Happy Accidents

It’s so unfair to judge someone for not being at the same place you were during that stage of your life. People move differently. What’s right for you might not be right for me. I wish I’d known that sooner.

I’d just graduated high school in May of 2019, and I had no clue of what I wanted to do with my life. I was an artist. I liked to act. I was a pretty good writer. I knew I wanted to do something creative, but my father had convinced me there was no point in pursuing anything artistic. When I was thirteen, he told me that if I decided to pursue art that I could, “Have fun with an easel under a bridge.” How ignorant. And how silly I was to believe him.

Eighteen, fresh out of high school with a passion for art with no faith in my ability to do so professionally. I decided I’d look into being a psychiatrist. It paid decently. It wasn’t an art career, but hey, I’d been through the psychotherapy ringer for years and I figured the least I could do was give back to other adolescents strugglingg with their mental health, feeling alone and miserable with whatever diagnosis they just got handed and didn’t ask for.

I was working at Walmart while I mulled it over. It was the first job I’d ever had. I was miserable there. The people sucked, the customers sucked worse, and the job was the most boring shit I’d ever done in my life. I was a self check out host, which basically meant I stood on my feet all day, guarding the scan and go area, waiting for someone to miscan something or buy a pack of beer so I could go over, scan my wrinkled barcode and get rid of whatever annoying message was on their screen. I spent a lot of time waiting at that job. I spent a lot of time waiting in general.

I hadn’t dated much in high school, but I did after. I had several flings (thanks Tinder), I got back together with my ex-girlfriend from my Freshman year for a little while, dated some right-wing MAGA asshole that stood against everything I believed in and shoved down any respect I had for myself. I sowed my oats with whatever reasonably attractive man or woman showed interest in me, fell in love with someone who didn’t. That was rough. It’s a miracle we still talk.

Fall arrived, and while I had applied to a few schools, got a scholarship to Hofstra, I still hadn’t enrolled. I didn’t want to. It all seemed so overwhelming, I had to pick a career, now? I had to pick how I was going to support myself, possibly my family, for the rest of my life, now? How could I be sure of that now? I’m bipolar and I have OCD, I change my third hobby every hour, and a new thing freaks me out each day.

But things got more overwhelming in October. I wish my dad could just learn to control himself.

I couldn’t find a notebook for a personal project I was working on that was mildly important to me at the time, and boy was I frustrated by it. I’d looked everywhere. All the cars, upstairs, downstairs, all over my room, in my purses, old backpacks.

 My dad is a vet, and he has the PTSD to show for it. 

He got angry at me for pacing around the house in search for my precious notebook, and while defending my right to be annoyed at misplacing something, he slammed me against the counter, grabbed my arms in his wide, powerful hands, and screamed down at me that he was about to show me what crazy looked like. I’ve always been short, but I’ve never felt that small in my entire life. 

My mom intervened before anything else could happen. We made plans to save up for an apartment together that night.

This meant I had to keep working. I had to get my own car and fast, and I applied to UCCS the next year, after my nineteenth birthday, and got accepted. As a psychology major. Spoiler alert, I didn’t end up going. 

It also had occurred to me at the time that I was lacking in friends. Everyone I worked with was significantly older than me. Not old, you know, not elderly, just moms, with families, not looking to make buddies with a chubby little nineteen year old. 

So, I downloaded Tinder again, for friends. I know it’s a horny app, but I didn’t mind that because I was nineteen. I wanted more LGBT friends. The only other queer person I knew personally was my ex-girlfriend who I didn’t talk to anymore, which is why I swiped right on Harper May.

She was a lesbian. She was trans. She was twenty three. She dressed punk and made cool art. Her profile looked cool. Then, I met her. We decided on a coffee shop. She wore the same painted denim jacket I steal to go smoke a bowl on our porch when it’s cold. She was cute, with her small pointed nose, creamy skin, and small glasses. I couldn’t tell what she thought of me, in all my mixed girl plumpness, I was still straightening my hair at the time because I was ashamed of my curls, still so concerned with looking less Black. I really shouldn’t have dated that racist Republican guy.

