#WorldMentalHealthDay /  by Callie Chute

A memory prompt written for “Creative Clusterfuck,” a memoir-focused writing seminar taught by the legendary Molly Guy.

I force myself to be happy a few hours a week. I know that if I only have to put on a brave face within these set parameters, that it’s much easier to do. My breakdown is this: 1-2 hours to record my podcast, then I get to go back to my solitude and can edit in my lonesome. 3 hours for my improv class to reach my maximum star potential and also for the purpose of being around other bodies. And a few extra hours give or take for the plans I make asking random people to get lunch or dinner or happy hour but never anything more. I’m never invited anywhere by “real” “friends” and I spend most nights laying in my bed in the dark with my window open while my neighbors below clink beers in a backyard illuminated by string lights while grilling and listening to Bon Iver.

I call my mom a dozen times a day because I realize I haven’t spoken to anyone. She knows what I’ve ate, watched, thought, that I really like this matching corduroy set for fall and I might actually order it today, I’m thinking about bleaching my hair again, I’d really like to have an intimate wedding because I dont know who I’ll even invite to those “big moments” in my life, I’m worried Will is depressed too, should I have boxed mac and cheese for the third time this week, no I haven’t taken my dress for my cousin’s wedding to the tailor yet I know I need to please stop reminding me every time we talk because we just talked an hour ago and I still hadn’t then, no I don’t want to go for a run even though I begged you to buy me new sneakers because I convinced you exercising would make me less sad and at the time I believed it.

Hardly Coping /  by Callie Chute

A memory prompt written for “Creative Clusterfuck,” a memoir-focused writing seminar taught by the legendary Molly Guy.

When my first boyfriend broke up with me at 15 I genuinely thought I was dying. We went to California Pizza Kitchen after school, I paid, then as he drove me home he casually said, “I’m not sure this is working out since I’m graduating and going to college,” the same way one would recap an episode of a tv show or acknowledge the weather. I screamed and asked why. He didn’t have an answer. I insisted I couldn’t be home alone so he took me to my dad’s office 10 minutes away. I continued to wail and kick my feet on his dashboard in a physical response to the confusion like someone who had just been delivered the most horrific news of their life instead of realizing the impracticality of the situation- he was years older, moving hundreds of miles away, and in the closet.

My dad greeted us in the parking lot. He was partially embarrassed we brought this to his place of work yet also approached with the grounding ease of a helpless father. I was awake all night, on my hands and knees, throwing up in my bathroom and replaying the entire 1.5 year relationship on loop in my head, audibly asking more ambiguous questions. At 3 a.m. my mom came in and yelled “ENOUGH” and turned off the lights. She drove me to school the next morning in silence so I could take my French final before summer break. Madame noticed my swollen eyes and puffy cheeks. Every capillary on my face had burst. My feet drug below me. This was a drastic shift from my usual tardiness to her class, sarcastically yelling “bonjour” as I entered, enunciating every letter, and getting in trouble for talking during her lessons. I cried the entire test, distracting my classmates from my isolated desk at the front of the room. I was awarded a pity 100% even though I left multiple answers blank since the vocabulary I’d studied all year escaped me in the last 24 hours. That summer I stopped eating, lost 30 pounds, and was hospitalized 3 times for malnutrition. The only person I spoke to was a therapist named Barbara who charged $250 an hour to filter through my every dark thought. My dad left her checks on the counter every morning and we never spoke of it, any of it, not even once.

“Your thoughts on disorder…” /  by Callie Chute

A memory prompt written for “Creative Clusterfuck,” a memoir-focused writing seminar taught by the legendary Molly Guy.

Anxiety and depression aren’t palpable like cancer where you can see a tumor from an x-ray or low white blood cell counts. And everyone’s relationship with mental health varies with levels of intensity, creating holes in the story. Even when I hear others discuss their intimate walks with this confusing mindfuck, I am skeptical of how to respond because there’s nothing you can say to solve the problem, there are only thousands of dollars’ worth of therapy sessions where we’re taught to retrain our mind to look at certain situations differently.

“Just relax.” That’s my parents’ response when I get worked up about something. It makes it worse when I try to reason with them about why I feel the way I do. “You’re fine.” That’s a saying I hate even more. By whose standards am I “fine”? Whenever I have a panic attack that’s the best they can come up with. “Stop crying.” “Take a few deep breaths.” “Go for a walk.” “Drink a glass of water.” Or, “Where’s Will?”, my angel of an emotional support dog. But he can’t solve all of my problems by placing his paw on my knee therefore he can’t solve all of my parents’ problems either.

