Thank You Dakota

For a small period of time I worked at the Four Seasons in Hawaii. I had originally applied to work in Human Resources, they called me in to interview, I went, and at the end, the hiring manager told me they had filled that position two weeks ago. “Let me find something for you though,” she said scrolling through a list on her computer. ” What about retail?” she asked. In Hawaii, on the Big Island specifically, there is very little employment opportunity. The Four Seasons is like The Capitol in The Hunger Games. In Los Angeles, if you said you are a manager at a hotel people would just feel sorry for you (they did on the island too), but on the island it was really the only place where there were young, “mainland mentality” driven professionals. “I could work retail I guess,” I said, a foot in the door is a start. And I did and I welcomed an influx of new people into my island world. One of them was Dakota. He came into the store I was working in to introduce himself to me, and when I shook his hand and looked into his face, I knew he would be significant to my story. You know that sometimes when you first meet people, deep down you can tell if they are going to become apart of your life. Dakota was very tall. I’m five ten and in heels my legs get even longer, and he still towered over me when he came into the store. He came with a reputation though, the nicest things my co-workers said about him was that “he was handsome.” I was born and raised in Southern California, land of the tall, handsome, asshole. His looks were unintimidating to me, and I believe in giving everyone chances, so when he asked me to go on a date, I said yes. I don’t think I’m completely delusional but I’ve noticed that when one on one with people, no matter what kind of person they truly are, they are kinder, softer, and more vulnerable around me. Maybe because I am self deprecating, and gentle with people, I allow them to speak, I listen, I create a safe space for them to relax into themselves. Dakota was kind when he was with me, he seemed to be an ambitious person with good character, and so we dated. It worked well when I was working in a retail store and he was in management in hotel operations. But I am not a very complacient person, I enjoy challenges and learning and taking on new roles- dressing up and being pretty in a store and selling dresses is too boring for me, I want more, I need to use my brain.

I ended up getting a job as a Project Manager for a solar company. It was the first job I’ve ever had that I was truly truly excited about, and I’ve worked in some pretty exciting places in Los Angeles. But working in renewable energy I felt purpose, I felt challenged, I was learning, and my work had an impact on the enviornment. I loved it and I wanted to do well. They flew me to Vegas for training and I spent a week driving a white Mustang around Vegas with other Project Managers from all over the states who were training too. It was fun. The people I met were smart, they cared about their work, they had great senses of humor. But my relationship with Dakota changed. Where once he was almost love bombing me with attention and validation, he had now distanced himself- being short with me while I was away, and then, telling me he thought it wouldn’t work out between us. I remember sitting in my hotel room in Downtown Vegas, looking out wall to ceiling window views of the city, totally confused. When I returned to the island, glowing from my trip and all the new knowledge I had gained, and excited to start working- Dakota and I parted ways, abruptly and with really no explanation. Months and months later I would be told by friends of Dakota that he had slept with a girl who had a boyfriend, and months and months later I would defend him, because he never admitted that to me, and I stood by him and his word. He would “unfriend” these people, calling them liars, and I would come to realize it wasn’t because they were liars, it was because they told me the truth.

The island is small and underdeveloped, if you connect with someone there is a higher chance of you reconnecting simply due to the fact that there are not a lot of people inhabiting the space you live in. It’s the complete opposite of Los Angeles, where connecting with anyone is challenging because there are too many options. Somehow, Dakota and I reconnected and went through excutiating ups and downs. During this time I began isolating myself into Dakota’s world. I had my work, but a lot of my energy went into my role as being Dakota’s girlfriend. I learned that it was very important for Dakota to be “the man.” This wasn’t entirely new to me, we all are surrounded by straight white men, but Dakota disguised his insecurity to me in arrogance and in phrases like, “I want to provide for you,” “I want to take care of you,” which sounds “honorable” and elicits a type of false trust. When “providing” is transferrable with “control,” that’s when you should find the nearest exit and never look back. The most serious relationship I’ve had in my life, Taylor, was never like that. Taylor and I were partners, we cheered each other on, we wanted each other’s personal dreams to come true, we were happy when the other succeeded. There was no mysoginy, or sexism. And I learned that with Dakota, my role was not a partner in crime, it was a supporting character in his leading man life. And at first, for whatever reason, it didn’t bother me as much as it was bothering all my friends and family. “You shrink when you date him,” one of my co-workers said. “You get quieter, and your vivaciousness dies.”

