Stories, Trauma, and Boy Drama

During my year of travel, I found myself in Boston for two days. It happened while I was almost over convincing myself I liked my job, and just before I was planning on leaving the US entirely for an ocean front apartment in Panama…despite wiggling myself out of yet another long-distance Panamanian situationship. That last one was bad. Mid Lawyer, as I like to call him, really did a number on me (if you’re not familiar with my lore, you can read that here).

As my plane landed in Boston, the story I was telling myself about the kind of ambitious man I needed was that he’d always have a mix of superiority and insecurity, a Napoleon Complex at 6 feet tall. It made the contrast between the humid ocean air and the frigid Boston winter all the more jarring. I was feeling down on love, and down on life, so I turned to Bumble—my go-to for travel dates.

Work had brought me to town to do what I had been doing for far too long, to talk to people about October 7^th. It was different now that the war had ended, now that the hostages were back. Over the past two years, my life had focused on telling the story of October 7^th as it unfolded. It was still fresh, still felt like a developing story. But the war had ended. Families buried their loved ones, and the world needed to think about writing a second draft.

Italian Doctor and I met on that short trip. He was an oncologist finishing up his two-year research fellowship at Harvard and moving back to Napoli in just one week. I laughed at the odds of our short story even happening. You could say he was just the medicine I needed.

Doctor had a big presentation and was having difficulties getting out of work that day, but he really wanted to meet up. I told him not to worry. The man was literally curing cancer. He made it work. Sitting at the empty bar, he told me he googled me before the date and absolutely had to meet me. There was so much he could learn from me.

He was fascinated by what I had been doing for the last few years. As the conversation went on, I confessed it wasn’t what I wanted to be doing. His eyes lit up as I explained my love of film and writing. Mine lit up as he walked me through his work on early breast cancer diagnosis. That was all the foreplay necessary.

We went back to my hotel, bewildered at our chances of meeting. I wondered if it had been luck, or if you just meet the people you need to meet if you’re open to it. Doctor pulled me closer and told me he couldn’t wait to see me win an Oscar. I told him I couldn’t wait for him to… solve all cancer. He recommended his favorite books to me and I did the same, then he asked if he could call me after reading them.

At around 3AM, just as I was falling asleep next to someone for the first time in years, he tapped my shoulder, “Bella, bella”, he said. He had to get back to work early the next morning, and I had a panel I didn’t feel qualified to be on. As he got up to leave, he complimented my blue velvet, blazer and pants set I had hung up for the next day. I don’t know if I read into it, but I almost felt like Doctor was proud to imagine me on a stage. Like he was proud to know me, however brief the encounter was. I didn’t tell him about my insecurities around the panel event, about how I didn’t think we were telling a story that would move us forward. It would have involved much more Middle East than I was willing to bring into the encounter.

Italian Doctor’s arms shook, squeezing me into him as tightly as he could. He wanted to stay in touch. I knew we wouldn’t. We kissed and I watched him walk to the elevator, then went through my skincare routine and set my alarm before falling asleep. That morning, the hotel room felt comforting. They usually didn’t.

I did my hair and slipped into the blue velvet set Doctor complimented the night before. Something happened that day, not because of my outfit. Italian Doctor’s words kept floating around in my head, as if he were there whispering them to me, “There’s so much I can learn from you.” I wasn’t walking onto a stage to defend facts. I was walking onto one believing my own story mattered, too. Stories don’t only inform us. They give us permission to become someone new.

How do we deal with this collective trauma that has left permanent scars and the aftermath that has continued to define international relations and how we speak to our neighbors? How do we hold the survivors, help them move forward, commemorate and educate, when we’re dealing with the fallout of what military actions have meant, not just for the region, but for the world? The factual, horrific story of October 7^th has had many people telling it. Many of whom weren’t directly impacted, like me. There hasn’t been a consensus on how to tell it. It’s too fresh for that, but I wonder if maybe that’s what we need.

A rush came over me after the event, like I was finally taking ownership of the weird career path I was on, finally mixing the storyteller, the girl at the bar, and the advocacy professional. I pulled out my phone and texted Doctor, dying to see the man who had pushed something out of me. He never responded.

A story can define everything. How we remember someone leaving us, how their hair was falling that day, the color of the shirt they were wearing, the weather. All of it shapes what we tell ourselves for years after the fact. The story lives on longer than the actual event.

I spent the next month thinking about him, not romanticizing the trip, but feeling grateful. I wasn’t hurt that he didn’t respond. I’m not hurt today knowing we’re not in touch. Doctor reminded me that I could connect with someone, and that the things I cared about attracted other people, too. I don’t know if that was him or the story I told about him, but that’s the thing about stories. They change your entire outlook.

My plans changed. I was meant to move to Panama just two months after meeting Doctor, but Los Angeles clung onto me, and I clung onto her. I could finally date the way I wanted to and was going on my first date after Italian Doctor. I did my hair, put on the ring I bought as a Boston souvenir, and tapped on the pink quartz hoping it would bring me luck. I knew five minutes into the date that the guy wasn’t for me, but I smiled anyway, knowing there were people out there who were.