I am seen as being too ‘emotional’ or ‘dramatic’ instead of “my brain is wired this way so I can’t control my reactions to certain situations and you may not understand and it fucking sucks that I can’t breathe and I feel out of control right now so could I just have a second to myself.”

I’m ugly crying on my bed in my parents’ house in the room I grew up in. It’s watched over me since before I could walk. Through the nightmares, the insomnia, the passing through of good friends and bad, and enough tears to fill a swimming pool. I try to muffle my sobs into a pillow and bury my nose on the inside of my t-shirt as a tissue, clearing it with one quick swipe. My mother no longer respects my door being closed; I usually have to keep it open because she’s worried my depression will get the best of me. If there’s a knock, I know it’s my dad because he will do anything to avoid “accidentally” “walking in on me” changing post puberty.

My mom saunters in demanding I stop crying. Her methods are beyond flawed and clearly not thought through. If it were that easy would I be crying? I have given her various tools via the internet to cope with this disease of mine. Flow charts that have one column that says, “what you say” with an arrow point to a second column that says, “what you should say.” For example, her “stop crying” would roughly translate in the second column to “I see you’re upset and that is totally valid.” I suppose it’s a generational thing that the discussion around mental health isn’t that taboo now, but when are we going to stop giving adults that excuse and hold them accountable for racial slurs, distrusting gay people, and wanting to “build that wall.”

When she forgets her script or lets her own emotions get the best of her, it’s into my dad’s RAV4 I go and to the psych ward for the night is where I stay. The nursing staff is always very nice there, taking turns babysitting me and distracting me with conversation around my favorite movies or *insert any other random hobby here’s. I honestly think it’s a total waste of time and money being there because odds are I’d eventually calm down on my own, but it puts my parents at ease because during those 24 hour holding periods they aren’t the only ones accountable for my wellbeing.

“Your definition of paradise…” /  by Callie Chute

A memory prompt written for “Creative Clusterfuck,” a memoir-focused writing seminar taught by the legendary Molly Guy.

When I was in the seventh grade my mom made me get acupuncture a few times a week to help alleviate my anxiety. She tried every natural remedy possible in the hopes that afterwards she could say, “See? It wasn’t as bad as we thought.” I have also done yoga, various paleo and vegan diets, and introduced certain scents and natural vitamins into my daily life. One time she even wanted me to meet an old Chinese man who didn’t speak a word of English but specialized in ‘ancient medicines’ and after looking at me he would just know exactly how to treat me. If I were to go through with it, he’d lull me to sleep, wave his essentially-oiled hands over me to inhale, and after 45 minutes, ask my mother for a few hundred dollars. That option was a last resort.

I met with Ms. Taffy in her small, dimly lit office that could only fit a stiff, raised board covered in a sheet I laid on. Calling it a bed would be generous. It was like what you sat on at the doctor’s office for the type of checkups where they turned off the lights and made your eyes follow an object in the dark or used a weird pointed tool to tap your knees until you twitched. She played music that sounded like rivers flowing through cavernous mountains, so high up that there were also whipping winds and very few animals to benefit from the land’s abundance. During my first visit with her she told me to ‘go to my happy place’ to ease my mind and make the needle’s insertion less harsh. It was a saying I thought was a joke because the only other time I heard it was in Happy Gilmore when Happy couldn’t focus on putting his golf ball into the hole to win prize money to get his grandma out of her nursing home. I always watched movies that were much too inappropriate for a six year old because I had an older brother and hippy parents who ‘cool’ and ‘not like other parents.’

Ms. Taffy explained an alternate definition that didn’t have half naked women serving piña coladas. “Imagine a place where you feel completely relaxed. I want you to imagine it in vivid detail. What sounds do you hear? What does it smell like? Is there anyone else around?” My mind landed on a foggy lake with a singular chair waiting at the end of a personal, backyard dock. The sky wasn’t clear enough to see across the water or to make out the shapes of the houses on either side of me. I had a very fond memory of visiting a lake house when I was younger, but I couldn’t remember if it was real or in a dream. It was dark the day I went, like a storm was about to pass through. The house was planted in the middle of the woods with a winding, pebble driveway. It wasn’t a commercial lake with big boats going by and kids being flung on tubes behind them, or college kids partying at a distant relative’s cozy nook.

My ‘happy place’ was eerie, a characteristic that would generally scare me if I were wandering alone at night. Yet, all I wanted was to be alone where no one could find me. Sitting out on that lake I was void of any unwanted interactions from my family, friends, teachers, or coaches. It was the only place my mind was quiet. And it was fictional.

