that sort of, vaguely related, and then wrapped up her comparison with a moralistic one-liner; a lesson to take away or a different prism to think through my problem with.

What I can say is that her moralistic one-liners often hit, because I keep a trove of them in my back pocket to this day; pocket-sized tools to whip out when I face something difficult —both in my path forward and when looking back.

She wasn’t gentle, but she was helpful. And I did defend her as a “good therapist,” because I really wanted to be better, and somehow Heather’s tough love made me feel like I was earning it. I mean, healing isn’t necessarily supposed to feel good, is it?

Looking back now, and having met/started building a trusting relationship with Kelsey, I realize Heather could have been a smidge more supportive, affirming. I think she may have been a great therapist for trauma and not so much for anxiety. I still have a wealth of respect and gratitude for her.

Sourced from Pinterest (and I’m a cat person).

Besides their styles of therapizing —which I’m sure there are technical names for that go well above my pay grade— a major difference for my relationship with Kelsey is that we have common cultural touchstones.

For example, nowadays, if in therapy I want to reference a TikTok I saw, I no longer have to say “I recently saw a video about…” or “I read somewhere that…” Imagine being able to outright ask your therapist if they’re familiar with Jake Shane (@passthatpuss)! Surprisingly liberating.

As it applies to this essay, the point is: Kelsey and I can talk about dating.

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I have already written a bit about my new lease on (love)life, but I’d like to make an addendum, if you don’t mind.

At the risk of coming off as making a humble brag, and in order to map out the rest of where my mind is at, I have to announce: I’ve acquired a crush.

And well, yeah, if you’re thinking that’s not groundbreaking news, you’d be right. I contract a few of them a day, primarily on the Subway. It’s a sticky place, that one, rampant with germs and mysterious, commuting strangers —all shone under surprisingly good lighting.

What is new is that I have considerable reason to believe this crush likes me back. *Insert high-pitched squeal.*

For posterity’s sake I will spare the personal details, but just know I have been feeling full-blown schoolgirl, kicking-my-feet-smiling-at-my-phone excited about this person —about the possibility.

This is all to say I am writing to you from a place of utter delirium and glee; we have to establish this first. I am an unreliable narrator. The chemicals in my brain are not stable or sustainable, but wow what a trip!

Me, in my coworker group chat. It was a slow day.

I’d almost forgotten how fun this feeling is —addicting even. So I want to excavate the concept: a crush. To help, I’m referencing one of my sacred texts: Aquamarine (2006).

If you’re unfamiliar, the early 2000s rom-com/teen fantasy/mermaid movie follows two best friends, Claire (Emma Roberts) and Hailey (Joanna “JoJo” Levesque), through their charming Floridian tourist town’s “Last Splash” —their final weekend of the summer season.

This one has a particular urgency to it, though, because it could be Hailey’s last Last Splash; her mom is moving them to Australia, of all places, to follow her dream of being an accredited marine biologist. The nerve! And don’t get me started on the convenience of this plot device when nearly every tween girl wanted to be a marine biologist one day because, well, dolphins.

We enter their universe with Claire and Hailey lounging on the beach fully clothed, as awkward middle school girls are wont to do, peeking over their umbrella at the heartthrob high school lifeguard, Raymond (Jake McDorman). It is a picture of quintessential girlhood: giggling over a crush, bonding over your shared infatuation, and hiding your embarrassment.

Hailey + Claire. Sourced from Pinterest.

The girls’ relationship to Raymond might never have progressed beyond this giddy, imaginative point, though, if it were not for Aquamarine. When a storm rolls in on the penultimate night before Last Splash, it washes in with it a run(swim?)away mermaid bride. Evading her arranged marriage to a merman “who’s about as deep
as a tidal pool,” our protagonist Aquamarine (Sara Paxton) is on a quest to prove to her tyrannical father that true love exists.

Enlisting the help of Claire and Hailey, she sets her sights on Raymond as the object of her experimental affection. The best friend duo acquiesces to Aquamarine’s plan —forfeiting their own longstanding crushes— for the promise of one wish that helping the mermaid will allegedly grant them. (To be used to derail Hailey’s mother’s marine biology career and save themselves from the woes of long distance friendship, of course.)

