Matters of the Heart: The Moth Radio Hour

The Moth

This episode of The Moth Radio Hour explores various facets of love, ranging from romantic pursuits to parental bonds and lifelong passions.

Key takeaways

• Christy Hawkins shares how a childhood prank involving a note led to a ten-lam marriage and her current struggle with dating apps like Tinder.
• Kemp Powers reflects on the challenges of being a father during a divorce and finding reconnection through weekly Sunday phone calls with his daughter.

Main topics

• Modern dating and technology
• Fatherhood and divorce

Notable quotes

To live is to die a little. Same for my croissants.

Conclusion

A moving collection of stories that demonstrate how love, in all its f

Transcript preview

Speaker 7 (0:12) This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Meg Bowles, and in this show, we'll hear stories from the heart. Deep loyalty, great pride and affection, unbridled passion. Love is a common theme in moth stories, perhaps because love touches every corner of our lives. We cherish and celebrate it, we daydream about it, and often find ourselves in pursuit of it, like our first storyteller, Christy Hawkins. Christy shared her story at a Grand Slam in Denver, Colorado, where we partner with local public radio station KUNC. Here's Christy Hawkins live at the Moth. Speaker 8 (0:53) I got divorced recently, and my friends and family have decided that it's time for me to get back out there. One of them actually suggested that I should get on Tinder. And I'm not so old and out of it that I don't know what Tinder is. I know what it is. Actually, when I first got divorced, I asked my 21-year-old niece if she thought I should sign up for the Grindr. And she explained to me that Tinder and Grindr are not the same thing. laughter I don't really know how these sites work. I know what they are, but as my friend described it to me that night, and with those swiping left and the swiping right, it occurred to me, this sounds so much like junior high. I mean, in junior high, when you like somebody, you would write a note and ask them, do you like me back? Check one, yes, no, maybe. And then you wait for a response. It's straightforward. But for me, that's terrifying. If this is how dating is going to be, I'm not sure I want in. Because I have really traumatic experiences with these notes. See, when I was 13, I was in love with a boy named Ryan. Ryan was tall and blonde and blue-eyed, and he was smart and quiet. He's what the kids today would call a hot nerd. And I... Was not a hot nerd. I wouldn't I was what the kids today would just call a nerd and I Had a perm and I had super thick glasses and I wore turtlenecks almost exclusively like every day Speaker 8 (2:34) I mean, Ryan was way out of my league, and I knew that, but it didn't stop me from loving him. I just loved him. And I was not at all subtle about my love for Ryan. So a couple of his friends caught on that I liked him, and these boys, Marcus and Adam, would just tease me Speaker 7 (2:54) about it. But I didn't care. I was in love. Speaker 8 (2:58) Well, this all came to a glorious, glorious head. the Friday before spring break of my eighth grade year. I went to my locker to get my books to go home, and there was a note stuck in my locker. And the note, I opened it up and read it, and it was from Ryan. And it said, Dear Christy, I really like you. Do you like me too? Check one. Yes, no, maybe. Love, Ryan. It said love. I mean, it was happening. Like, this is happening. Speaker 8 (3:33) I floated to the bus, and I read and reread that note all the way home, and imagining how Ryan and I were just going to be together forever. And I knew that we would not be able to make our dreams come true until after spring break, because back in those days, we didn't have cell phones. So I would have to wait until we got back to school. But when I got home, we were ready to leave on vacation for spring break, and the phone rang just as we were walking out the door, and my mom answered it. And she called that it was for me. And when I got closer, she stage whispers to me, it's a boy. Like, she's as surprised as I am because I am not a kid that ever got called by boys, believe me. And so I just knew it was Ryan. He was ready to get the party started. Like, he could not wait for spring break to be over. He wanted this to happen now. So I was super cool. I was like, hey, Ryan, what's up? And he was like, Speaker 7 (4:30) hey, Christy, it's Ryan. Speaker 8 (4:34) And then he took a big breath and he said, you know that note you got in your locker? Well, I didn't write it. Marcus wrote it. It was just a big joke. And he thought it was really funny, but I didn't think it was funny. I just thought it was kind of mean. So I thought I had to call and tell you that I don't like you. Speaker 8 (4:53) I felt all the feelings. Like, I was crushed, beyond crushed. But I gathered my wits and I