I am curious by nature, and this was a new type of relationship. But it’s true, I stopped writing, and I think this is because I stopped having anything to say. Most of the time, I was ok, it didn’t seem that bad, and like every new experience I’ve had, I began to gather information. Dakota likes when I wear this dress, Dakota likes this drink at the end of the day, Dakota likes to be told he’s succeeding at work- let him talk about his day, listen, build him up. And as I did those things, I watched him bring me flowers, buy me dresses, take me out to dinner. It was like slowly I was regressing into a 1950’s housewife, even though I was still working full time, paying my own bills, and had been raised by a feminist father. I rarely talked about my work, rarley talked about work that I actually, for once in my life, was really excited about, and really wanted to share with someone, especially my significant other. There were some days when I would feel like something was off, and I would stay up in the middle of the night and read my old writings. I would go back to 2012 and read about Taylor and I staying in a Budget Inn in San Francisco, or my neighborhood in Hollywood, or my job working as a director’s assistant, and I would see for myself that my co-workers were right. Vivacious. Teeming with imagination. Witty. I liked my old self, but it now seemed like..an older version of myself.

When I started to wake up to those facts, I would start to rebel in my role as Dakota’s girlfriend. I would fight back a little bit, I wouldn’t hold my tounge. Instead of nodding and agreeing with him, I would voice my opinion:

Leading Man: “You should feel special because I chose you, I picked you.”

Supporting Character: Swoons?

Jennifurious: Silence. Followed by, “Do you realize how arrogant that is? How can you say something like that?”

I was messing up the script and needed to be re-cast. In Dakota’s world of being the leading man, it was time to find a new supporting character because this one was doing something even worse than stepping into his limelight, this one was deciding to turn off the limelight and ask him to get real for a second. I got booted out again, just as abruptly as the first time, but this time I didn’t want to ever go back. I deleted, blocked, threw away, and I began to thrive on my own. I had more energy, I was better at work, I was spending time with my friends, I was exploring the island, I was writing again, I had re-birthed myself. And one night I met the only other haole guy who was taller than Dakota inhabiting the island. His name was William but he introduced himself to me as “Leao.” He looked like a Disney Prince, and when he explained “Leao” was a tribal name that meant “Lion Spirit” or something along those to-have-the-strength-of-a-lion lines that was given to him when he was traveling around Brazil, I forgot all about Dakota, who shared his name with the dull, midwestern state dominated by the Great Plains. Around the same time I was seeing the Disney Prince, Dakota started seeing a hostess/model named Cherokee who worked at the Four Seasons. In a way, I wonder if during that seperation Dakota and I were spending time with the versions of what we subconsciously wished the other one would turn out to be. Disney Prince was an intelligent, intellecutal, adventerous soul with a huge heart, and Cherokee was the flashy, hot model/hostess for him to show off on his arm when he went out.

I wish the story ended here and I sailed away to Tibet with my nomad Prince and Dakota and Cherokee lived happily ever after, but it didn’t. Dakota and I ran into each other, and somehow managed to end up having dinner together one night, and his phone rang and I saw the name “Cherokee” flash across the screen. I didn’t say anything except “Dakota and Cherokee? If you guys have kids, you have to name them something like Tigerlily,” but he silenced the phone call, and soon after that I stopped talking to Disney Prince, who if we had kids would have probably named them”Fearless” or “Moonbeam.” And this is where the story gets all fucked up.

