A woman relaxes on the floor, with a box of tissues nearby.

Dear Diary,

The other day I was listening to Zebra by Beach House, and it immediately brought me back to being 16-years-old in my boyfriend’s bedroom. As we made out on his bed, Teen Dream played on his record player. I remember feeling so much bliss at that moment. I felt whole, but not because my boyfriend and I had some cosmic connection that completed my soul. I was lacking love for myself, and when it felt like he loved me in that moment, I felt that piece of the puzzle come together and suddenly I felt like I could see the whole picture, as if I’d been waiting to feel this level of completeness and I just didn’t know it until he offered it to me.

Illustration of a person lying down with tissues and a sad emoticon tissue box.

Within that feeling of wholeness, there was a tinge or cold melancholy, the same feeling I get at the end of every Twilight movie, when the question of how Bella and Edward will work things out gets thrown up in the air again. Long after I left my boyfriend’s house, I would still feel that cold melancholy feeling creep over me. But I was the one that ultimately pushed him away and ended the relationship because I couldn’t accept the affection he wanted to give to me. Even though I wanted to be with him, it made me physically uncomfortable to let him hold my hand or kiss my neck or hear him tell me that he liked me or thought I was beautiful or hot.

I couldn’t listen to that album for years after we ended things for the last time.

Bella is also a girl with extremely low self esteem. She doesn’t love herself or see her value as a person, but she wants to be special, so when Edward comes into her life and feels drawn to ‘protect’ her, wants to know more about her and spend the rest of his life with her, she suddenly feels special. That piece that was missing for so long, the love she needed to feel. She suddenly has the answer. She has the love. So of course she doesn’t ever want to live without it. Because when you hate yourself, when you find no value in who you are, and suddenly someone finds value in you and wants to love you, you’d do anything to keep that feeling alive. Even if it means giving up your life and everyone and everything in it. And maybe that’s what my Vampire Sickness means to me. It’s longing for someone to want me the way Edward and Bella want each other, without that feeling of icky melancholy and distance I feel when someone actually tries.

Teen Dream and Twilight kind of represent the same thing to me. It’s almost as if Twilight is a memory of a relationship I once had, the warm bed in my boyfriend’s room where we made-out fully clothed for hours. It’s a place where I wanted to be loved, so when it resurfaces, that cold melancholy comes back too.