“A celebrity encounter…” /  by Callie Chute

A memory prompt written for “Creative Clusterfuck,” a memoir-focused writing seminar taught by the legendary Molly Guy.

Before college I naively thought I had to isolate one thing to do for the rest of my life as if we had to arrive on campus with a major in mind then a game plan of how to execute it. Mine was to become the next Giuliana Rancic from E! News. I literally wrote my college essay about her being a woman I admired. And why may you ask? Because she was rubbing elbows with celebrities. For as long as I can remember I’ve been a pop culture junkie so it just made sense to me. I envisioned a fantasy world where I vacationed with Julia Roberts and paparazzi followed me around and I went to lavish parties in the hills hosted by Leonardo. My dad only perpetuated the obsession because he was the same way. Whenever he wanted to gossip he’d speak lower like they were going to hear us and say, “did you hear what happened last week on Kardashians?”

I interned at The Oscars my freshman year in college (weird flex, I know) and thought it was going to be like looking into a crystal ball for my future. I saw Giuliana and was completely underwhelmed. She was frantically going over her notes (that an intern probably researched and typed up for her) and was anxiously reliant on a teleprompter. It was all a gimmick. She didn’t know jack shit about who was stepping up next to tell her who they were wearing. I could have done her job for her because I dedicated my free time to remembering useless cinematic statistics like it was a sport. This was THE OSCARS, you better bring your A-game. I knew the nominees, the films, the scores, and the dates on their arms.

I was whispering the names of each person who exited their limos to my Associated Press producers. I was close enough to smell Bradley Cooper’s breath and all I thought was, “you look so old in person.” I was in shock, waiting for this big thing to happen to me, waiting for my life to change after seeing everyone I’d grown up watching on TV. That shock didn’t turn to disappointment until my plane ride back to miserable upstate New York when I realized I may never be on that red carpet again because I didn’t want to be her anymore. I was more than a floating head whose only talent is an ability to read moving words, paint on a fake smile, wave and say, “I just LOVED you in American Sniper, Bradley!”

“You didn’t know how to do something everyone else was doing…” /  by Callie Chute

A memory prompt written for “Creative Clusterfuck,” a memoir-focused writing seminar taught by the legendary Molly Guy.

I’ve always been a late bloomer. Not in the hormonal, physical developmental department because I swear I had boobs in the fifth grade. Although, I didn’t get my braces off until my junior year in high school which I’m still salty about. I mean it in the sense that I could never do what everyone else was doing; I couldn’t stomach my anxiety to misbehave.

In middle school my friends were kissing boys, some even tried drinking and smoking, and I was too scared to break a single rule. It was too much weight to bear breaking the law then having to lie to my parents about it too. Some labeled me as a ‘goody-goody’ for going to swim practice, doing my homework, doing what I was told. One time I made out with a boy in a movie theater at the end of seventh grade and that was the talk of the town. Did you hear what she did? With him, who had practically made out with everyone. He was irresistible so it makes sense how I fell into the trap. But it didn’t progress past that because I couldn’t justify putting so much time into a relationship at age twelve. I was scared, like it meant I was growing up too fast. Instead, I kept my crushes from afar but at least I got kissing out of the way.

Freshman year in high school I started losing friends. People were moving on without me and I was smitten watching movies with my older boyfriend who turned out to be gay, so it makes sense why he wasn’t the ‘typical high school guy’ who was getting black out drunk and cheating on me with girls his own age, but watching musical theater and baking with me instead. So, when my friend gave me an ultimatum that if I hung out with her, I had to drink, I caved. She and her older brother picked me up from my house and I was able to sneak past my dad out the door. She was in the driver’s seat without a license because Matt was already drunk. We got to the other house and they poured shots. I didn’t want to take them and was hoping they wouldn’t make me follow through on the deal, but they did. One turned to four and I was quite literally the drunkest girl at the party. The host was pissed that I was talking so loudly and was afraid her parents would hear, so I got kicked out after 30 minutes. On the way home it hit me I’d have to walk back past my dad before going to bed. He knew I was drunk but didn’t say anything. That guilt sat with me for the next week while he drove me to and from swim practice in complete silence.

Sex was the next hurdle. Everyone was doing it. Obviously, I didn’t have sex with my gay boyfriend because he made up excuses to avoid it, and I was fine playing along. I did not want anything of his inside of me either. So, at 16 I forced myself to lose it in the backseat of a car to a boy I’d had a crush on since elementary school because he was cute and I wanted to get it over with. Then, it was no big deal. I started having sex like it was my job.

