#22: Love, Marriage, and Other Unfinished Thoughts
Plus five VERY good recommendations (I swear!)
Hi!
Two weekends ago, I threw my boyfriend Gideon a prom-themed birthday party. Prom-themed, because the small high school he attended didn’t have one. A birthday party, because we’d been unable to celebrate his thirtieth with a bash the year prior. So we went all out for thirty-one, renting out the top floor of a brewery near our apartment. There was a punch bowl on the table, corsages tied to wrists, and a five-hour playlist sourcing hits from the mid-aughts. I thought we’d prepared for everything. But I didn’t expect what happened next.
I really should have put two and two together. Both sets of parents, some of our siblings, and even a few friends flew to Seattle for the party. And stranger still, Gideon announced he wanted to learn how to play guitar a few months earlier, just as he was starting a time-consuming new job. But I didn’t question things.
At least, I didn’t question things until two hours into the party. That’s when Gideon walked to the corner of the room, where he and a friend had set up AV equipment. He looped a guitar strap over his shoulder and began strumming the chords to “Passenger Seat,” a Death Cab for Cutie song we listened to four years ago on the night he told me he loved me. He sang the lyrics into the microphone. And then he knelt down on one knee. The ring sparkled from inside its velvet box. I nodded, unable to speak. Yes. There was no other answer.
Growing up, the idea of a long term commitment with a romantic partner sounded mythical to me. I could barely make eye contact with my crushes at school or swim practice without my cheeks flushing pink. And casual hookups reigned in college, leaving no room for the romance I’d only seen in movies. I spent most of my time cultivating the intimate relationships I felt most comfortable in: my friendships.
I never thought a romantic relationship could feel as comfortable as those friendships, that there could be someone with whom I wanted to sink into the couch while yelling at a reality television show, or sit in comfortable silence during a road trip, or even bicker about trivial things — especially all that and wanting to kiss that person? I wasn’t convinced.
But then I met Gideon. Well, kind of. We both swiped right. His dating profile, which featured a photo of him holding a baby goat, felt inviting rather than intimidating. We texted for a week before scheduling a time to meet.
Our first date spanned over six hours. We drank beer and ate chocolate cake and even shared a first kiss under the moody purple lighting of a pinball bar. My biggest anxiety surrounding the budding romance was that it could end.
Fortunately it didn’t end, but there were some learning curves. In fact, our relationship felt like a line with its own curvy route, one that looped with surprises and dipped into valleys and skyrocketed to beautiful peaks.
No relationship follows a perfectly straight line. Life doesn’t work like that. Perhaps what matters is the opacity of the line itself, indicating the solidity of the relationship. Perhaps that opacity changes throughout the line itself, a representation of time passing, life changing.
While I feel so certain about the love I share with Gideon, my feelings about the concept of marriage are a little muddled. There’s the strange and frankly fucked up history of it, the upsetting views arguing why it shouldn’t be legal for certain communities, the capitalistic aspect of wedding culture, and the exhausting importance placed upon it in relation to social status and worth. I’m no stranger to seeing marriage as a symbol of worthiness — a younger me would have imagined the act of getting engaged as the ultimate relationship peak, as if I’d made it to the top of an insurmountable mountain. I used to think the air would be different up here. In reality, nothing has changed except now I have a beautiful piece of jewelry that I am terrified of misplacing.
But I must admit I still crave the fairytale: a bouquet of peonies, the perfect gown, Gideon standing at the end of the aisle, smiling at me. I want to cry while listening to heartfelt speeches and hug my friends and share an awkward-but-endearing dance with my dad. All that’s to say, my feelings about weddings and marriage and the implications of both are conflicting and developing more and more, and I imagine that will only continue as I move forward.
For now, I just feel grateful to be standing on solid ground with a person I love so much, looking forward to a future neither of us can guarantee but both walk toward anyway.
At the end of the day, it’s the only direction I know I want to go.
And Now For Some Recommendations:
An essay to read: “I Thee Dread,” the final essay in Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino. This piece challenged my view of marriage and wedding culture when I first encountered it in 2019. Regardless of where you stand, I recommend.
A mug to sip from: I am not a morning person, so both coffee and the vessel from which I drink it can be mood-setters for my day. These mugs by London-based ceramist Anna Beam are my favorite — they’re a perfect size AND they’re easy on the eye.
An album to blast: Tove Lo’s Dirt Femme. Where to blast it, you may ask? Anywhere. EVERYwhere. Some favorite songs: “Suburbia,” “Grapefruit,” and “How Long.”
A way to acquire endless polaroids: My mom (adorable as ever) brought this photo printer to use at the prom birthday party. It connects to smartphones via bluetooth and prints pictures as if they came straight from a polaroid camera itself.
A sweatshirt to burrow in: Grace Miceli (the stunning force behind @artbabygirl) collaborated with Russell Athletic to make the best. Sweatshirt. Ever. It’s cozy and cute and it is the perfect at-home outfit, as evidenced by a recent BeReal:
Okay! That’s all for today. Hope you guys enjoyed the kind-of-tangled-but-totally-well-meaning thought dump about love. See you next time!
Congratulations!!
This is so sweet <3 Congratulations!