When she opened her mouth, out poured life, and intelligence, and passion. She was loud. And unashamed of it. I really liked that. I was usually a quiet person, but I never had to be around her. No matter what she’d always be louder than me, and I found that comforting and attractive. I didn’t know it though. At the time this was still just a prospective friend, a connection with someone who also happened to be LGBT. And then she noticed the hickey on my neck from someone I’d been with the night before. 

“Is that a hickey on your neck?” 

I blushed deeply and bit my lip, “Uh, yeah.”

The next time we saw each other, I was a mess. I’d come straight after work, with my hair in a messy bun. She made us dinner, while jazz played from the record player of her parent’s home. They were away for the weekend. Maybe I was stupid, or tired from work, but when she asked me, “So is this like, a date?” I was completely caught off guard.

I was biting into the most delicious coffee cake I’d ever had when she asked, and I fumbled to answer, “No, I thought we were just hanging out, sorry.”

The night was a little more awkward after that. I flirted without knowing it, left before 10:00 pm, and texted her that night saying that I was nervous about dating her because I’d just been looking for friends. I didn’t even know if I was in a good place to be dating, with everything that had happened at home. My parents were separating, I was moving out with my mom, I was still trying to go to school, but I had no idea how I was going to do it while I had to work full time. Maybe that’s why I fell in love with her so easily. She was someone I could count on, not another thing I had to figure out.

I had been in love before. I used to think my ex-girlfriend was my soulmate, and the time it took me to overcome the unrequited love I had for my best friend was too long. I’m so glad he forgave me. It’s a hard place to be, telling someone you care about that all you can offer them is friendship when they want more.

This was different though. This hit me like a freight train and I was scared at how fast I was falling. Harper and I spent every waking moment thinking of each other, texting when we couldn’t hang out. When social distancing kicked in, she baked me cookies and attached notes covered in gooey batter cheering me on for being an essential worker. 

Eight months after we met, I asked her to marry me in the garden downtown. She said yes. And when my mom and dad separated and we got an apartment, she moved in with me. A little over a year after that we were married, and packing ten grand her grandfather had left behind for her.

I was twenty one and I had no plans for going to college. But I had a loving wife who wanted me to succeed. So, she encouraged me. I applied at UC Denver. I got accepted. We found an apartment in Lakewood the week before classes started and now she’s working full time to support us while I get my degree in Illustration, not psychology or any other bullshit my dad would’ve preferred. I’m happy. I’m free. 

I have never felt more sure about a person than I have Harper. She is my constant, and if I had done things differently, if I had gone to school at eighteen for psychology, maybe moved to New York to go to Hofstra, who knows how things would’ve worked out.

Instead I waited, I fell in love. I got married, I reconnected with my best friend just as friends, and was okay with that, and I am happier than I’ve ever been. I’m a first year college student, and I haven’t been to school in a few years, but I’m here. I’m fostering my creativity and becoming a stronger, more sophisticated artist, investing time into something I’m passionate about. 

It’s okay to take time to find yourself. I feel like that’s not a lesson a lot of people teach. I’m in such a better position as a twenty-one year-old freshman than I, personally, would’ve been at eighteen. I know that’s not true for everyone. But my point is, it’s okay that life works out unexpectedly sometimes. Sometimes your abusive dad makes one more toxic performance, and you have to help support your mother. Sometimes you find love without trying. And that’s okay. It’s okay to deviate from the expected, it’s okay to make choices for yourself. Don’t let your parents tell you what you want to do isn’t worth doing. Part of growing up is learning your parents aren’t always right. Sometimes they’re assholes like everyone else. And sometimes, the lessons you gain from making mistakes, and putting things off are worth learning. Just because things don’t work out the way we originally intended doesn’t mean they won’t ever work out at all. Sometimes, we just have to learn how to incorporate the happy accidents life hands us in a way that make us happy. And not worry about what others will think of us for it.