College was when I actually realized I wasn’t as good at pretending as everyone else. I acted like I was excited to graduate high school because I thought I could escape all of the insecurities of living in a small town: worrying about who I’d see at the grocery store, what rumor would surface about me at school that week, the expectations of my parents, living in my brother’s shadow. My parents spent a weekend moving me in to my dorm then they were on their way. I practically pushed them out the door. I ran back upstairs and was ready to party and meet new people. When classes started it was a total breeze. I had a 3.8 GPA that first semester. I liked my new swim team. I liked my hall mates. But after a few weeks I thought, “is this it?” I had made some friends, but they didn’t feel like real friends, and I missed home. A lot. This never got easier and everyone else seemed like they were having the times of their lives. I drove home right after my college graduation ceremony while my classmates woke up early to get drunk before and continued to after, vowing to “always stay close.”

Now, I’m an ‘adult.’ This is what I wished for since I was little girl crying in my room whenever I got upset about unfair circumstances. Truth is, I’m still confused as fuck. I have no idea how I’m able to keep both my dog and myself alive on a daily basis with no parental guidance. I grocery shop, I apply to jobs, I go out for drinks with friends, I am by definition an ‘adult’ but technically I’ve been one of those for four years now since I turned 18, and only now am I beginning to catching up.

“A date that went horribly wrong…” /  by Callie Chute

A memory prompt written for “Creative Clusterfuck,” a memoir-focused writing seminar taught by the legendary Molly Guy.

Two dates come to mind. One was truly horrendous. But the one that makes me the most upset is one that went well and nothing came from it.

His name was Sam. He was a year younger than me in high school. He hung out with music people, but he wasn’t in the marching band. He played guitar and sang and was sexy. I saw him perform at a school-related benefit and my jaw was on the floor. I remember thinking “how do people like that exist at this school and I didn’t know about it.” It was a month or two before graduating so I was filled with regret from not making a move earlier and was confused about how different my high school experience could have been if I was ‘in’ with that crowd. They were the people who didn’t care what other people thought because they were too mature hanging out in coffee shops, discovering new indie music, and sneaking beers in their basements.

A few days later, I was walking down the hallway with Olivia, a girl I went to elementary school with. She was also a musical person. We passed Sam and he yelled “WHATS UP OLIVIA.” I gawked. “You know him?!” “Yeah, I love Sam!” I had to shoot my shot, so I told her I was in love with him. In. Love. Within the hour he texted me “Hey this is Sam.” Music people truly give no fucks. Then he asked me to get frozen yogurt that night.

We met in the parking lot of Red Mango. I was nervous mostly because I had never actually spoken to him in person. Does he know who I am? Will he be disappointed that I’m not someone else when he pulls up? He arrived in a rusty, old minivan a few minutes after I did. When he approached me, he seemed excited and that calmed me down. He bought my yogurt and I took a bite every five minutes because I didn’t want it to end. He was seemingly mature and took genuine interest in my answers to the questions he asked me. When I finished my bowl, we walked out together. He said he had to go to Michael’s to pick up art supplies for his mom or sister or something. I forced myself into going with him because it was only a few minutes away. After that stop I thought “what’s next should we just keep this going all night?!” He drove me back to my car in the parking lot and there was a moment of silence before we said our goodbyes. I think both of us were waiting to see what the other would do. I was smitten. I wanted him to kiss me. I wanted him to ask me out again. Or ask me to marry him because in that moment I would have. None of those scenarios played out and I believe he just put his hand on my knee and said he “had fun.”

We ran into each other less than a year later while I was home for winter break during my first year in college. We were at a mutual friend’s house and I got way too drunk for the occasion since it was only about ten people hanging out watching TV. He was with his girlfriend, whom I guess he started dating shortly after our fling. He was shocked to see me there, as was I to see him. I told him I had so much fun on our singular date and that I was sad he never called. Again this was literally so inappropriate for the setting and his girlfriend was feet away. His was stunned.v“I thought you didn’t like me. Wow I really blew that one.” I could see the disappointment on his face and I guess his girlfriend could too because she moved closer and said, “whatcha talking about?”

“The last time I felt pure joy was…” /  by Callie Chute

A memory prompt written for “Creative Clusterfuck,” a memoir-focused writing seminar taught by the legendary Molly Guy.

