In Loving You, I Learned to Love Myself

0:00Hi Esther, where do I begin? Well, I think the first thing to say is that for most of my adult life, my romantic and sexual experiences have been with men. But the story I want to talk to you about is about a girl. and my question really is around unrequited love and how do you live with unrequited love? So the background to the story is that when I was young, maybe around 11, 12, I became extremely infatuated with one of my classmates and had very grown-up sort of ideas about the kind of attraction I had towards her and what a possible romantic life would look like. As it turns out, however, when I took the opportunity to sort of confess all of these feelings to her, she plainly said that she didn't feel the same way about me.

1:13That rejection was not entirely unexpected. given that, you know, she's from an entirely different class than I was. And the social structure of the place I'm from sort of dictates, you know, romantic relationships. And I was very aware of that. So I'm now in my 30s, but of late and quite often she comes up in my memory and I can't seem to forget her. And she shapes a lot of what I expect emotionally in relationships. And she's a sort of silent character in my romantic life. And it leaves me with a lot of longing and unfulfilled desires. So my question, really, I think I know it's not one that can be resolved.

2:20But it's a life question for me, I think, of how to live with unrequited love.

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3:12Support for Where Should We Begin comes from TalkAboutPD.com. Let's talk about Peyronie's disease or PD. It's not widely talked about, and some men may feel reluctant to bring it up, but it's more common than you think. PD can happen when scar tissue builds up under the skin of the penis, causing a curve with a bump during an erection that for some men may lead to pain during intimacy and impact mental health. A trusted urology specialist can help diagnose PD and walk you through your options, including non-surgical treatment. Visit talkaboutpd.com.

4:07You're first. um yeah when i listen back it sounds a bit sad but it's actually not a sad story from my perspective because um i would say this is someone who saved my life in a way because even though we never got to be in a relationship or got to be romantic. We were actually very good friends during high school. And she was the smartest girl in the class. I wasn't so smart. Where was this, by the way? Oh, this is Jamaica. And we sat beside each other in class and I would copy everything she did so how she wrote the books she she read and I mean she was reading the Harry Potter books at the time and my level of reading was not at that level and she lent me the Harry Potter books and I got into it so much and that was the first book I ever read cover to cover right so in a way being infatuated and in love with her has kind of led me to where I am now, you know, because it gave me a lot of the sort of academic skills I needed to excel in school when those were not my natural capabilities.

5:40Those were not your natural capabilities or those were not your circumstances? Yeah, maybe. Maybe those were not my circumstances because I actually, I grew up in state care. So based on that, you know, the expectations for my life were not ones that would have been predicted to where I am today in terms of, you know, the academic achievements I've had. because I mean, I've just recently completed a PhD. So, and, you know, have gone into living life as an academic, which you would not have predicted from where I started. But I think being exposed. If one looked at your capabilities, one may have predicted it.

6:38I'm not so sure. At your circumstances, one did not predict it. When I got to high school, I didn't feel like I could survive there because everyone was really ahead of me academically, quite frankly. And I was a little bit behind in the class. But I don't know, I think... But that's because of what you were capable of or because of what your life had been? maybe both I don't know yeah I don't know but I think I want you to remember this for when we get later this is a very important distinction and you just made a distinction for her too no she didn't love me in the way that I was in love with her but she became a very good friend and she cared and she didn't really reject me.

7:40She said, I love you differently. Now there's a rejection in that, but it wasn't like, I don't care about you, get out of my life. Right. It was, I don't care about you in this way, but I care about you greatly in other ways. Yeah. But something in that experience became paradigmatic for you and expecting rejection? In a way, yes. Romantic rejection? Yes. I'm not sure I'm very conscious of how it shows up, but I do know that that is a point of, it's like a touch point for me romantically. Tell me a little bit about your, you say I date and my sex life, my romantic life, my love life is mostly with men.

8:42What's it been like? It started a little rocky, I would say. Like I didn't know who I was. I was a little bit just afraid of accepting this truth about myself. but as I've grown older and a little bit mature How old were you then? I was around 20 I think so a bit of a late bloomer my first experience was not one I would have chosen for myself to be honest but it is what it is so I've come to acceptance in a way Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on we're going to slow it down a second My first experience wasn't what I would have chosen for myself. Means it was different from what I had imagined or means it wasn't a good one?

9:41It was not a good one in that I was pursued by someone who I was not attracted to. and I would say the person took advantage of me but if I were to go back and choose I would not have chosen to be with that person. It was just that at the time I suppose that person maybe had an insight about me that I didn't have and they were able to pick up on this, I guess, attraction and take advantage of it. Not in a bad way, but just that they were able to connect with me sexually. But it wasn't, you know, I would not have chosen to be sexual with this person. It's just that the circumstances at the time contrived to deliver that outcome.

