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I must admit that I’m a novice at love. I got my first boyfriend at 22 and up until then I’ve just had a string of crushes. Somehow I always end up falling for guys who are already dating other people, and sometimes my heart would get crushed but then the crush would be fleeting and I would move on to another crush. I don’t remember having a lot of crushes on boy bands. A lot of people in my peer group were into NSYNC, but I didn’t think the guys were hot or anything, I just liked their music and the way it sounded. In fifth grade, I started having these crushes on these guys at school, but I guess I wasn’t sure if they were crushes or just admiration for the person. I really liked this boy named Chris (name changed to protect privacy) and the only reason I liked him was because he looked like Andrew Lawrence, the actor who voiced T.J. Detweiler in a show I loved called Recess. All the girls at school kept asking me if I liked him, and the gossip spread like wildfire that I liked this guy. However, I also had really low self-esteem and unfortunately I remember filling my notebook with negative things about myself. Part of this low self-worth was deep in my own life, but as I think about it, I’m sure I was around a lot of kids who struggled with self-esteem and self-confidence, so I may have picked up on that when I was around these girls. I remember writing that I thought I was ugly and that Chris was never going to want to date me because I was ugly, and my mom read it and she broke down crying and asked me why I would say such things about myself. I don’t know how she got ahold of my journal but I was pretty upset. All these girls kept asking me if I liked Chris and I honestly didn’t know how to answer them. As I grew up and had more classes with Chris my crush on him gradually faded.

Then in seventh grade, there was a boy named Robbie (again, name changed to protect privacy) and he was nice, but I wasn’t interested in him. But everyone giggled about how Robbie liked me, and he made his feelings for me quite clear and said “I think you’re pretty cute.” As a kid with really low self-worth, this was really hard to hear because I honestly thought I was an incredibly ugly worthless kid. However, even though I didn’t like Robbie, I liked a guy named Jack. Jack played the viola and he was a blonde-haired eighth grader who was studious, went to church and was just really good at playing viola. I’m not even sure if I was attracted to the fact that he played viola so soulfully or because I genuinely thought he was attractive. These two girls in my orchestra class, Megan and Sandy, kept asking me if I talked to Jack yet because I was always telling them about my crush on him. I would often fill my journal with fantasies of Jack and I growing up together, getting married, having three kids. But I also wrote about how I wasn’t pretty enough for Jack, that I was just some shy Black seventh-grader who didn’t deserve him (now that I have more self-confidence, I can say, Fuck that, you know who I do deserve? I deserve my own damn self.) But after days and months of walking down the hall and staring as he went to his locker and walked to class, and making myself completely invisible whenever I saw him (like in The Incredibles when Violet Parr becomes invisible when her crush, Tony, passes her by in school), I finally got the courage to talk to him. We were on the steps outside the door to enter the orchestra and choir rooms.

“Hi,” I shyly greeted.

“Hey,” he said, looking off in the distance.

I sidled closer to him. This pent-up pubescent sexual energy was burning in my body and I was trying to keep it from bursting out all over this guy.

“What’s your name?” I tried to sound really flirtatious. I really tried, guys.

“My name’s Jack.”

My heart beat even louder and louder in my chest. Jack, oh gosh, when he said it my heart fluttered.

“Oh. My name is Ginger.”

He nodded.

“I deal a lot with these mean girls at school. I want to call them the “b” word but like, I don’t want to cuss.”

He nodded as he looked at me, then he looked out to see if his mom was picking him up.

I took a deep breath. Gosh, this is it…

“I think you’re pretty cute,” I giggled. Wow, I really thought I was being a charmer.

He snorted.

“I’m already in a relationship.”

I blushed. Awkkkwarrdd…..

“Oh. Ok. That’s cool.”

A blue minivan pulled up.

“I’ll see you later,” I gave a weak wave of the hand.

He gave a half-wave and got in the car.

Ok, cool. So I guess we can just be friends…I guess…wow, that really went badly.

Naturally like any crush I get this crush faded with time. So in eighth grade I got a new crush. Actually quite a few crushes. One guy named Michael, poor fucking Michael. I wouldn’t stop staring at him. I’m pretty sure this was borderline sexual harassment, but I really wasn’t paying attention in health class when they talked about consent and boundaries. This was a good lesson in learning to respect both of those things. I don’t know how my crush on Michael developed. We weren’t even that close to begin with. Everyone knew him as the smart kid in sixth grade, and then a year later there were rumors he became a troublemaker and started goofing off. But then somehow I just started liking his personality. Every time we talked he was so intelligent and sweet. At least it seemed on the surface. And his eyes were a beautiful blue and his face was just so chiseled. We had about four or five classes together that year: Spanish, science, math, history. But my love-struck ass couldn’t respect the fact that he already had a girlfriend. I don’t know what possessed me to do this, but I would always sneak looks at him in class. I would just turn around in my seat, and look at his face. It was similar to the previous year when I thought it would be funny to poke my classmates at the back with a pencil. No wonder Barry, a fellow student, did the same thing to me. Karma’s a bitch, people.

So of course, Michael rightfully thought this was hella annoying that I kept sneaking these glances, and so he would tell me over and over, “Ginger! You have to stop looking at me. I’m not interested in you AT ALL.” But I wouldn’t listen to him or respect his wishes and I kept staring at him. Even when Jo told me Michael was dating someone else. We then went to high school together and it wasn’t until our last year that I finally gave a decent apology. We were in the bleachers and my annoying butt called out “Michael!” He turned around and seeing who I was, gave a small grin, like “Oh shit here we go again.” I said, “I’m sorry for always looking at you.” Somehow though we had made amends during those last couple of years in high school. I had grown up and stopped doing the silly looking-at-Michael-24/7 thing and in Spanish class in 11th grade, I finally got serious with my studies and stopped being interested in him, and just respected him as a classmate. Then it’s funny because I found someone in college who did the exact thing to me that I did to Michael, and I clearly saw it for what it was. A reflection of my own past behavior.