When I fantasize about what my life could look like I feel completely calm for a split second. I imagine waking up in Malibu and walking out onto my porch that surrounds the entire house which looks over a private beach. My neighbors are Ellen DeGeneres and Emma Stone, respectively. Every morning I’ll look out onto the ocean while my husband, Timothée Chalamet, watches me from bed. He speaks French to me and our little babies who look just like him and we vacation dans le sud du France chaque année. His parents love me as if I’m their own and I don’t feel dependent on my family anymore because I’m an adult and I’ve created a beautiful life of my own.

Time is balanced healthily between work and being together. From time to time, Timothée will surprise me with a private jet to Bali and I’ll be all “Babe, I’m so surprised! I thought you were filming a movie in North Dakota” then he’ll say, “We wrapped early and I missed you so much, I couldn’t even remember my lines.” That movie will win an Oscar the following year and cameras will swarm me while I strike perfect poses on the red carpet in a pink tulle gown made by Giambattista Valli that looks eerily similar to the one Kacey Musgraves wore to the event this year. During the show they’ll pan to me, making every viewer jealous of how stunning I look and that I get to go home with sweet Timothée every night. And we’ll actually go home together. It won’t be one of those Hollywood romances like Brad ditching Angelina at the end of the night and everyone whispering about how their marriage has been falling apart for years. No, not us. We have zero arguments and will die together holding hands! Just as in love as our wedding day!

“You saw a picture of yourself. You thought ‘I cannot believe that is me.’” /  by Callie Chute

A memory prompt written for Dirt + Diamonds, a creative non-fiction writing class taught by the legendary Molly Guy.

My mom insisted that I got my senior photos taken the summer before my senior year. I couldn’t just wait for school to start and roam the halls instead, returning to my classroom just before the bell rang, insisting to my teacher that there was a really long line to have pictures taken because everyone else was just dying to strike unnatural poses and I am simply polite.

She made the appointment months in advance and gave me little reminders almost hourly until the day came. I woke up early to straighten my hair, do my makeup, and drive myself to my high school so I could wait my turn for hours in a windowless room. I had to awkwardly socialize with people I intended on avoiding those few months but who had the same task of pleasing their parents.

The photos came in the mail a few weeks later and thank god Julie approved so I didn’t have to retake them. I could not fathom wasting any more time wearing the top half of a fake chiffon graduation gown nor balancing a plastic rose on my shoulder. I looked presentable enough to be mailed across the country and grace refrigerators everywhere for years to come. Those photos gave my parents bragging rights to tell our family members that they’d done it, they didn’t raise a total fuck up. That their daughter would cross a stage in June and receive a piece of paper that wouldn’t even make it out of its little folder before going directly into the trash. She’d walk among classmates who would drop out of community college after less than a year to pursue their lifelong callings of selling weed to minors. My family would all attend the ceremony, pressing me about people I haven’t spoken to since elementary school. “What happened to Olivia? We saw her there today. Where is she going to school next year?” We’d take staged photos in the entryway of the auditorium, alternating who got to stand on either side of me, centering my diploma. Aren’t you proud?

Every time I come home I see her framed throughout multiple points in our house like I’m dead or something. My parents’ crowning achievement is that girl, suspended in a moment in time, but never the one right in front of them who forgot to get the oil changed on the way home or pick up the extra milk her father asked for. She was a disappointment.

The Air of Mystery Surrounding a New Girlfriend /  by Callie Chute

As seen on Medium.

In lieu of the heartbreaking news that is #Brangelina, I am forced to self-reflect. Between the Jennifer Anniston memes, rumors of child abuse, and suspicion of an affair, there is a deeper message: that someone was at fault. “If they couldn’t make it, no one can.” “All hope is lost #Brangelina.” Yet, a lot of subtext surrounding their divorce is central to something no one admits to: the man is never to blame. Sure, we all recognize this fact, but that isn’t enough for us to stop analyzing the flaws in other women. Women are pitted against each other because its easier to judge a stranger’s hair, clothes, or social media presence (you know, the important stuff), mirroring some error in humanity. It wasn’t until the other night that I saw the problem with playing into any #Brangelina conspiracies.

A few nights ago, my friend and I were FaceTiming and discussing one of my most obvious flaws: my drinking habits. I don’t drink too much or too often, I’m actually very aware of my actions when I drink. The problem is that I test other people’s limits and use intoxication as an excuse.

Hours after pounding a plastic water bottle full of tequila, I reflected on the day I’d had: who I talked to, the embarrassing things I said, and regrettably, the phone calls I made. I didn’t have to look in my phone history to remember calling my ex-boyfriend and when he hung up after one ring, my quick impulse to call him again. (Same response.) Of course he didn’t answer, he couldn’t even send an easy “Thank you!” text back to the obligatory happy birthday one I’d sent him weeks prior.

