It’s Time to Burn My Baggage: Part 1
By: Justin Dickens
Tags: Self Love, Healing, Nonbinary, LGBTQ, Divorce

The year is 2007, I’m at my Junior year prom, sitting next to the girl of my most amazing dreams (It’s not Susie; we didn’t meet until college… To really heal and find self-love I have to go back before our marriage. Unfortunately I already had baggage with me at that point). I felt like I had cheated the system somehow, never fully understanding why she was with somebody like me. I tried to fully live-in every single moment we were together because I knew the day would come, it was too good to be true, my time with her would run out… Her ex-boyfriend was a football player. One of the biggest football players. To say he was unhappy about us dating would be putting it mildly. He showed his disapproval by breaking my car (and by my car, I mean the really huge rusted town car my grandpa let me drive). Break off a mirror, smash in the hood, and who knows what else. I remember one day in particular. We were in a crowded hallway, he was angry, I don’t remember how we got there, or why he was angry. It was how all fight scenes develop in the movies, but there was no fight, but I did allow his words to hurt me. They reverberate in me to this day. “Fine! You can have toothless dick!”. You already know why he said “toothless”… For years, people called me Dick, because my last name is Dickens. Even my good friends called me Dick. I suppose they saw it as a reclamation of power, or they too just thought it was funny (I mean we were teenagers), I even came to use it to name myself in some video games… And, that’s sad, but it is what is is. All I can do is try to feel worthy of love as I move forward. I can forgive myself for internalizing hatred. It was a coping mechanism… Looking back, I understand bullying now. I know that bullying says more about that bully was going through that it does about the person being bullied. I’m sure he was in pain. This girl was fucking amazing. I mean, how could a soul be in love with a guy like him and a guy like me. So, I can empathize with his pain. I understand bullies…. So I’m sitting at my prom, ready to fight the person who tries to pinch me and wake me up. As I look at her beautiful glowing eyes, he comes over. “Wanna dance?”. She looks at me with a look that asks me if I mind. Every fiber of my being minded. “I don’t mind. It’s fine”. To this day, I have not memories of dancing with her. Maybe we never danced but I suspect we did. My only memory is watching the two of them. Dancing. Looking into each other’s eyes. . It wasn’t long after that, that I broke up with her. The story goes like this: I thought she was still in love with him, and maybe she was, but it really doesn’t matter, what I thought about the situation mattered most. I saw how she could love him, and I saw nothing of myself in that reflection. I thought, she would be better off with him. I always knew I wasn’t enough for her. It’s sad, but this is my truth.

Fast forward to the next year, where my love sparked again. This time, with a close friend. I still remember walking miles from our houses, in a snowy night, to meet in the middle. Standing in the middle of the pavement, I still remember the softness of their lips. As I search my past, looking for all the possible plots points in this origin story of degraded self-love, I thought about this experience. I had never thought of it in this way before. Actually I haven’t given it much thought at all. The tale of the story is that I told this girl that I couldn’t be in a relationship with them, because one of our close friends had liked this person for years, and all of our friends knew it. “I can’t do that to him”. As I think about that statement, which certainly felt honest at the time, just feels so glaringly untrue. Or, at least it doesn’t feel like the whole truth. I did care about our friend, I didn’t want to hurt him, but was I really that “good” of a person? What I believe now, is that it was less of a self-less act, and more likely due to how I felt about myself. I didn’t feel worthy of their love. I didn’t feel like enough. I was still carrying the baggage of my past relationship, shutting the door on love without my even realizing it. I had never realized I turned away from that relationship because I felt inadequate, but I believe that now. I also learned this connection. Their bodies. Their beautiful perfect bodies. One was a burly football player, and the other was the most ripped guy I had seen in real-life. How could two very different bodies be so similar in my mind? So perfect, so adequate, so exactly what a girl would want? I didn’t have either of those bodies.

Me. 18. At the airport. About to fly to Alaska. I had never flown before. Also, this is the earliest picture of my I could find on Facebook… I don’t have any photos of that earlier relationship. Just the memories.

Then, there was the long list of “out of my league” names, the people I never even had substantial conversations with, and never felt worth of professing my love to them. It became quick, effortless, and without much thought… But wait, that’s actually not true, I did ask one of them out. She was a fellow canvasser at this save the environment organization I worked for, and in my eyes, she was the hottest girl in Alaska. It’s fascinating how my bubble feels like the whole world sometimes, talk about tunnel vision. Anyways, I mustered up the courage, ask myself, what’s the worse that could happen. She says no. I was good with that (but, secretly I really wanted her to say yes). I remember calling her on the phone (we did that back in those days…. Uh, I’m not that old), and the conversation was probably as awkward as you are imagining. Eventually, I ripped off the band-aid; “would you like to go out with me sometime?” Silence. The awkward silence, that kind that speaks louder than words. She kindly turned me down. Gaw, she was so sweet. Why did she turn me down though? I will never know, but this is the story I remember. I recall her saying something to our co-workers about getting back with her boyfriend, and that’s when I was like, it’s now or never (#NeverIGuess). And I’m okay with that. I almost forgot this memory completely. But, this is why I think I remembered. Her boyfriend’s name was Kash. I never saw it spelled out but I picture it with a “K” because it sounded cooler. Obviously he was wealthy as well. You should know that I never met Kash, but I could see him (in my nightmares). I pictured his washboard abs, how his bravado could make an entrance, and that he had just the right amount of misogyny to make him desirable. He was a “man’s man”. And, that, was not me.