What ensues can only be described as a delightfully cringeworthy closeup of the emotional seesaw that is girlhood when coming down with an ooey gooey crush.

From the learning curve of having her very own pair of legs that meet at a human butt —“Isn’t it cute?”— to throwing a cobalt blue landline phone out of a second story window —“We just call and hang up”— to riding the handlebars of each other’s bikes back and forth in front of Raymond’s house —“Act casual… like you didn’t even remember this was his street!”— Claire and Hailey teach Aquamarine how to be human, how to have a crush. And aren’t the two deeply intertwined?

I mean, that’s what living is, right? Having something to be excited about, that can thrill and devastate you; that makes you want to crouch behind an umbrella, belly laugh with a friend.

Part of the exhilaration of a crush, I think, is the risk of the fall. It’s such a fragile, human place to be; teetering on the precipice of something imaginary and something real —without all of the information needed to make the leap.

Indeed, much of the infatuation, the draw, is the idea of the person more than the person themselves. We know this, and yet our brains forgo any mechanism of self preservation for the off-chance; for the possibility of that person liking us back; for, as our national treasure Taylor Swift once put it, the hope of it all.

It’s a fitting name then, no? Crush. When we do it honestly, we give someone the power to squash our hearts, our hopes, our pride.

I’ve acquired a newfound appreciation for the words “putting yourself out there.” Because I’m here now —on the precipice, the cliff, preparing for the freefall— and it is thrilling, but only because there’s a bit of danger involved. The considerable, increasingly intimidating possibility of a *splat* at the bottom.

Still, I can’t help but to think it’s worth it. Doing the embarrassing thing, being vulnerable. Blurting “Do you love me?” even if the answer is “Uh... no, but I think you’re hot.” (—Raymond)

Because, the point is, maybe someday they could. Or, maybe they never will. (Even Aquamarine swears off men for Ben & Jerry’s!) But either way, I’ll know I have really done it —my life. Instead of waiting for it to happen to me.

Sourced from Pinterest.

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When it comes to my anxiety, I think nursing this crush has been a kind of exposure therapy; a serious exercise in relinquishing my control.

On a weekly basis, Kelsey and I go back and forth about all the things I think could go wrong. I have a full walk-in closet of other shoes I am ever-waiting to drop.

We leave the shoes on the built in shelves, have been instead unpacking my beliefs about monogamy, heteronormativity, purity culture. Sifting through old insecurities that have surfaced as current fears. I’m being pressed to articulate my feelings; throw out the old to make room for the new. It’s a spring cleaning of the heart; it’s holding up a mirror, reflecting back the things I haven’t quite yet healed.

I am religiously practicing being open to the possibility without being overly attached to the outcome.

And when I think about it this way, having a crush says less about the other person and more about me. —About my capacity to hope, to believe in life’s possibility, to dare to build something new.

Aquamarine speaks to the same: in the end, it isn’t a story about triumphant romance at all. (Spoiler!) It is the bonds between our three protagonists which prove to the overbearing sea-god of a father that true love exists.

What made it a staple of my childhood —and a canonical text I’m returning to now— was never Raymond. Dreamy as he might be, he is just the love interest; a facet of the girls’ story. Their lives, their adventures —the talking starfish earrings, iconic blue shirt dress, and mood-changing fingernails— the ways they grow and evolve as young women, these are the stars of the show.

It’s in this spirit —of cultivating the main character, complex-female-protagonist life I want for myself— that I continue to put myself out there, to engage in the emotional seesaw of a crush, despite how anxiety inducing it might prove to be.

I am also battling the anxiety —my proclivity for jumping to incessant conclusions— in part, by reminding myself that actually, this is… really fun. It’s meant to be fun.

I suppose I am, despite all the reasons not to be, someone who still lives for the hope of it all; who believes hope is really all we have.

Because, after all…

Sending bunches of it from my screen to yours, xoxo

—Madilyn