Lost and Found Loves

To the men who found me and lost me and got me back and let me go again and built me and broke me and everything in between.

The intensely spiritual text, A Course in Miracles introduced me to the concept of the Holy Relationship. Basically it says that all relationships are classrooms and when we enter one, we are entering into a learning situation. 

This was such an easy concept for me to grasp because relationships have always been my greatest teachers. Sometimes the lessons have gone lost on me for years or even decades before I can accept them, but at 38, I am seeing so many elements of past relationships come full circle in ways that I never could have imagined while I was in them.

We tend to see relationships that didn’t work out as failures, but that’s bullshit. Nothing is ever wasted. Every single person impacts your life in ways that are so specific and never would have happened otherwise. The difference is only whether you see yourself as a victim in the situation. When you let that go, the goods come flowing forth. 

While every interaction carries some meaning, when I look back at my romantic history thus far, there are a few people whose influence I feel almost every day. These are the men who loved me in the way that only they could. Sometimes their love felt medicinal, and other times poisonous. Sometimes it lasted years and sometimes just a few days. But all of it was instrumental for my growth as a human.

With deep reverence and a hint of psychotic glee, I offer you a comprehensive list of the men who’ve found me and lost me and got me back and let me go again and built me and broke me and everything in between.

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Lost and Found Loves

THE SUGAR DADDY. I was 24, newly single, and working for next to nothing in the music industry when I met him. It was a week before my next paycheck and I only had $20 in my bank account, exactly enough to sign myself up for one of the top rated Sugar Daddy dating sites that were very taboo (and SO janky) at the time. I had recently signed myself up for a traditional dating site, and the whole thing felt embarrassing and lame… not to mention how rude and banal the conversations were. In contrast, I found the SD site to be much more worth my time, financially and beyond. The men were polite and generally deferential. Boundaries were expected, as was a fair amount of vetting before any IRL interactions. It wasn’t long before he found me, and we started exchanging lengthy emails in which we learned everything about each others’ lives. He was 20 years my senior, but so open and curious and never patronizing that I didn’t think much about his age. We started meeting up in exotic locations and having days long parties full of expensive food and wine (that I couldn’t even appreciate at the time), shopping sprees, and at least one trip to the opera that I hated and he still knows better than to try to convince me otherwise. We both fulfilled important roles for each other. I provided him with fun and frivolity that he missed out on in his youth, and he gave me admiration and encouragement that I was not receiving from my own environment and had no idea how to give to myself. Eventually our romantic relationship was replaced by deep friendship and appreciation for each other which still lasts to this day. He believed in me before I believed in myself, and whenever I feel like I’m not capable, he gently corrects my misperception. 

THE PUNK ROCK PRINCE. The coolest man I ever met was a straight-edge, pierced-lipped, martial artist from San Diego by way of Long Island. From the moment I saw his crooked smile, I was IN. His tattoos were both fresh and nostalgic. My favorites were the little boy with his out-stretched arms beneath the Giving Tree and the Morton Salt girl. Our meetings were spontaneous and electric, and lasted for years. Every time I saw him was the first time all over again. I was making my way up the ladder in the music industry and he was the music. Spending time with him incapsulated the romanticism and angst of the Y2K punk-pop scene that had inspired my determination to get into the industry in the first place, which made me better at my job. He never cared about what was going on in my life… when we were together it was just us owning the night. I would run to him every time there was some devastation… failures and breakups and fallings out. He’d sit across from me, unconcerned, as I told him what happened. No matter the outcome or how I justified my pain, his response was always the same: “You’re Haley.” He saw me as unshakable even when I was the most shaken.

Now we’ve gone our separate ways, but will occasionally check in or exchange songs that remind us of who we are to one another. And if I’m ever completely fucking lost, its his words that echo through my mind and bring me back home to myself. “You’re Haley.”

THE UNREQUITED LOVE. My memories of this person happen in quick cuts. A silhouette on the beach. Driving with the windows down. Tumblers of whiskey. Streaking beneath the Hollywood sign on my 27th birthday. Fresh tattoos. Standing on a busy street corner in the middle of the night yelling, “WHY DON’T YOU LOVE ME??!” He was the picture of masculine southern charm and I, California crazy/sexy/cool (or so I hoped). We were both at the top of our game for our age. He was the first person to flip out over my writing and I loved to impress him. I wanted him. I was mad at him. He loved me. But not in the same way. Eventually I accepted this fact, and we became each others no-questions-asked support system through big moves and career changes and INSANE dating stories. He’s still the person I turn to when I don’t know wtf I’m doing with men and forget that I myself am powerful. He’s still a big champion of my writing and my career, and one of my favorite people.