I got laid off. It had been looming like a dark cloud over all of the Hawaii Project Managers for a few months, and even though all of us knew it was coming, packing up my desk and leaving was one of the most discouraging moments I’ve felt. When I was in a low moment in life, one of transition or turmoil, Dakota was always there for me. “I’m here, whatever you need. Don’t worry, you are not alone in this.” Again, the island is, an island, and he reappeared in my life and at the time, I viewed it as some cosmic love connection, not a coincidence of living in a small town where you literally can never escape anyone, or worse- a manipulation tactic on his behalf. I had lost my favorite job, and I was heartbroken over it. I could have taken unemployment and returned to the Mainland, and found another renewable energy job, because as I had discovered I really enjoyed that field of work. But I didn’t. It’s a choice I will always look back on and cringe in regret.

Instead, Dakota saw his moment, and stepped in to save the day. He bought me a ticket to LA to visit my family, he wrote me love notes, he was always with me, he began to aggressively love bomb me all over again, because he could, I was weak and vulnerable- like every other time he loved me “most.” And it worked (for awhile). I decided to stay and instead of filing for unemployment, I got another job right away. It wasn’t one that I wanted but I would rather work than live off unemployment and bum around an island (as crazy as that sounds). I’ve never wanted to take the easy way out of anything, I’ve always wanted to work, and do meaningful work no less. I got a job as a manager at RipCurl, which is a surf clothing store, and I kept looking for a more challenging, better paying job. Disney Prince and Cherokee faded into the background and Dakota and I (to all my friend’s and family’s dismay) were back together.

I am trying to grapple with the fact that even while holding a bouqet of red flags, I got back together with Dakota. I had seen the versions of myself with him, and without, and the contrast made it so obvious to everyone else that I did not in any way or form, belong with him. I needed a partner in crime, and he would never, ever be it. If I felt this deep down, I ignored it, and just kind of gave up on myself.

I worked for RipCurl for a few months before I got another good job. I was going to work in PR at The Mauna Kea Beach Hotel which would involve me curating marketing content, writing, and meeting travel writers and bloggers. I was hired on the spot by a woman I absolutely fell in love with. The director of PR at The Mauna Kea Beach Hotel is a tall, attractive, funny, smart as a whip, go-getter and I admired her instantly. She was one of those bosses who encouraged your growth, cultivated your ideas and thoughts, and wanted you to shine. She arranged for me to have my own private office (which included my own private bathroom) and I was so excited to work. I was back in the full swing of throwing myself into work that I cared about, learning new things, overcoming challenges, and I was happy. Flashback to first getting my renewable energy job- instead of celebrating, Dakota began to slowly change. He began to distance himself once again, but much much slower than the first time. Whereas I thought the job helped us as a couple, I think Dakota began to feel that familiar “threatened” feeling I sometimes gave him. This is when I realized- when I was having a down moment, Dakota being there was not out of love for me, it allowed him to step into the role of “being the hero” which made himself feel better. And I without even realizing it, abandoned myself and stepped into the role of the “damsal in distress” to please him. When I was myself, and could be his “funny, smart, brave, ambitious, and kind girlfriend” I seemed to displease him. And slowly the insults started being cast my way to cut me down (“Jenn have you had braces?” “Yes,” “But how? Why are your teeth crooked?” “You were too skinny” “Why are you wearing your workout pants so high, roll them down” “Are you going to wear that out?” “You’re so insecure”) And slowly I grew more and more unhappy in my own skin.

There were a number of factors, but the main one that lead up to The End started with Dakota drinking with his friends (followers, Dakota liked to be surrounded with people who he was “in charge” of, people who would never challenge him, and only fawn over him, once you challenged him, you were cut out of his life) on a weeknight. I was going to stay home because I had work early the next day and him and his friends returned late and slept on an air mattress in our studio. We lived in a studio, it was small, there were no walls between my bed and the air mattress and I felt bad waking up early, showering and leaving to go to work while all of them were scattered around, passed out. But it wasn’t really a big deal, until Dakota began to consistently go out. “Going out” on the Big Island means you go drink at one or all of the four bars with names like “Dolphin Spit” that are offered to you. I was coming from Hollywood, where my friends and I would go to Formosa which was historic, back in the day it was a famous hangout spot for old Hollywood stars like Humphrey Bogart, but now I was on an island, having drinks at “the spit” with the same people over and over again, it felt like Groundhog Day. I was getting bored of it, the same setting, the same people, talking about the same things (work life at the Four Seasons) so I stopped going with Dakota.

