Elephant in the Room
I meet him at 15 at a hippie art summer camp in the woods of central Oregon. He juggles, unicycles, and worries about food waste. We speak approximately 47 words to each other and I am enamored.
Three years pass. I date two different boys, fall in and out of love with my best friend, loose and regain 50 pounds, and get put on anxiety medication. Around this time I start writing little songs and posting the shitty video recordings to my instagram stories. He DMs me supportive and admiring messages. I keep writing and sharing, processing the breakup with the most recent boyfriend. He encourages me to make a YouTube channel so he and others can relisten. I make one. He asks for the chords to one of my songs so he could learn it on guitar. I send them.
In September, I put together an album (Please Don’t be Mean to Me by Annie’s Friend, which if you haven’t listened to please go do it right now. I make $.006 for every listen so if you listen 1,000 times I’ll be able to buy a coffee… If someone lends me $1.44).
Two more years pass. I stop taking my meds, start having suicidal thoughts, get prescribed Zoloft, take a leave from school, move to a goat farm, and date and break up with another boy. My friend kills himself, two close friends sexually violate me, and I become dependent on weed. What a fucking year. Summer starts looking up when I start EMDR therapy and stop smoking myself into a safe state of disassociation. To celebrate the one year anniversary of my first album’s release, I share it again. He reposts it, saying it is one of his favorite albums (ah modern romance). I decide to reach out.
We grow close, bonding about music and a similar worldview. He has a girlfriend and so I am not acting on any romantic feelings but my crush lingers. In November he asks if I still have a crush on him and I admit I do, though I make it clear that I am not acting on those feelings.
They break up early January but though he and I talk almost every day we never revisit the conversation about my feelings. It remains a ginormous elephant in a closet-sized room. This interaction happened a week ago.
Everything shared is 100% true with no exaggeration. Tune in next week for Ep. 8 to see what other shenanigans Annie’s Friend gets into during her messy search for love.