THE FRIEND WITH BENEFITS. I met him when I was out at a club one night with a guy who was a “friend” who liked to lead me on and then tell me pointedly that he wasn’t interested. There was a bespectacled boy at a table wearing a well-tailored blazer over a vibrant purple and white checked shirt that caught my eye. “I like your shirt.” A lazy greeting, for sure. “I like your everything.” A better response. I left with his number in my phone, and from the minute I got in the cab it was a rapid fire text exchange that lasted into the night and then for the next three years that we spent as a couple (although he only referred to me as his girlfriend three times; once for every year). I should have left long before I did, but we genuinely enjoyed each other’s company. I never stopped laughing. Except for when I was crying hysterically in the floor of his closet. I don’t know why that was my go-to cry spot. Maybe being among his clothes, including the shirt that first drew me in, helped ease the pain of knowing it was only a matter of time before I’d have to give up my friend. When it finally did, I replaced him with a cat named Perseus with the most ridiculous face I’ve ever seen. Worked like a charm.

THE TWIN FLAME. When I saw him I knew. It was in a very sceney bar, ironically named The Nice Guy, as it was notoriously filled to the brim with young, hot, douchebags. But there was one prince among them, and when he saw me he knew. The concept of the Twin Flame is one I’ve rejected in the past because… well, it seemed stupid. The idea that there are soul mates, but then there are also super soulmates that are even more elusive and exclusive, and even IF you find them- don’t get excited because you probably won’t make it out alive in this lifetime. It’s an extremely intense relationship that changes the course of your life and challenges every fiber of your being, thereby forcing you onto a deeply spiritual path because you’re constantly spinning the fuck out. It’s worth noting that this also happens to be a pretty accurate description of love addiction, but that’s a whole other conversation. We instantly loved each other with such terrifying ferocity that we both became saboteurs of our own happiness. We complemented each other well- he was all safety and I was all risk, and if we could just meet in the middle everything would be perfect. But that was the thing. We fought for and against each other in equal parts, and every word, every deed, every belief, every action, seemed to elicit insanity for one or both parties. He was more focused on the outer world, building his career and maintaining familial obligations, and I was more focused on the ethereal. It was surreal to be in a committed relationship that checked every box and housed so much love, and yet feel such intense discord most of the time. I questioned absolutely everything from myself to god to the very nature of reality. I became intensely depressed- every ounce of my darkness rested just beneath the surface of my existence, and all of it somehow centered around him. And because of that fact, he is my greatest teacher. I know we will do this again in the next lifetime, as we have done it before, and hopefully next time we will have both learned how to love each other and ourselves enough that our connection brings us peace instead of war.

THE HERO. I met him in high school while I was in the throes of a horribly toxic and abusive relationship. I was in over my head and suffered in silence. We only spoke once IRL, when he came to see me perform the national anthem at the local mall- a contest I lost to a five year old (I was robbed.) He was quiet. A bit of a misfit… but had the most piercing blue eyes and a strong and beautiful heart. We spent hours after school each day chatting on AIM. He was the only one I told about the painful experiences I was having. He gently encouraged me and let me know that I deserved better. It was free and easy, unconditional love.

THE MANIC PIXIE DREAM BOY. This man breezed into my life with hearts in his eyes and a smile on his face, casually dropping love bombs all around me until we were the only two people left in the universe, and all I could see through the rubble was him. A beacon of hope. I had just decided to wall myself off from sex and love- a detox from all the chemicals I had been mainlining for years on end that had left me strung out and broken with plenty of collateral damage- and then there was him. It was easy to resist at first. But over the course of the six days we spent orbiting each other, I started to feel myself lighten in his presence. With each interaction, I felt myself becoming more free and open. It was like coming back to myself after being away for too long. I had so many rules for my own behavior (most of which belonged to former partners) and he had none, except to have no rules and to have. fucking. FUN. One after another, my rules fell away and it was like a giant celebration each time I said yes instead of no. There were moments with him that I felt more at ease than I had been in a long time… no anxiety or fear about the future. Total presence. There was no other choice. He was a moving target that pulled all my focus.

In the end he left me with a massive hangover, literally and figuratively. But I wouldn’t have had it any other way. When we parted ways, there was talk of seeing each other again, and we would but I knew it would never be the same. Like all manic pixies, he did his one job of pulling me out of my neuroses and heartbreaks, shaking the foundation of my life before I even knew what the fuck was happening. Then, he released me back into the world to recalibrate. And that’s the rub with people like him. Just when you think you can’t live without them, you are forced to. And you’ll look back wistfully on the time your life was lit on fire by a human sparkler.

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Thank you to all my men, my muses, who continue to inspire and enlighten me.