There is an “uptight” category that girlfriends who don’t want their boyfriends to drink a lot get placed into. I’ve been placed into it before, and I could sense I was being placed into it now. Dakota’s friends would roll their eyes, or give each other looks, and I would sit quietly, wishing I could explain why blacking out wasn’t….exciting to me. A lot of people grow out of their college party phase, but once in the real world, you start to see the people that continually drink to the point of blacking out, every month have an issue that was caused by abusing alcohol and drugs, and you can tell there’s a dependency and an addiction that separates them from someone blowing off steam at the end of the work day. If you’ve totaled a car, gotten a DUI, or often get in fights when you’re drunk- check yourself, bro.

One night, Dakota and I were out with his friends, it was a weeknight, and around 11:00 I was ready to go home because I had a meeting the next day. Dakota offered to walk me home because he wanted to stay out longer and I refused because I didn’t want to ruin his night. I said goodbye to his friends, who were all drunk and rolling their eyes at me, the “buzz kill.” And I walked home in the dark.

Around 12:30, 1 am, Dakota returned. His eyes were glassy, but he seemed ok and I could hear his friends outside in the parking lot screaming and mocking me. “Jenn don’t worry I told them they can’t stay here,” he told me. “Are they ok to drive? I don’t want them to drive, they can stay..” “No no no, you don’t want them too,” Dakota insisted. I exhaled. “Dakota?” I asked. “You’ve been..drinking a lot lately. Why didn’t you just leave with me, it was 11. I walked home alone, it just seems weird, is something wrong?” Silence. And then-

Dakota began to FREAK out. He raised his voice, he towered over me, his words were coated in disdain for me. “You SAID NO. I WANTED to STAY. I PROVIDE ALL OF THIS for you Jennifer,” he yelled. “What? But I pay for half the-” He cut me off, he was ranting, he was saying things that were starting to overwhelm me, I felt sad, defensive, anxious and a new feeling- I felt afraid. I started to cry and I croutched down by the door. I had seen Dakota drunk before, I have watched him get knocked down to the floor in a fight with a Hawaiian before when he was blackout drunk. (I don’t understand how you get blackout drunk more than a few times in your life, you are your WORST self when you are blacked out. I fell off a porch once when I blacked out and had to be carried home, it was MORTIFYING and I never did it again). He didn’t seem that drunk to me, he just seemed vengeful. “You degrade me!” he said. “You don’t write about me (well now I am, you’re welcome), you don’t brag about me, you don’t care! You text your old boyfriends! If I did that to you, you’d be SO MAD!” It’s true, I’ve always stayed in contact with my ex-boyfriend Taylor, we have always been friends- mainly because we had a really nice relationship and we ended it in a way that both of us have always maturally stayed friends. I began apologizing, “I’m sorry” I said quietly. I tried to calm him down, but nothing worked until there was a knock at the door.

At the words “Police,” Dakota turned a switch on and the drunk monster I had been dealing with disappeared and the person who answered the door was a smiling kiss ass. “Hello sir,” Dakota chirped. “Is there a Jenn here?” the cop answered, moving Dakota to the side and shining a flashlight into our apratment. The light landed on me, still crumpled up in my corner of the room. “Jenn are ok?” the cop said. He moved closer to me. “Yes, I’m fine, everything is ok.” “Are you sure?” he asked me. There are some moments when you feel like your true self leaves your body and is watching the mess you’ve gotten yourself into as an audience member. I could see my true self shaking her head at me, get up, she was saying, this is not the life you want, how did you get here? I stood up, “yes I am.” The cop left and Dakota looked at me in silence. “I would never hit you,” he said and then he collapsed onto the bed and fell asleep. I went back into my corner of the room, in FULL panic mode. I was totally creeped out by Dakota’s ability to flip the switch and be a totally different, fake nice person to the cop, and I realized he does this quite often, and he does this with me. And I didn’t want to fight anymore, because the person I was always fighting for wasn’t him, it was what I had just witnessed now with the Police, it was a mask he frequently put on and took off.

