"I Want to Love a Boy the Way I Love the Ocean"

 

Listen, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to any of you that I listen to Maya Hawke’s albums on repeat through most of my workday (sometimes I spice it up with murder podcasts). She has the voice of an angel and the lyrics of a genius, and I get sucked into her music and find myself really, truly pondering the things that she’s saying, appreciating music the way it’s supposed to be appreciated. And the first time I heard “To Love a Boy,” I recognized myself in the words.

“I want to love a boy the way I love the ocean.” I grew up reading about these grand love stories, love stories where men would swoop women off their feet, and their love became their entire world, and, truly, all they needed was that love (or whatever The Beatles said), and it never sat right with me. Even as a kid, I had questions. What do you mean she just married the prince and lived happily ever after? What about her dreams? What if she wanted to be a veterinarian (stick with me, I was very hyper-focused on every Disney princess working with animals). Although I could enjoy fairytales, I always found them a little boring. They followed the same formula, and then they just moved into a castle and lived together? With their love? That sounds boring.

I’m an adult now, married to my best friend, and when he first proposed to me, I sent a somewhat panicked text to my aunt (it’s been nine years and I have it printed and taped to my computer screen now).

Wait, so we’re gonna live together, but like… he’s just gonna do his own thing until he’s hungry, right? Like a cat?

My spouse is not like a cat. He makes too many weird noises while he eats. He takes up way too many blankets when he sleeps. He has too many opinions about what we watch on television (“What do you mean you don’t want to rewatch New Girl for the eighth time?!”). But our life has evolved into so much more than just your typical and then they rode off into the sunset and lived happily ever after.

We’ve had good days. We’ve had bad days. But we always have each other. We talk about everything and nothing (I asked him last week if dogs were right or left-handed—he told me to go to sleep). We have our own lives and we have our life. We have our friends and our careers and our hobbies and interests and then we also have those things that overlap. We make time for us, we make time for the people in our lives, and we also make time for us as individuals (I’m writing this right now with a murder documentary playing while he’s playing some video game upstairs). And I love him. I love him more than I’d ever be able to put into words. I love him so much that love doesn’t even seem like the right word. But when I think of living alone in a castle with just him and me forever and ever, I break out in hives.

I don’t want to love him like that—I’m not sure it would be healthy for me to love him like that. But I do want to love him like I love the ocean.

And I do love the ocean. It’s my favorite spot in the world. I could sit at its edge in silence and just observe, just think, just watch and learn something new every time. Every time I come back to the beach, it’s like I’m greeting an old friend. I admire its never-changing beauty, I admire its tragic, never-ending churning. Its power and its pull. I feel it in my hands, and I memorize the scent. I sink my toes into the soft, warm sand, and I feel planted. Firm and strong. I love the ocean.

I didn’t know I was asexual until about ten years ago when my friend listened to me ramble for a bit and went, “Um, C, have you ever considered that you’re ace?”

I had not considered it. But within about an hour of researching, it seemed very clear that that was exactly where I found myself. I love fiercely. I love tightly. I love loudly. But I love like I love the ocean: with a respectable amount of awe and wonder in a place where fairytales and rom-coms tell me lust should be found. When I think about intimacy, I don’t think about getting into bed with someone. I think about talking for hours about books and movies and favorite quotes and least favorite pizza toppings and the best scent and why his least favorite color is his least favorite color. And when I’m attracted to someone, I want to write about them. Capture their beauty in words and paper, from a distance. Like art. Like the ocean.

    So yeah, during the day when I should be working, you’ll most likely find me listening to Spotify, which is usually playing a Maya Hawke song (or Djo because I created a playlist called Cup Of Djo and Other Strange Things because I think I’m hilarious even though no one else thinks I am). And when that Maya Hawke song turns to “To Love a Boy,” I sit back and ponder the words, really feel it in terms of my life, and it makes me appreciate it all a little more. Appreciate the words. The song. Appreciate Maya for writing it. Appreciate my spouse for understanding the way my love works. And appreciate the ocean.