10:41Does that carry a mark for you? Has that left you with a scar? No, I don't think so. Because at the end of the day, I still had agency and choice. And I chose in that moment. I just wish I had a little bit more insight about myself. So I could say, actually, that's not what I like. Or that's not who I like. But I only came to that realization long after the event. but nowadays I'm a little more conscious of what I like, what I don't like, who I like, who I don't like. So I have a little bit more agency over my romantic choices. I don't think I would have learned that had I not gone through the original experience of having not being able to choose.

11:36Any love stories? Yeah, so the most salient one is someone who I met in Jamaica, but he was migrating in like six months. But for that six months before he left, we were in a little bit of a whirlwind of a romance. and yeah that was very life-changing for me because it it was a relationship in which i got to show how much i could love someone and give myself to someone and yeah to this day we still talk we have a really strong connection even though we are at two different ends of the globe sometimes we go for months without talking but when we pick up the phone and call each other it's like no time has passed um so you know that's been a beautiful love story yeah and then when i came to new zealand i met someone who is maori and that relationship was deeply spiritual and i think by nature.

12:50I'm a deeply spiritual person. And so we connected on this sort of spiritual level. And, you know, we were able to be each other's grounding, I guess, you know, because I was studying at the time and things had gotten kind of crazy with how I was just slavishly focused on school. And he was able to bring me back to reality and say, hey, there are other things other than the piece of paper you're trying to earn. I know it's important you need it to build a new life you want to live, but there are other things that we can enjoy in life. So he took me a lot to his ancestral lands, and we went hiking a lot, and I got to really see the beauty of New Zealand, which I would not have seen otherwise because I was so laser focused on finishing my studies because I felt that, you know, that was my ticket to a better life.

13:55So, yeah, I was really grateful for that period of my life, for that romance that opened me up to what being in love can do for you in terms of just, yeah, making your life a little bit more better than when you're on your own.

14:22We have to take a brief break. So stay with us and let's see where this goes.

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17:30And when did the memory of this girl kind of re-emerge for you with the kind of intensity that it has now? I guess, yeah, in the last six months maybe. And what happened? What brought this up for you? I mean, not that you had forgotten it. Yes, no. But there was a resurgence of the memory, of the intensity of it, of the feeling that accompanied it, of the sense that what you call unrequited love is one-sided. I will love someone. They will not love me back. Right. And that has become a kind of expectations. You anticipate this. It's not who she is, it's what you experienced with her and how that has now become a frame for you.

18:27I anticipate not being loved in return. I anticipate not having that sense of belonging.

18:40I don't know exactly what brought it up, but I just remember thinking, I wonder what it would be like to just tell her thank you for what she's meant to my life. and yeah, I just Googled her and saw that she's married now and probably has kids and I'm like, this is a conversation I'll probably never be able to have and I guess just the idea that that will never happen the fact that something is out of reach I guess makes you want it more I don't know What will never happen? Yeah, that kind of, that opportunity to say thank you. Why not? Why not?

19:40I don't know. She's difficult to reach, I guess. And I guess we're just different people now. I don't know. I did this podcast with this woman and it occurred to me that a number of times in my life when things started out painful they actually turned into important lessons or transitions or opportunities. And it occurred to me that you were the first with whom I had actually experienced this. And, you know, we don't often write to people we met decades before. But I had this thought that I wanted to say thank you to you. I hope things are good. And I just wanted you to know my first book I read with you.

20:41and it's not just that I read them, it's that you gave them to me, it's that you gave me a grounding, a recognition, an opportunity, an ability to distinguish between circumstances and capabilities. I don't know why you were a warden of the state, but I don't even know if she knew it. But I have a sense that this was a school, a special school that you had been invited to attend? No, it was just the ordinary high school in the area. Okay, but not everyone didn't have a home. Right, yeah. Okay, so in some way, when you think of her, she gave you a small version of home. Yeah, yeah. And I just wanted to drop you a few lines because we don't always thank the people on our trajectory who were very significant and don't even know they were.

21:49What would it be like if you had a variation of this letter? When you hear it out loud, what's it like? Yeah, no, I think I've written this letter several times. Okay. Or just have not been able to find her contact to send it. But this is a letter I think about a lot, and I carry it with me. It's like a place I go to in difficult times. Because as you say, it was a sort of base for me in my life. Say more. Um, just that experience, as you say, of being acknowledged, of being seen, gave me so much. And I'm so grateful to her. And just often want to say that I often say that actually, you know, to myself, you know, sometimes when I'm, I'm in a really good season, I'll just, you know, whisper to myself, thank you, even though she can't hear it.

23:00And I think my thoughts around this question of unrequited love is, how do you hold that candle of gratitude for someone who will never know how much they meant to you?

23:20What do you think? I don't know. It's a puzzle, I think, because people move through different phases in life, and she might be at a phase of her life where even hearing that, she might not even be able to receive it. I don't know, but this is just one of my thoughts about this whole idea of unrequited love. There are so many different permutations of people who we love, but who don't know that we love them. And there are many lives that you could have lived with many different people who come across your path. and my thoughts have just been about wondering what that path would have been like because it's one of many paths that could have happened but it didn't happen, right?