Dakota got up a few hours later, opened the back door, and peed on the patio. Then he came back inside and fell asleep. That was when I realized how drunk he was. Dakota had been blackout drunk when he was yelling at me, and I don’t even know if he knew what he was saying. I imagined the scenario in the morning, Dakota waking up, confused, his urine drying up on our patio, and me replaying what happened, trying to communicate my feelings of disappointment, my anxiety about the situation, why this situation of him getting so drunk that he creates chaos seems to happen over and over, my fears that he will do something even worse than worry our neighbors to the point where they called the Police the next time it happens. And then I imagined another scenario. One where I was back in Los Angeles, back in a city with thousands of jobs and opportunities, back with my family and friends, and far far far away from Dakota. And I felt relief. And my strength came back. Flight.

I packed all of my stuff into my car and when Dakota woke up the next morning I informed him I was done. In his hungover state, I don’t know if he even comprehended what was happening, but I will never know because I left and I haven’t spoken to him since. The first thing I did was drive to work. I told my boss everything, and she hugged me and cried with me, but she also looked me in the eye and told me I was doing the right thing. When your inner voice speaks to you, you can ignore it for awhile, but once it’s yelling at you- you know you have to act or you will spend the rest of your life unhappy.

Living on an island is magical, because there is so much beauty surrounding you, but it’s isolating. My truest self is too ambitious to live in such a simple and small place for too long. I had originally come to Hawaii to live a different lifestyle, to have an adventure, to learn new things. My adventure had come to an end. Dakota made it happen abruptly, but he was also the one who I had stayed for. I hung around longer on that rock because I couldn’t figure out if I would regret leaving him, in moments of isolation you can’t think clearly. But when I saw the cop at my front door I knew, I would have had a much much bigger regret if I had stayed with him.

I met some of my favorite people I have ever met on the Big Island of Hawaii- I can’t wait to start writing about all the good times. But Dakota and my story is the one I have to get out first, because it’s so sucky and unfun. But once it’s out, its done, and it becomes just another part of my history. It’s one of the more painful parts, but you can’t just exclude those out from your personal timeline- which is what this blog really is. It’s a collection of my life lessons, and I learned MANY from Dakota. I feel like an entierly new person. Maybe one day if I have a daughter, she will read about this, and she won’t have to go through something so difficult- maybe it will grant her a bit more self awareness.

Now, in clarity, I am trying to understand why I let people like Dakota into my life. I’m not sure why some of us just know to avoid the Dakota’s, why they intrinsically pick up on toxicity and stay away. I think my handicap is my underlying faith in people, the chances I deal out to others in hope that I’m proved right, and my inability to give up or write someone off. I just don’t want to believe people are cruel, that someone would hurt a person who sat all day in the crazy Hawaiian hospital with you (when Dakota got dehydrated) next to a woman who was so sick with Dengue fever, and then who took care of you after. I’ll always want to fiercely protect my partner’s heart, admit mistakes, help someone in need, or find the good in a human being. I don’t want to “give up” on people or believe people are “bad.” The human spirit is much more complex and life is too fragile for that kind of intolerance. I will always want to encourage the underdog to win, always want to cheer people on, always want people to achieve their dreams. But you can’t give everyone a chance, and if someone isn’t fiercely protecting your heart, then you have to stop protecting theirs and protect your own. Some people are toxic to other’s well being, and you have to set boundaries between yourself and people, otherwise you will constanly invite chaos into your life.

What I do know is this: everytime you fall, it means you tried. You may have failed, but if you pay attention, and you process what happened, and you take the time to heal, you can decide to turn all your empathy and acceptance for other people (that sometimes gets misplaced onto the wrong people) inward to yourself or onto all the good people in your life, and you rise with a strength that is insurmountable. And what happens after that is the beginning to a very important story.

So thank you Dakota.