said, oh, God, Ryan, like, I totally knew it was a joke the whole time. Like, I would never fall for that. Well, Speaker 7 (5:06) anyway, Speaker 8 (5:06) Ryan, my mom's calling me, so I have to go. I'll see you Speaker 5 (5:09) at Speaker 8 (5:09) school. Speaker 8 (5:11) And I just fell apart. I cried and cried and cried. I cried for seven days straight at spring break. But when I got back to school, I hid my feelings. I never said a word about it to Ryan. I never said a word about it to Marcus. I just went on with my life. But fast forward 15 years, and I ran into Marcus in a bar. Speaker 7 (5:30) And I asked him, after a few drinks, why Speaker 8 (5:34) in Speaker 7 (5:34) the hell did you do that to me? That Speaker 8 (5:36) was so mean. And he said, I had a huge crush on you. Speaker 8 (5:42) And that was my way of showing it. Okay, well, you know, that sounds kind of sweet. So we got married. And we spent ten years together. But wait, wait, you guys heard me at the beginning of this show say that I just got divorced, right? So... Speaker 8 (6:08) I'll spare you the details, but when Marcus left, it was like getting that note all over again and then getting a call Speaker 7 (6:17) telling me that the whole thing was just a joke. Speaker 8 (6:21) So here I am. I'm 40. I'm going on 14. And I have to start dating again. And we have to do it with technology. I mean, when I was in my 20s, we just like put on beer goggles and wrote a number on a napkin and hoped for the best. Like that seems simple. This is gonna be tough, but I'm trying to look on the bright side I mean, I don't wear glasses anymore, and I don't perm my hair, and I don't wear turtlenecks that often so I'm liking my chances. I am liking my chances So I am here tonight to tell you that I am gonna get on the grinder and Speaker 6 (7:01) I am Speaker 8 (7:02) gonna find Orion Speaker 8 (7:05) I'll be swiping left and swiping right, and one of these days, I'm gonna get swiped back. Speaker 7 (7:19) Christy Hawkins works from home for a large healthcare company. And when she's not working or playing chauffeur for her three kids, she's entertaining the friends and family who are always coming in and out of her house. She says life is very busy, but lots of fun. When Christy found out we were airing her story, she shared it with her ex-husband, Marcus. They're still friends and co-parenting-like champions, she says. When Marcus heard the story, he wrote to her and said, You say all those things like hair and perm and turtlenecks like they made you unattractive, but that isn't true. I loved your red turtleneck and Sally Jessies and the short on the sides, curly on top do. It's amazing how we feel about ourselves and how other people see us. In the last year, Christy says she's gotten more serious in her search for love, and she's currently swiping and getting swiped a lot. She shared some classic yearbook photos of Marcus and Ryan, and yes, she is sporting her famous turtleneck. You can see those on our website. They're pretty cute. Speaker 7 (8:31) Our next story comes from Kemp Powers. He told it way back in 2011 at a Moth Grand Slam we produced in Los Angeles in partnership with KCRW. Here's Kemp live at the Moth. Speaker 1 (8:52) I'm 37 years old, and I wasn't really very good at much of anything in my 20s, least of all marriage. But the decision to get a divorce wasn't an easy one. For a lot of people, The legal tangle is what stops them from getting a divorce. But in my world, that wasn't really a big decision maker. It was because we had a daughter. And going through with that meant that on some level I was going to be losing her, if not literally, then figuratively. So when people have a really bad breakup, it's not uncommon for one parent to be left feeling like... Basically their kid is better off without them and in my case it wasn't very hard to convince me to put it very simply I really really really sucked at being a dad When my daughter was a small infant, I swore that she was going to break some kind of record for falling out of bassinets, falling out of cribs, falling out of beds, and it always seemed to happen when I was the one that was watching her. And I was hardly ever around. I traveled so much for work, and in the rare occasions that I was there, any effort that I made to try to bond with her always seemed to backfire. I bought her this when she was three months old. I bought her this gangly little puppet that I named Sanchez after my favorite reggae dance hall singer. And she was really in the Sesame Street, so I really thought that this puppet was going to bring her a lot of joy. Instead, it just fucking terrified her. Speaker 1 (10:30) And from there, things just continued to get worse. I mean, by the time when she was six months old, I decided that it was really smart for her to know that fire was dangerous and it was something that she should stay away from. So one day when I was making