24:22Do you feel deserving of it? Of late, I have become more convinced that I absolutely am. I never felt that way, but as I've gotten more connected with myself, I know that without a shadow of a doubt, it's absolutely what I deserve. And I think in a way there's a sort of conceit about this whole process of loving someone who will never love me back. Because in that process of loving her, I think I sort of fell in love with myself. I don't know how to explain that, but I made myself into a person she would have wanted to be with because I saw the qualities that she admired and so forth. And in turning myself into that person, I realized, oh, I actually like that person as well that I have become and I'm becoming each day.

25:36and that's where the whole idea of me feeling that I deserve it has come from in that when I look at how I have transformed, I sometimes stop and say, wow, you're actually quite wonderful. And to be able to say that to myself is a bit of a gift, I think. Absolutely. Yeah, of having not been in love with the person I desire, but through that whole process, I became that person in a way. So do we still want to call it unrequited love or does it change title? I don't know. I don't know. In loving you, I came to love myself.

26:33and you gave me so much, not unrequited at all. You gave me so much, and I knew how to take it, and I knew how to transform it into something beautiful. Yeah, I love that because the version I ended up with was one that was transformative for me. She became a muse for you. She became a catalyst for you. And for all you know, she may not remember at all, or she may never have thought it was such a big deal, or she actually may have thought that she was doing something really good and that the giver changes the life of the receiver, but the receiver also changes the life of the giver. and one way sometimes that people get to say thank you even if they don't get to meet the person is by what they pass on is their own transmission it's by them becoming a light for someone else and kind of privately knowing where it comes from that the torch they carry didn't start with them, that someone else one day shed light on them.

28:04Do you have a receiver at this moment in your life?

28:10Yes, I do. I think my students, because I teach, and my younger brother, I try to be a light for him. And is he a receiver? Oh, very much so. And do you feel that there is a kind of a mirror experience going on? Yeah, absolutely. I think so. I think, well, the beauty of it is that, you know, he tells me often that I am his light. So it's beautiful to have that acknowledgement. so it's not so requited from that perspective. I'm able to see in real time the impact of my giving and it's quite gratifying. And she may have done the same. And you know, actually I forgot about something. Tell me. When you finish high school, those two years where you sort of do like, it's like that period before university, those two years, like college years.

29:26So for my two years, we call it sixth form in Jamaica. I went to a different sixth form. It was a little bit more prestigious. It was like an all boys boarding school with a long tradition of educating prime ministers and business leaders. This is where all of the sort of upper crust of Jamaican boys would go to. Somehow I ended up there. No, not somehow. Not somehow.

30:01That's why I ask you if you feel deserving. You didn't just somehow. Nobody gets somehow into those places. That's true. Own it. It's beautiful. it's beautiful you have a smile that smiles to life thank you you worked so hard for it and you didn't always get the proper supports for it and I don't know anything about your story but I can sense that you did a lot of this alone but you knew when to take the book and the fruit and the gifts from people who were giving to you who may or may not even have known your story either. You know, there's often someone in the classroom who doesn't go home when the school day ends.

30:52And nobody knows that they're not going home and that they don't go to a ready-made dinner and that's et cetera, et cetera. And they hide in the midst and they want to feel that they belong and they copy. They copy what they see so that people think that they're one of them. But in fact, sometimes they live in a car sometimes they live in the warden of the state sometimes there's just no one home tell me yeah no I was just yeah thinking of that journey yeah it was pretty lonely there was a lot of help along the way and a lot of people who poured into me and it still feels a little lonely now because I'm in a bit of a career transition, let's say.

31:50So now I need to draw more from that journey and remind myself that, hey, you've been through this before. This is just another version of it at a higher level. So you're not alone and you're going to be fine. You just need to remember that you're loved and that you have everything you need for the rest of your journey.

32:36Apple Podcasts.

33:06Guaranteed. At The Home Depot. Prices may vary by store. Exclusions apply. See homedepot.com slash price match for details. Support for Where Should We Begin comes from TalkAboutPD.com. Let's talk about a condition many people haven't heard of. And it turns out it's more common than you think. Peyronie's disease, or PD for short. PD can happen when scar tissue builds up under the skin of the penis. This can cause a curve with a bump during an erection and for some men, lead to pain during intimacy and may impact mental health. It may also lead to anger and frustration, depression, lowered self-esteem and even withdrawal from sexual activity and physical intimacy.

33:48Because of this, some men could feel embarrassed or reluctant to talk about PD. The actual cause of PD isn't always known. In some cases, it may be linked to a minor injury or repeated injuries during sex or other physical activity. The good news is PD is treatable. If you notice a curve with a bump, a trusted urology specialist can help diagnose it and walk you through your options, including non-surgical treatment. To learn more about Peyronie's disease, visit talkaboutpd.com. Support for Where Should We Begin? comes from Mill. Food waste feels like a huge, impossible problem. But that's where the Mill Food Recycler comes in.