My friend and I laughed as I tried play out scenarios of what our drunken call would’ve been. “Hey how ya doin? Tell your new girlfriend I say hi if she’s around”?!? It was then that our conversation segued (for better or for worse) and I found myself scrolling through her Instagram (that my friend led me to because he’d already previewed it days before). He warned me that “She has this one picture of them making out and I think the caption is aimed at you. . .”

Let me preface this by saying I’ve never interacted with this girl, yet, I’m confident that my past has so heavily influenced her to the point where it seems her relationship is persuaded more out of competitive nature than compassion, as displayed by the entertainment they feed off of hoping a post gets back to me. For at least one moment in time, I was their intended audience, and now I am involved in a narrative I wish to have no part in.

I only let myself look at her page for a few minutes because nothing good can come from stalking the new girlfriend. Ever. They are dating, we are not, it’s been over for a while. But amidst this investigation my friend said, “I wonder what her voice sounds like.” And honestly, I wonder a lot of things about her because I bet we’re pretty similar. If she was a stranger sitting next to me on a bus ride I’m sure we would get along just fine. It’s so easy to find commonalities among tv shows, memes, and if all else fails, Gigi Hadid. I’m sure she puts way too much thought into what to wear too, loves to sing loudly in the car with her friends, fantasizes about pizza regularly, and holds her breath every time she’s in the presence of his mother. But, for some reason, she stands by a ̶m̶a̶n̶ ̶ boy who so clearly finds contentment putting down another girl, and even worse, through the manipulation of his own relationship. Whether she’s explicitly influenced or not, something has led her to look at my Instagram, feel a pit in her stomach turned to jealousy, anger, then rage, hold onto him tighter than ever before, and and react by posting more aggressive pictures of them. I know this because I was once that person (minus the vengeful captions).

My insecurities grew immensely after the first time we hooked up, which, regrettably, was the same night he broke up with his first girlfriend. I felt dirty and wanted nothing to do with someone who was so easily able to break a girl’s heart then turn around and quickly dispense himself onto another person. I spent months in a state of doubt, and even after he promised everything to me, I could never be sure. Now, my suspicions are only confirmed by his consistency in ignorance, then putting all his energy into a new relationship before dealing with his previous one. Now, in the confusing months since the break up, I am face-to-face with a world where he is unrecognizable and all I’m left with are memories that are discredited due to his lack of cooperation in mending a friendship.

I’ve scrapped dozens of blog posts that alluded to his preexisting charm in the early stages of our relationship (that I’m sure she’s experiencing now) because he does not, and never again will he, deserve such high praise. This is a fact I can attest to after months of going blonde and self-actualizing.

I know I can’t change the habits of an entire gender in one blog post, but it’s important to bring light to the fact that there is a driving force in this pettiness: girls downplay each other to numb their present jealousy, but we are all so much better than that. I have, regrettably, behaved similarly (as I’m sure most of us can admit to), and looking back, it’s embarrassing. There’s no need to tear down a complete stranger because she is dating your ex or was dating your current boyfriend. It’s a completely separate relationship, incomparable to your own. It doesn’t mean what you had wasn’t special, but it has nothing to do with the ‘other woman’ in the picture.

I Didn't Want to be #RelationshipGoals /  by Callie Chute

As seen on Medium.

I’ve spent a lot of time visualizing the idea for this blog, mapping out in my head how exactly I’d say what I’m feeling without coming off hateful, or vengeful. I tried to pinpoint Taylor Swift lyrics that would capture these feelings of being single and not caring, but also being sad because I got myself here. I thought that if I made a lyrical comparison it would make my stance seem softened, but truthfully, I don’t want it to be. I listen to playlists on Spotify called “Sad,” “Not Over You,” “Heartbreak” and I feel sad, but not because I am ‘without my other half.’ That implicates that being alone I am somehow not whole. I spend more than half my time alone and have grown so fond of my own company that I realized after long, thoughtful soul-searching that I don’t need no man to support me.

Freshman year of high school I fell madly in love with an older boy. Cliché, right? After two years together, I couldn’t see a future with anyone else, so it came as a major shock when he broke up with me before he left for college. My friends did anything to distract me and even changed my Facebook password so I wouldn’t be tempted to look him up. But it didn’t matter because everything made me think of him, even brushing my teeth, because he brushed his teeth.

