For Love Stories Not Told on Valentine's Day

Love. What a wondrous, complicated, exhilarating experience to love and be loved.

On Valentine’s Day there are so many messages about how love is supposed to look, who is allowed to be in love and what you should do or act like if you are “in love.” 

As half of a queer, femme, interracial married couple let me tell you, it can be hard to find examples of our love. To this day I come across articles and listicles about love and marriage that are only about how love exists for straight couples. Although some things may be transferable most things just are not. 

So for today I’ll share this love story with you. One that doesn’t look like the kind in the movies or the kind that people look to for guidance, an old wrinkled man and woman holding hands on a quiet park bench. I’m sharing it because it is just as worthy as all of those other loves of being shared and because maybe it can contribute to a larger conversation that can open up the different ways love exists for all of us.

2005

Our love has always been sacred. From the first moment I saw you at 19, a little ball of light and laughter bouncing through the USF cafeteria. You saved my number in your phone as "Bre BFF" the first moment we met and in doing so conjured the most transformational friendship I have ever had. 

2012

One late night you texted me like you had a million times before, this time with a winky face just to make me feel the weight of the unspoken. That our closeness was on the verge of changing everything for both of us, to morphing into a romantic love that would turn us into a different kind of us. 

You kissed me on your bed 2 days before we went to a Justin Bieber concert. Later you said how normal it felt, I went back to Boston with your smell on me and dreams of our babies and a lifetime of adventures. There was no going back after that, I knew I'd be yours forever.

2013

We stayed up late one night and painstakingly wrote (while listening to 98 Degrees Christmas album) what we wanted this relationship to be. We started with acknowledging out ancestors and our collective work in pursuing justice by wrapping different colored ribbons around the handle of a small broom. 

During American Slavery Black couples would jump over a broom to signify their marriage and commitment to their community.

They wrap the gold ribbon to honor the enslaved Black people whose marriages were never legally acknowledged.

They wrap the pink ribbon to honor the Lovings who fought for the legal acknowledgment of their marriage and interracial marriages therafter

They wrap the purple ribbon to honor the LGBTQ people who fought and continue to fight for marriage equality.

Finally, they wrap the red ribbon to signify their solidarity with these communities.

We ended with the commitments we needed with room to grow and change and forever be ourselves. Today I am reminded of the power of love and the power of our love, queer, grounded in friendship, challenged by difference, showered in laughter and pushed to be fully honest. Our love is revolution every day.

I commit to always being your best fried, to have fun and laugh.

I commit to putting myself first. I will not allow you to lose yourself in our relationship.

I commit to being honest, even when it’s hard. To always putting effort into our 

relationship and to being open to changes that our life together may bring.

Finally, I commit to supporting you, caring for you, loving you and expressing my love in ways you can receive it.