The Scary Thing About Getting Exactly What I Wanted

For most of my life, I've braced for heartbreak. But pessimism wasn't protecting me—it was just keeping me lonely.

- By ASHLEY C. FORD

Sometimes, I try to remember when I became afraid of believing it would all be okay.

I assume it was when I was a small child and things rarely seemed to work in my favor. I've had therapists suggest this is rooted in early mistrust of my caretakers (feasible) or lingering trauma from a marching-band-related incident (not impossible but much less feasible).

My single mother worked hard, but as the eldest sibling of four kids, holidays were typically disappointing for me—and worse, my birthday landed two weeks after Christmas... and two days after my much cuter baby sister's. It felt like a cosmic setup. The chronic disappointment was torturous, so I opted out. I wouldn't need to stop crying over another heartbreaking near-miss if I just chose to never again expect to get what I want.

As an adult, I started dating my now-husband, Kelly, in college during our last year of living on campus in Muncie, Indiana, but I refused to call him my boyfriend. Our first date had been wonderful, but within weeks of four-wheeling, skeet shooting, talking, kissing, and revealing our amorous intentions toward each other, he found out he'd been accepted into an arts internship in New York City. In a matter of months, he'd be sharing a room in a brownstone turned dormitory, working with poets and other writers, professionals in the industry we both hoped to be employed in someday. I was happy for him—I even helped him celebrate the news—but I also assumed it meant that whatever flame flickered between us would soon die out.