Then there was another guy I loved in my orchestra class who was a year above me, and I found him quite attractive. His name was Drake, and he was an incredible double bass player. I would just stare at him from afar. When I saw him hanging with his friends, my heart would pound and I would blush. One evening I saw him performing with the top orchestra for a varsity competition and the way he played the bass with so much feeling…it was beautiful. And he was very humble, and I don’t know I just got these warm feelings for him. But of course, I barely exchanged a few conversations with him in passing because he was always around other people. And I’m pretty sure like Jack, he had a girlfriend (then again, I didn’t know because we didn’t have any classes together or exchange conversations much). Then I found out he was attending an Ivy League, and I started to think, “Wow, he is so smart.” So during my first year of college I still wasn’t over my crush on him, and so I emailed him (I got his email from the campus directory. I still didn’t have a Facebook at the time so email was one of the few modes of communication I used) and asked him how college was and asked if he remembered me. A week later he emailed back and said, “Hi Ginger, I’m sorry, I don’t remember. Then again, I’m better with faces than I am with names. College is good. How is college with you?” And then he asked “Also, if you don’t mind me asking, how did you get my email?” Again, very awkward moment where I thought, Oh shit, yeah, I’m a stalker now. But because I was still so deeply in love with this person, I sent him a long ass email talking about orientation and my dorm’s cheer and my classes and…oh gosh guys when I look back, it was embarrassing. I barely knew the guy but I acted like I had known him forever. When in reality, as I’ve reflected, a lot of these crushes were a form of escapism. Love, sure, but also escapism. I am still currently grappling with a crush on someone now, but I think chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo is helping me stay focused so that I don’t always let my crush be the center of my life and it’s helped me cultivate self-respect, too, so that I’m not totally heartbroken when I find out that the crush (this usually happens) already has a girlfriend.

This past weekend I was feeling in a Downton Abbey mood, so I decided to re-watch some of the episodes. I first heard about the show when last year my mom was watching it on Netflix before it left the streaming service. I couldn’t understand why everyone kept referencing Downton Abbey at first; it seemed a lot of people had seen the show. But then again, I am behind in a lot of shows that my friends have seen: Glee, Game of Thrones, Black Mirror, and of course, who could forget, Squid Game. When Squid Game became a craze, I didn’t know whether to watch it or not to be honest. I am pretty squeamish about violence, and I kept hearing some say it was violent. But then again, that depends on the person’s comfort level. I am super squeamish so anything related to Quentin Tarantino is out (sorry, Kill Bill.) All my friends were like, “OH MY GOSH YOU NEED TO SEE SQUID GAME!!!” I respect them and their TV choices and I respect that the show got so popular when it did. But I just for whatever reason ended up not watching it because I am a party pooper sometimes when it comes to TV. But I am totally getting off tangent here, as per usual. Back to Downton.

So last year I decided to go on a binge and watched it with my family. I felt kind of guilty because I had quit my job at the personal injury law firm I was working at and wasn’t making any money, just lying at home sleeping and applying on and off for jobs. It was a frustrating process and I found myself often feeling depressed and hopeless most of the time, but what got me through this entire year of navigating the guilt and anxiety of post-quitting-a-nice-9-to-5-gig was watching lots of movies and television. And Downton Abbey was one of those shows. My family and I loved watching the show together and I almost got emotional when we watched the movies, Downton Abbey and Downton Abbey: A New Era. I really liked the show and fortunately they had DVD copies of the show at the library so I checked them out.

In these past two episodes I watched, a lot happens. If you haven’t seen Downton Abbey it’s about an aristocratic family who lives on an estate and must figure out who will be the heir of the estate, and it’s also about the staff who work at Downton and how they navigate challenging and joyful times together. The Grantham family consists of Lord Grantham and Cora and their three daughters: Mary, the oldest daughter, Edith, the middle child, and Sybil, the youngest. In episode 6 Sybil goes off to a political rally because they are tallying the votes in the local election, and they are debating women’s rights at the rally. Isabel tells Sybil she should leave the rally so that Tom Branson, who drove her over there at her request, won’t get in trouble because they all know Lord Grantham is going to scream if he finds out Sybil went off to a rally without her parents’ permission. Later when Sybil asks to be dropped off at the rally again, Tom warns her that she really shouldn’t keep going to the rallies anymore because she will get in trouble with her family. However, Sybil ignores him and goes anyway. A group of men ride to the rally and try to beat up on Tom and Matthew, who are trying to get Sybil out of the rally, but they end up knocking Sybil over and she hits her head on a liquor table and falls unconscious. After she is cleaned up at home, Lord Grantham finds out from Mr. Bates, his valet, that Sybil went to the rally and Tom took her. He is livid and tells Sybil she is grounded and no longer allowed to leave the house without his permission. Sybil tells her papa that she loved going to the rally because it gave her a purpose and a voice, and tells him that if he grounds her, she will run away. She doesn’t know where but she is determined to run away if her dad continues to police where she goes.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Patmore, who is the head chef of Downton, is having problems with her eyesight and as usual takes her frustration out on her protegee and member of the meal preparation squad, Daisy, who just wants to make Mrs. Patmore proud. Mrs. Patmore says she is too busy to get her eyesight taken care of, but when preparing and fussing around the kitchen, she drops one of the dishes and Mrs. Hughes finally has to tell her to take a break. Anna takes Mrs. Patmore to London and Mrs. Patmore at first is scared but then she gets her eyesight fixed.