Months later and 25 pounds lighter, I found myself having crushes again. I would get way too excited when a boy would text me and I would spend way too much time deciding what to wear to school in the morning for a head nod and the split-second it took for a boy to say “what’s up” in passing. I hardly ever thought about my ex anymore and we hadn’t talked since the breakup which, to a fifteen-year-old, was earth-shattering.

That winter, we bumped into each other at a swim meet and I hid in the bathroom until the coast was clear. I was right back to square one. Where was the new me? I had planned this moment for so long: if I ever saw him again (dramatic, I know) I would act like I was great, that I’d moved on, and that my life was way better without him. So why did the sight of another person cause me to shrink? Hint: because I was still way too invested. I still hoped that he would say he made a mistake, that we should be together. But what I should have done was be strong and realize then that he didn’t want anything to do with me so I shouldn’t care what he did at all.

When this majestic man broke up with me all I could think was “What now? My life is over.” I think I was so shaken up because without him I felt like I had nothing. I suffered from the classic first boyfriend syndrome. I became so pre-occupied with him that I let my friendships wilt. I still had a few friends, but nothing like before and the saddest thing was that I didn’t realize until I was all alone.

I never regretted the time we spent together, but I do regret the way I acted because those were precious, adolescent years that I will never get back. Everyone in my grade got to experience so many firsts together: their first parties, hook-ups, sneaking out, first run-ins with the cops, learning to drive; the good stuff. The stuff that makes you feel young and alive and that you only get to do once; the stuff you know you’ll ‘tell your kids about one day.’

It took so much time to rebuild friendships and it’s not because my former friends disliked me, but because they now had lives of their own, so I had to try 10 times harder to weasel my way back in. This consisted of getting blown off for plans a lot, because why hang out with me when they could hang out with their new friends who were reliable? I completely understood, I put myself in this awkward position. I still wasn’t getting invited to parties, no matter how much I put myself out there and tried to be relevant again, so that’s when I decided to focus on me: try a lot of new things and make some new friends. I did what I should’ve done a long time ago and, rather than feel sorry for myself, I took control. It was definitely a lesson I learned the hard way and I’m sorry it took me so long to get it right. It’s true though that your real friends will be there for you no matter what.

Now, it breaks my heart when I see friendships suffer from romantic relationships because you should be able to have both; it’s a balance. Or, in my case, it was more convenient to hang out with friends until curfew then sneak back out at 1 a.m. to meet boys because I would never miss a chance to hang out with a friend. Yet, I was also finally ‘getting noticed’ by boys again which I thought was sooooo cool. It was empowering after being dumped and not being able to pick myself off the kitchen floor from crying so hard, to hook up with a ton of cute guys and have the power to walk away and realize you didn’t want anything more. Or at least that’s how it seemed to me at the time.

Looking back, it wasn’t a healthy cycle. I’d meet up with a boy at night, then at school we’d act like it never happened, so I got to keep my life but also have something ‘purely physical.’ After years of this, I started wanting more. I was finally ready to have someone to go to the movies with and introduce to my parents, all that mushy stuff. Five years later. This time I was positive I’d do it differently: Friends first; check. Keep things light, have fun; check. Keep my sanity, error.

It was hard for me to trust that I had chosen the right person to be my next boyfriend, but he was beautiful, secretly funny, and the greatest friend a person could have. He came into my life at the perfect time, when I really needed someone, and he never left. If I wanted cake at one a.m., we would go get cake, or if I wanted to drive around until four a.m., we would do that too. I was allowed to just talk, and he’d listen. It was nice to have the focus on me, unlike in my previous relationship where I felt like I was always competing for attention.

I believe your true colors show when you are forced to make a big decision. There are always going to be pro’s and con’s, but ultimately, you have to do what’s best for you; you have to be selfish. In the face of fear, I cut ties with said ‘second boyfriend,’ because I panicked. I had this mentality that it was going to end at some point so why not now? Things were either really great, or we were pretending they were. We would talk about mindless stuff rather than talking about how we were both drowning in distance and schoolwork and unable to give our relationship the attention it deserved. It was harder than I remembered to take care of yourself and someone else and I swore I’d never let myself down again. I made a vow that I’d put myself first.

I was disconnected, and my mental health was suffering knowing I couldn’t be 100% perfect for someone else. I wanted to be hotter for him, I wanted to be the coolest girl to impress his friends, I didn’t want any other girls to look at him, etc. I was going crazy again. I knew I didn’t want to be defined by who I was dating and being so in-sync with another person clouded my own perception of my self-worth. The relationship wasn’t simple the way it was in the beginning. I had to move away and really be on my own to understand that I wasn’t the problem, it just wasn’t working anymore. Thankfully, I had friends to fall back on this time. It still took months to recuperate, but I shook it off.

