A little story about candy, partnership, and how love is a VERB.
Hey friend,
I’ve talked before about how challenging and triggering I find partnership, and about some of the incredibly intense work I’ve had to do in therapy since meeting my fiance Drew, and realizing… oh shit, my old patterns aren’t going to work here.
I’ve always been baffled by people who love being in relationships, and who talk about how being in love “brings out the best in them,” because my own experience couldn’t be more opposite.
I think falling in love brings out the best in me, but being in love, and navigating life together? Historically, that has always brought out the absolute worst in me, and I’m only recently starting to scratch the surface of why that is, and learning how to change it.
If I’m being honest, some days I feel amazingly hopeful, inspired, and excited by the work I’m doing in therapy, and what Drew and I are building together… but other days I still get down on myself for struggling so much, and wish I could just be “normal.”
I wish I could be the kind of person who moves through the world with “I’m so grateful I get to do life with my best friend” energy, instead of “I can intellectually appreciate that I’m lucky, but right now my best friend is in the other room laughing too hard at a video, and I want to throw things at his head.”
I wish I could be the kind of person who says things like “my partner is my hero!” and means it, instead of being the kind who’s like “why is my partner always standing in front of the exact drawer I need to open?”
Tragically though, I’m far more often the second one.
I’m telling you all this because today I actually have a really beautiful partnership story to share, and I want to place it into context— I love Drew so goddamn much, but our relationship is far from being all romantic sunshine and rainbows.
The other night, however, I was trying to sort out a complex billing issue for a client, and struggling to wrap my head around the math.
I am very good at many things, but math is not one of them, and never has been. I was getting overwhelmed trying to keep track of the numbers, and starting to have flashbacks to the panic attacks I used to have in high school, when I couldn’t get my brain to make sense of my math homework.
I told Drew, who was on the couch next to me, that I needed help figuring out the problem.
I honestly didn’t think he’d be able to really do anything, but I figured maybe talking it out would help, so I started reading out the different dates and amounts that weren’t adding up. He took some notes and asked some questions while I talked, then sat up with a smile on his face, and grabbed the bag of Starburst candies that were sitting nearby.
“Here,” he said, “let me show you what happened so you can see it.”
Then he proceeded to assign each Starburst color a different monetary amount, and walked me through each month’s payment, stacking them up when needed and rearranging them to show me where the issue was. I could literally feel my prefrontal cortex coming back online as he spoke; the air came back into my lungs, my body relaxed, and the world around me came back into focus.
He wasn’t being patronizing, or condescending, and there wasn’t a trace of frustration, impatience, or irritation in his voice or body language. In fact, he seemed genuinely excited to help me understand, and he showed me the confusing part multiple times until I got it.
This moment honestly blew me away.
I had been sitting there feeling like a stupid failure who can’t figure out their math homework, and he managed to make me feel safe, empowered, and cared for. He didn’t do the things many guys I’ve dated in the past would have done, like talking down to me, treating me like an idiot, or getting annoyed/acting insulted that I didn’t understand their brilliant explanation.
In that moment, Drew was demonstrating some of his best qualities– patience, creativity, humility, generosity, and a genuine love of collaboration– but it was also a demonstration of how love is a verb.
Drew could have just told me the answer, but instead he took the time to show me that he truly sees and knows me– that I need to understand things myself, that I can’t make sense of things when I’m dysregulated, and that I struggle with spatial visualization.
You see, despite the fact that Drew clearly understood the problem immediately, and could visualize it all in his head, he knew that I couldn’t. He told me later that he thinks maybe I struggle with math for the same reason I struggle with spatial reasoning: that I can’t accurately picture it in my head.
So he chose to treat me like an intelligent person who was simply lacking the necessary visual information, and just… found a way to give it to me. Warmly, calmly, and with a playful spirit.
And it was magic.
Now, I realize that this story might sound silly to someone else, but as someone who was often accused of “refusing to understand” math as a kid (and who absolutely loses my shit whenever a man talks down to me) this moment was incredibly healing for me. I was glad to finally understand the problem, and went back to work for a bit to finish the task, but in that moment I can say—without any irony or eye rolling—that Drew was my hero, and that I’m so lucky to get to do life with my best friend.
That’s it for today, sending you a big hug!
Jessi
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