Listen to the Spotify playlist for this episode here.
If you’d like to fall in love deeply, madly, if you’d like it to feel almost fatal, make sure to prime your heart beforehand with a good fresh cut. It’s like scoring the skin of a fish before rubbing in the marinade. Feeling scared? That’s reasonable. Pursuing the highs of love like a stormchaser is not for the faint of heart. It’s not for people who are content to marry their high school prom dates. It’s for the masochists who maybe didn’t even go to prom, who want to see how high they can get and aren’t afraid of the fall, the flames, aren’t afraid to be fully engulfed, consumed, to burn to ash. While I wouldn’t advise anyone to try this at home, I’ll walk you through how it’s done.
First, when your much older boyfriend with peanut-shaped eyes that twinkle and skin as parched and papery as an elephant hide suddenly announces that he can’t be your boyfriend anymore because he’s a sex addict and wants to fuck everyone on the sidewalk as he walks to work, let him leave. Shut your front door firmly behind him as he shuffles away in his khaki windbreaker and orthopedic loafers like you have dignity.
But then, because pride is overrated, use the cheap $15 toaster he left behind as an excuse to leave several voicemails attempting to coordinate its return.
When he doesn’t fall for the ruse, drive that toaster - like it’s an orphaned child - for two hours through a rainstorm-traffic jam to the mountains of Santa Cruz and show up at the door of his younger brother’s rental apartment where you know he’s hiding, unannounced. Call his phone from the parking lot, awkwardly watching the vinyl blinds for shadowy movement in the second-story windows of this rundown stuccoed apartment building and don’t let the fact he let’s it go to an answering machine deter you. March up those stairs - forgetting the toaster in the car, and knock.
After he opens the door and stands there in a shocked stupor of either apathy or disappointment, invite yourself in. Make a desperate plea for him to give you guys another chance. Look around the filthy frathouse of two brothers, the shag carpet and black leather, black plywood everything, ashtray of his cigarette butts on the coffee table next to a small purple plastic, sticker-covered bong, and beg him to come home and stay at your place - at least until he’s back on his feet.
He’ll say no- and that’s ok. He won’t even ask you to stay for a beer or if you’d like to order a pizza. He won’t worry that it’s dark and pouring and you’ve just driven two hours.
You’ll drive home in the rain and the dark, crying and listening to Elvis Costello, especially Beyond Belief, picturing him sitting cross legged at the edge of your bed serenading you on acoustic guitar with his cover of this song, his eyes squinted closed, voice both rough and silky like a tattered ribbon, his thick calloused fingers on the neck, his other strumming hand keeping perfect rhythm.
You’ll feel so desperate and determined to save this love - to save him, to save you both, that you’ll make a sudden superhero gesture in the pounding rain and swerve onto the shoulder of Highway 17 to try him one more time from one of the world’s last public payphones. You’ll call him collect because who carries quarters anymore? He’ll answer, but he won’t tell you to turn around, won’t say he’s changed his mind. He’ll tell you to keep driving.
So you will. Damp, dreary, and teary-faced, you’ll get back into your Subaru and carefully navigate the slick wet back of the snaking asphalt til you arrive at your dark and empty house. Poppy will chirp from inside as she hears you coming up the path. Bucky will purr at your feet as you feel your way to the lamp switch. You’re alone with a fractured heart and this is critical - because you’re about to fall so much harder, so much deeper that it almost kills you.