Being single can really suck sometimes and I’d almost forgotten this feeling of loneliness, but it sucks more because you feel like you’ve let someone down. Society puts so much pressure on people to be in relationships but there’s just as much reinforcement that being single is ok too, you just have to seek it. You shouldn’t let your level of happiness depend on the attention from someone else, it should depend on you.

A Plea to Party Girls /  by Callie Chute

As seen on Medium.

The pulsing of Fetty Wap quickened as I tried to exit the Hudson Terrace Night Club in Manhattan. I had just concluded another successful night of dancing with my girls and dodging any male who tried to lead me astray. I was feet from the exit when another body latched on to mine. When I looked into her eyes I saw terror. She was crying and screaming, but those sounds were deafened by “And I got that soooodaaaaa.” Without any hesitation, I put her arm around me and signaled for my friend to do the same. I pleaded with this girl to calm down, told her that we were going to get her home, and not to worry.

Her body was practically dead weight pulling us to the ground. While guiding her to the bathroom, at least two other men approached us saying “they could take her home.” I now felt the responsibility to rescue this stranger and I didn’t even know her name (because she couldn’t even verbalize it to me). She was not in control of her own body and the men who tried to whisk her away saw this as an opportunity.

I’m not so mad at this girl (whose name I later found out is Katie) for settling into this state, I’m mad at her friends. Her no good, abandoning, piece of sh*t friends. She needed someone and they weren’t there. I had to tell her repeatedly how much her friends sucked for these reasons, but she was unaware of the repercussions of her recklessness. They let her feel threatened by a guy when they knew she was too far gone. They probably thought it was funny to watch her dance with a weirdo at a club, because we all do and make fun of our friends for it later, but anyone could see this wasn’t a joke, because it wasn’t consensual. The saddest part was, by the end of the night, her phone still didn’t have a single missed call or text asking where she was; her ‘friends’ didn’t think twice about her absence.

Katie tried to make a break for it when we got her to the bathroom, running to security guards on opposite sides of the club to tell them we were trying to hurt her (blah, blah, blah). The security guards were kind enough to escort her out for us and force her in to a cab. It took thirty minutes of “you can trust us, it’s ok now’s” to get her into the vehicle (and some slaps to the face; still feeling the burn from those, thanks Katie). Once in the vehicle she kicked and screamed and hit us more. At one stoplight she even tried to escape, but was immediately stopped by gravity when her head met the pavement beside the cab.

I sat in the front seat of the cab trying to make light conversation with the drivers (yes, plural…we had to take multiple cabs to get you home, Katie) saying things like “Do you have any kids? Wouldn’t you hate if this were them? Love your children!” They found this funny, but all jokes aside, I was genuinely concerned. This evening launched me into full-fledged mom-mode from which my conclusion was: I’m never letting my kids out of the house.

Some of you may be thinking “We all get drunk, we’re in college, we’re young, our parents did too, so what?” But she was a nasty combination of drunk and something else. My friends and I concluded this based on her abnormal behavior of attacking us one second, then calling us fairies the next. She may have been drugged or taken something voluntarily, but the reason I decided to see this girl all the way up her front steps at her apartment in Queens, and paid hundreds of dollars in cab fares to get her there, was because I kept thinking of her family and how devastated they’d be if she didn’t get home.

We see posters all over our campuses that read “Just one more drink CAN hurt. Keep your friends from hurting themselves or others,” or “Cut them off before they’ve had too much,” but we never think of it as more than light reading on the bathroom stall. Yet, sexual assault and rape have become such massive epidemics on college campuses worldwide because these cases are often ignored, making statistics increase.

Everyone hears about cases of assault, but never think it could happen to them. That it would never happen at their school, but it does, dozens of times a semester, and it can easily be stopped. Never let your friends out of sight, have your phones on you at all times, and keep an eye out for others. People need to try a little harder to look around and not get carried away in the sounds of freedom and sweat while dancing our hearts out. This is not to say you shouldn’t have a good time, but be cautious, especially women: we have a duty to protect each other.

To Katie, from Pennsylvania, who goes to school at St. Johns in Queens: I hope you see this and know that no matter how many times you cursed at us, screamed in the ears of cab drivers, threw up on the front steps of our apartment, and peed on my coat, that we were happy to help, but that it should be a wakeup call. Oh, and you owe us $150 and a big dry-cleaning bill.